Worlds Without End (16 page)

“Why are you giving them money?” hissed John. He glanced around as though he expected someone to jump up at him and demand money.

“Because I have it. They need it. And I don’t mind giving to them.” I said. “Why do you care anyway? It isn’t your money.”

“You’re just encouraging them.” he said. “If no one gave them any money they’d have to get a job.”

“Let me see if I understand you.” I said. “You think these people prefer to live meaner than any animal. That they are so unwilling to work that they would rather sleep on the ground in the cold, go without food, beg coin from strangers in the most humiliating way possible, and live in filthy rags? That is, of course, assuming that they are mentally stable enough to hold work or even have such rudimentary skills as reading, writing, or arithmetic. How silly of me to be so completely fooled by their clever charade.

“Of course, I’m in the company of someone who wouldn’t sully his hands with something as vulgar as say, extortion.”

“You know, you can be a real bitch.” he said.

I touched my hand to my heart. “I’m mortally wounded.” I said.

We walked down by the river for a while, until the sidewalk petered out and there was a sudden lack of street lights. John looked nervous, but I knew there was nothing to worry about, yet.

“So you want to become immortal.” I said.

"‘What if I told you I can’t do it? That this is something you're born with or not. That I can no more make you immortal than any stranger off the street could.”

He frowned. “You’re just trying to confuse me.” he said. “You told me at the restaurant . .

“I told you that so you wouldn’t make a scene. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t change you from what you are. I don’t have that power. Why would I lie to you?”

“Is this a test?” he asked.

I groaned. “No, it is not. It’s the truth.”

“You just don’t like me. That’s why you’re doing this. Well, it won’t work. And it doesn’t matter anyway. I figured out what you are, and that’s worth something. Don’t think you’ll fool me the way you’ve fooled everyone else.”

“Oh, no.” I said. “I wouldn’t dream of that.”
I think you’re a special kind of fool,
I thought. “You know, becoming immortal doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes a while for the process to work.”

“But you can start it soon, can’t you?”

“Oh, yes.” I said. “But first, I must make some preparations.” I tossed him the key to my hotel room. “I’m in room 1650 at the Fairmont. I’ll be back before midnight.”

“I’ll be waiting.” he said.

I didn’t say anything, just turned and went back toward the Quarter.

* * *

I knocked on the door of my room at 11:45. The vid inside was loud enough for me to hear it through the door. Then the door swung open. I had halfhoped Mortimer might realize how foolish this whole thing was, but no, there he was, sans jacket, and barefoot.

“Glad to see you’ve made yourself comfortable.” I said.

“Yeah, well, given the circumstances, I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Push that bed up against the wall.” I said. As he did so, I also pushed every other piece of furniture in the room against the walls, making a nice-sized space in the center of the room.

“We’re going to do it here?” he asked.

“Why not?” I asked. “This place has always had a great deal of magical energy. Besides, this is just the start of the process, and I know how anxious you are to embark on your new life.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I thought I’d have more time.”

“Time for what?”

“I don’t know.” he replied. “To say goodbye.”

“You can’t say goodbye, but you can go back and make some preparations.” I said. “I’ll explain everything after the ceremony.”

I crouched down and poured out the contents of the bag I’d brought back with me. Luckily, Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo had just the sort of things that would help in my little charade. Candles, skulls, charms, unidentifiable bones, incense, and assorted effluvia tumbled onto the carpet. Feathers
I’d picked up in the park came from my jacket
pocket.

I shoved everything to one side. “Stand here.” I instructed, pointing to the center of the room. I placed the candles around him in a rough circle, then lit them. The incense I lit and stuck in-between the drawers of the bureau. Then I switched off the lights and went over to the window and drew the drapes.

The effect was getting pretty good. Lots of sandalwood smoke wafting through flickering candle light. I made him hold out his hands and dropped a skull into one and the strange bones into the other. Then I made him open his mouth and popped one of the charms inside. I almost started laughing at the face he made, but I knew that would break the spell.

The rest of the charms I placed in his pockets and down his shirt. Then I began to chant softly and wave my arms in front of him. In Sanskrit I told him what a complete imbecile he was and how his mother was probably a goat-herder who slept in cow dung for fun while she mated with snakes at the bottom of a cesspool.

From the expression on John Mortimer’s face, I knew he thought he was being transported to the next level of existence. And how close he was.

It took me a while to run through his entire family lineage back to his great-great-grandparents, but I managed to think up appropriate comments for all of them. Now it was time for the big finish. I distracted him as I tossed flash paper into one candle after another. He gave a little squeal and jumped.

“Ack.” he said. “I’ve swallowed the charm.”

“That’s all right, you’re supposed to.” I said. “How do you feel?”

He looked down at himself as though he expected to see something different.

“The same. I’m getting a bit of a headache from all the incense.” he said. “Are you sure it worked?”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” I said. “The most important thing.”

I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead. I held it there for a long time. I could see the weave of his life. Could feel the singsong of his blood as it raced through his veins. His delicate and vulnerable veins. Especially those in his brain. So thin. So easily stressed. It took a bit out of me, the subtlety of it, but I had no other choice.

He stepped back from me.

“What's this?” he asked, reaching out and touching my cheek.

There, suspended on the tip of his finger, was a single blood tear.

'The price of immortality.” I said.

“I think I felt something.” he said.

“I’m sure you did.” I reached out and gently wiped the tear away.

* * *

The aneurysm killed him on his flight back to London. I had told him to go home and get his belongings and meet me in Scotland. It being a slow news day, his death actually made the paper in a small item. Freak accident, the report said. A terrible tragedy for one so young.

November 21, 1998

Anna Sluage Earldom of Arran Arran Island, Scotland

Dear Countess,

It is my most embarrassing duty to tell you that my late client, one John Mortimer, had apparently become fixated on you during the last few years of his life. Upon his death, I was instructed to open a parcel he'd left with me a few months ago. In this parcel were documents and writings of Mr. Mortimer claiming a tale as regards you, of the most fantastic sort. His instructions to me, as his solicitor, were that should he die under unusual circumstances I was to go to the media with this story.

Due to the nature of my client’s death, I recognized these bizarre accusations as the demented ravings of a mentally ill man. It is a great sadness to his family that they did not realize how ill he was until his untimely demise.

Please rest assured that I have forwarded all these materials to you for you to dispose of as you will. No copies have been made by me or my office. I can only hope that my client did not make himself a burden on you. Rest assured that this matter will go no further.

Sincerely yours,

Mecham Bernard, Esq.

Several months later I received a note from John Mortimer’s mother. She had gone to clean out his flat and had discovered his diary and a bulletin board covered with photos of me. In her letter, she said that she hoped her son had not bothered me. She explained that his obsession with me was no doubt caused by the same weakness in his brain that killed him.

She also told me that she had destroyed all the papers and pictures of me she had found.

I wrote her back, thanking her for her concern, and assured her that her son had never bothered me in the slightest. We actually developed a bit of a correspondence, which lasted until her death in 2021.

She’s traveling in a car. Or maybe it’s a bus. She isn’t sure, because it continually shifts shape and form. Caimbeul is driving. He is wearing that horrible makeup. Garish and clownlike. A hideous red gash of a mouth. Black diamonds over his eyes. Hair streaked with blond and orange. His usual garb is replaced with faded blue jeans, cowboy boots run down at the heels, and a washed-out T-shirt that says:
Ninety percent of everything is drek.

“
I
was wondering when you’d get here.” Caimbeul says.

“Where is here?” she asks.

“You know.” he replies. “It’s wherever you want it to be.”

She glances out the window, which shows an endless display of black night. The headlights occasionally catch a scrubby tree, then slide back over the broken road. Looking back at Caimbeul, she sees that the saying on the shirt has changed:
I prefer the wicked to the foolish. The wicked sometimes rest.

“
Didn’t? Wasn’t?" she asks.

“Oh.” Caimbeul says looking down at his shirt and shrugging. “It’s your dream. Don’t ask me. I’m just along for the ride.”

“You always did steal your best lines.” she says. He drops the car into overdrive. It surges ahead, the G-force slamming both of them back in their seats.

“Hang on.” he shouts over the roar of the engine. “It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

20

Runner’s Revenge was blasting a cover of the old tune “Do You Believe in Magic?” over the trideo system at LAX. They’d done something strange to the song, pumping a reggae beat under the glass-shattering shriek of the cyberjacked vocals of the lead singer, whose species, much less gender, I had yet to determine.

As the lead singer seemed to pop from the trideo, I looked around for connecting flight info. Nothing as simple as a screen showing takeoffs and departures, I thought. Just as I was about to get on a tear about the uselessness of technology without practicality, Caimbeul grabbed me by the arm and steered me to a bank of flatscreens on the opposite side of the trideos.

We had ten minutes to make our connection to Portland on Cinanestial. Wasn’t that always the way of it, though?

“We’ll never get through Tir customs in time.” I said. “When’s the next flight out?”

Caimbeul grabbed my bag and slung it over his shoulder.

“Oh ye of little faith.” he said. “While you were puttering about with Thais, I was making a few calls. No need to tell me how much you appreciate it. Let’s just say we’ll be experiencing no trouble about our VAVs. And, most importantly, there will be no need for your strong-arm tactics. Now, don’t give me that look.”

“I’m not giving you a look.” I said as I raced along beside him. Though I am long-legged, I had to break into a quick trot to keep up with him. After all, he is a good head taller than me.

“I knew you’d never give up a tissue sample, and you know how persistent these low-level customs security types are. I didn’t want you to do to them what you did to our friend in the UK.”

“It got us in, didn’t it?”

“But here it might set off alarms. And I want our arrival to be as quiet as possible. I’ve arranged things with a friend. We should have no problems.”

I frowned. “And who are we going to be beholden to for this favor?” I asked.

“I don’t like owing anyone anything if I can help it. This will be dicey enough. You know what the politics are like here. They make the Borgias look like a close and friendly family.”

“I’m the one with the favor owed, not you.” he said. He sounded a bit exasperated. “I had forgotten how difficult you can be on a trip. At least you’ve learned to pack a little lighter.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” I said. But it came out more like, “And ... just (gasp) what . . . isthatsupposedtomean?”

“Nothing.” he said. “Do you have your Visitor’s Authorization Visa ready?”

“Yes.” I said. “And don’t change the subject. I don’t recall you ever complaining about my luggage before. Have you been nursing this grudge for long? As I recall, the last time we traveled together for any length of time was back in eighteen ninety-eight. Vienna. And everyone had trunks, not just me. You had two of them. Plus a rather large leather portmanteau that never would have fit on any horse . .

“We’re here.” he said.