"No, not my daddy!"
I was staring at the machine, but the voice that answered me came from my left. As I glanced over in that direction a little girl in a Plutonian silk tunic ran across the room and hugged Nero Loring. "Daddy, I won't let him hurt you. I won't."
"Nerys!" Loring held her out at arm's length, then hugged her to him. "'Silent Night,' you have to sing 'Silent Night.'"
"Silent night, Holy night," the girl began obediently.
I looked out at the funnel. It looked as bright as ever. As I watched a helicopter lifted off from one of the landing pads on City Center and climbed toward Fiddleback.
"That's Scorpion," Bat assured me.
"Jytte, this isn't working."
Fiddleback reached down and contemptuously swatted the chopper from the sky. It exploded when his talons moved through it. Flaming debris fluttered down through the air and another Frozen Shade panel died with a flash.
Bat looked over at the computer. "Jytte, this really isn't working!"
Natch pointed at the black box. "Nerys isn't hitched into the machine."
Jytte reached out and took hold of the two cables attached to the bottom of the brain-fan. She tugged once, and they didn't come lose. Her perfect lips peeled back away from even white teeth, transforming her baby-doll face into a mask of fury. She pulled again and one came free, then a third yank ripped the other one loose.
A little line of yellow lightning arced between the two receptor pads. "This will sting, Nerys, but it won't hurt you. Sing, child sing!"
Two little puffs of smoke went up as Jytte pressed the electrodes to the girl's temples. Nerys stiffened, her head jerking backward, then she craned her head down and stared straight out at Fiddleback. "Silent night, Holy night," she sang in a trembling voice.
Every note she sang started the funnel's lines quivering as if they were guitar strings or piano wires. The light dimmed behind the ripples running along lines and burned white-gold at the peaks. Sparks ignited at the juncture points and teased lightning strikes from the thunderheads.
"All is calm, all is bright."
Fiddleback's outline flickered and wavered. Blue light pulsed along his outline. The lines on the funnel to which he clung began to melt like ice beneath a blowtorch.
"Round yon virgin, mother and child. Holy infant so tender and mild."
Fiddleback's image began to stretch and fade. The funnel lost its rigid shape, and the rainbow lights began to make their return. They started swirling through the sky and twisted Fiddleback around and around until he looked more like a piece of rotelli than he did a Plutonian. His arms, which had become little more than blue lines, twisted about him like razor-wire coils.
"Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace." Fiddleback's grip on the vortex failed, and the rainbow whirlpool sucked him up and out of the world like a cockroach being flushed down a toilet.
Awakening at the heart of a lightning storm, with thunder shaking the very earth with its violence, is not a pleasant experience. Glass crunched beneath my feet as I stared out through the penthouse's broken wall. I let my left hand rest on one of the metal supports, and I dared the storm to strike it and consume me, gambling that it would not.
The thunderstorm we had witnessed so far was but an overture to the elemental fury that lashed the city. Mother Nature reshaped and released all the energies that had been stored up in the funnel. Repeated and nearly constant lighting strikes lit the building in stark, skeletal colors. It almost seemed to me that the Earth, having been left so open to assault from another dimension, wished to scour the wound clean and ensure that no vestige of the infection remained.
Captain Brad Williams had been on duty that night and arrived with a contingent of security people shortly after the funnel dissipated. Williams recognized Nero Loring and accepted Nero's story of an electrical short that caused all the damage. I could see in his eyes and sense in his being that he didn't truly believe what he was told, but he desperately wanted a rational explanation to let him deal with what he had seen. He took Nero and Nerys off and Coyote's three aides with them, leaving me alone with the storm and my thoughts.
So much had happened in such a short time that I really did not know how to assess all of it. Ten days ago I was a null. I did not know who or what I was. Over the next week and a half I discovered, apparently, that I was an assassin who had been hired to kill Nero Loring. In a 180-degree turnabout, I worked with him to destroy the creature that had supplanted his daughter and ordered me to kill him. Along the way I had killed a pair of traitors in Coyote's organization and helped defeat an extradimensional creature bent on the domination of humanity.
Pet had turned against master and, just this once, the pet got away with it. I labored under no illusion that Fiddleback had been destroyed. A creature capable of crafting the sort of intricate and long-term plot that would culminate in creating a city-sized dimensional gateway would not venture everything on attempting to break through. I had been instrumental in his failure, and I knew his retribution would be both direct and cruel.
Lost in thought, I wandered through the Witch's shattered domain. As things in the Lorica Tower began to return to normal, power flooded back into the penthouse and I found a wall-projection television playing in the back. On it I caught a news special concerning the happenings in the Lorica Citadel and above the city. The newscaster reported things straight—though Fiddleback did not image well on video—then showed a clip with the head of the Phoenix Skeptics commenting on what had taken place. Their executive director dismissed it all as a combination of St. Elmo's fire, an unusually bright and southern display of the aurora borealis and mass hysteria.
He was very convincing—wrong, but convincing. I could imagine a whole host of people—people like Brad Williams—denying the evidence of their own eyes in favor of his description. In an odd way I knew I had functioned like that throughout my life. I had seen all the signs of what was going on with Leich, but I denied the evidence of my own eyes because the explanation—that he was regenerating after crippling and fatal wounds—stood incredibly far outside the possibilities I'd been taught to accept.
I had seen Leich. I had seen the Witch in her true form. I'd been to dimensions outside the one in which our world existed. I had experienced things that forced a redefinition of the term "normal." And yet, were I to tell the Skeptics what I had seen and done, I would have no corroborative evidence of my claims, and they would dismiss me as being deluded or delusional.
Suddenly I understood part of what had to drive Crowley and Coyote. They were men who realized that things existed outside the normal realm of human experience. Crowley had said Coyote would be blind to the dimensions, so he limited his work to Earth, while Crowley himself worked elsewhere. Instead of trying to explain the nature of the universe to a populace unable to accept or understand it, they took on the responsibility of responding to and resolving problems that most people refused to acknowledge as existing.
"I think you understand things very well, Tycho."
I turned around as a young man about my height, with dark hair, moustache and goatee casually strolled through the devastated penthouse. He smiled as I held my hand out to him. "Tycho Caine. You must be Coyote."
The man laughed, and I caught familiar notes in his voice, but I could not place where I'd heard it before. "This is the second time you have made that assumption." He pulled off a gray glove and offered me his right hand. A gold ring flashed on it.
"Crowley? But you're so young. You can't be . . ."
"Perhaps not in the logic of this world, but it is possible." His grip was firm and he pumped my arm with strength. "It was a decidedly distasteful experience."
I narrowed my eyes. "You took Nerys' body to the dimension of Tartarus where Tityus regenerates everything the vultures have eaten in a day."
He nodded. "Because of the way the storage areas worked, Nerys was not really dead. I took her there directly, which was not an easy journey. Because enou
gh of her brainstem had been left behind, she regenerated her brain. It took six months, but I am pleased to see the effort was worth it."
I stared at him. "Time, I take it, moves a lot faster there than here?"
"In reality it does, but when there it hardly seems so. She regenerated her brain, and I regenerated the damage of my infirmity—old age. If it were not for what it did for Nerys, I would think it a hideous place. Nothing to do but shoot vultures and listen to a barely literate Titan bellow curses against Apollo all day and night."
"You brought Nerys here? I didn't see you."
"You were a bit occupied. I left quickly because I needed to cover my tracks. I also made contact with Coyote." The man's green eyes narrowed. "If you are willing, I will take you to him."
"Please."
Crowley grabbed a hold of my combat harness. "Blank your mind. Concentrate on perceiving nothing and yet everything. Control your breathing. You want to open a portal between you and the dimensions outside this one."
"I understand." I took in a deep breath and let it play out slowly. I forced my mind to forget the aches and pains I felt, and I took myself deep inside. I imagined the wall of reality to be like a theater curtain, and I gently probed it for the slit that would let me pass through it.
"Good."
I felt a tug on my belt as Crowley and I moved forward. Tantalizing flashes of color strobed past, each a window into a different dimension. Some, perhaps those closest to and most like what Earth had once been, felt warm and buoyed my spirits. Others we brushed by kindled bloodlust or visions of depravity I never would have imagined unaided. As we moved on things became darker and yet more warped, but the only way I can describe them is to note I felt colder and colder as we progressed.
Finally we came to a bare, arid landscape that looked at once to me to be the red planet where I had seen Nero Loring. As my eyes adjusted to it, however, I realized that it was red only in a circle that centered itself on Crowley's shadow-form. Outside that sharp line the world was rendered in white, black and a varied array of gray shades. Though a sun burned in the black sky, I still felt cold.
Outside the circle I saw a man. He seemed small, but I knew that was more than a function of his appearing as if projected on a screen, instead of actually standing there. He looked fortyish, with a full head of hair and strongly chiseled features. His dark eyes had a depth to them that I could see in spite of the flat image. A nervous tic tugged at the corner of his right eye, but I would have expected a man who had done what all he had to show some effect of the stress.
He smiled openly, erasing some of the worry from his face. "You've had a busy evening, Mr. Caine. You have my sympathies concerning Ms. Fisk, and my awe that you had prepared yourself in case Pell was not the only traitor. I had not considered that possibility. So the code word for Marit was Salome. I assume the others had similar biblical mnemonics."
"Yes." Even though it had gone dead, I checked to make sure I had switched my radio off. "Bat was Sampson, Natch was Delilah and Jytte was Lilith. Loring was Adam."
A meteorite died in the sky behind him. "And Crowley? Was he rigged to explode, or did you trust him?"
I glanced over at the shadow man and shrugged. "Lucifer."
Coyote paused for a moment, then nodded. "You are very much the man I thought you were. You deserve answers, and you shall have them, finally."
"I would like that very much. Who am I?"
The small man folded his arms across his chest. "I must apologize to you for having manipulated you as grossly as I did. As Crowley has told you, I am unable to go freely through the dimensions to deal with problems. I knew I would need someone like you who could do that, but to get you to work for me I needed to have something you wanted. In your case, it was your identity. I apologize because I have known who you are since before you awakened, and I have known this because I stole your memory in the first place."
My jaw dropped open. "You what? All of this has been a sham?"
"Yes, but a necessary one, I think." Coyote's face hardened. "I'll give you the thumbnail sketch, then Jytte can provide you with a file that will confirm all I am telling you. You are, as you have surmised, an assassin. You are one of the best in the world, probably in the top seven, definitely the top ten. This I know because, well, I know it. You have an impressive record, especially against targets that must be hunted down. You are one of Fiddleback's favorites, and this is the reason you were brought to Phoenix to kill Nero Loring. You have never missed a target, to my knowledge, and your record still holds. You are an impressive and terrifying man.
"In researching you, however, I did discover two flaws in you. You have very expensive taste in rental cars, which allowed us to get a line on the identity you used here. You chose the name Tycho Caine, which I find interestingly symbolic: Tycho—derived from the Greek tychon, 'hitting the mark.' And Caine, of course, was his brother's slayer. Everything else you know about Tycho Caine is a fabrication that I have created because, as you have been known to do, after your hit you engaged in a bout of gambling. I suspect this is because, after you murder someone, you want to give the universe a chance to get even with you. My agents found you, drugged you and after we built up the Tycho Caine we wanted you to search out, they released you."
"Wait, wait, wait." I turned to Crowley. "How much of this did you know?"
He gave me an enigmatic shrug. "Enough. Coyote confided in me he would be turning one of Fiddleback's tools against him, and he asked for my help. I gave it to him and to you."
I looked back at Coyote. "But this doesn't make any sense! If you knew who and what I was, why didn't you kill me and be done with it? Given what you do, given what Crowley does, I can't imagine either one of you wanting me alive."
Coyote looked down. "I had my reasons."
"Then they were flawed reasons. Flawed, just like your statement that I've never missed a target. I've met Nero Loring. I missed."
Coyote started a slow circuit around the circle of color. "I wanted you to deal with my traitor problem and with Nerys Loring. The first was a task I could have handled, but I thought it better left in your hands. In that group the only person I knew I could trust was Jytte. Beyond her, anyone was suspect, and I was not certain I could deal with the problem in the only way feasible. You could do that.
"The problem Nerys Loring presented was one that required someone with unique skills and abilities to handle. Your success in stopping her proves to me you are the individual of whom I can make the following request:
"I want you to replace me."
"Replace you? I don't understand."
Coyote stopped moving. "I have a rare disease of the brain, Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome. It causes nerve degeneration, dementia and death. I was diagnosed with it only a month before you arrived in Phoenix, and this caused me to shift my plans. My doctors did not give me very long, so I had to make arrangements. They included you."
I glanced at the shadow man. "Why don't you take him to Tityus' dimension? He could be cured."
"No." Crowley ruefully shook his head. "GSS is genetic. Once it starts it is natural. Regeneration would have exacerbated the disease, not made it better. He might have regressed physically, but his brain would have deteriorated even faster."
The shock of Coyote's request and the story of his condition stunned me. "This is, ah, a lot to handle." I held my hand out toward him. "Come with us, we can discuss it further. I need some time."
The little man shook his head. "I'm afraid I have no time to give you."
"What do you mean? You're still sharp. We can work this out."
"It's too late for that." Coyote squatted down on his haunches. "I knew that you would only leave yourself open to my people after the completion of your hit on Nero Loring. That is when you would fall into my grasp, but I could not sabotage the effort against Nerys by allowing you to kill him—and I knew I could not fool you into believing you had succeeded were I to employ some sleight of hand to whisk hi
m away and out of danger. For that reason I took Nero Loring's place, and I filled your sights the day you saw Nero Loring die."
I stared unflinchingly into the dead man's black eyes and recalled the vision on the bluff when I met Nero Loring for the first time. I had succeeded in killing him. I had shot Nero Loring through the head, but I had no way of knowing it was someone else in disguise. The idea that a human being would allow himself to be knowingly shot to death did not exist in my world.
"You're dead?"
A thin smile graced Coyote's lips. "I could never fool you in life, so I had to do that in death. Jytte managed to create a Coyote synthesizer program that, with the proper input, was able to provide you with vague but apparently meaningful messages. I was able to guess ahead of time how much of this work would go, so we scripted up conversations, and I prerecorded them. The computer cut and spliced as necessary. As long as you believed I was alive and working to solve the mystery of your identity, you worked with me. You have seen how I work, and my files can offer you more cases to study than you could ever desire."