URBAN CREATURES
by Matthew Shepherd

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CHAPTERS

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10  
11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20  
21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30  
31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40  
41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50  

ONE

RAINY NIGHTS AND CAR CRASHES

In the moment before the truck hit the pole, there was a moment of perfect silence punctuated only by raindrops on the windshield.

He was spinning to avoid the tall man who had crept into his headlights, but that man was vanishing like mist in front of him, and the truck kept skidding around in the perfect void of sound, a gentle poc-poc-poc of raindrops on the windshield.

Sighing, he relaxed behind the steering wheel, releasing it as the car slid under the green light. It had been an astonishing run of luck, after all, and there was no sense in cursing it now that it was over. The green light above the car seemed to refract into a series of sparks, crackles of light, around it.

A pole – light? Phone? began to accelerate towards the truck like a slingshot, snapping forward and gathering speed as it went, tracking from right to left as the truck spun towards it.

“Hi there,” the driver said, smiling. He felt a pull, a stickiness to the air, and his eyes – a death-trick? -- were alive with green sparks.

The silence broke.

TWO

THE RAILWAY STATION

The train station sat abandoned, adjoining a dark hotel. The two looked as though they had been slammed together by a forgetful god, sullenly fused and glaring as the rusted rails muttered beside them.

Spengler stood on the platform, warm sun on his back, and took it all in.

“Well,” he said at last, “well, here I am.”

He had no baggage, and was not dressed for travel – a light grey suit, no jacket, no tie. The wind caught his Adam's apple through the open top button of his rumpled white suit, and ruffled his slightly overlong hair. Spengler touched the handle of the station door, worn brass dusted with some sort of lichen, paused, grasped it and turned.

The inside of the station was an empire of decay, desolate in the way only small interior spaces can be. As Spengler opened the door, it stirred small waves of dust off the floor, rippling across the room in puddles of warm sunlight, shrinking from the fresh air and day to join its like under benches, a cracked and withering soda machine, and on top of the immense and creaking clock that adorned the wall above the waiting area. The clock's second hand was trapped at the 30, lacking the strength to make the return trip to the top of the minute, and made a small spastic jerk every second, forgetting its legion of failure and boundlessly optimistic about getting going again. It had long ago forgotten how to make a healthy tick-tock and was flailing away: spikspikspikspikspik

“Here I am,” said Spengler, looking about. He took in the clock, the waiting area with its splintered orange chairs turned ruinously grey with dust, the clouds dancing their retreat across the floor, the ticket booth with its cracked Plexiglass window, little aluminum voice-grill rusted and torn. An abandoned green-billed visor lay on the inside of the booth, claimed by the dust. Further inside, he could see a child's idea of a filing cabinet, drawer delineations fuzzed out and filled in. The cash register was an ancient beast with the pop-up totals, and on it the dust and lichen had waged a minor war, agreeing to an entente in which the lichen was the proud owner of the sides and crank, while the dust worked the healthy farmland of the keys and glass.

He shuffled his feet, enjoying the terror they caused in the dust. Slowly, he extended his left foot, placed it deliberately further in the room, and shifted his weight. He took a ginger step forward, placed his right foot next to his left, and looked back at his footprints. His toes had pushed in past the door – he must have stepped forward slightly when he opened it – and small concave dents in the dust marked where his feet had been. He took another giant step forward, a Buster Keaton monster tippytoe lurch, and looked at his perfect shoeprints in the dust behind.

Then he sneezed.

A small whirlwind rose around him, and Spengler wiped his nose with his worn grey jacket-sleeve, and cast his eyes around the room again. The bathroom was open to the world, the ghost of a door grabbing hinges spotted with the same lichen as the door.

Spengler crossed to it, leaving a grey particulate jetstream behind him, pushed the tattered door, and went in. Here, too, everything was thick with dust and forgetfulness.

“You're not much worse than the rest of this place,” Spengler said to the bathroom, “which means you're rather better than most public bathrooms I've seen.” He found the toilet stall, pulled the door open with a shriek of plastic and lichen-crusted steel, braced himself and stepped in. The toilet was spotless, pristine, caked in dust, and utterly empty. Spengler attempted to write his name around the circumference of the bowl in his own urine, discovered that dust was more whimsical and less inclined towards cohesion than snow, gave up and enjoyed peeing. Once done, he zipped his grey pants – slightly shiny at the knees, black socks peeking out between cuffs and scuffed black shoes – and stepped to the sink, turning the tap and spectacularly failing to wring any water from the faucet. He glanced at his humdrum face in the warped and moldy mirror, and was satisfied that it was still there. Miraculously, the paper towel dispenser still held some moldering greybrown one-ply and Spengler seized one, wadded it, and rubbed a greyed-over window to clear a small peephole.

Beyond the railway station, beyond the dark hotel, there was a city. Low fat industrial buildings huddled near the station house, giving way to what looked to be shanty shacks stretching for miles. Further on, tenements threw their arms around each other and told secrets about their owners. And on the skyline, a varied silhouette formed and unbroken chain of architectural mastery: Empire State obelisks, onion domes, Japanese (xxx) roofs, flatirons, observatories, and mind-boggling antenna arrays.

“Here I am,” Spengler said for the third time.

He tossed the ruined paper towel in a dusty ashcan, crossed back through the station, creating a dust riot, and paused at the door, peering around the station one last time. He looked at the schedule, its stick-on letters long dissolved to chaos, the empty bulletin boards. He looked for writing of any sort, but there was none – no station name, no maps, no posted notices, only the straggling lonely letters on the timetable.

“Well,” he said. And closed the station door.

THREE

THE YANK

There was no connection between the station and the dark hotel: Spengler stood on the platform again, the wood creaking beneath his weight, and looked at them both together.

“Looks to me like you're trying to eat the little fella,” he said to the hotel, because it did. The hotel had a sign, dessicated and gaptoothed from time: MA---- -W---- was all that remained. The windows were dark in shadow, and as Spengler stepped closer to the revolving door, he heard something from inside.

He paused. The hotel was a ruin, sure enough: the claret-red brickwork was patchy, the foundation had spiderwebbing running throughout, the windows were open, shattered or in pain – but the revolving door was pristine, fresh, and smelled slightly of grease. The glass of the door was smudged with a million fresh handprints, and inside the seal – the two roundbottom triangles formed by the closed position of the door – Spengler could see dozens of fruit flies milling about, hovering up and down and waiting patiently for escape.

And the hotel was moaning.

It was so low he felt more than heard it, his back teeth thrumming to the drone, a low profound heel-vibrating hum that expressed some sort of inexplicable sadness. It was there in his feet, in the pit of his stomach, and – oddly, Spengler thought – in his knees. He could feel the hotel's moan in his knees.

Spengler felt his feet move towards the revolving door. Slightly at first, then more definitely, his left foot took a step. “Stop that,” Spengler said. His foot froze. Spengler took it back. No resistance, no pull forward, so he placed it back next to his right foot and concentrated again on listening. The moan persisted, and mirroring it – so high that it could again not be heard, but only felt – Spengler sensed a chittering. This he felt behind his eyes like a migrane, at the ends of his fingers, and as a slight pain in his nose – the blocked-sneeze tingle that can cripple you for a few brief seconds. It was the chiding of a small and cancerous squirrel, something that had wormed its way into the fibre of the building itself and was festering inside it, a nasty yellow-toothed pus-eyed sharp-clawed thing that giggled and tore and bore young and was taking over the dark hotel, spawning more cancerous pus-eyed rotfurred things in the vents, in the insulation, in the spaces between walls --

Spengler's left foot stepped forward again. “Stop that,” he repeated. He frowned. “I don't think this is our place,” he said to his foot. “I don't like its attitude.” He turned to leave, to walk away from the dark hotel and into the shanties beyond, when it yanked.

Spengler's left foot shot out dramatically – Buster Keaton again, but this time involuntarily – and tried to haul him towards the revolving door. His right foot, with seeming presence of mind, pulled back. Spengler felt a nasty shriek in his groin.

“Hey,” he said to his left foot, “let's not do that, okay?”

The building tugged again, and Spengler felt himself align to it, an iron filament being swiveled by a magnet. His right foot reluctantly dragged itself forward to match the left, towards the hotel.

“This is not a good idea,” Spengler told his feet. “This is a bad idea.”

The hotel tugged once more, and the left and right feet jerked forward, one then the next. “Really,” Spengler said, “let's talk about this.” The revolving door was getting closer. The chittering was getting louder, too, parsing down from the ultra-audible to the audible as whatever it was wormed its way out of the woodwork to scamper down carpets gone wild with mildew, down a hundred breakneck stairwells lined with tiny bones.

Left-right. The revolving door was an inch away from him, and while it gleamed with fresh grease and smudged glass, the smell creeping out from the seal was fetid.

Left-right. Spengler was halfway into the revolving door. “Ha,” he said to his feet. “Can't walk and push, can you?”

His head cracked smartly into the glass as his feet propelled him forward again. The chittering grew louder. “Crap,” Spengler said, tasting blood on his tongue. “That does it.”

Grabbing the outside of the doorframe with his arms, he hauled at it as his feet tried to smack him against the glass again. This pulled him off-balance, and he fell backwards out of the revolving door, legs inside. The moaning seemed to rise up from sub-sound as the chittering grew louder, both moving towards a convergence somewhere around Very Loud. Spengler pulled himself away from the door with his arms, ignoring his feet's attempts to get him back up. Something told him, suddenly, that the chittering wasn't all that bad, that the moan was actually a rather comforting sound, nurturing in its own way, and if he just met the things in the building, he'd realize that he was like them, that they'd welcome and nurture him, that he'd have a home in this place, a home and power, he'd have power, he'd be able to do things, he'd --

“Should have tried that before you inspired my feet to mutiny, you rotten building,” Spengler muttered. His feet were still trying to pull him in, and his hands were beginning to twitch the wrong way, too, so Spengler began to roll. He rolled away from the revolving door and the hotel, feeling like he was bruising his ribs but not caring. There was one more yank, a strong one, but momentum had him, and Spengler kept rolling until he was back on the station platform. Then he stopped.

Spengler stretched out his leg and wiggled. It seemed fine. He reached out a hand and slowly extended his middle finger towards the hotel. Nothing happened. He listened for the moan, the chitter. His stomach, eyes, and knees were quiet.

Getting to his knees, then his feet, Spengler brushed himself up and looked around. There was a sign on the outside of the station, after all, caked in rust-dust, overlooked before in his curiosity about the inside. Spengler leaned in and brushed it off with his elbow.

CITY

He stepped back and looked at it again. He looked up and down the train tracks, and saw in both direction a vast expanse of dust and tired grass, unbroken to the horizon line.

“Well,” Spengler said, a final time, “here I am.”

The hotel was to his right: walking deliberately twenty steps to the left of the station house, Spengler moved towards the the squat factory buildings and the shanties beyond.

FOUR

MEANWHILE

Deepdown in the dark hotel, something stirred, scratched itself, and took notice.

FIVE

FACTORYLAND

Railroad dust puffed off Spengler with every step he took. Despite the roll away from the dark hotel – or perhaps because of it – he was covered in dust, seemed to be attracting it like a static broom, and every time his feet hit the pavement, a small cloud would explode from his cuff. Spengler sneezed, and kept walking. A street started behind the dark hotel and continued as far as he could see, and he moved towards it. Unlike the railway station, it seemed to be used – grey stone pounded so routinely and faithfully that it had beome packed grey asphalt, exhausted but faithfully bearing its burdens. Spengler stepped off the curb and kept walking. North? It was hard to tell. The sky was uniformly blue, but there was no sun. Spengler patted his pockets. No compass, either, which was hardly surprising.

The industrial buildings he'd seen from the station bathroom seemed to be factories. From somewhere off to the west, the rusting railroad tracks stretched out into a tangle among them, winding their way amidst hundreds of squat brick structures. Far in the distance, a scramble of tin-roofed shacks waited for him. Squinting against the flat, even light, Spengler saw the moving specks of people bustling around, making the shanties look like they were being consumed by ants.

Here, however, there was no life. Plenty of noise, though – each great brick beast made a different noise, and Spengler heard a variety of clanks, grunts, whistles, peeps, squeals, grinding, crunching, thudding, thundering, and scraping as he walked past them. To the left and to the right, the factories continued to the distance, uniform except for their sounds.

There was something odd about them, but Spengler couldn't put his finger on it. Odd beyond their total uniformity, as though they were thousands of scattered red blocks blown out of all proportion.

“There're no windows,” Spengler said to the blank, cloudless sky. “No doors, either.” This reinforced the Lego-block image in his head even further. Spengler stopped walking to look again. There was the possibility that there were windows and doors on the far side of each building from his vantage point, that every building had been arranged splaying away from the road he was on and access was on the far side of each and every one.

It had been hours, it seemed, since Spengler had left the station. Early on, he had seen the shanties in the distance and estimated his time to get there as an hour, maybe ninety minutes, at the most. But for every step Spengler took, the shanties seemed to retreat a half-step, as though the space between them were flexible if not elastic and the shanties were retreating to the very end of their leash.

Spengler craned his neck, trying to bend light and see around the corner of the factory to his left, which seemed to be tooting and farting up a storm within it. Unsurprisingly unfruitful. “Can't pass it up,” he said finally, and leaving the road with a backwards glance of slight regret, he jogged to the corner and glanced around it.

Nothing. A flat brick wall like all the other walls, the only difference being that this close to the building, Spengler could hear sounds beyond the tooting and flatulence, a sort of steady mechanical peep and the thin cheer of steam rising off a broad expanse of water.

Spengler stretched out a hand, formed a fist, raised it, and stopped.

“Won't be the first stupid thing I've done today,” he said.

And he knocked on the building, rapping sharply with his knuckles, then pulled them back, opening his hand and shaking it ferociously. The wall remained impassive where he had hit it. There had been a slight vibration when his knuckles had hit the wall, the sound within making the walls themselves thrum in response, but overall the bricks were not impressed.

“Bugger,” he cursed mildly. His knuckles were red. “Let's not hurt ourselves even more than we have already,” he said, turning back towards the road. “Knock on brick.”

There was a man on the road.

Spengler started. It was the first man he had seen since arriving at the station, and in a strange way, he had not expected to see anyone ever again. The man was shorter than Spengler by a few inches, that impression reinforced by pressed black slacks, black shoes, and a black t-shirt. He was smoking a cigarette, taking long drags and expelling smoke forcefully through his nose.

He was staring at Spengler with dark eyes, exhaustion-furrows underneath them and pronounced eyebrows above making them fierce through emphasis. His nose was prominent, his chin less so, and a shock of black hair thicketed across his head. He looked familiar, an itching familiarity that Spengler could in no way place, but as familiar as Spengler's own hand.

Spengler walked towards him, and the stranger took no action, just watched. He was standing in the center of the road, and as Spengler stepped down onto it, he noticed that with proximity, the fierceness of the eyes gave way to something more liquid – sorrow, a bit, perhaps a touch of kindness. The man took another long drag of the cigarette, and spoke.

SIX

CAHILL

“Hello,” the stranger said.

“Hello,” Spengler said. “Do you work in one of these buildings?”

“I follow my father's trade,” the stranger said, and a penny-arcade smile flickered across his head.

“Oh,” said Spengler. “I see.” He didn't.

The stranger smoked for a while more, looking Spengler up and down. “You're dusty,” the stranger said.

“Yeah,” said Spengler. “I came from over there.” He jerked his finger at the railroad station. “It's pretty dusty.”

“It is,” the stranger said agreeably, not looking over. “If you came from there, I'm surprised the House didn't claim you.”

“The House?” Spengler knew, but wanted to know more.

“The House of Maw.” Another drag on the cigarette, now down to the filter, another explosion of smoke through the long noble nose. The stranger pulled an envelope from his pocket and held it out towards Spengler. “Take this to the City,” the stranger said. “Give it to a man named Brass.”

Spengler looked at the envelope. “I don't know who you are,” he said.

“I don't know who you are,” the stranger said. “That's why you're perfect. I can trust you. Take this envelope and give it to a man named Brass. I'll owe you one.”

Spengler took the envelope and put it in his inside jacket pocket. “Okay,” he said. “Where can I find you later?”

“Around.” The stranger extended his arms, fluttered his hands like pale birds. “I'll be around.” He walked towards the building on the other side of the street. “Don't open that,” he said, glancing back.

“There's no door in that building,” Spengler said.

“That's all right,” the stranger said. “The bricks all know me.” He kept walking, and as he approached the bricks swiveled and danced, pulling away from each other and peeling out from the wall at right angles, forming a gap in the wall only slightly larger than the man's body. “Good luck,” he called.

“Thanks,” Spengler said. “Can you teach me to do that?”

The wall closed behind the stranger. Spengler pulled the envelope out of his jacket pocket. “Never said anything about looking at it,” Spengler said. He held it up above him and stared at it.

The address said BRASS. The return address said L. Cahill. The envelope was thick, and it was impossible to see its contents, but something rattled inside it.

“Well,” said Spengler. “That was informative.” He put the envelope back in his inside pocket and kept walking down the road. The dust puffed out of his pantcuffs like tiny ghosts.

SEVEN

DARK DOINGS IN THE RW

Inspector Abronsias pauses, looks at the crumpled fender, then crosses briskly across the cold street.

“Inspector?” Hyves looks worried. Hyves always looks worried, his eyes torn downwards at the upper lids, a permanent hangdog expression on his face. “Sir?”

“I need distance,” the Inspector pronounces, sweeping his great black coat behind him so that the tails chase small spectres of snow from the ground. “I need distance.”

And the great Inspector Abronsias strides across the street, whirls, and looks at the wreck from twenty feet away. And it is, indeed, a wreck. The truck was once an unimpressive white four-door sedan, early nineties model but now is crumpled around a reciprocally crumpled lamppost, the post bent and twisted in through its roof, not a single piece of glass unshattered except for the passenger side mirror, which glints in the lights of the office buildings that surround them. The street is deserted, as it has been for hours, as it will be for hours, until the street is filled with suited men doing suitable things.

“Inspector,” Hyves says again, raising his voice against distance. “I don't understand why you need to see a simple truck wreck.”

“I have a feeling,” the Inspector says. “And you say the driver is missing.”

“Not just missing.” Hyves eyes edge upwards an iota, now that he has something to say. “No blood, no torn clothing, nothing. No driver.”

“He couldn't have walked away from this,” the inspector says, touching the side of his nose with his finger. He shuffles back across the street, his eye focusing on the hangdog license plate clinging to the rear of the carcass. “Who was he? Who was this driver?”

“His name,” Hyves looks at his clipboard, “his name was Darwin Spengler. We've called his house. Nothing.”

“And his workplace?” The Inspector looks sly. “Nothing there?”

“No workplace,” Hyves says. “None stated, anyway. Neighbours are unresponsive, say they barely knew the guy, say he kept himself to himself.”

“Are they lying?”

“Don't think so.”

“I would like to find Darwin Spengler,” Inspector Abronsias says. He licks his lips, which are starting to chap a little with the cold. “I would like to speak with Darwin Spengler. I would like to converse with the man who drove this car.”

“And do what?” Hyves attempts a smile, which looks pathetic in the half-light. “Charge him with violating a lamppost?”

“I have a feeling,” Inspector Abronsias says. “Find me Spengler.”

EIGHT

SHANTYTOWN

Spengler was at the periphery of the shanties, a riot of aluminum roofs and babble, when he realized what was bothering him. Turning, he surveyed the factories again. Not a smokestack, not a roof vent. Nothing. They toiled with internal noise, but no sign of production...or of waste, at least.

There were people there, at least. Bustling, charging the air with an invisible electricity. It was like stepping through a security gate, that low-level hum, that vibe that sank through your skin and gently informed your marrow that you were somewhere. Nobody took notice of Spengler at first, as he walked forward along the street, the street that ahead of him dissolved into ruts, paths, chaos. If there were any order to the shacks, which seemed to be made of planks, boards, discarded drywall with remnants of wallpaper still clinging to it, Spengler could not discern it.

“High math,” he said, looking at the shanty closest to him. It was three-walled, with the tin roof slanting off at an uncomfortable angle. A slow, sweet viola played somewhere out of reach, the music, swimming around the huts and crawling along the ground like a mist. Inside the shanty, a small woman – no taller than five feet – bundled in what seemed to be the memory of a dressing gown, stirred a large pot over a small fire.

It suddenly struck Spengler that he was hungry, and what's more, thirsty. The tingle in his belly, eager for attention, grew into a murmur, and was threatening a roar. His throat was parched, his lips dry, and the sunless sky seemed hotter than it had been a moment ago.

Three children ran by Spengler, in ragged pyjamas, hooting something, in high pursuit of an intangible. They drew up short at the edge of the shanties, though, where the street became a street, and veered left like starlings on a mission, tacking along the border of the shanties and disappearing again. Spengler watched them run, then turned his attention again to the woman in the shack, with the cauldron on full boil

“Excuse me,” Spengler said. The woman turned and gazed at him, her eyes full of neither threat nor fear but something that sat comfortably in the middle.

“Nice suit,” she said.

“Not really,” Spengler said. He looked down at his dusty clothes, the grey more pronounced by the dust, which had sunk into certain fibres and was giving him the look of a chroma-impaired tiger. “I'm new,” Spengler said.

“Yes,” the woman said. “How unusual.”

“I'm hungry,” Spengler said. “Very hungry.”

“That,” the woman pronounced, “is not unusual.”>

Spengler tried his smile, his gentle-yet-needy smile, that had worked so well on the grift? In coffee shops? Sorry, miss, but can you make change for this twenty? Oh, no, sorry, break this into two fives now, if you could...oops, I think you've given me too many fives, take this one back, now if you could just give me the other ten, and break this five into smaller bills or change, and actually, these two fives into a ten again, it would be lighter on the wallet, after all...

Spengler blinked. Something had roared through his brain, something from somewhere else, but it crashed back out of his mind as quickly as it had come, rampaging backwards into the rear lobes of his brain, retreating like locomotive smoke in an old film reel run backwards for laughs at a child's birthday party.

“Uh,” he said.

“There might be food for you,” the woman said, “but you'll have to wait for Ishmael.”

“Call me Ishmael,” Spengler said involuntarily. He blinked, puzzled.

“You're not Ishmael.” the woman said. “Do you have a name yet?”

“My name,” said Spengler, “is Spengler.”

“Mm.” The woman seemed unimpressed.

Spengler decided to give it another shot. “Spengler, he of the nice grey suit, is very very hungry,” he said. “When will Ishmael be home?”

“Nightfall,” the woman said.

Spengler looked at the sky again. There was no sun, and no pattern of brightness to the sky, just the pale and even light. “When is nightfall?”

“After day is over,” the woman said simply. “You are new.”

Spengler was about to respond when a small child of about six or seven years crashed into him, ricocheting off his knee like a basketball and sprawling backwards in the dirt. The boy, who looked to Spengler like he was wearing a gi, an Akido gown, hopped up immediately and brushed himself off.

“I'm Spengler,” Spengler said.

The child walked forward and poked Spengler in the knee. Spengler flinched. The boy wrinkled his nose, sniffed, and stepped back several paces.

“He stinks, Smamel,” he said to the woman.

“He's new,” the woman said evenly. “He has a lovely suit.”

“He stinks of Maw,” the boy insisted.

The look in the woman's eyes edged closer to fear. “Does he?” She stepped away from the pot, leaving a large wooden spoon languidly bobbing with the interior current, and walked closer to Spengler. “Are you from Maw?” she demanded.

“I don't think so,” Spengler said. The man in black – Cahill – had mentioned Maw, but something told him that it might not be prudent to mention him. “I think the dark hotel wanted me, but I didn't want to go.”

“There's nothing wrong with serving the House of Maw,” the woman said, looking at Spengler more attentively, up and down. “But Maw is not welcome here.”

She kept eyeing Spengler, starting at his feet and working her eyes up to his belt, his chest, his face.

“Guess your weight,” Spengler said. “Fifty cents.”

“Maw is not welcome here,” the woman said. Her voice more definite.

Spengler thought about leaving – surely there were other shanties, with food and less discerning cooks – but his belly demanded that he stay, stamping its small interior foot and grumbling furiously.

“I didn't go,” he said. “I didn't go to Maw.”

The woman nodded slowly. “Then Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh will be after you shortly, to retrieve you,” she said. “And we do not want them here, either.”

Next to Spengler, the child reacted to the names by stepping back three quick steps, then scuttering half-behind a wall of the shack to stare at him wide-eyed.

Spengler nodded as though he understood. “I see,” he said.

The woman looked at him a moment more, then turned back to the pot, which was beginning to riot with bubbles. “You'll have to go,” she said. “There's nothing wrong with serving Maw, but Maw is not welcome here.”

“Who are Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh?” Spengler asked.

“You'll find out,” the woman said. “Mr. Painter is gentle and Mr. Ogh is furious, but you'll find Mr. Painter the more dangerous of the two. He's clever like you are, you see.” She gave him one last, low look. “Perhaps more clever.”

Spengler was about to respond on last time, when something changed underneath his feet – a hum, one he had not been aware of before, it was so universal and constant, stopped. Then started again, feeling...backwards, somehow...but thrumming all the same.

The sky went dark. As if by switch, thousands of starts flashed on overhead, twinkling.

“Nightfall,” the woman said.

NINE

NIGHTFALL

Spengler was torn between leaving, in the dark, before Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh arrived to fetch him back to the dark hotel, and staying, in hopes that they mysterious Ishmael might grant him food.

The shanties were lit now, with guttering candles and low fires, and Spengler could see the dull flicker of lights from the ones closest to him and a subtle orange glow in the ones beyond. Further in the distance, the lights of the city burnt with the green-yellow of gaslight seeping up between the taller buildings, themselves glowing bright incandescent inside.

There was also the weight of the letter in his inside jacket pocket, slight but unforgettable, that scraped lightly against Spengler's mind. Perhaps it would be best to be on his way, to find this “Brass” and deliver Cahill's letter, to work himself deeper into this world, to burrow and escape.

To escape what?

Painter and Ogh, apparently. There had been weary caution in the woman's eyes when she had mentioned these apparent employees of Maw, whoever Maw was, and the child had been outright terrified. Caution was warranted. Caution at the least.

Keep moving, then, keep moving and find this Brass and work himself in with Cahill. That was the angle. That was the edge. Cahill had something to him, Spengler could see that at a glance. He'd had the look of a man who knew...well, the bricks knew him, and any man like that was a man Spengler could be on the good side of.

Spengler cleared his throat, an action he felt was barely audible over the complaints of his stomach, which were growing in pitch and frequency from a grumble to a shriek. “I think I'll be off,” he said. “If you could tell me --”

“Tell you what?” Spengler turned to face the voice behind him. It was a squat muscular man, hairy enough to look more a badger than a person. He thrust his head out on his short neck, and Spengler thought he heard his teeth click.

“Tell you want?” the man demanded.

“Call you Ishmael?” Spengler asked.

“I am,” the man said. He took another step towards Spengler, his head level with Spengler's breast, and sniffed. “Clipper said you had the sink of Maw about you, and so you do,” Ishmael grunted. “But faintlike, like an old employee.” He raised his head, and stared Spengler in the eyes. His were dark, and deep, and glittered with either intelligence or fury. “Or one on the periphery.”

“Not even on the periphery,” Spengler said. “I think.”

“Well then,” Ishmael said. “I expect you should be off before we're paid a visit from Mr. Painter.” There was a tic in his left eye, a minute shudder. “Or Mr. Ogh.”

Spengler weighed his options. “I'm hungry,” he said. “Give me some food and I'll be on my way. I was just about to ask directions to the city.”

Ishmael cocked a furry eyebrow. “You may have noticed all the tall buildings behind you.”

“Yes, but how...” Spengler stopped, considering again. “Look, if I stay, you're bound to have a visit from Mr. Painter and Mr. Arrgh.”

“Ogh,” Ishmael grunted.

“Bless you,” Spengler said. “If you give me something to eat and some idea of the fastest path to the city, I'll be gone before you know it. And long before this Panter and Ick get here.”

Ishmael nodded. “Painter and Ogh are nothing to mock, boy,” he said.

“Feed me,” Spengler said simply, “or you might have to set yet another two more places for dinner. Pinner and Vogue might be hungry when they get here.”

The woman thrust a bowl of warm...something...into his hands. “Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh are nothing to mock,” she said, “but they won't eat what we have.”

“Not what's in the pot, anyway,” Ishmael agreed.

“And mind your tongue,” the woman said to Ishmael, sharpish. “Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh are fond of their formalities.”

“Yes'm,” Ishmael said. The corners of his mouth and his cheeks flirted together for a moment in the shade of a grin.

Spengler looked at the bowl in his hand. It was green gruel of some sort, thick as yogurt but hot, with no identifiable solids in it. But it smelled good and, he hoped, tasted better. He raised the bowl to his lips and drank the stuff down. Hot enough, but not enough to burn, which was fortunate – in his state, tongue-scalding would have been the least of his concerns. “Thanks,” he said, lowering the bowl. “I owe you one.”

“Word is bond,” Ishmael said, thumping him on the chest with a meaty hand. Spengler nearly fell over backwards. Ishmael grinned at him, not friendly. “And I'll give you directions and that'll be two you owe us, no?”

“Sure,” Spengler said. “Two you owe me.”

Suddenly, he felt a tug from the distance. Not enough to even twitch a toe, but a tug nonetheless, a tiny little yank at his eyeteeth. “Something's happening at that hotel,” he said, barely aware he was speaking. “Something's...waking up.”

“Walk straight towards the tallest building you can see,” Ishmael said quickly, pointing to a twinkle in the sky so high Spengler thought, at first, he was a madman pointing at stars. “Walk towards it, and when you can't walk because you're blocked by a six-wide shack, walk into the shack. You'll see a dropmine. Take the dropmine seven hundred and sixty-three...” He stopped. “Walk a minute. Walk away from me.”

“Okay,” Spengler said. He took a few steps away from the squat man, then turned. “That good?”

“Six hundred and twenty-one paces,” Ishmael said. “Walk normally and don't break stride. When you get there, climb the ladder and turn the cover leftways. That'll land you in the city.” His brow furrowed. “You'll be in front of a place with lots of cars, lots of cars with checkers. They might help.”

“This is awfully spontaneously decent of you,” Spengler said.

“You owe me two,” Ishmael said, jabbing him in the chest with his first two fingers and grinning like a fiend. “And if Painter and Ogh catch up to you --”

“Ssst!” his wife hissed.

“If Mr. P. and Mr. O. catch up to you,” Ishmael said, “I'll never collect on my investment.”

“You're an options trader,” Spengler said. “Gotcha.”

He turned and walked away from Ishmael, trying to maintain his stride.

TEN

MR. P. AND MR. O.

Mr. Ogh was impatient, stamping his hobnailed boot against the inside mat of the House of Maw, grinding his sizable teeth loudly enough to send some sharples scurrying on the second floor. He'd coalesced over an hour ago, his less-sizable brain rising from the brine pits in the second subfloor to join his body, ticking and slipping and knotting itself together in the undertanks. He'd rushed the forge, being in a hurry and all, and now Mr. Painter was keeping him waiting. It was indecent, it was. It was a waste of resources and time and that, Mr. Ogh strained his mind realizing, was very, very unlike Mr. Painter.

Just as Mr. Ogh was getting ready to pound the wall in frustration – and surely penalize himself to an extra shift in the vats – Mr. Painter glided down the crippled staircase smooth as a symphony, adjusting yellowstained gloves on his long and elegant fingers.

Mr. Ogh glared at him.

“I beg forgiveness,” Mr. Painter said. “I had to attend to business elsewhere, and returning took rather longer than I had expected.”

“Somebody spoke our names,” Mr. Ogh said, baring his teeth. “In the huts. Four, five, six times. Somebody spoke our names.”

“It came to you through the ground?” Mr. Painter asked, not really asking.

“I smelled it,” Mr. Ogh said. “Words have smells, and smells carry, and...” he sniffed the air furiously, sucking wind with a whistle through his burly tangled moustache. “...and our names smell most singular, Mr. Painter.”

“That they do, Mr. Ogh, that they do. We have oh so singular names, and our names are, dare I say, unique.” Mr. Painter smiled broadly, exposing a broad hollow under his thin yet rubbery lips. He was pale as paint, with traces of eyebrows sketched into the flesh above his shallow grey eyes.

“You, ah.” Mr. Ogh glanced towards the door while waving a hand vaguely towards his face.

“Ah.” Mr. Painter dipped his hand into one of many pockets that adorned his vest, and withdrew a pair of gleaming false teeth. “The tiny things that slip one's mind when matters press, and I thank you for noting the detail. I have opted for bone, this evening, Mr. Ogh.” With his left hand, Mr. Painter grabbed his jaw and jerked downwards with a sudden ferocity. A snap and a pop and his lower jaw hung loose, dangling off his mouth, a light hissing as gas escaped from the joints that held it. Placing the dentures in his mouth he pounded the jaw back upwards, and with a click and a clack his teeth were placed, gleaming opal in two sets. The frontward teeth were a dentist's dream, the rear row honed to jagged points, no two symmetrical. Mr. Painter grinned broadly. “I had considered steel, but I feel the organics are better for the hunt, and better, dare I say, for interacting with the townsfolk.”

“Let's go,” Mr. Ogh said. “My hands ache.”

“Let's go indeed,” Mr. Painter said, “and find something for those hands to do.”

Pushing through the revolving door of the dark hotel, Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh moved into the night, the former gliding and the latter stomping, both leaving in their wake the smell of their names, a faint bouquet of rotten flowers and desperate wind.

ELEVEN

SON OF THE TUNNELS

Spengler kept his eyes on the tall building in the distance and walked towards it, colliding with people from time to time but not caring, wanting to keep that spire and its tiny twinkling light in sight at all costs. Various oofs and grunts came from the smaller shantytowners – for most were shorter than Spengler – as they made way or were shoved to the side by his passage.

The night was neither warm nor cool, but Spengler felt a soft sheen of sweat on his brow, perhaps from the exercise, or perhaps not. Whatever his connection to the dark hotel, what he had felt from there – that tug – had echoed deep inside him, and the call back had been one of dread. Something was coming, something from that rotting place, and it was something that Spengler wanted no truck with.

“It smiled at me in my sleep, when I was a boy, and I was marked even then,” he spoke suddenly, his voice startling himself with its roughness. “It saw me through the night and marked me and smiled.”

Something made him take his eyes off the building and glance down, and in the few scattered shantytowners around him, he saw fear. They were watching him from their shacks, holding each other in small clusters of two or three, marking his face, his stride. Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh, came a whisper off to his right. Don't say the names, another returned. Don't say the names.

Spengler's eyes were burning slightly. There was something almost absurd about the situation – trapped in a strange place, with only a slight idea of where he was going, with something horrible somewhere behind him, distant now but closing fast and inexorable, something that had his scent and wanted his heart.

“So what else is new?” he said to himself. “So what else is new?”

He walked on, looking for the sixwide shanty, feeling the cloud in the back of his consciousness darken and intensify. Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh were on their way, he realized, Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh were coming for him, and Mr. Ogh had his smell and Mr. Painter had his manners and together, there was no way they couldn't find him. Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh had been finding and retrieving since Spengler's parents' parents' parents were knee-high, and escape was unheard of. There was no point in running, it was in fact counter-productive, because the further and faster Spengler ran, the more furious he would make Mr. Ogh, and the more curious he would make Mr. Painter. Furious and curious, the two of them, one to vent on his flesh, and the other to see what worked within him. If he turned back now, the dark hotel would be forgiving and welcoming, Spengler realized. If he welcomed its two envoys with open arms and a willing heart, the price to pay would be minimal – an eye, perhaps, or maybe a few fingers – and given his zero chance of actual escape, wouldn't that be far better? There was something warm about the hotel, after all...behind that feeling of slick dread, there was something cozy and comforting deep within its walls, something that could soothe Spengler and make him a home in this place. It was the only sensible thing to do, to turn back and greet Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh with an open mind and open hands, and become the estimable Mr. Spengler, a figure of fear and respect, not Spengler the scared, not Spengler the running, but Mister Spengler...

Spengler realized he'd stopped walking, and had even half-turned in place. “Mister Spengler,” he said. “Now that wasn't a bad one.” He turned back to face the shanties behind him – more now than less – and spoke clearly and distinctly.

“The fear hook was a good one,” he said to the night, “and I can feel a couple of creepy bastards winging their way towards me, no question. But. But. You blew it with Mister Spengler. Mister Spengler was my father's name.”

He snapped around on a heel, one-eighty from the hotel. “And I didn't care much for him,” he muttered, stalking forwards.

There was something else, too, and Spengler realized it was the weight of the envelope in his pocket. He recognized his bond to Cahill, now: at least one other person had escaped the auspices of this Painter and Ogh. The envelope rustled slightly against his chest. “Neither rain nor snow nor bitter sleet,” Spengler said.

Fifty feet ahead of him, he saw an extra-large shanty sprawling like creative rot in his path. Judging from the sheets of tin covering the roof, it was about six-wide.

TWELVE

Mr. P. DOES HIS THANG

Mr. Ogh kept low to the ground, sniffing, following the spoor of the new one, still irritable. There was work to be done, work that required his brawn and his love for the hard turn, the night sanction, and here he was again playing spoorhound for Maw, chasing down rabbits. Still and all, there was something different about this one. His smell had a foreign crackle to it, something Mr. Ogh hadn't smelled before. He snuffled deeply, trying to work the scent into the deeper centres of his brain for processing, and noticed that Mr. Painter was no longer with him.

“What now?” he moaned, and turned to see Mr. Painter a few hundred feet behind him, staring up into the sky, his long yellow-gloved fingers twitching. “He's following a straight trail,” Mr. Ogh called back. “No need to consult the stars, Mr. Painter.”

Mr. Painter fixed Mr. Ogh with a great and gleaming smile, and nodded slowly. His fingers twitched a few more times and were still. “Indeed so, Mr. Ogh. I was trying to lighten our load, as it were, by sending the lad a message through the ether. Transmit, if you will.” He pursed his lips and pressed his fingers together. “There's something different about this one, Mr. Ogh. Something decidedly not the same.”

“I get that,” Mr. Ogh said. He turned and resumed sniffing. “He leaves the road here,” he said suddenly, turning around in a slight circle. “But he comes back. And there's another scent...something burnt...” Mr. Ogh's face wrinkles into a tight ball of disgust. “Cahill. Cahill was here.”

“Now that,” Mr. Painter scowls, “now that is a shame. Mr. Ogh, what are our chances of laying a delicate finger upon our old colleague and compatriot Mr. Cahill?”

“Cahill,” Mr. Ogh says, very deliberately omitting the Mister, “went through there.” He points at the blank wall, bricks a solid mass in the darkness. “The bricks know him, but not us. They'll never tell us where he went.”

“Given time and alchemy, I'm sure I could extract that information.” Mr. Painter's face drops, his teeth clack, and something lewd crosses his eyes. “I'm sure something could be done to convince the bricks to share.” He turns to Mr. Ogh again, his pleasance restored. “But that isn't why we're out here on this stellar night, Mr. Ogh. Mr. Cahill will be a ...joy... to encounter another time, perhaps. However, if he is taking an interest in our new colleague-to-be, then it stands to reason that there is something very, very interesting about this young fellow indeed.”

“Cahill sees the angle,” Mr. Ogh grunted. “It's what he was good for.”

“And if he sees the angle, so we must trust that the angle is there,” Mr. Painter said deftly. “Whether or not we are working in collusion or at odds, we must indeed trust that Mr. Cahill sees the angle.”

“And this changes?” Mr. Ogh demanded.

“Nothing, my esteemed Mr. Ogh,” Mr. Painter grinned broader, exposing ever-so-slightly his rear row of teeth. “Your forthrightness is to your credit, and a perfect foil to my verbosity. That's why we are such a good team, Mr. Ogh.” Mr. Painter glided the distance between them in a short second, and placed his hand on Ogh's shoulder. “That's why we are Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh.”

“He can't have gotten out of the huts, not without help,” Mr. Ogh said.

“He is out of the shanties,” Mr. Painter replied evenly. “And so we must find those who helped and make an example, Mr. Ogh. An extravagant example.”

“Time's burning,” Mr. Ogh said. “Night won't last forever and the city isn't ours. If he gets there...”

“I have every confidence in your ability to track him, Mr. Ogh, up to the very Spire itself.” Mr. Painter's smile grew broader, and his front teeth shrank to reveal the uneven chittering mass of sharpness behind them. “We must allow ourselves the luxury of setting examples, to avoid such future difficulties. We simply must.”

Mr. Ogh looked at his hands, which were shaking slightly. “No arguments there, Mr. Painter,” he said. “Some things must be done.”

“Your hands and mine were not meant to be idle.” Mr. Ogh could see Mr. Painter's gloves trembling lightly too, in the half-light. “We shall press on, Mr. Ogh, double-time to afford us a few extra moments.”

Mr. Ogh sniffed deep, took Spengler's spoor in his nose, and the two moved forward, one shambling and one drifting, towards the cowering shanties.

THIRTEEN

ABRONSIAS AND OTHERS

“Sir?” Hyves knocked at Inspector Abronsias' door and entered without waiting for a response. He was in time to see Inspector Abronsias jerk his head up from his folded arms on his desk, like a schoolchild in time-out. It was nine in the morning, and the sun was grey through a dual filter of clouds outside and nicotine stains blanketing the window Abronsias looked up at him from behind the desk, his watery blue eyes rimmed dark with exhaustion.

“What do you have for me, Hyves?”

Hyves looked down at his hand to confirm that he was, indeed, holding the cardboard container with two steaming styrofoam cups of coffee in it. Creamers and sugar packets peeked out over the rim of one of the two empty slots like shy chicks. His right hand was still on the doorknob. “I have coffee, sir.”

Abronsias raised his hand to his forehead and slowly drew it down, dragging his fingers over his eyelids, his cheeks, his lips. He let the hand drop heavily to the desktop. “Spengler, Hyves.”

Hyves half-shrugged. “Everything's closed at night, Inspector. Everyone's asleep. I was about to start making calls.” He grinned. “Can't do much in six hours overnight, sir.”

It was hard to read Abronsias' look sometimes, but Hyves withered a little under this one. “I've found his arrest record,” Abronsias said.

“Arrest record?” Hyves blinked. “But...”

“I also found out who erased it, and how much he got paid to do so,” Ambronsias said. “It was disappointing. When I was a younger man, cops were much less cheap.” His lips twitched again. “And you got what you paid for.”

With some effort, Hyves unclenched the doorknob and walked into the room, nearly tripping on a cat-food bowl. A low yowl came from on top of the filing cabinet behind the open door.

“Enough, Albert,” Abronsias said. He gestured to a chair with a large box of files on it. “Have a seat, Mister Can't Do Anything In Six Hours Overnight. Feh.”

“Thank you, sir.” Hyves picked up the file box and put it on the floor, on top of another pile of files, and sat down, gingerly placing the coffee holder on top of a teetering pile of manila envelopes on the desk. “Everything was closed,” he said a little petulantly.

Abronsias leaned forward, steepling his fingers together and gently touching the bit of nose between his nostrils with the longest of them. “Nothing is ever closed,” Abronsias intoned. “Even if things look closed, they are not. Not to us.”

“Oh.” A thought occurred to Hyves. “So who is Spengler?”

“Nice of you to ask.” Abronsias leaned back in his chair and sipped a coffee. Hyves gestured at the coffee he'd brought, about to point out that it was hotter and fresher, then realized that Abronsias was drinking one of those. An empty creamer and two voided sugar packets sat in the recess it came from.

“Spengler is, or was, or is...” Abronsias slurped his coffee through the lid, causing the vent in the plastic cover to whistle lightly. “Do you know what a grifter is?”

“I think it was a movie,” Hyves said. “With that guy from the Breakfast Club and Morticia Addams or something.”

“My mother died last week,” Abronsias said, “and this is still the most depressing conversation I've had in over a month.”

“Sorry about your mother,” Hyves said.

“These things happen,” Abronsias said. “Just remember that safety pays, and no matter how much you like toast, making it in the bathroom is never ever a good idea.”

Hyves opened and closed his mouth. Then he did it again.

“Spengler was, or is, or was, a grifter,” Abronsias said. “Which is sort of like a con artist, but more Irish.”

“Like bilking old ladies for their pensions?” Hyves asked.

“Ugh.” Abronsias shuddered. “Not really.” He leaned forward on the desk, and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Incidentally, I have some land down by the docks. My uncle left it to me. Just a vacant lot, really, but a buddy in the city planner's office told me yesterday that a big consortium is buying the whole area up for condo development. The problem is I don't have the scratch for municipal taxes, and those City Hall bozos are going to expropriate it in the next three weeks. The condo offer isn't gonna happen for another four months.” Abronsias shook his head slowly. “I'd partner up, but who wants half of a vacant lot?”

“I do,” Hyves said.

“I grow sadder and sadder,” Abronsias said, shaking his head. “Life must be a cotton candy wonderland for you, Hyves.”

“I get it,” Hyves said. “That was a grifter story.”

“A grift,” Abronsias said. “Just a grift. The sort our Spengler used to use.”

“Well, that's good to know,” Hyves said. “Does it point us anywhere?”

Abronsias steepled his fingers again. “We know that he was on the grift,” he said, “but we also know that he fancied himself a privateer.”

“A pirate?”

“Ver-ry good, Hyves.” Abronsias sipped his coffee, which Hyves realized with a start was the second one. “There's hope for you, and a ray of light beams down on public education. Sort of like a pirate, yes, but privateers usually work with the sanction or at least the learned ignorance of the state.” He pronounced 'learned' learn-ed. “Privateers are pirates that prey on people or institutions that the state considers to be in disfavour.”

“Disfavour?”

“If somebody were to rob a bank,” Abronsias said, “we would be very upset. There would be police officers and possibly federal agents hopping up and down on both legs like baby kangaroos all over the scene. Hop, hop, hop. If, however, somebody were to rob a drug dealer, or the secret headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan, the authorities might be a little more...lackadaisical...in their approach.”

“He was a con artist, but he conned scum,” Hyves said. “So people let him do it.”

“Some people, sometimes,” Abronsias said. “They would do him favours, like let him slip out of a police lineup, or remove his file from the records.” He gestured at his desk. “Mind you, if the officer in question had just given me the file instead of trying to hide it himself, it would have been lost far more efficiently.” He frowned. “Or less efficiently. Not sure of the syntax there.”

“I still don't know where to look,” Hyves said. “I still don't know where to find the guy.”

Abronsias smiled, and his teeth were long. There was a chip in one of the front ones, which snaggled westward. “He had taken a lot from a lot of people over the years, and while he'd started a privateer, our Spengler over time has become just another con man,” Abronsias said. “He probably took when he should have left, and wound up in very bad company.”

“You think he was trying to hide himself?” Hyves asked.

“Almost,” Abronsias said. “Doing what that truck did would be a monumentally stupid way to fake your own death, but if he crashed because he was being pursued, perhaps, and if he was unscathed somehow after the crash...”

“...best to let people think he'd died,” Hyves said.

“You're creaking your way towards police work,” Abronsias said. “Well.” He pulled a file from under his cup of coffee – a third? Hyves thought, where'd that come from? -- and handed it to Hyves. “He's dead.”

“What?” Hyves held the folder in his hand and weighed it, then opened it. Spengler's death report was filled out inside, bluntly stating the facts in black and white. “How did you find --”

“Not find, made,” Abronsias said. “We're running a slight grift for the grifter, Hyves. File that and let it circulate, then keep your ears open.” He smiled again, his snaggled tooth the same yellow as the windows. “Let's see who's disappointed.”

FOURTEEN

DROPMINE

There was a gasp and a suck of air when Spengler pulled the hatch for what he hoped was the dropmine; he felt a breeze whisper past him and get pulled down into the negative depths. It was black, and he felt a certain childlike fear, but the feeling that the dark hotel's envoys were drawing nearer spurred him on. There was an iron ladder, shining black in the starlight, and Spengler grabbed it and descended.

“Six hundred and twenty-one paces,” Spengler said, walking towards the city. “Six hundred and twenty, six hundred and nineteen.” The tunnel was smooth, nondescript, and felt like brick to the sides and below. There was a ladder every several – dozen or so – feet. Spengler sighed inwardly. It was going to be a long walk.

At three hundred and eighty-six, Spengler became aware that something was following him. Not something from the dark hotel – there was a small whisper in his brain now, that would tell him when they were that close – but something else. Spengler tried to ignore it, keeping his eye on the count. “Three hundred and eighty. Three hundred and seventy-nine.”

“They're going to kill me,” a voice came from behind him, a child's voice. “They're going to kill me, Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh, they're going to kill me to make an example for my parents.”

Three hundred and sixty-eight. “What?” Spengler said, not stopping, counting in his head.

“They're going to kill me and make my mother and father eat my eyes,” the boy somewhere behind him said, his voice quavering. “One each. The father gets the left. That's how they do. That's how it's done.”

“You're Clipper, right?” Spengler tried to keep his voice even. Three hundred and fifty-five. “Your dad is Ishmael?”

“It's okay for him,” Clipper said. “You owe him two, and he has other sons.”

Three hundred and fifty-three. Spengler stopped. “You mean your father helped me, knowing that you'd be killed for it, because he wanted me to owe him favours?”

“Yes,” Clipper said. His voice shook. “They plucked the eyes from Whiltman and make his parents eat them. Father left, mother right. But he did something to the eyes first, Mr. Painter did, and now he knows what they do all the time, and he makes them do things sometimes, things to the other towners, but we can't stop them because they have Mister Painter's eyes in their bellies. We're not allowed to stop them when they do things, and they don't want to do things, but they have to because of the eyes.” Spengler felt something soft hit his leg – a hand, or perhaps an arm.

“Mercy me,” Spengler said. “That's some options trader. This's no good at all.” He took one step back, and gasped as dread clenched his stomach. He doubled over wheezing, black spots in his eyes dancing against the black of the tunnel, his breath that of an asthmatic old man. The dark hotel, unable to have him back, was driving him forward now, making him run.

“I can't take you back,” Spengler said. “Are you sure that they do this? Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh? This isn't just some kid stuff that the other kids say?”

“Whitman's parents killed and ate my dog,” Clipper said. “One night, they killed and ate every dog they could get their hands on. The eyes were running their hands, and they were screaming, but their feet and hands were carrying them around and they killed the dogs because the dogs knew them because they used to give them things.” Spengler could feel the boy's eyes, straining in the dark to find his face. “They loved their dog, and they killed and ate it anyway.”

“Love a duck,” Spengler muttered. “Screw it. Come on.”

“What?” A different kind of fear popped into Clipper's voice. “I can't go to the city. I'm a shacker.”

“So what,” Spengler said, “you came all this way just to make me feel like crap? To tell me horror stories about your death, give me an ulcer with this Painter and Ogh stuff, and then go home to have your eyes eaten?”

The boy was silent.

“Come on,” Spengler said. “I'll try to find – I don't know, an orphanage or something – once we get into this city. We'll say your parents were killed by a train.”

“There hasn't been a train since before I was born,” Clipper said. “My mother used to talk about them, how they used to run down by Maw before it was Maw.”

“Then you're a deceptively youthful orphan,” Spengler said. He could feel something beyond the tunnels again, a murmur in his marrow, a toothache above the gumline, that told him that Painter and Ogh were drawing closer every second. “I can't stay here. Come on.”

He turned to face the city again. “Three hundred and...crap.” He smacked his forehead. “What was it, seventy-three? Sixty-three?”

“I'm sorry,” Clipper said.

“Let's just go,” Spengler said. His stomach hurt from the dreadwave, and another one was swelling up inside him. He had to keep going. “Three hundred and seventy-three,” he said definitively, putting a foot forward. “Three hundred and seventy-two.”

FIFTEEN

SURFACE

Clipper was silent for the entire rest of the trip through the dropmine, and Spengler could respect that: he was running from home, from his parents, from a horrible death at the hands of things that came from a dark and loathsome place. Running to abandonment and a fate probably as bad as the one he escaped – if maybe a little less definite. The kid was scared, and a born gambler.

“Why do you say things that make no sense?” Clipper broke his silence at last. Sixty-eight.

“What?” Spengler kept walking, sixty-seven, sixty-six, sixty-five.

“You just said 'you've got to know when to hold 'em, you've got to know when to roll 'em,” Clipper said. “Why did you say that? Why did you say all those other things?”

“Other things?” Spengler was startled. Was he talking without knowing it? Spouting axioms and song lyrics at random?

“A few minutes ago you said 'a nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat.' And before that you said 'they were sentenced to military prison for a crime they didn't commit.' What does that mean?”

“I don't know,” Spengler said slowly. “I guess things just pop out sometimes. Bubble up and pop out.”

Pop out from where? Where does this come from? What happened before I came here?

Forty-eight.

“Where did you come from?” Clipper asked.

“Down by the railroad station, by the dark hotel,” Spengler said.

“But there are no trains,” Clipper said.

Spengler continued walking cautiously through the darkness, propelled by the dread behind him, wanting to turn and grab the child and shake him. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

Forty.

“There are no trains,” Clipper said. “Where'd you come from before that? How did you get here if there are no trains?”

Spengler could hear his heart pounding in his chest. Don't. Don't ask. “Clipper,” he said, “I have an important question for you.”

“What?”

“Clipper,” Spengler said, “be absolutely honest. Don't tell a lie because you think it'll make me feel better or because you think I won't like your answer.”

Another veil of fear misted the boy's voice. “Okay.”

Spengler took a breath and licked his dry lips with a dryer tongue. “Clipper, am I...are we...”

Another wave of dread smacked Spengler like a punch in the gut, and he reeled and put his hand out against the tunnel wall, touching a ladder. Different than the last one, this one crawled out from under something in his mind, as though it had always been there. From up the tunnel, the direction they had come in, there was a dull rattle and a plonk. A few seconds later, another sound echoed up the tunnel: a whispering noise, like dead leaves or a dog with no vocal cords barking its heart out.

“Oh no.” Clipper said. “Something just dropped into the mine.”

“What?”

“It's coming,” Clipper said. “They're coming. Quickly. Mr. Ogh is angry, and...”

“Come on.” Spengler tried to take measured steps as quickly as possible, practically jogging while lifting his knees high in the air. Thirty-three. Thirty-two. Thirty-one. They were coming like the fog, Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh, quickly and with determination, but with a lot of ground to cover. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven. Twenty-six.

Spengler could feel them getting closer. Mr. Painter was above the ground about an inch, making the motions of walking out of some strange nostalgia without ever actually contacting the earth. Mr. Ogh, on the other hand, kept low to the ground, snuffling and snarling. He was the one slowing them down slightly, pausing to check every ladder.

“Wait a sec,” Spengler whispered. Twenty. He dragged his hand along the left wall, touching a ladder almost immediately. He climbed up it a few feet, rubbing his hands hard against the cold iron, then dropped back down.

“They're coming.” Clipper shivered against him. “They're coming.”

“And we're going,” Spengler whispered. He scooped Clipper up and put him over his shoulder, and jogged the last twenty steps to the dropmine ladder. “Let's get up there.”

Mr. Painter's teeth clicked loudly somewhere behind them, not far enough away. Spengler could hear Mr. Ogh sniffing something on the ground. Mr. Painter's voice came to them through the tunnel, made sibilant by the cold dark bricks.

“You're scared, Spengler, and you should be. Mr. Ogh and I have disciplined the boy's parents, but they have seen nothing compared to the rewards in store for you. You're meant for Maw, bright and beamish boy, and we'll flay away the parts that aren't.”

“Up-up-up.” Spengler shoved Clipper up the ladder. Clipper scrambled up, reaching upwards for the hatch release. There was a scraping noise above them.

“THEY'RE GETTING OUT!” Mr. Ogh's voice was shaking with fury. His snuffling redoubled.

“Come back,” Mr. Painter called. “I'll be angry if you don't.”

Warm air stunned Spengler for a moment, and he pulled his jacket sleeves over his hands to make impromptu gloves, and climbed up the ladder towards the dropmine opening. Reaching it, he put his arms through and hauled himself out, and was immediately stunned by a riot of noise, colour and sound. Scraping together presence of mind, he slapped the hatch lid shut and looked around.

Clipper was gone.

SIXTEEN

DOWN A CLIPPER, UP A HOUSE

Spengler blinked as he looked around for a checkered taxi stand, working hard at not looking like a tourist – or worse, a guy who had come from nowhere and just popped penniless and clueless out of a dropmine shaft. He began to walk briskly away from the shaft cover, putting some distance between Painter and Ogh and himself.

There was no taxi stand, no “cars with checkers.” Stands of almost every other kind – despite the fact that it had to be late at night, perhaps even towards dawn, after the monumental walk through the dropmine – vendors were selling fruit, vegetables, dead things on sticks, toys, books, old-fashioned records, and lots of things Spengler didn't even recognize. But no taxi stand.

“God dammit,” Spengler said. He stepped back into the doorway of a low brownstone – the street itself was narrow, maybe fifteen feet wide, and flanked on both sides by residential buildings that looked to be hundreds of years old – and looked for Clipper. “I can't believe it,” Spengler said. “Ten seconds in the big city and I've already lost my plucky orphan sidekick.”

He felt heavy. Clipper was probably the local equivalent of a rube, and a kid rube, but a rube still knew more than Spengler about this place. Spengler looked around again. Nothing. No kids at all, much less the Grand Prize Winner in the Oliver Twist In A Gi look-alike contest. “God dammit,” Spengler said again. He tried to 'feel' for Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh, but his senses were blunted by the sounds, noises and smells – and hopefully, at least, theirs were too. His best chances lay in moving on, as quickly as possible, staying light and fast and always in motion, gathering information on the fly like a bee harvests pollen until he could find this Brass. That was no way to find the kid, though. That would lie in methodical searching, not scattershot information-gathering, figuring out which way he'd gone upon leaving the dropmine and who, if anyone, had taken him.

“Sorry, Clipper,” Spengler said. He hadn't signed up for a babysitting gig, he told himself, and there was no percentage in getting caught and eviscerated – or whatever the envoys had planned for him – looking for a needle in a haystack. Spengler shoved off the door of the building with his back, stepping down off its stoop and striding into the city's gathering dawn.

SEVENTEEN

THE TRAIL IS LOST

Mr. Ogh stood in the circle of taxis, sniffing the air. “This is pointless,” he said.

Mr. Painter grinned at one of the taxi drivers, taking scant satisfaction in watching him swerve a little. “You're sure he took that particular ladder, Mr. Ogh?”

“I smelled him,” Ogh said. “He obviously got into a cab and vanished up here.” He picked a piece of raw meat from under his ragged index fingernail. “I can go talk to the dispatcher.”

“No,” Mr. Painter said. “There's tomorrow. And tomorrow night. We've had a good and productive night already, Mr. Ogh. Let us not work to exhaustion and risk the mistakes that brings.”

“It has been a good night.” Mr. Ogh's belly was full, and while he was duty-bound to continue the hunt, his heart wasn't truly in it.

Mr. Painter surveyed the dropmine hatch. “Back we go, then,” he said. He waited for Mr. Ogh to stoop and grind the hatch to one side.

“One thought,” Mr. Ogh said as Mr. Painter began to drift into the hatchway. “What if he gets picked up by one of the other Houses?”

Mr. Painter paused, frowned, then grinned. “I shall think, Mr. Ogh. I shall think.”

Mr. Ogh clambered down the ladder after Mr. Painter had gone, and pulled the hatch shut behind him. It had been a long and tiring night, and they were returning to their dark and welcome home.

EIGHTEEN

“I'm looking for a man named Brass.”

Spengler was talking to a squat fish-faced man selling, not surprisingly (but maybe a little horribly) fish at one of the midnight stands. He slapped a slablike scaled thing onto a piece of newspaper in started to roll it.

“I got bass,” the man said. “How much you want?”

Spengler stared at the newspaper instead, which wasn't written in a language he totally understood – it seemed to be one-eighth English words, but a mingling of everything else as well. There were Asian characters, looping Arabic script, and words that Spengler thought he recognized as Italian and French and Spanish.

“Brass,” he said distractedly to the man. The words in the newspaper didn't make sense – at least seven-eighths of them, anyway – but if he tried to read the stories instead of look at them, they made a certain sort of sense. “Thanks anyway.”

He started walking briskly again, looking for discarded newspapers. Most of the streets he'd seen were like the one he'd surfaced in, low tenements with sidewalk stalls sprawled out in front of them. There was very little traffic, and what traffic there was was an even mix between cars, carriages and various human-powered contraptions of which bicycles were a minority affair. The cars, too, were highly varied, and ranged from Model T Fords to ones that Spengler didn't recognize, but supposed were cutting-edge new.

Food was everywhere. His mouth had been watering for over an hour, but Spengler had nothing that passed as currency – he'd observed a few people at these booths, and seen what they used, and it looked like paper money and coins – and wasn't comfortable enough to try to slip anything away from anybody. Where would he be comfortable? Home?

The question of whether or not he was dead popped into Spengler's head again. Clipper had ducked the question, saved by the arrival (and subsequent departure, which Spengler was still wondering about) of Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh. Spengler kept walking, keeping one eye open for a newspaper and another for any sign of a young boy in a gi, and scratched his cheek as he thought.

He was becoming increasingly aware of gaps in his own perception, that was for damn sure. And they felt illicit, somehow, like something he shouldn't be thinking about, but was anyway. Trying to remember a time before here was beyond hard, it was impossible, and 'dirty,' to boot. Gauche. Not the done thing.

It was better to let it go than to work himself into an aneurysm. Whatever it was would come, if it came, but worrying it would only drive it further away. But Spengler knew things: his name, the names of objects, a language, the fact that people weren't born spontaneously in their mid-thirties next to a railroad track in a worn grey suit. He wasn't starting from scratch, at least not totally and utterly from scratch. He knew things, and what he knew wasn't apparently the right things, because he should have joined the Dark Hotel but something in him knew – against whatever rules of this world there were – that it wasn't a good idea.

“Am I dead?” Spengler asked an old woman walking a cat-sized rodent on a leash. The woman stared at him, and then her free hand darted out, purse dangling and dancing at her elbow, and touched his nose.

“Your nose is warm,” she said. “That means you're okay.” She moved busily down the street.

“I should have become a doctor,” Spengler said. He reflected for a moment. “Then again, I guess I always could.” This was unlike him, worrying about things he couldn't control – whether or not they were as big a question as death. There were things in his grasp that he could accomplish, such as finding a newspaper, getting the lay of the land, delivering a letter, and finding Clipper. If he was dead, he was dead, but that shouldn't get in the way of business.

Spengler kept walking, seeing a few scattered leaflets on the streets but no bona fide newspapers. He could keep asking street vendors – who seemed to appear wherever Spengler walked, lining every street and alleyway – but thinking about it, it seemed like his connection to Cahill might be something to keep under his hat, and this Brass person might be a known cohort. Or not, but safety first, as the elephant said to the nun as he handed her the prophylactic.

What?

Blinking, Spengler tapped the side of his head lightly with his hand. Where had that come from? An elephant and a nun? It wasn't his style, nor was it really all that funny, but it had run across his mind like a child's green bicycle anyway.

Weird. Spengler dismissed it as another unsolvable and kept on going. It occurred to him that he hadn't seen a car, horse or pedal-wagon for some time. Nobody was browsing the booths, and the sidewalk vendors were packing up now, all of them with no exceptions, moving amazingly rapidly and efficiently. Fruit, meat, clothing, shirts – all of it got tucked away into compartments which were then folded into other compartments, in turn twisted into boxes, which were in turn slotted into drawers. Within a minute, every vendor in sight was holding a large wheeled cart, pulling them backwards up the stairs to the brownstones. One vendor, face ashen, was pulling hard on his cart, but a wheel had popped off and rolled somewhere out of sight and the cart – filled to bursting with books, it looked like – wasn't budging. The vendor tugged again.

“Let it go!” Another vendor, himself up the stairs and halfway through his door, yelled at the hapless bookseller. “Giorgio, let it go! It's almost dawn! You've only got seconds!”

Spengler jogged towards the bookseller as he yelled back. “It's all I've got! I've been uptrading! This is the bulk of my money stock!” There was panic in his voice, a growing hysteria that seemed to Spengler to be disproportionate to the situation.

“LET IT GO!” the other vendor screamed, “YOU'RE OUT OF TIME, GIORGIO! DROP IT AND RUN!”

“Hand with that, buddy?” Spengler asked. Without waiting for an answer he stooped, slipped a hand under the front of the cart, and grunted. It was heavy, but throwing his shoulder sideways he could compensate for the lack of a wheel. Giorgio started pulling backwards, nearly upsetting Spengler with his haste going backwards up the stairs. “Ease up,” Spengler said. “What's the hurry?”

Suddenly, again as though by switch, night turned to day. The sky exploded light blue, with an even diffuse light filtering across the entire horizon.

“Oh no,” Giorgio said. “HURRY!” At the top of the stairs, he hauled demoniacally at the cart, yanking it out of Spengler's hands and back across the stoop with the sound of the steel reinforcement at the bottom of the box scraping against concrete. He got stuck again at the doorframe, and pulled desperately at the handle, flecks of foam forming at the corners of his mouth. Spengler staggered forward, knee aching due to a fall forward against the top step, and lifted again.

“What's going on?” Spengler asked. “Why are you in such a --”

Cart inside the door and dragged halfway down a tight dark hallway, Giorgio leaped over it with astonishing agility, grabbed Spengler by the collar, and hurled him to the floor. “Hey!” Spengler yelled.

But his yell, he realized, was drowned out by the roar from outside, an immense howl of wind and water and machinery that rattled the windows and made his eyes jiggle in his head. It was getting louder, and he could sense rather than see an immense shape, taller than the buildings, approaching outside.

“STREET CLEANER!” Giorgio yelled over the din. He reached over Spengler and slammed the door shut, a second before it rattled and shook with a blast of wind and water from outside. Water squeezed through the edges of the doorframe, and Spengler saw discoloration on the floors and walls from years of such abuse.

The noise passed.

Spengler got up, dusting off his hands. “Did we almost just get killed by a Zamboni?” he asked quietly.

“Street cleaner,” Giorgio said again. “Thanks.”

“Do you owe me one?” Spengler asked.

Giorgio paled again. “I didn't promise you anything,” he said. “You just ran up.” He paused for a moment, and ran his hand through his hair. It was thick and curly, and at the temples was greying to the same light blue as his eyes. “I suppose,” he said slowly, “that I do owe you one, though. You saved me, or at least my stock.”

Spengler shrugged. “I'm sure you'd do the same,” he said.

There was a faint frown on Giorgio's face. “You didn't know about the street cleaner?” he asked. “How could you not?” He leaned in a bit, curiosity glittering in his eyes. “Are you new?”

“I guess so,” Spengler said. “My clothes aren't, though.”

“Fascinating.” Giorgio looked him up and down. “How did you get here?”

“Through the tunnels from the shanties,” Spengler said.

“And which House are you aligned with?” Giorgio stepped back to see him better. “You obviously aren't with the House of Stock, or you'd know about the street cleaners. And you aren't dressed for the House of Maw. Which are you? Nod? Sift? Tenn?”

“I don't think any,” Spengler said. “People tell me I should have been with the House of Maw, but I didn't...I'm not.”

Giorgio rubbed his hands. “So you're unaligned.” He looked at his cart, sandwiched between a wall and a narrow set of stairs leading upwards. “Thrilling.”

“Yeah, I'm really jazzed.” Spengler sighed. “Look, I need to...do something. A few things, actually. Is there somewhere I could go for information? Do you have a map or guidebook I could borrow?”

A crafty look stole over Giorgio's face. “Well, if that's the one I owe you...”

“Sure,” Spengler said.

“I can give you a map AND a guidebook,” Giorgio said, “if you want to owe me one in return.”

A small alarm bell tingled in Spengler's brain. “No,” he said, “just one would be fine.”

Giorgio looked disappointed. “You've been here a while already,” he said.

Spengler was glad, in a way, that whatever had happened to Ishmael, he no longer owed him two. Shame burst a small bubble in him, and he wondered again what had become of Clipper.

“I have to get going,” Spengler said. “Do you need help getting that cart back outside?”

“No,” Giorgio said, genuinely shocked. “I'm a night vendor, not a day vendor. I can't vend during the day.”

“Of course,” Spengler said. “Silly of me.”

“I'll get the map.” Giorgio scrambled up the tight staircase, and Spengler heard some banging upstairs. He looked at the wall of the hallway, which was lined with old sepia-toned photographs of Giorgio, looking younger, with a woman and some children. Wherever I am, Spengler thought, people age.

“Here you go,” Giorgio said, banging down the stairs with a piece of paper in his hand. “It's a little out of date, but the fundamentals are always the same.”

“Sure,” Spengler said. Something else occurred to him. “Hey, do you have a phone book?”

“I had a book on phones,” Giorgio said, “with some schematics, but it sold six months ago.”

“I meant a directory,” Spengler said. “A directory of names and addresses of people here.”

“What a fascinating idea,” Giorgio said. “It'd be difficult to implement, of course, but a fascinating idea.”

“That's why they pay me the big bucks,” Spengler said. “How about a newspaper?”

“I never read newspapers,” Giorgio sniffed. “The plots are either childishly simple or ridiculously overcomplicated, the characters are shallow and ill-developed, and most of the stories have very unsatisfactory endings.”

“Good point,” Spengler said. “I have to go. Good luck with the books.”

Giorgio nodded. Spengler closed the door to the brownstone behind him on the way out. There was a clean scratch in the concrete, white on grey, where the unwheeled side of the cart had been dragged across it. Spengler looked up and down the street. All around him, vendors were wheeling their carts down to street level, and the street was starting to fill with men, women and children. The street itself was free of all debris and dust, and was possibly the cleanest street Spengler had ever seen.

“Hooray for Godzamboni,” Spengler said. He tucked his map into his inside jacket pocket, next to letter, and went in search of a street sign.

NINETEEN

INVESTIGATIVE PROCEEDINGS

Inspector Abronsias surveys tiny pieces of Spengler, spread across his desk. A report card from two decades prior attests to his intelligence and tragic lack of application. A newspaper headline blares HE SEEMED “TOTALLY AVERAGE”: parking lot owner reports $200,000 scam. Below another newspaper clipping – a crying woman holding a fat and rheumy white cat – is the cut line “He didn't seem like a con man, reports Roberta Jaspers of Hillfield. 'He seemed like a really boring guy.'”

The Inspector looks at these and pushes them around the desk, reconfiguring them over and over again. Now Darwin Spengler conned Roberta Jaspers and her fat white cat before attending Yellindale Elementary. Now Roberta Jaspers and the parking lot owner are a rapid succession of fast action between grade school and a write-up in high school for public indecency.

“Sir?” Abronsias looks up. Hyves is still there, has been sitting in that chair for half an hour, silent since Abronsias stopped asking him questions.

“There's still a Darwin Spengler-sized hole in the middle of all this,” Abronsias said. “A hole the precise size and shape of Darwin Spengler. A Spengler Void.” Hyves meets his gaze, then looks down at his lap. “The Spengler Void. A good book title.” Abronsias goes back to rearranging the clippings and papers on his desk. “Or maybe the name of a terribly bad yet well-intentioned rock band.”

“I still don't understand, sir.” Hyves was slightly plaintive. “You still haven't explained why this is so important. You're neglecting your other cases, you're working on this twenty-four hours a day, and all it is is a vanished con man...”

Inspector Abronsias holds up a well-worn finger, knuckle knotty and with a few small hair sprouting out of it. “A bird, Hyves.”

“Uh?”

The finger wiggled in the air, wavered, and pointed at the window. “A bird flew in that window the other day and told me, in no uncertain terms, that this was important.”

Hyves looked at the window. The entire building was air-conditioned, and none of the windows opened. This one was no exception. “Sir?”

“I was following hunches before your parents started to regret having you, Hyves,” Inspector Abronsias said, “and that was a very long time ago.”

Hyves blushed.

“We're going to contact these people.” The inspector waved a hand over his desk, over the nest of history he had built for Darwin Spengler to live in. “We're going to contact them, and look into other fraud complaints from the past few years for things that fit this pattern. We're going to piece together a road map to lead us to this man. Darwin Spengler has survived for years by being too small to bother with. He's never gone for a big payday. He's a jobber working for crumbs.”

Hyves shrugged.

“And those crumbs are going to make a trail, Hyves, a trail that leads us to our man.” Abronsias brought his hand back in to roost, folded it into his other hand, and put them on his desk. His nose was twitching. “I want Spengler, Hyves. For reasons you can't possibly hope to grasp, I want Spengler. And so we are going to track him down and bring him in and put him away.”

There was something in Abronsias' eyes that made Hyves shrink a bit. His chair scraped on the hardwood floor of the office. For the first time ever, he wondered about his mentor, and why he was kept in a small office at the back of an entire floor reserved otherwise for filing. “Yes, Inspector.” he said.

TWENTY

PARTY AT THE HOUSE OF NOD

Spengler turned the map around again. And again. He frowned. If he'd known that the only map of the City he'd been able to find would be painted entirely by Cubists, he would have opted for the guidebook. Then again, with his luck, the guidebook would have been written in Sansrkit.

He rubbed his eyes and tried again. People were bustling by him on the street, but none of them seemed to care about a man in a worn grey suit trying to puzzle through a map – and why should they? While he couldn't clearly remember having been anywhere else, Spengler knew this was the most diverse place he'd ever been. Traffic was almost non-existent, due largely to the throngs of people who roamed the streets. People of all races, modes of dress, and, it seemed, languages. Everyone chattered in a different tongue, but, Spengler quickly found, if he listened intently to any one conversation it began to make perfect sense.

An eight-foot woman in a burkha walked past him, talking to herself, and as Spengler listened to her, her words changed from what seemed to Spengler to be unintelligible gibberish to a universal mantra: “eggs, cheese, milk. Eggs, cheese, milk.”

Spengler turned a fresh eye to the map. Underneath it all, there was some sort of street pattern, but on top of the basic street information everything seemed to be drawn in pyramids and triangles, like different zones in the city were raised cones and different lines connected their various strata. Spengler looked up. There were no skyways, no bridges from building to building, so that didn't make sense either – and the colour-coding was insane. Some lines were green, some purple, some yellow, some red, some blue – and a line might change colour in mid-stream, or splinter into six different lines that immediately looped back to join the main one again.

“This is hopeless,” Spengler said. He held the map away from his face at arms' length and tried to make out the street pattern underneath it all. He found his location on the map, right next to an iridescent orange cone, and saw that he was near a bright yellow splotch identified as HOUSE OF NOD. Spengler realized that he'd been exclusively focused on the city, and looked at its borders to find the shanties, his railroad station (he now thought of it as his) and the dark hotel.

There was nothing on this side of the map, and Spengler turned it over. Ah. The city was shown in macrovision here, a blotch the size of a square of toilet paper, surrounded by a sea of grey with “scrub” written across it in broad cursive script. Spengler blinked. The shanties surrounded the City like a slow and inevitable siege, deeper than the city was wide. At the southern tip of the map, beyond the field of shanties, a dotted red line traced its way from east to west: the railroad line. Spengler saw a tiny dot for his railroad station, and where the House of Maw – the dark hotel – would stand, the mapmakers had punched a tiny and meticulous hole out of the map. Spengler looked at the hole, then flipped the map over. He couldn't find the hole on the other side. Turning the map again, he took a piece of loose thread off his pantscuff, broke it off, and stuck it through the hole before turning the map around again. The city side of the map was still unbroken. Spengler's frown deepened as he pushed the thread through, tapped it, and watched it disappear. Nothing floated down the the ground, nothing appeared on the other side of the map. “I need to find a piece of tape,” he said. “That's creepy.” Motion caught his eye, and he noticed that at the bottom corner of the map, there was a counter: 76534.8746.01.34.23. The last number turned to 24 as Spengler looked at it, then 25. “Helpful,” he said, “maybe.”

Music started floating to Spengler's ear from somewhere, and another quick (and highly subjective) look at the map told him that it was coming from the same direction as this House of Nod. Spengler decided to go look – if the Houses were rivals, as Giorgio had seemed to imply with his “unaligned” crack, another House might help him shake Painter and Ogh before they came back, and maybe even find Clipper.

But would this House accept him, or even talk to him? The shantytowners had reacted with something between fear and disgust to him, and even the man whose life he had saved had seemed relieved that he wasn't from Maw. And there seemed to be something intrinsic about him that identified him with the dark hotel, a scent or an aura. Was this dangerous? Would the House of Nod let him in, cast him out, or kill him?

“Are you man enough for Mega Force?” Spengler muttered. The further he walked, the more the music grew, expanding in form, shape and definition. Something resounded in Spengler's guts as he heard it, flowering from a simple rhythm with a piccolo over top to a full orchestra of mad instruments from around the world. With every step, another instrument joined the fray: a plywood violin, a Harry Partch glass harp, a digeridoo, a gamelan.

What was music normally? However many dimensions it occupied – two, Spengler thought, that was what words got and it seemed fair that music should be the same – this music was not bound by three or even four dimensions. It was running forwards, backwards and sideways, chaos on the surface but like the voices around him, a bit of attention brought it into focus as an overfull, lush and beautiful prismatic symphony.

As he rounded a near corner, he realized that he'd been worried for the wrong reasons. The House of Nod was in full swing, and welcoming all comers, but Spengler had nothing to offer. He patted his pockets down, looking for what? A mouth harp. His harmonica. What had happened to an instrument, but of course there was nothing.

The music was riotous now, and Spengler figured from his earlier look at the map that the House must be almost in front of him. The street was packed with people, and instead of the usual vendors' stands here there were painters, cartoonists, writers bashing at typewriters, singers, dancers, sketch artists, mimes, performance artists and sculptors plying their trade around and across the streets. Spengler had to jostle a little to get through the crowd, map and envelope tucked in his pocket, and stepping around a fat man singing an aria from Don Giovanni between licks of his popsicle, Spengler got his first glimpse of the House of Nod.

TWENTY-ONE

NOD LOVES YOU

Imagine six houses in a row. Beautiful Victorian mansions with gabled roofs, mini-towers, verandas, French doors, picture windows, columns, sweeping peaks, and an elegance somewhere north of quaint but south of grandeur. Six large yet not sweeping houses, built by architects with genius bordering on insanity.

Now, as you picture these six homes – and they need not be identical, in fact, it is better if they're not – picture the first one in the row, the one on the left, imploding. It collapses in on itself like it's being swallowed from within, and is compressed down into a basket-ball-sized piece of lumber, glass and air, hovering about four feet off the ground.

There is this “housketball,” and five beautiful Victorian houses.

Moving up the line from left to right, compress the following four houses exactly the same way. You now have five hovering houseketballs and one beautiful Victorian house.

And now, in your imagination, a child with an all-day sucker comes along. He's portly, and wearing one of those sailor suits you only ever see kids wear in old black-and-white movies. He walks along past the houseketballs and towards the remaining Victorian mansion, licking his all-day sucker, a swirled rainbow monstrosity on a terrified white stick, and then he stops, turns, and stares at the five houseketballs and the Victorian mansion.

The child stares for a minute, maybe more. Then, slowly, he trots up the small hill separating these properties from the street, reaches the first of the houseketballs, and, a little nervously, gives it a poke with a pudgy finger.

The houseketball drifts a few feet in the air and then resumes hovering.

The child pokes it again, and the houseketball again drifts a few feet. The child looks around, at the housketballs, at the remaining house, up and down the street. There is, of course, nothing else on this street. Shrugging, the child pokes the houseketball repeatedly, herding it, eventually reaching the one remaining Victorian house. He sends the houseketball up the porch steps, follows it and rings the doorbell, still licking at his all-day sucker. Nobody answers. Tentatively, the largish child opens the door. It swings inwards without protest. Poking the houseketball, he sends it into the house. Wherever it drifts, the child is satisfied, for he does not enter the house, but returns to the second houseketball and, humming a funny little tune you do not know, repeats the procedure.

It takes some time for the child to have done this to all five houseketballs, but eventually, he has made all five houseketballs glide into the remaining Victorian house, and his is presumably satisfied, for he puts one hand on his hip and, faithfully working away at his all-day sucker (and you notice that it hasn't diminished at all during this entire operation, which may not speak well for your imagination and attention to detail), turns to leave the porch. A rumble stops him, and the portly child in the sailor suit looks over his shoulder, his piggish eyes growing wide with terror. The rumble mounts, becoming a roar, and the Victorian house begins to quake. One of the front windows blows out, sending shards of glass across the manicured lawn. The boy runs, trying to drop his all-day sucker to pump his arms furiously but discovers that it is now stuck to his hand, fused there through a continual drip of saliva and sugar. He leaps off the porch to the best of his ability as the houseketballs, tired of being confined in such a small area, all five of them, start to expand back to their original shapes.

Unfortunately for the houseketballs and architecture in general, they haven't maintained their original position after being poked all over the map. Some are sideways, some are backwards, some are upside-down. And as they expand, the walls of the existing Victorian house, now birthing five of its brethren, expand and crackle and swell but do not break, exactly. Where the interior houses burst through it, the house adapts, growing new corners and walls, sprouting new towers through its side walls and down into the earth, blossoming picture windows on the roof, and turning from a house of four walls into a house of twenty-four, all contained within the same physical space.

And then the residents of all six of these Victorian houses return home, free-spirited and wild-minded Bohemians, three hundred of them crammed into these six houses, and seeing what has happened to their homes, they decide to make a go of it because, as it turns out, the house...this miraculous remaining house...has somehow preserved the space of all six houses within it, and has a little more to spare besides.

Can you imagine that?

Good.

You're halfway to imagining the House of Nod.

TWENTY-TWO

SPENGLER LEARNS THE DIGERIDOO

“You have to learn to circular breathe, my man.” The short black man slapped his knee and shoved the digeridoo towards Spengler again. “In through the nose, out through the mouth. Try to suck in enough air that you can force it out through your mouth mechanically while you suck in more air. Got me?”

Spengler smiled and took the pipe. He got a few seconds of spudowowow out of the thing before he gasped, wheezed, and fell over out of his cross-legged sitting position, laughing. The House of Nod had been very hospitable, and he'd had a few drinks of... something... and now he was 'feeling no pain,' as the expression went.

“Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker,” Spengler giggled.

“No, man,” the digeridoo player – Carver, that was his name – was saying. “It's a mechanical action, you get me? You're forcing the air out of your mouth mechanically while you take more in through the nose.”

“Hey Carver,” somebody behind Spengler said. “My turn with the new guy.”

Spengler glanced up. An aquiline man with a long nose and sorrowful eyes was looking down at him, dressed in a brown leather jacket and riding pants. He was wearing an antique pair of goggles shoved up on his face.

“Sure thing, Lindy,” Carver said. “He wasn't getting anywhere on the 'doo anyway.”

“I can't do the 'doo,” Spengler laughed.

Carver walked away, leaving Spengler with the new man. Lindy. Lindy stooped down, squatting with his hands resting on his knees, trying to look Spengler in the face. It was hard, as Spengler's blurred vision made it impossible for him to focus on anything more than six inches away, so Lindy was a blurred mass of flesh, sad eyes and significant nose.

“Lindsay's a girl's name,” Spengler blurted out.

“Painter and Ogh know you're here,” Lindy said. “They're coming to get you.”

Spengler was sober. “What?”

“When I saw them, they were approaching the scrubs and moving fast,” Lindy said. “If they take the right dropmine, and I don't see why they won't, they should be here in half an hour.”

Spengler struggled to his feet, which were rubbery. His knees seemed to have creative new ways of bending. “I gotta go,” he said. Then he stopped. “I made it here, didn't I? Doesn't that mean I'm safe?”

Lindy looked puzzled. “This isn't Capture the Flag, guy. Being here doesn't make you immune to the House of Maw. If you were a House member they might be a little more reluctant to come after you, but you're unaligned, man.” He leaned in. “That's a rare privilege. I can see why Painter wants you so much.”

Spengler looked at the small man. “How do you know all this, anyway? Who are you?”

“Oh, I know all about you. You're the hit of the party. Everybody's buzzing. I know about Painter and Ogh because I'm the Aviator,” Lindy said. He smiled, and Spengler could see that smile echoing through a thousand crackling black-and-white newsreels, photo archives. “I do a flyby around the City at least once a day to see what's going on. Our boys were crawling in from the House of Maw when I went over a while ago, and that's not normal. They stick to the night, unless they've got the taste for something stuck between their teeth and need some meat to work it out.”

“I know you,” Spengler said. “From somewhere.”

“There're a lot of people here you might know,” Lindy said. He took Spengler by the elbow and steered him away from a tall overweight man with tousled black hair and a hangdog expression who was offering Spengler some sort of greenish bubbling liquid. “You've got the air about you,” he said under his breath. “I think we have something in common. That's why I want to help you.”

“Help me how?” Spengler said. Now that the liquor had been scared out of him, his radar was back... it had been easy to ignore under the chaos of the party, but now a tiny piece of fear was working its way through his bowels, telling him that Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh were indeed getting closer.

“You're lucky,” Lindy said, “and I think that's a gift. You've got an ability to just sort of breeze through things, keep your head down and stay moving and just have problems kind of blow over. Believe me, I know. But then something blew you here.” He looked around again. “I shouldn't be talking like this. If Nod...”

“Go on,” Spengler urged.

“There's a lot about this place you don't know,” Lindy said. “The gods. Subway boys. The checkworks. The Spire. You're used to breezing through it, bluffing it out, letting it slide. Well.” He pulled a kid-leather glove off his left hand, and Spengler grimaced. His index, ring and little fingers were missing, replaced with charred stumps. “The luck won't last, Spengler. It's different here. It'll hold you through for a little while, but then...” He frowned. “If Brass hadn't got me into the House, I'd be worse than dead now. I'd be working for the Milk Carton Kids, or begging in the Bowels, or worse.”

“Did you say Brass?” Spengler's head was swimming with booze and revelations. “I need... ah. I need to get out of here. I need to hide from P – the two guys. I need to find a man named Brass.” He looked at Lindy. “I really need help.”

Lindy grinned. “Yeah,” he said, “you do.”

“You said that this Brass guy got you into the House,” Spengler said. “And that if I were a House member, the Maw envoys might be more... reluctant... to come get me. Can he do that for me, this Brass?” The envelope in his pocket burned with hope. The solution could be tidy, even now.

“Not so fast,” Lindy said. “Brass got me in because I have a skill. I can fly, which is rare. I'm a flying artist, and that's rarer. Arach can fly, and Tido, but nobody else can fly airplanes. At least, not the airplane they have here.” He smiled. “There're a few newer pilots here, lost in Fogland over a decade ago, but they can't fly anything that doesn't have a billion buttons and automatic whimwhams all over the map.” He fixed Spengler with a penetrating gaze. “What can you do, Spengler? What do you bring to the table?”

“I, um...” Spengler thought furiously. “I'm good at...” He tried to recall what he had done, before the City, but there was only the railroad station and a great green wall in his mind.

“That's what I thought.” Lindy shrugged. “I want to help you, Spengler, but all I can do right now is get you away from Painter and Ogh.”

Spengler shifted his weight. “If I could just see this Brass, talk to him alone for a minute...” He thought of the envelope, of Cahill. There was leverage there, if he could figure out how to apply it.

“Figure you what you bring to the table first,” Lindy said. “Trust me.”

Spengler gestured around him at the general melee of the party/jam session in progress all over the house. “All of these people 'bring things to the table?'”

“Yes,” Lindy said. “How close are Painter and Ogh?”

“You really shouldn't say their names,” Spengler said. His stomach churned. “Getting close,” he said. “I can feel them coming.”

“And that's why you more than anyone need to bring something to the table,” Lindy said. “Maw wants you, Spengler, and Maw should have you. For Nod or Sift or Tenn to take you, you'll have to throw down something that's worth a lot of hassle. Maybe a war. And Maw is already spoiling for a war.” Lindy glanced around. “They sent an envoy a few days ago, right into the house, tearing up everything. He was bleeding, disintegrating, crazy. Maybe it was some sort of punishment thing, I don't know, but he cut a swath through a couple of rooms and then vanished. So if they want you, they're ready to go to the mat for you.”

I have something in my pocket, Spengler wanted to say, but didn't. It wasn't the right time, maybe, and he had the odd feeling that too many people would be interested in the envelope.

“What have you got in your pocket?” Spengler jumped. A ragged-haired man – once handsome, but obviously gone to seed, turned fat and shaggy – pointed at him. “What are you thinking about?”

Spengler tried to clear his mind, and blinked as something rushed in. Slip the bottom card up your sleeve with a flick of the middle finger, and cough as you do so to distract the other players. When shuffling, drop the card lightly on top of the deck before you start dealing: the Rhinoceros shuffle, because you poach the horn and it always winds up in your pocket.

“Rhinoceros,” said the fat man. “Have you got an rhinoceros in your pocket?”

“No,” Spengler said. “I'm just happy to see you.” The man nodded and wandered back into the party.

“He can read minds,” Lindy said. “The upper layers, anyway. It's basically a party trick, but when we can sober him up he's useful.”

“One last time,” Spengler said, “I need to see Brass. It's important. I can't tell you why it is, but it is.”

“Trust me,” Lindy said, “also for the last time, you need to figure out what it is you bring with you, and it's gotta be good. For now --” he looked around quickly “-- we have to get you away from Painter and Ogh again. Painter can find your mind, but that's difficult, unless you're staying still or moving in a straight line. Ogh, though... Ogh has your scent, and that's harder to shake.” He crossed the room to a gangly man in a multi-coloured sweater with the elbows missing, tapped his shoulder, and said a few words in his ear. The man smiled and nodded and, dipping a hand into a utility pocket on his oversized construction pants, pulled out a small vial and handed it to Lindy. Lindy returned and handed the vial to Spengler. “This should help,” he said. “Drink this.”

Spengler uncorked it. “It's vile,” he said.

“It should be,” Lindy said. “It'll change the chemical composition of your sweat.” He began to usher Spenger towards the door. “There are too many people here,” he said, “Painter's bound to have his hooks in one or two of them. He can probably see you right now.” Spengler looked around the room. A few people were glancing at him from time to time, probably because he was the New Arrival, but who knew.

“Try to find a change of clothes,” Lindy said, guiding Spengler out the door by the elbow. “Don't go in the subway, no matter what you do.”

“I've already been in the --”

“Those were the dropmines.” Lindy squeezed Spengler's elbow, making him whimper. “They run under the subway. Do not go in the subway. The subway is different.” He looked up at Spengler's face, his eyes burning. He held up his left hand, and Spengler could see the empty fingers on the glove. “Do you understand?”

“No subway,” Spengler said.

“Good,” Lindy said. “You've gotta get moving. Drink that vial, stay low, figure out a goddamn skill and get back to me.”

“There's one thing,” Spengler said.

“What's that?” Lindy asked.

“There's a kid. I lost him. He's about up to my chest, brown hair, wearing a white karate robe. If you see him, hang onto him, would you?”

Lindy frowned. “Don't go in the subway, Spengler.” He turned and in a moment was lost in the party.

Spengler felt his gut seize up. It had been close to a day since he had eaten, by his reckoning, and the alcohol wasn't doing him any favours, to say nothing of the terror gradually crawling up his spine.

Strip off his scalp and feed it to you, Mister Ogh, he thought.

“What?” he said out loud.

Leave enough of him to be useful to Maw, but for the rest – something's listening to us, Mr. Ogh.

“Crap,” Spengler said. It was like a vibration in the ground underneath him, Mr. Painter's voice travelling from the dropmine through the pavement to his shoes, vibrating up his legs to his spine and into the speech centres of his brain. He could feel Mr. Painter gliding along the dropmine towards him, Mr. Ogh panting and grunting beside him, his teeth – steel today, no need to impress the natives, not now that they knew where their quarry was, drunk and lost in the House of Nod – clicking and shining in the black black black...

I believe it's Mr. Spengler. Can you hear me, Mr. Spengler? Because I do believe, Mr. Spengler, that I can hear you. Chatter chatter chatter.

But he wasn't drunk and lost in the house of Nod, which is what he realized he would have been without Lindy's intervention. Which would do no good if Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh found him paralyzed like a terrified rabbit outside the front door. Spengler ran.

And thought of rhinoceros.

TWENTY-THREE

CHANCE MEETING

It wasn't long before Spengler was forced to admit that he wasn't much for running. Wheezing, he slowed down, then stopped, and stretched an arm out against an alley wall to steady himself. A stitch in his side throbbed madly. Spengler had a sudden flashback to gradeschool soccer, which he had hated, and being forced to play defense because he was just not a gifted runner. Nor was he a gifted defenceman, as it turned out, but that's what grade school sports were – a chance for athletic kids to build more character, usually building this character using the charred and scattered bricks of the destroyed characters of the kids that just couldn't run.

Part of him, too, was convinced he was doomed. The fear inside him had been gnawing so long that Spengler felt like there was a hole the size of a breadbox in his soul that was steadily growing bigger. And the part of him that was convinced he was doomed was having a reasonable conversation with the part of him that wanted to slow down and enjoy the scenery.

Spengler had been running for fifteen minutes, trying his best to keep a straight line, but that had been difficult. The City's streets were curved and narrow, winding rather than unfolding, and often terminated in unmarked dead ends, blind alleys, and confused roundabouts with more spokes than a bicycle wheel. Spengler had seen the now-usual mix of people of all races wearing all manner of clothing, as well as some marvelous carriages and once, in the distance, what he thought was a knight in full armour riding a gigantic Clydesdale horse. The vendors, as he ran, were becoming more scattered, and now there were none lining the streets.

The streets themselves had characters, too. At the House of Nod, Spengler had noticed that the streets had been cobbled, like he saw in courtyards sometimes and old movies. He had since run across pavement, Astroturf, grass, mud, sand, brick, gravel, and plain old cart-ruts jostling between buildings. He was on sand now, his feet sinking a little with every step as he hobbled along the alley, his hand tracing the contours of the gigantic grey stones that were mortared together to make the building next to him.

Don't stop running, Mr. Spengler. Mr. Ogh needs the exercise.

Spengler jumped and whirled. There was nobody behind him, but he'd heard the voice as distinctly as if Mr. Painter had crept up behind him and whispered with his steel teeth an inch from his ear. Spengler began to trot again. The buildings he was moving past now were giant mortared granite-and-rock affairs, with broad window casements and hinged windows, some open. If he could climb into one of them, maybe hide inside one of the buildings...

Which building, Mr. Spengler?

“Shuffle,” Spengler said. He let his mind go blank again. Take the top card of the deck and hold it within your outstretched palm facing down. Shuffle the deck normally, keeping the card held in your hand through contraction of muscles below your fingers and above your wrist. Spengler thought of Mr. Painter underneath a blizzard of cards, even though he had only the vaguest idea of what Mr. Painter looked like – mental flashes of gloves, steel teeth, and eyes gifted with cruelty.

What a ridiculous notion, Mr. Spengler. If you want to wish somebody harm...

Spengler thought hard. Mr. Painter being cut by the cards, sliced to ribbons by clubs and diamonds, a heart piercing his chest and a spade in each eye.

Ah!

The connection was cut, and Spengler began to run again. That was interesting. The fear in his gut had subsided considerably, and he could feel Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh more clearly now, somewhere close to the House of Nod themselves and moving fast. Faster than him, at any rate. But now that he had a way, at least a rude and temporary way, of keeping Mr. Painter out of his head, all he had to do was lose Mr. Ogh.

He pulled the vial out of his pocket. He'd not drunk it for reasons he didn't quite know before – fatalism, perhaps, or the frail fingers of Mr. Painter working themselves into his mind even back then – but now he slowed to a trot, pulled the cork out, and emptied the contents into his mouth. It burned: immediately Spengler's eyes began to water, he gagged, and stopped running to hop a few steps in the sand before sinking to his knees.

Lindy had poisoned him, he was sure of it. “Mr. Painter was sure to have his hooks in one or two people at the party.” It was Lindy that was Mr. Painter's patsy, winding Spengler up to send him on a tear through the City for Mr. Ogh's giggles, leaving him with a last-ditch trump card that was actually meant to cripple and paralyze him.

“Hot damn,” Spengler gasped, his tongue on fire. He thought about scooping up some sand and shoving it in his mouth, that through some weird alchemy it might leach off the abominable taste, like garlic, ginger and Tobasco's bastard hate child weaned on fever and radiation.

“Bad drink there, fella?” Spengler looked up through swimming eyes. A man was standing a few feet from him, looking down and smiling, dressed like he was about to step onto a houseboat and drift down the coast with a few bottles of Scotch for company and nothing else on the agenda for weeks. Spengler tried to speak.

“Blargalargh.”

The man nodded. “Bad drink,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder, then looked up and down the street. “Let's get you up,” he said. Leaning over, he grabbed Spengler's hand and hauled him to his knees. Spengler waved him back as he steadied himself and lurched to his feet.

“I'm okay,” he mumbled. And he was, he thought. The fire was fading, the black flashes that had appeared in his eyes had stopped, and he felt... nauseated, but okay.

“You look like hell,” the stranger said.

Spengler felt a familiar tingle in his belly. “Look,” he said, “I really need to get off the street.”

“I hear you.” The stranger smiled – a broad, friendly open smile, setting off crinkled pale blue eyes – and pointed at Spengler with his finger cocked like a gun. “Little bit of heat coming down on you, fella? Making time with another fella's squeeze?”

“Something like that.” The tingle in Spengler's belly was joined by something less familiar, but more urgent. “And I really need to use a bathroom. Really soon.”

“Bing bing bing,” the stranger sang to himself. “Gotta use the loo. Woo woo woo.” It occurred to Spengler that the stranger might be three sheets to the wind himself, and his motivation for helping Spengler might be getting some of whatever could knock a man stiff in the middle of the street in the middle of the day.

The stranger walked Spengler to a door about four buildings up, unlocked the ominous-looking black-grilled gate, and led Spengler up a tight flight of grey stone stairs. “This's me,” the stranger said, unlocking a room. “Bathroom's on your left.”

Spengler walked in. An austere little room, about twelve by twelve, with a bed, easy chair, stove and sink and small bookshelf, greeted him. Next to the window, a saxophone sat on a holder next to a music stand, with some sheet music on it. His need to find the bathroom was pressing enough that Spengler couldn't take time to read the song on the music sheet, but he was curious.

He fled to the bathroom instead, though, where Lindy's vial gave him a lot to think about for the next five minutes. When he emerged, the stranger was sitting in the easy chair, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and gazing out the window across the City skyline.

“Wah hey hey,” the stranger sang. “Have a nice trip, fella?”

“Thanks,” Spengler said. “Emergency.”

“It's all good.” The stranger waved towards the empty bed. “Cool your heels, fella. I get the feeling you might want to keep your noggin bobbin' low for a lick or six, hey hey hey.”

Spengler smiled despite everything. The man had an intense, almost palpable, air of total affability. He was so happy sitting in his easy chair, smoking his cigarette, contemplating the skyline, that Spengler felt some of the knot in his stomach untie and his shoulders, which he realized had been a solid bar of tension, relax a little. “Thanks again,” Spengler said, sinking onto the bed and leaning forward, forearms on his knees. “I've been having a bit of a day, you know?”

“We've all had those, a ring ding ding,” the stranger smiled. “My handle's Cosmo, by the way.” Rather than trying to shake hands or get up to cross the room, he waved languidly, still grinning.

“Spengler,” Spengler said.

“Got a first name, chum? Or a last name, if your parents were cruel, cruel, cruel?”

Spengler frowned. “I don't...” He rubbed his forehead.

“You must be fresh as a daisy in our rotten little garden,” Cosmo said.

“Everyone can tell,” Spengler said. “That's never happened to me before.”

A thousand cities and a thousand names, and I'd always lived in all of them. That was my gift, that was my livelihood – belonging there, belonging anywhere, fitting right in, finding the groove, getting off the bus or the train or the plane and pulling off the air of being the Man with the Plan.

Spengler blinked, shook his head. “I'm usually pretty good at adapting.”

“This place is different,” Cosmo said, still smiling, the smile different in a quiet and subtle way. “This place can turn you around.”

“It already has,” Spengler said.

Cosmo lifted his hand, and something glittered in the air between him and Spengler. Spengler caught it. It was a key. “I've spent eight months in the factories, working all the livelong day, hey hey,” Cosmo said. “I was about to do some vanishing myself, and it looks like you can use a place to cozy up in, hang your hat, call it home, stitch a doily, ho boy.”

“Really?” Spengler looked at the key. “You don't know me.”

Cosmo grinned. “I'll tell you straight, fella, first I just wanted to know if you had more of whatever stuff can knock a man stiff in the middle of the street, middl'a the day. But you seem like a right sort of gent, and I'm a man of great philosophy.” He looked around the room. “Besides, I'm taking my horn with me, wah wah, and there's nothin' else to steal.”

“That'd be great,” Spengler said.

Cosmo stood. “I'm steppin' out,” he said, “for a couple days of sun and song.”

“Where are you going?” Spengler asked. “The map...I mean, there doesn't seem to be anything past the shanties...”

“Vroom vroom vroom,” said Cosmo, “I'm steppin' out, but don't you worry your noodle how Cosmo be doin'.” He grabbed the saxophone, tucked it into a case lying next to the bookcase, pulled a straw boater hat off a coat tree behind the door, and gave Spengler a broad wink. “You mind it and grind it, fella. Don't go in the subway.”

“Wait a minute,” Spengler said. “I've got a ton of questions about this place, and --”

Cosmo glanced at his bare wrist. “Clock's tockin, and I gotta mosey,” he said. “My envelope won't last forever.” He dropped a key on the floor, stepped out the door and closed it behind him.

Spengler walked over, picked up the key, then looked out the window. At some point while he was talking to Cosmo, it had shifted gears to night, and the stars twinkled beyond the skyline. He reeked – of turnips, onion, garlic, and something else. The composition of his sweat was most definitely different, he'd found a way to ward off Mr. Painter (and was this a talent, the kind Lindy said he'd need to get an audience with Brass?) and he had a place to stay. Things were looking up. Granted, he'd lost Clipper, had no idea what was going on, and was being hunted by two psychotics with seeming magic powers, but that, at least, was consistent.

Spengler lay back on the bed, and suddenly realized that he hadn't slept since his arrival, which now seemed like a long time ago.

“Tomorrow,” he said to the empty room. “Tomorrow, I start to figure this out.”

Spengler slept.

TWENTY-FOUR

A DREAM

Spengler dreamt that he was five years old again, sitting on the floor of his bedroom in the dark. In the doorway, Jesus stood smoking a cigarette and shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

“Jesus,” Spengler said. Like in all his dreams where he was a little kid, he didn't actually look like he really did as a little kid – just a kidlike version of his regular head on a freakishly small body, like L'il Archie or a Peanuts character.

“Hey, kid,” Jesus said. The tip of his cigarette glowed amber for a moment in the dark, lighting the Saviour's furrowed brow. “Look, I got to talk to ya.”

“Where's God?” L'il Spengler asked.

“Aw, man,” Jesus said. “That's what I got to...aw, man.” Jesus took a furious drag of the cigarette and exhaled, smoke forming tiny dragons in the air. “Look, kid, God...” He shifted weight again. His robes riffled a little in the air, creating a small gust of wind that chased a dust bunny from out behind the door. “God went to visit some friends for a while, okay? He's off visiting some pals, and he'll be back real soon.”

L'il Spengler stared at Jesus.

“Crap,” Jesus said. “I'm no good at this stuff.” He coughed for a second, then cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said. “God's visiting some friends, and then, uh, he said he might go live with Aunt Mildred for a while. She's real lonely, and she'd really appreciate the company, you know? Living all by herself like that. So God thought he'd be nice and go live with Aunt Mildred for a while. He's nice, God. Real nice.”

L'il Spengler felt an itching at the back of this throat, a tickle from the smoke of Jesus' cigarette, which was filling the room rapidly.

“And,” Jesus said, tapping his fingers on the door, “and God sometimes likes to be by himself for a while. It's quite common for God to wander off and spend a couple of weeks just touring around. I wouldn't be surprised if God is gone for over a month and then just pops up done day, just like that!” Jesus snapped his fingers and laughed. “Ha ha ha!” It sounded forced. “God'll come right back before you know it, just you wait and see.”

L'il Spengler felt tears welling up in his eyes. “Where's God, Jesus?”

Jesus blinked. “Uh. God's on the roof and we can't get him down.”

“But where on the roof?”

“The important thing,” Jesus pronounced, stubbing the filter of his cigarette out on the hardwood floor with his sandal, “is that God is in a better place.”

“On the roof?”

Jesus frowned. “Okay, look,” he said. “I don't think God's coming back.”

“Why not?” L'il Spengler desperately did not want to cry, but didn't know if he could stop himself.

“It's complicated,” Jesus said. “You'll understand when you're older.”

“No I won't,” L'il Spengler whispered.

Jesus shut the door. “Sorry,” he said from behind it, his voice muffled.

Spengler woke up.

TWENTY-FIVE

THE LAST REMAINING MEMBER OF THE RICK JAMES FAN CLUB

“What is that?” Inspector Abronsias demanded.

“It's a new thing, sir,” Hyves said. “It's called 'rock and roll.' The boys down in the motor pool are all gaga over it.”

Inspector Abronsias scowled. “You're in a snappy mood, Hyves,” he said.

Hyves punched the stereo down two notches and leaned into a left turn. Nobody under Abronsias had ever driven a standard cruiser; instead, Abronsias 'requisitioned' vehicles that had been claimed from the streets and never found or requested by their owners. This inevitably resulted in an interesting array of vehicles being assigned to his men: Hyves, for instance, was driving a 1983 Chevy Impala with manual steering. He grunted slightly as he turned the wheel hand-over-hand to make a right down a back alley.

“I have something for you, sir,” Hyves said. “I think you'll be pleased.”

“Let's hope,” Inspector Abronsias said.

Hyves wrenched the wheel again, taking the truck from a grimy side street into a grimier alley between a small diner and what looked like a used – make that devastated – clothing store.

“If you're taking me to see your wild rat collection, I'll be very disappointed,” Inspector Abronsias said.

“Here we are,” Hyves said, pulling up to a screen door.

“Where we are?” Inspector Abronsias demanded.

“Spengler's,” Hyves said, grinning. “He rents a room in here. Stands to reason there's no front door.”

“You're kidding me,” Inspector Abronsias said. He looked at the door, and over his shoulder at the alley. “How did you find this?”

Hyves looked a bit sheepish. “Playing poker, sir. There's a regular circuit of guys I knew in high school that play every week, and some of them play pretty heavy. I asked if any of them had ever been fleeced by a guy of Spengler's description, and a couple of 'em had. One even tailed him home, to this place, but realized he didn't have it in him to fight or steal and just forgot about it.”

Inspector Abronsias cocked a weary eye. “Playing cards for money, Hyves?”

“Yes sir,” Hyves said quietly.

“Next time,” Inspector Abronsias said, “take fifty bucks out of petty cash and give me a chit for 'research.' This is good.”

“Thank you, sir.” For a glimmer of a moment, Hyves actually seemed to be happy.

“Shall we?” Inspector Abronsias said. Hyves was already stepping out of the car.

The door was, unsurprisingly, locked. Behind the screen door was a solid-core steel-belted security door with three deadbolts on it. Inspector Abronsias grimaced. “Fetch my tool kit, would you, lad? It's in the trunk.”

Hyves went to get the tool kit, and Inspector Abronsias pressed his palm against each of the locks in turn, breathing against the back of his hand. He felt the tumblers click and turn under each one, each breath drawing the bolt further and further back out of the frame.

“Here you are, sir,” Hyves said, and handed Inspector Abronsias a small sealskin bag. Inspector Abronsias rummaged through it a moment, drew out a schoolboy's compass, and wiggled it in each lock for a few seconds for show.

“There we are,” the Inspector said, and opened the door. Hyves goggled.

“Sir...” he said.

“It's all in the wrist, Hyves.” Inspector Abronsias stepped inside.

Inside, the building was far from opulent, but extravagant by slum standards. It was astonishingly clean, and painted in a Mediterranean blend of off-whites and pale blues, with a large lobby furnished with a couple of deep-scarlet couches and a broad staircase leading upwards to the left.

“Sir, we don't have a warrant,” Hyves said.

“No front door, eh?” Inspector Abronsias said. He looked around. There was indeed only one door, the one they had just come in. “That's a clear violation of the fire code.”

He began to walk up the stairs, Hyves right behind. “I don't suppose your friends got a room number,” he said.

“No sir,” Hyves said.

“Good enough,” Inspector Abronsias said. “I don't expect this is the sort of place where they put people's names on little cards by the doors.”

Oddly enough, it was.

“Well,” Inspector Abronsias said, “this is unexpected.” The first door on the second floor of the building had J. KEENE neatly stenciled on a white index card next to it.

“I suppose tenants don't want people kicking in the wrong door and beating the hell out of them for something they didn't do,” Hyves said. “I imagine that would happen a lot if you were close to the stairs.”

“These might be pseudonyms,” the Inspector said, walking down the hall and looking left and right at the index cards. At the end, he turned around and came back. “Up to the next floor,” he said, “maybe--”

A door opened next to an index card reading H. REVENSTOCK, and Darwin Spengler stepped out, dressed in an immaculate grey suit and light red tie. His hair had been cut shorter than in the photos, and he had grown a 'soul patch' – a small tuft of hair above his chin, below his lower lip – but it was unmistakably him.

Darwin Spengler looked at Hyves, wrinkling his nose as though he smelled cop, and then looked over at Inspector Abronsias and grinned.

“Dad,” he said. “Sorry I missed your birthday. Come on in and I'll make you a drink.”

“You've missed about fifteen,” Inspector Abronsias said, “not that I've been counting.”

“Excuse me?” Hyves said. He tried very, very hard not to faint.

TWENTY-SIX

THE BUSINESS OF NO BUSINESS

Spengler rubbed his eyes and his nose. He'd half-expected to wake up somewhere else, or at least arise to Mr. Painter's ghastly grin and Mr. Ogh's grunting meaty breath. But there was nothing in Cosmo's room except the furniture, music stand, and books on the bookshelf and scattered here and there.

Getting up, Spengler looked for a clock, but couldn't find one. He hadn't seen a clock since he arrived in the City, he realized. Looking outside, he tried to judge time from the sky, but it was once again uniformly light.

“At least I know it's day,” Spengler said. His stomach rumbled. He hadn't eaten anything since the soup-stew in the shanties, and that had been two nights ago. There didn't seem to be much of a kitchen there, just a small icebox (a real icebox with real ice, not a refrigerator). No electrical outlets either, Spengler noted. Cosmo was a real low-tech wonder.

The icebox was barren, and the only cupboard Spengler could find was a closet filled with Cosmo's clothes – largely slacks and white jackets with an assortment of solid-colour button-up shirts and no ties anywhere in evidence.

“Come on, food,” Spengler said. He remembered Lindy's advice, though, about finding a change of clothes, and picked a pair of pants, a jacket, and a red shirt off the rack.

“Breezing it through, bluffing it out, letting it slide,” Spengler said. He looked himself up and down in the bathroom while shaving and then, on a whim, decided to start growing a goatee. Anything to be a little less obviously Spengler out there on the streets, at least while Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh were looking for him.

His stomach grumbled again. “I know, I know,” Spengler muttered. He began to look around the apartment for money, but stopped himself. Borrowing clothes was one thing, but Cosmo was a friend, not

a mark

his benefactor.

From his old suit jacket, Spengler took his map, the empty vial, and checked his pockets for other things he needed. He pulled the letter out and stared at it.

“Huh,” he said.

It had entirely slipped his mind, which was worrisome. “I need to get this to Brass,” Spengler said, cementing it in his mind. “I need to get this to Brass.” His thoughts went back to the House of Nod and Lindy. It would be impossible to get an audience with Brass without some sort of skill that could be an asset to the House, and without becoming a member of the House, it was only a matter of time before he was picked up by Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh. Spengler sniffed himself. There was no way of knowing how long the effects of the vial would last, but probably no longer than food...twelve hours? Twenty-four? Had he already slept through the vial's effectiveness, and would be leaving his spoor all over the street?

Returning to the washroom, Spengler looked for some sort of cologne or perfume, but there was none. He grimaced. There was nothing for it: he had to get back to the House of Nod and demand an audience with Brass, but more forcefully this time.

Mr. Spengler, said a voice in his head. Things have changed.

CARDS! Spengler mind-shouted, and was gratified to feel a door slam down somewhere in the distance. If Mr. Painter was still trying to reach his brain, it meant that Mr. Ogh had lost the scent. Still, Spengler had no idea how it worked, but he imagined it could be something like radar, and Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh could be triangulating on him at the moment.

“But they don't care for daylight,” Spengler said to himself, not knowing how he knew that. It seemed like common knowledge, suddenly. “The House of Maw is a night house,” Spengler said, as though he were reciting something learned in school. “The House of Maw comes alive after dark and sows order across the chaos of the City.”

He blinked. Was the City seeping into him? Another mystery. The important thing now was to keep moving, keep Mr. Painter from getting a fix on him, and to get back to this Brass man before he got caught.

Stepping out onto the sandy street, Spengler realized that part of the problem was that he didn't know exactly how he had gotten where he was. He'd been running in a near-blind panic, trying to keep ahead of the House of Maw, when Cosmo had found him half-dead on the street. His stomach growled again. “Patience,” Spengler said.

That's what maps were for. Spengler walked up the street to an intersection, then unfolded his map and looked for Cobblepenny Lane and Franklin Way on it. After some hunting, he found the intersection, then started tracing his steps back to the House of Nod. There was no obvious path – large blocks of buildings and spans of black space crisscrossed the map between him and the House – but there must have been alleys or something to get him from there to here, Spengler reasoned, and began walking towards what he reckoned was the right direction.

A light rumbling from underneath tickled his feet as something passed by underground. Spengler looked up the street and saw a familiar circle-and-bar metro sign with stairs leading down below street level.

“Don't go in the subway,” Spengler said. It seemed to be the City's mantra so far. Still... he walked to the edge of the stairs and looked down. The map showed that he'd run further and longer than he remembered, which stood to reason since he'd arrived at Cosmo's only shortly before nightfall. It would be a long and risky walk back to the House of Nod, with Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh out looking for him, and transit could...

A truck put-putted by him, some '50s-style Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang contest winner, and broke his reverie. Better to thumb it than defy the only consistent piece of homespun wisdom he'd been given, Spengler thought, and gave the subway one last glance.

At the bottom of the stairs down to the subway a small boy ran across the shaft of light, so fast that Spenger barely had time to register him. “Hey,” he called down. “I don't think you're supposed to be down there.”

There was no reply. Spengler took one step down. “Hello?” he called. “Kid?”

A thin moan drifted up the stairs, the sound of a child in pain, but frightened and keeping it in. Spengler took another step. “Hey,” he called, “are you okay?”

Another child stepped into the shaft of light and looked up at Spengler. Spengler realized with a start first that it was wearing a white gi, and second that it was Clipper. “Clipper,” he said, jogging down the stairs, “what are you--”

When he was near the bottom of the stairs, Clipper lunged at him, baring his teeth, and Spengler shrieked and pulled back. Clipper snapped his teeth at Spengler's hands. They'd been filed down into points, Spengler saw with horrible clarity, and something had been done to Clipper's eyes. They were larger, luminous, and black as wet tar.

Clipper snapped again at Spengler, and Spengler danced up a step. “Clipper,” he said, “what happened to you?”

Another child appeared beside Clipper, a small girl with tousled blonde hair, and grinned up at Spengler with the same filed teeth, the same black-hole eyes. Then she scowled at Clipper. “Too soon,” she said, “he'll never play now.”

Clippe hissed, and Spengler retreated a few steps. “Don't worry, buddy,” he called down, stepping further and further into the light they seemed to shun. “I'll get a rescue party or something, Clipper.” Spengler felt ridiculous and ashamed. “I'll come back for you.”

Spengler stepped back into the light.

“You know, you really shouldn't go into the subway,” somebody said behind him. Spengler turned. He recognized the man from the House of Nod, tall and paunchy with a shock of dark hair cascading off his head and stopping between his neck and shoulders. He was wearing a dark cape and carrying a silver-handled walking stick. His expression was somewhere between a smirk and a sob, which is what Spengler suspected he always looked like.

“I heard that,” Spengler said. “I saw someone I knew.”

The man nodded. “The Milk Carton Kids,” he said, grimacing. “Personally, I find the name abhorrent. Makes them sound rawther collectible. The only place I think children should be collected is a zoo, until they have an adequate sense of style. Then they may clean my chambers.” He laughed. “Hem hem hem.”

“Milk Carton Kids?” Spengler looked behind him.

“Orphans, mostly,” the man said. “Unfortunates with nowhere else to go, wandering alone. They're taken and added to the general collection. I hear,” and the man leaned in, sharing a ghastly smile, “they're cannibals.”

“No kidding,” Spengler said.

“They live in the subways and can't abide light, so they leave us alone during the day,” the man said. “Thank God.”

“God is dead,” Spengler said, remembering his dream.

“Oh?” The man dipped into his pocket, pulled out a small silver-gilded box, and withdrew from it a pinch of black powder, which he snorted from his fingers. “Which one?”

“What?”

“Which one?” The tall man shrugged. “Uranus is ailing, but he always is, and Lampius hasn't been manifesting for ages, but nobody really notices. Or is it one of the others? I suppose I could find out from the papers, but they're so tawdry. One must never concern oneself with the mundane, unless of course it is fashionable.” He paused. “Hem hem hem.”

“I'm Spengler,” Spengler said, giving up. “I'm new here. Any idea where I could find some food?”

“Dorian,” the tall man said, extending a languid hand. Spengler shook it. “The vendors are never in short supply of food,” he said.

“But I'm in short supply of currency,” Spengler said.

Dorian grinned, slightly sinister. “I suppose you could owe them one,” he said.

“That's another thing,” Spengler said. “What is it with owing people favours here? It's like giving up your firstborn or something.”

“Ah,” Dorian said, “you are.”

“What?” Spengler goggled.

Dorian stretched up to full height – which was considerable, Spengler realized – then resumed what Spenger assumed to be his usual slight slouch. “If you owe somebody one, they can ask for anything,” he said, “and if it won't cause you loss of life or limb, you must do it.”

“Like what?” Spengler asked. “Like just giving somebody your child?”

“If that's the one requested,” Dorian said. “Otherwise that might just be considered extremely fortunate, particularly if you get something pleasant in exchange like a watch-fob or perhaps a puppy. Hem hem hem.”

“Is there anywhere I could get food without selling my soul to a shwarma merchant?” Spengler asked.

“You could always --” the expression on Dorian's face became a bona fide sneer momentarily -- “get a job.”

“Right,” Spengler said.

“Well, ta,” Dorian said, turning. He tapped his walking stick on the sand, which failed to produce the clicking sound he obviously wanted. “Well, ta,” he said again.

“How do I get from here to the House of Nod?” Spengler asked.

“If you don't have money, I imagine you walk rather a long way,” Dorian said, strolling away. “Hem hem hem.”

“And how do I get to see Brass?” Spengler demanded of his back.

“With immense luck, good fortune, and the blessing of a god,” Dorian said, looking back. “I suggest Campion, as he's always looking for a bit of manual labour. He'll feed you, too.”

“Thanks,” Spengler called.

“You owe me one,” Dorian said, turning. He smiled at Spengler's blanching. “That only works if you agree to it, you know. Or if you say it yourself without thinking, which I suspect is the state in which most people say most things. Hem hem hem.”

“Right,” Spengler said.

Dorian turned, again, and walked away.

“Where do I find Campion?” Spengler called.

Dorian kept walking.

TWENTY-SEVEN

DOWN IN OUT IN WHEREVER THIS IS

“Mr. Painter.” Mr. Ogh crouched in the bar booth behind a multi-pint glass of beer. It was the darkest place they could find, but Mr. Ogh's skin still burned under the bar's dim light, itching and retreating, seeking the comfort of the vats. Mr. Painter sat across the booth from Mr. Ogh, his eyes closed and lips twitching slightly. “Mr. Painter,” Mr. Ogh snarled. “What are we doing here? He's beyond our reach now.”

Mr. Painter opened his eyes, pale grey like a dead November sky, and attempted a smile. It came out wan and treacly. “We are abiding, Mr. Ogh. We are abiding.”

“But there's no point,” Mr. Ogh said plaintively. “We may as well return...”

“New orders,” Mr. Painter said, grimacing and tapping his leathery skull. “We are to retrieve Mr. Spengler, regardless of the present circumstances.”

Mr. Ogh blinked. “That could mean war,” he said.

Mr. Painter smiled savagely this time. “That's the point, I think, Mr. Ogh. Mr. Spengler has no idea how important he is to the House. If bringing him back causes war, having him means it's a war we'll win.”

Mr. Ogh frowned. His skin itched, he'd been outside (horrors!) all day, and he wasn't accustomed to spending this long away from the vats. They'd spent a long and fruitless day looking after being so close, after having him in their grasp, losing both trails, first Mr. Painter's connection to Mr. Spengler's mind (and there was something odd about that, too, the way Mr. Painter dodged the issue of how he had lost the connection, like a dime or an extra shoelace, and looked pained every time he said it) and then Mr. Ogh's scent of the trail (which had exploded, quite literally, in the middle of the street in a riot of garlic and cayenne, and then just completely vanished the day before). And then, then, then the greatest obstacle of all, the one Mr. Ogh chose not to think about, the one that could mean war and blood, which Mr. Ogh normally enjoyed but on this particular occasion found a little dreadful.

“I don't want to find him, Mr. Painter,” Mr. Ogh said, and was disgusted at how plaintive his voice sounded. This was not Mr. Ogh, was it? Mr. Ogh made people cry, he didn't cry himself, and he certainly didn't complain. But it was daylight, they were trapped in the City with no home to return to, his body was crying for the dark succor of the vats, and his skin itched.

“I know.” Mr. Painter's voice was a low hiss. “I am acutely aware of the situation, Mr. Ogh, having been present when our marching orders were first and I must say forcefully delivered.” He clicked his teeth in irritation. “And before you ask, yes, my body also feels the need to return to the vats for revivification sometime within the not-so-distant future.”

Mr. Painter stared down the length of the bar. The bartender, a fat and balding man in shirtsleeves with a fuzz of stubble across his chin, had looked at Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh oddly as they had walked in, but not with fear. Mr. Painter desperately wanted to show the barkeep what he had to fear, letting Mr. Ogh do some meatwork to get his spirits back up, but side endeavours had been expressly forbidden, and he was forced to look back at Mr. Ogh with simmering frustration.

“Are you sure you've scented everything?” he asked. “Mr. Spengler himself can't be found via scent, but what about his clothing? His shoes? Something he is carrying?”

Mr. Ogh frowned and shrugged. “It all disappeared,” he said. “It was like an explosion of pepper, then nothing at all. No clothes, nothing.”

Mr. Painter scowled. “Check his hand again.”

Mr. Ogh reached into his pocket and withdrew a human hand, neatly severed at the wrist, and placed it on the table. It was tiny in his massive grip, but a nice enough hand in itself, a man's hand with once-manicured nails now slightly ragged, a scratch here and there but nothing serious. Mr. Ogh sniffed deeply at it.

“I'm still not getting anything off it,” Mr. Ogh said. “It's like he's got no smell.” He stared at the hand lying on the table. “Can't I eat it?”

“No,” Mr. Painter said crossly. “Maybe as it decomposes you'll get a better read of his scent.” Mr. Ogh took the hand and forlornly put it back in his pocket.

Mr. Ogh tapped his forehead with a thick finger. “Why can't you...”

“I just can't.” Mr. Painter winced slightly, which did not escape Mr. Ogh's notice. Burnt pride, perhaps?

“Well,” Mr. Ogh stood up and finished the rest of his massive beer, “we'd best get to looking again. Sun or no.”

Mr. Painter got to his feet slowly, grimacing. “We'll ask people if they've seen him,” he said. “Perhaps somebody has conversed him that will be willing to impart information to our most glorious selves, a woman that he has taken a shine to, perhaps, or a small child playing in the...” Mr. Painter stopped talking.

“Mr. Painter,” Mr. Ogh said.

Mr. Painter reached up and drummed the top of his head with a skeletal hand. “The man and woman in the huts,” he said. “There was something they did.”

A sudden eruption of itching made Mr. Ogh turn in circles like a dog, trying to reach a spot in the middle of his spine. “Mr. Painter,” he insisted.

“He offered me.” Mr. Painter was bringing back memories now, never easy for a member of the House of Maw, dredging a memory up from the slick oily waste of his mind. “He offered me his child. But his child. But his child.”

Mr. Ogh noticed that his hand was thinner than it had been a dayshift before. The time away from the vats was taking its toll.

“But his child...had gone...with Spengler.” Mr. Painter grinned. “Mr. Ogh, I believe I have found a method of tracking our Mr. Spengler. I believe he has taken a liability with him.”

“A liability?” Mr. Ogh asked.

“I believe he has a boy in tow,” Mr. Painter explained. “A child he rescued from the scrubs before our arrival, the boy of those we... interrogated.” Mr. Painter's yellowing tongue flickered out to run over his thin lips. “I believe we can use the boy to find him.”

Mr. Ogh was getting excited despite himself. Mr. Painter had been morose, which was not at all Mr. Painter, and seeing that edge creep back into his eyes was invigorating. “But what if Mr. Spengler ditched the kid?” Mr. Ogh asked.

“Mr. Spengler would not 'ditch' a child,” Mr. Painter stated confidently. “He fancies himself a hero, I think, and was sought out by Mr. Cahill, besides. Mr. Spengler would never abandon a child to the untender mercies of the City.”

“So?” Mr. Ogh said. “Trail's cold now.”

“One moment,” Mr. Painter said. He sat back down, folded his hands on the table, bent his head low, and breathed, a sound like the air escaping from an inexplicably evil balloon. Murky memories surfaced from his brain, and Mr. Painter's yellow-stained gloves flickered through every one, looking for the mind of a man named Ishmael that he had eaten two nights before. “Ah,” he said. The man had been terrified, babbling, offering Mr. Painter his youngest son if Mr. Painter would only, would only...

Mr. Painter grabbed the memory and twisted it, turning it 180 degrees so he could see it from the dweller's side. What was he offering, exactly? Through the shadow of his mind, Mr. Painter saw Clipper – brown hair, white gi – and fixed the memory in his brain, dragging it like a barnacled treasure up from the dim recesses of his mind.

“I have him,” Mr. Painter told Mr. Ogh triumphantly. “We can find this child, no matter where in the City he hides.”

“You can't find Mr. Spengler,” Mr. Ogh grunted.

Mr. Painter snarled. “Be quiet,” he said.

Grimacing against the even light of day, Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh went hunting once again.

TWENTY-EIGHT

BEAUROCRATIC PSYCHADELIC-COLOURED TAPE

“Look,” Spengler said, an impatient edge to his voice, “I just need to see him for a second.”

“What can you do?” the even voice came back. It belonged to a short clerk, a roundfaced man with wire-rimmed spectacles, forever glancing down and back up from a clipboard that seemed to track the seconds going by. “What can you bring to our House?”

“I have a message for him,” Spengler said. He clasped both hand together in front of him, between prayer and supplication.

“Everybody has a message for Brass,” the man said. “What's your talent?”

“Okay, well,” Spengler said. “I think I'm sort of psychic.”

The little man stared at him.

“And I can juggle.”

The little man frowned.

“Fine, fine.” Spengler leaned forward. “I'm working for Campion,” he said, taking a chance on some name-dropping. “That's sort of on the q.t.”

“In what capacity?” The little man's frowned deepened. “I don't know that being a runner in one of the scrubbers would make you...”

Spengler wracked his brain, looking for a magic word. You know a word, a word that describes absolutely nothing and yet wields influence, a word from before this place, . a ridiculously vague word, a word that has seen you through a thousand tiny grifts...

“Consultant,” he said. “I'm a consultant.”

The little man smiled. “Well in that case,” he said.

Spengler breathed an interior sigh. At last. He'd been afraid that he'd have to trudge the City looking for this Campion, glancing over his shoulder for Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh, maybe indulging in backbreaking labour or some sort of bizarre new form of “owing-one” psychological and spiritual bondage before finally getting to see Brass. This was, in the end, a profound relief.

The little man led Spengler through various corridors, down some stairs, through a short tunnel, and up to the inside of storm cellar doors, a crack of light shining through between them. There was a heavy thudding sound from outside, a crack-whup about every five seconds or so, accompanied by the sound of heavy breathing.

“Brass is out there,” the little man said. Crack-whup. “I'll leave you now.”

“What's going on out there?” Spengler asked. Crack-whup.

The little man smiled ingratiatingly. “I prefer not to go out when Brass is doing that,” he said. “I know it's not supposed to be dangerous, but even so.”

Spengler was distracted by a crack with no whup. “Come on, you son of a bitch, I'm going to kick your ass to the House of Maw,” a low voice growled.

“What's going on out there?” Spengler asked again. “Is he talking about me? What is he doing?”

Crack-no-whup. “I will destroy you,” the low voice said again, hoarse and angry.

“You have seven minutes,” the little man said. “Good luck.”

Crack-whup. “Now I got you.” The voice from outside was still low, but triumphant. “Not so smart now, are you?”

Spengler heard the little man scuttle back down the tunnel behind him. Grimacing, he put one hand on the storm door and pushed it up, opening it into the light.

TWENTY-NINE

BRASS AT LAST

The first Spengler saw of Brass was an elbow. A gleaming brass elbow.

He could only see an elbow because everything else in the yard seemed to be made of stacked wood. Piles of wood obscured Spengler's view of whatever lay at the edges of the courtyard, the walls, and Brass himself. Crack-whup. The elbow vanished.

“Brass?” Spengler called. “Uh. Mister Brass?”

“Just Brass,” the low voice called back, throaty. “Brass like ass, not brahss like moss.” Crack-whup. “Come around here.”

Spengler walked around one of the piles of wood. It was freshly split, judging from the bare white edges of it, and Brass stood in between two piles of wood facing away from Spengler, a mammoth pile of split wood on his right, towards Spengler and the House of Nod, and another pile of more significant-sized logs to his left. As Spengler watched, Brass hefted an axe over his head and brought it down on a log on the chopping block in front of him, dashing it neatly in two. Crack-whup.

Brass was made of brass. It seemed like it, at least: it wasn't a deep tan, the man's skin looked like steel and gleamed in the sunlight like it had been recently oiled. Spengler thought of the last time he'd been to a symphony and seen the array of instruments glittering in the stagelights: it was like they'd been poured into the mold of a man and cast, and that man was wearing torn jeans and a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off, and chopping wood right in front of him.

Leaning the axe against the chopping block and turning, Brass grinned. His teeth, too, were metallic, as were his eyes and, Spengler assumed, his tongue. He resisted an impulse to stoop and look up the man's nose.

“I chop all the wood for the House,” Brass said. “Keeps me busy and gives me something hands-on to do.” He extended a hand for Spengler to shake, and Spengler took it. It was cool, and Brass' grip was bonecrushing as he pumped Spengler's hand... not deliberately to intimidate, Spengler thought, just exuberant and terrifyingly strong. “Administration work needs to be done, but it's mostly just gab, and I can do it and this at the same time.” Brass turned back and picked up the axe with one hand, using the other to seize a piece of wood by the top and haul it up onto the chopping block. He raised the axe and brought it down. Crack-whup. “What can I do you for, kid?”

“I want to join the House of Nod,” Spengler said. “And I have something for you.”

Brass turned around and looked at him for a second. “How long did Mitty give you with me?”

“Seven minutes,” Spengler said.

“That was six minutes too many,” Brass said. “The answer is no.” Crack-whup. “What have you got for me?”

“What?” Spengler felt like he'd been punched in the head. “Why not?”

Brass counted points with axeblows. “First,” crack-whup, “you've got the stink of Maw all over you. Second,” crack-whup, “you're not an artist. Third,” crack-whup, “you want to join to avoid trouble, which is a lousy reason to do anything.”

“You're an artist?” Spengler asked.

Brass raised the axe and brought it up and down on a piece of wood he was chopping several times, so fast Spengler could barely see it move. He tossed something over his shoulder, which Spengler caught: a small rough-strokes wooden replica of a building that Spengler recognized as the Spire that dominated the City's skyline.

“Keep that,” Brass said. “It's yours.”

“Thanks,” Spengler said.

“Listen, kid.” Brass set the axe down again and turned. “You're not an artist. I can tell these things, okay? You get a sense. You've been marked for Maw, and even if you weren't, the only art you know would be charitably called 'storytelling for immediate profit.' You got me?”

Spengler shrugged.

“If you really want to avoid Maw, I suggest you try Sift. They're a mercantile house, and always need some fast thinkers and quick dealers,” Brass said. He extended his hand. “What have you got for me?”

“I was kind of hoping to use that as leverage,” Spengler said, taking a step back.

“If you have something for me, it's because you told someone you'd bring me something,” Brass said. “And in this case dishonesty will not only get you nowhere, it'll get you a punch in the kisser. You got me?”

Spengler pulled the letter out of his pocket and handed it over. “So where did you come from?” he asked. “I've seen a lot of people in this city, but none...”

“Yeah, the personifications don't mix with the fleshies a lot,” Brass said. “I was the Spirit of Industry for a couple of hundred years in Europe and bits of North America, but that sort of dried up after Expo '67, so I came here.”

“Oh,” Spengler said.

Brass ripped open the envelope, pulled out the letter within, and started reading.

“Crap,” he said. He looked at Spengler. “Good job for you I don't shoot the messenger.”

Spengler stood and waited. Brass kept reading. Finally, he crumpled the letter in a metallic fist, shoved it in his pocket, and looked up at Spengler.

“What'd it say?” Spengler asked.

Brass' arm shot out, grabbing Spengler's upper arm and pulling him close, almost face to face. Spengler gasped. Brass' grip was cold, and there was something unreadable in his eyes as his other hand gripped the top of Spengler's head like a strongman picking up bowling balls without using the holes. Brass squeezed slightly, both the arm and the head, and Spengler felt dizzy.

In a voice Spengler did not recognize, using words Spengler did not understand, Brass chanted a few lines of what sounded like iambic pentameter in Martian. Spengler felt a deep rattle inside his body, mounting from the base of his spine, shaking his lungs and throat, and finally chattering his teeth. Brass became a blur as Spengler's head vibrated up and down like a paintshaker, despite Brass' best efforts to keep it still. There was a burning sensation in his brain, a fire behind his tongue, and it hurt to breathe, the air was so cold reaching his lungs.

Brass released Spengler, who staggered back, bent over to support himself with his hands on his knees, and wheezed.

“Welcome to the House of Nod,” Brass said.

THIRTY

WELCOME TO THE FUN FACTORY

“This is the fireplace,” Brass said. “It'll be your job to keep it stocked. Winter's almost on us, and it gets cold here. Real cold, and this fireplace feeds the heat for the entire house. I'm sure you noticed,” he said drily, “that the house is big.”

Spengler had noticed. His feet were sore, and his eyes even more so, after a six-hour tour through the House of Nod. It was a labyrinth, a circus, a hostel and, it seemed, much more besides. A countless parade of people had been trooping around the halls, the rooms, and up and down endless staircases. There was no way that this much house could fit in the structure that Spengler had seen outside, and he'd wondered many times over the past few hours if the House's builders had knocked walls through into adjoining buildings, but, he kept reminding himself, the house was free-standing. It was too big. It was impossibly big.

“How can the house be this big?” he asked Brass. “I mean, the house is only...”

“Try not to think about it,” Brass said, “you'll only get frustrated. Trust me.” He gestured towards the fireplace. It was singularly massive, large enough to spit-roast a cow in, and an immense blackened steel grate sprawled across its bottom. “This is the only thing you need to think about, got me?”

It was the most Spengler had got out of Brass since his tour of the House had begun – the metal man was taciturn at best, surly at worst. “I got you,” Spengler said. “I'm in charge of stoking the fire.”

“Not just you,” Brass said, “you'll be working with Orville and Fletch. You'll like Fletch. He's an ass.”

“What does everyone else do here?” Spengler asked. “All these people can't possibly have jobs...”

“Everyone has a job.” Brass glared at Spengler, then turned and stalked towards one of the six doors to the mammoth room. “This place is a ship, Spengler. Got me? It's a good place to be, but if everybody doesn't work, we all sink.” Spengler followed him to the door, and Brass turned and stabbed him in the chest with his finger. Spengler thought he felt a rib rack.

“I am not happy about this,” Brass said. “I don't know what you have on Cahill, but I pay what I owe. But I don't have to be happy about it.”

“I don't even know the guy,” Spengler said. “I just met him on the road. He was just standing there, like...” Spengler stopped and lifted his eyes, looking at the ceiling. It was vaulted in the fireplace room, and Spengler could see a network of vents coming out of the chimney of the fireplace, angling sharply down and then bending on hairpins towards the ceiling, which they fled into and disappeared. “Like he was waiting for me.”

Brass shrugged. “Let's go.”

“What was in that letter?” Spengler asked. “What did Cahill say to convince you to let me in?”

Brass held Spengler's eyes for a full ten seconds. Spengler saw that they were like the rest of him – brass irises, flecked with rust and copper-green. “I owed him one,” Brass said. “And that was it.”

Spengler swallowed.

“Let's go,” Brass said again. “I have sixty more rooms to show you and negative ten minutes to do it in. You get the wood from the back lot, bring it in here, chuck it in the fireplace. Orville and Fletch will show you the ropes a couple of times.” He glared. “A couple more times if you're stupid.”

Brass walked out of the room. Spengler followed.

“Look,” Spengler said to his broad and retreating back. “I'm going to pull my weight, okay? I'm sorry if I'm not in under circumstances you like. But I'm going to pull my weight.”

“Whatever,” Brass said.

“You can be a pissant if you want.” Spengler felt his face getting red. “Go ahead and be a jackass, but I'm telling you that I want to be here, I like being here, and I will work to stay here.”

Brass glanced over his shoulder, striding forward. “You're a coaster, Spengler,” he said. “I know you. I've known you a thousand times over a hundred years, and you're a coaster.”

“That's what Lindy said,” Spengler said.

“He's entitled to an opinion,” Brass said. “He's earned his stripes.”

Brass kept leading Spengler down twisting hallways, through doors of every kind – arched, swinging, even a saloon-type setup with two swinging doors leading into a room where a few fat kids dressed in striped shirts and fezes sat on plump couches sucking on water pipes and discussing Francis Bacon. Spengler wondered how he would remember to even find the fireplace, and realized that he had a perfect map of the House of Nod forming in his head with every step they took: every room that Brass showed him wasn't like new territory, but like a reminder. He had always known the House of Nod, and he had forgotten, and this was bringing it all back.

Had Brass done that to his mind with that touch, those strange words, or had it always been there? Spengler looked after the stomping Spirit of Industry in wonder. On his part, Brass didn't seem to care. He finally flung open another door leading into a bare room with no window and four bunkbeds, two against each wall. There was a wooden dresser at the end of the room. “This is where you sleep,” he said. “You'll have three bunkmates, two of whom you'll meet soon enough. That,” he said, gesturing towards a figure on the bunks, so motionless that Spengler had failed to register him upon entering the room, “is Lee.”

Spengler walked over to the man, who was sitting crosslegged on a top bunk, eyes closed, barely breathing. “Hi,” he said, and extended a hand.

There was a sudden pain in his head, and stars exploded in his eyes. Spengler reeled, grabbing the back of his skull where Brass had smacked him. “What the hell?” he demanded angrily.

“Don't talk to Lee,” Brass said. “Don't touch Lee, don't talk to Lee, don't disturb Lee in any way, shape or form. Got me?”

“What the hell is wrong with him?” Spengler asked in a lower voice. Brass turned on his heel and left the room, leaving Spengler to chase after him.

In the hall, Brass started talking over his shoulder again. “Lee has full control over his body,” Brass said. “Years back, he began meditating as a way to control his heartbeat, regulate his pulse. Body art, you know? The metabolism as a canvas. But one day, we don't know how, he got full access.”

“Full access?” Brass led Spengler up a tight set of winding stairs, moving so quickly Spengler began to pant.

“Full access,” Brass said. “He can control his heartbeat, his pulse, his breathing, every muscle in his body. Everything.”

“And?”

“It's all conscious.” Brass exited the stairwell into a long, thin hall lined with canvases. There were no doors in the hall, except for the one it terminated at, sixty feet away. “Lee has to tell his heart to beat, his lungs to breathe. He has to tell his liver to process poisons, his bowel to excrete, his urinary tract to function. He has to tell his skin and hair and nails to grow. It takes every ounce of Lee's concentration to stay alive, and if you distract him, the blood flow to his brain will stop, or he'll stop breathing, or his gall will release a flood of poisons into his system.” Brass glanced back. “Do not disturb Lee.”

“So what's his job?”

“What?”

“You said everyone has a job,” Spengler said, feeling petty but in a small way enjoying putting Brass on the spot. “We're a ship, remember? What's Lee's job on this boat?”

“He's an education,” Brass said. “Be careful what you want.”

They reached the door at the end of the hall, and Brass stopped for a moment. “Be quiet,” he said. “I know it's a challenge, but be quiet.”

Spengler looked at him.

Brass touched the door reverentially for a moment. It was narrow, wooden, and looked like something from somewhere else...something that did not belong in the House, or perhaps something essential to it. The rest of the house was elegant, furnished with something that was not decadence, but a highly elaborate functionality. Even the raw bunks of Spengler's quarters had been fashioned with love and attention, and everything he had seen – from the vast baths with their enameled tubs and gouts of steam, to the Sculpture Room, busy with shapes and small dusting men, to the Library, a staggeringly vast room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with tomes both ancient and unimaginable – had been chaotic but deliberate, crafted with a fine touch and a meticulous hand. This door, though: it was rough wood, like seaworn planks nailed together with square iron an eon ago, with a rough knot instead of a knob, and crude rusty hinges.

Brass touched the door for a second more, then turned and stared at Spengler. Spengler said nothing and returned the gaze, he hoped evenly but suspected nervously. Brass turned and walked back down the hall of paintings and Spengler followed him silently, glancing at the painting on the way. They were all portraits, after a fashion – but the figure in each and every portrait, painted in dozens of different hands in dozens of different media in dozens of different styles, was not apparent. Rather, it was apparent, a figure Spengler could see in vast detail when he was looking, but that vanished from his mind the moment he took his eyes off any particular portrait. Even in the half-second it took him to switch his eyes from one portrait to the next, the first was gone from his mind, leaving only the vague shadow of a room, a light, an atmosphere.

By the end of the hall, Spengler knew he had glanced at a score of paintings, and even remembered some details – a lamp in one, a curtain in another, in a third, a raven taking flight from a barren tree – but could not bring the figure in them to his mind, if even any two portraits were of the same person at all.

Brass stopped at the head of the stairs. “Never go in there,” he said simply. “That's not for you. That's not for anyone.”

Spengler waited until they were halfway down the stairs to ask. “Then why'd you show it to me?”

“Because people wander,” Brass said, his voice still low. There was a tone in it that Spengler recognized as possibly awe. “Because people wander, and while nobody can find that hallway twice – not without knowing how to look – anyone can find it once. And if I don't tell them not to open that door, they do.”

“And what happens if they open the door?” They were nearing the bottom of the stairs, moving at such a breakneck speed that Spengler was worried about tripping and tumbling into Brass and sending them both down to the bottom.

“That's not for you,” Brass said again.

“Got me?” Spengler finished.

Brass scowled at him again. “Pull your weight, boy,” he said. “Cahill got you in, but he said nothing about you staying.”

“Look,” Spengler said, “I know I'm not in a position to ask favours, but --”

Brass laughed, a nose that Spengler wouldn't have expected to come from anything but a forty-foot German Shepherd with a head cold. “Stop there,” Brass said.

“There's this kid, and I lost him, and he's in the subway...”

“Stop there.” Brass' face darkened. “You're right for once. Bask in it. You're in no position to ask favours.”

Spengler licked his lips. “He's in the subway, and he's gone strange, and I owed his father two,” Spenger said meekly.

For the first time since reading the letter, Spengler saw something vaguely resembling compassion flicker across Brass' face, so fast it might have been a candle guttering in a heavy breeze. “That's a pip,” Brass said, “but you're in no position. And if the Milk Carton Kids have your boy, that's it, he's gone.”

“I saw him,” Spengler said. “He was...look, a little dental surgery and maybe...”

“He's dead,” Brass said bluntly. “Recognize it. He's dead and gone and even if there's something that has his face, he's gone.” He looked puzzled for a moment. “What the hell were you doing in the subway?”

“Never mind,” Spengler said. “Are we done?”

“Done enough,” Brass said. “Why, you got somewhere to be?”

“I'm sort of housesitting for somebody,” Spengler said. “I should return the key.”

“Knock yourself out,” Brass said, “just be back here before nightfall. You can't get lost now: the House is in your brain, and you're branded with it. No matter where you go, no matter where it moves, you can find the House of Nod from now on. So there's no excuses for not showing up.” The Spirit of Industry turned and stalked away, turning quickly through a door, and when Spengler stepped after him, he'd already gone, through another of the eight doors that led off from the next room (a small place full of etchings, floor to ceiling, thousands of them so tight together the red paint behind barely showed through) and was lost from sight. In the room, a midget wearing a barbershop quartet outfit was gazing closely at one of the etchings, of a sixteenth-century Turkish princess in a mildly provocative pose.

“How do I get out of this house?” Spengler asked.

“Don't know.” The midget looked mildly surprised. “Never been. Why do you want to get out of the house?”

“Never mind,” Spenger said, flipping a few mental coins to pick a door at random.

“Well, don't go in the subway,” the midget called after him.

THIRTY-ONE

FATHER AND STUN

Abronsias, Darwin and Hyves were all sitting in Darwin's apartment, comfortable on leather sofas, enjoying a hot cup of chai tea.

Hyves visibly tried to shake off his comfort, however, and find a stem of anger for the fruit of action to grow on. Abronsias and Darwin were talking calmly, as though about the weather, but Hyves could sense the undercurrent of tension between them, something that stretched across the room like a thin wire cord under too much strain, a streetcar cable about to snap and cause bloody disaster.

“Looking good, pop.” Darwin seemed unruffled by all of this. “What've you been up to?”

“I'm an inspector for the police,” Abronsias said.

“Some scam,” Darwin smiled. “Always thinking big, eh, pop?”

“Don't let me interrupt you, but there's a small caterpillar nesting on your chin.”

Darwin fingered the soul patch and smiled. “The ladies like it, dad,” he said.

“Then the ladies need a frontal lobotomy and better taste in men,” Abronsias grunted.

Darwin smiled. Hyves noticed that his face was friendly, but bland – sort of professionally bland, wearing the look his poker buddies all tried to cultivate but failed at miserably. This man stopped having genuine facial expressions decades ago, Hyves thought, which worried him even more. Feeling like he was reading somebody else's mail, he looked around the room, which was sparsely decorated. It was a little like a model apartment in an interior decorating magazine: almost no furniture and a few decorative shelves scattered around with bizarre bric-a-brac on them: an antique hookah, what looked like steel false teeth with sharpened canines, a cracked urn, a cactus.

“What brings you here?” Darwin asked. “Surely you haven't come around to mend old fences.” His smile remained, but something about his face was colder. “I chopped that old fence up and burned it over ten years ago.”

“No you didn't,” Abronsias said. “It was ashes before I left your mother.”

“What do you want?”

“We're looking for a Darwin Spengler,” Abronsias said. “He wrecked his truck a few nights ago, sometime between three and five a.m., but when we got there he wasn't in it.”

“I'm Darwin Spengler,” Darwin said. “That was my car.”

“Then you should be dead, Darwin Spengler,” Abronsias said. “According to a lot of official records, you don't exist anyway.”

Hyves broke in, seeing the cable unraveling and grabbing it in his hands. Futile, maybe, but. “The fact that you got away unscathed – no blood, no torn clothing – that was interesting enough to warrant some attention,” he said. “That's why we're here, Mr. Spengler.”

“Call me Darwin,” Darwin said.

“I sure as hell will not,” Abronsias said.

“That's my name,” Darwin said calmly. “That's who I am.” He reached into his suitjacket pocket and pulled out a slim black wallet. “Would you like to see some ID, officer?”

“And why does the sign on your door read Revenstock?” Abronsias demanded. “Is this in fact your apartment? Mr. Spengler?”

“Call me Darwin,” Darwin said again. “I'm housesitting for a friend.” He pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it to Abronsias, who did not take it. “Hyman Revenstock,” he said. “Call him if you want.”

“I won't bother,” Abronsias said.

“Suit yourself, but I'm sure he wouldn't be troubled.” Darwin tucked the card back into his wallet, and put it neatly back into his suit jacket. He addressed Hyves. “And yes, that was my car, and yes, I'm a very lucky man,” he said. He shrugged and smiled ingratiatingly. “I was stunned after the crash, and just wandered home. I've been asleep for almost a day and a half. I was just on my way down to the police station to report it when you interrupted me.”

“I see,” Hyves said.

“Your sense of civic duty astounds me,” Abronsias said. “Forgive me if I feel compelled to stand up and do a little dance.”

“If you won't, I will.” Darwin stood and nodded at both of them. “I'm just going to dance on down to the police station and report in.” He smiled at Hyves again. “Society's like a ship, you know. If we don't all pull our weight, we all sink.” He glanced at Abronsias. “Along with the rats.”

Abronsias stood too, and stepped in front of the door. “You have a real nice day,” he said quietly. “Mr. Spengler.”

“Every day is a nice day,” Darwin said. “It's all in your attitude.”

“Hyves. Up.” Abronsias threw the door open and stalked out into the hall.

“Was that your son?” Hyves asked as they got in the car.

“Shut up,” Abronsias said.

They sat in the car and watched as Darwin exited the building, hands in his pockets and whistling, nodded to them, and walked to the end of the alley.

“Should we follow him?” Hyves asked.

“Don't bother,” Inspector Abronsias said. “I know where he's going.”

“Where?”

“He's going to go to the police station, and report that it was his car,” Abronsias said slowly. “He's going to apologize profusely, explain that he was stunned and unconscious at home for thirty-six hours, admit his fault, smile a lot, and walk away scot-free.”

Hyves said nothing.

“That wasn't my son,” Inspector Abronsias said. “That wasn't half my son. Let's go back. There are some files I want to look at.”

Hyves started the car.

They went back.

THIRTY-TWO

NEW NOD ON THE BLOCK

“Abronsias,” Spengler said to himself as he walked away from the House of Nod. He smiled. He had no idea why he had said the word? Name? ...but it was probably another part of his knowledge of the House surfacing. He even, he found, had a general awareness of the area surrounding the House, an instinctive knowledge of which way to walk to get to Cosmo's (the area he now knew was called Battersea, beyond Phantom Alley and close to Guillotine Square). He was a member of the House of Nod, and Brass even seemed to soften when he mentioned Clipper's plight. He had delivered the letter, Cahill now Owed Him One, and Cahill seemed to be a very, very, very good person to have in your debt.

Things were looking up.

Then Spengler looked up.

He'd been examining the sidewalk, admiring the way the cobblestones locked together, wondering about the art in even the seemingly smallest things in the City. The gaslight lamps were wrought with a curl and a verve that suggested great thought and love went into their manufacture, and even the street itself suggested great craftsmanship behind it all.

Gaslights?

Spengler glanced up, frowning. It was day, the even light diffuse in the sky, and of course the gaslights were off. But shouldn't it be night by now? He'd slept at Cosmo's into some point in the morning, walked the heftly stroll to the House of Nod, and been taken on a six- to seven-hour tour of the mad mansion by the immensely grouchy Brass. It couldn't possibly still be light out. Spengler glanced over at the street vendors, at the sky, and at Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh, who were walking briskly behind him.

Spengler yelped and started to run, but he was caught in a moment by Mr. Ogh's mighty hand, which crushed his shoulder and brought him howling to his knees.

Couldn't feel us coming? It never pays to be distracted in the City, Mr. Painter thought.

“Let...me...go...” Spengler gasped, red spots exploding in his vision.

“No,” Mr. Painter said. “I think not. We're to bring you back to the House of Maw to assume your duties, Mr. Spengler, and regardless of whatever arguments you intend to make, we will do exactly and just that.”

“You can't.” Spengler spoke through gritted teeth. Mr. Ogh was separating his shoulder, breathing heavily in his ear, panting with breath that stunk of meat and misfortune.

“We can,” Mr. Painter said. “Shall we, Mr. Ogh?”

“You're going to hurt for making me come out in the day,” Mr. Ogh said, picking Spengler up by the shoulder, then raising him more so his feet dangled above the ground, forcing Spengler to walk on his tiptoes or risk even more pain from his weight pulling his shoulder body away from his shoulder. “You're gonna hurt.”

“I'm...member...” Spenger gasped.

“Not yet, but soon,” Mr. Painter chortled, his steel teeth gleaming in the light of day. “Soon enough, Mr. Spengler, you will be a member of the House of Maw, and all these petty grievances will be behind us both.”

“...no,” Spengler rasped. “Member...House...Nod.”

“I still can't smell him,” Mr. Ogh said. “Why can't I smell him?”

“What did you say?” Mr. Painter hissed. A bat wing fluttered in Spengler's mind, and Mr. Painter recoiled. “It's not possible,” Mr. Painter said. “You were refused.”

“Things change,” Spengler said, wincing through the pain.

“NO!” Mr. Painter looked frantic, frustrated, mad.

“Why can't I smell him?” Mr. Ogh said.

“Put me down,” Spengler gasped.

“No, no, no!” Mr. Painter hissed. His gloved hands shot out, took Spengler's chin, and Spengler tried to ward it off with his left arm. Mr. Painter was strong, though, stronger than his spindliness suggested.

“You're marked,” Mr. Painter said, examining Spenger closely. “I can see it. You're marked but you're not a member yet.” He grinned triumphantly. “I don't know how you did this, Spengler, but you're not deceiving Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh.”

“I am a member,” Spengler said.

You've got the mark, somehow, but you're not a member of the House of Nod yet, little Mr. Spengler, Mr. Painter said in his mind. You've conned somebody into conferring the Mark on you, but we'd know if you'd joined. You'd be on the rolls. The ether would inform us. You have their aura about you now, but you're not a member yet.

Spengler focused on following the chain of thought back into Mr. Painter's head, like a fuse. He let his mind flow: When dealing, try to deal low to the table to give players a false sense of security. With partners on the game, a simple slight clockwise or counter-clockwise twist to the hand can inform them whether you are dealing a red or black card; a face or a number. Cards, cards, cards: the Jack driving a sword through Painter's chest as the Queen watches, the King raising his axe and

“DAMN you!” Mr. Painter released Spengler's face, grabbed his wrist, and raised it. Spengler watched in horror as Mr. Painter's jaw unhinged, showing rows of sharp steel teeth in an impossibly huge mouth, and as Mr. Painter took his wrist, shoved Spengler's hand into his mouth and bit. 

What happened next was beyond pain, for Spengler and all concerned. Beyond the obvious harm of having his hand neatly severed by Mr. Painter's teeth, there was feedback. Mr. Ogh dropped Spengler, who collapsed to the sidewalk, Mr. Ogh's bellows of pain shaking the windows as Spengler's incoherent shriek tore his throat. Mr. Painter spat the hand on the sidewalk, falling to his knees with his mouth open, howling in some ultrasonic pitch that Spengler could feel shaking his teeth and sinuses.

Adrenaline got Spengler to his feet, and he looked at his stump of a hand dumbly. Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh were in agony, and Spengler as well – but somehow, Spengler could sense, the blistering white noise in his mind was a pale shadow of what they were feeling. Spengler stepped back, the roar of static in his brain – painful static, razorblade tumbleweed shredding his brain – almost overwhelming, feeling blood explode from his nose and watching Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh curl up even more on the cobblestone.

Spengler turned then, and ran. He ran away from Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh, heedless of where he was going, panicked and wanting only to get away and find somewhere they couldn't follow. The House of Nod behind him, Spengler took the only route available to his fevered and frightened mind.

Spengler ran, at top speed and without hesitation, down into the bellows of the subway.

THIRTY-THREE

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD BOYS

Spengler ran to where there was no light, and then he ran some more. When he finally stopped, he was in a tunnel – he thought – and could feel train tracks when he shuffled his feet from side to side. Somewhere along the line, he had torn a sleeve off his, rather Cosmo's, jacket and wrapped it around his stump of a wrist. Now he was stumbling forward, shuffling baby steps, deeper and deeper into the subway tunnels.

“So tell me, doc,” Spengler said, moving further and further into the darkness, “will I ever play the piano again?”

He wasn't bleeding as much as he thought he should, but then again, he should be dead. Shouldn't he? Wouldn't the sudden removal of one's hand sever at least one very important artery in the wrist, such as the one you cut to kill yourself? Spengler smiled as he shuffled. “Don't go in the subway,” he muttered. Even the echo of a whisper bounced for miles, it seemed, before being swallowed by the darkness.

The plan, such as it was, was to move on until he got to the next station and emerge, hopefully having lost Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh. Then it was back to the House of Nod, where they would bandage him up and ... Spengler couldn't think much further ahead than that. He knew, rationally, that he was in shock – recent events had a certain blunt factuality to them, but no emotional hold, and that was a sure sign that something in his head wasn't processing information the way it should – but at the moment, that might be a mercy, because the last thing he needed was to be down there howling for his mommy and holding a bloody stump as the junior freakshow bore down on him.

The other good news, which was scant in an unlit tunnel deep underground where one was bleeding to death while stumbling around in the dark probably being hunted by cannibal children with sharpened teeth, was that the rails were an easy guide towards the next stop. Spengler let his right foot swing out slightly at the end of every step, bumping the rail, steering him forward.

A wave of dizziness swept over Spengler, making him cough. How far was it to the next station, anyway? And what if Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh, who were definitely creepy enough to see in the dark (why not?) were behind him? Spengler felt around with his mind for the pair, and sensed the wave of painful white noise somewhere behind him, retreating.

Also from somewhere behind him, Spengler heard a small child giggle. He tried to speed up, shuffle-step, shuffle-step, shuffle-step. The giggle was distant, maybe miles away, carried by the tunnel. Spengler suddenly became acutely aware, filmically aware, of every sound he was making: his laboured breathing, the rustle of his pants as he stepped, the rhythmic ting on the one-in-five occasions that a shoelace eyelet struck the rail as he swung his foot out to meet it.

The white noise in the back of his mind faded, and stopped. Spengler felt around a bit more, and didn't sense Mr. Painter anywhere on his mindscape. Mr. Painter had shut down for a while or, dare to dream, was dead. Spengler suddenly acutely wished he had stuck around to shove a stake through the tall man's heart. He probably wasn't a vampire, but it certainly wouldn't have hurt. And what had that pain been? Was that why he was safer being a member of the House of Nod – one member can't hurt another without that bizarre feedback nearly tearing their head off?

The giggle from behind him again. A little girl delighted with a toy. Or a dolly. Or a drop of blood, becoming a trail of blood, leading to a stumbling half-hallucinating man who forgot City Rule Number One: Do Not, You Stupid Stupid Sumbitch, Ever Under Any Circumstances Go In The Subway.

A second voice joined it, even higher-pitched, and the two jabbered in some sort of pidgin babytalk. Spengler listened, but unlike other City voices, he couldn't figure it out.

“And now,” Spengler muttered, “Tiny Tots Theatre presents musical highlights from Children of the Corn.”

There was a sudden sense of space in front of him. He couldn't see, but the quality of air, the currents maybe, told him that things were opening up. A split in the tunnel? Some sort of rail yard? Spengler thought through alcohol-soaked cotton. The best thing for getting out, which was becoming more and more of a priority, would be to stick to the wall rather than to stumble down the centre track until Baby Dahlmer and Little Miss Lecter caught up to him. He'd feel a platform when he got to it, anyway.

Gigglegigglegiggle behind him. Winding him up, he knew, and it was working. Spengler kept moving forward, taking side-steps, one foot over the rail and the next foot – hoop! Almost stumbled – over the rail. Spengler walked forward and sideways like drunk Danny Kaye in a sailor movie, finally feeling his forearm slap wet wall where he held his arm out in an 'L' to protect the stump.

Was that light ahead, or wishful thinking?

Spengler forged on. The blessed numbness in his wrist was starting to turn to pain, slowly now, but soon the floodgates would open, and then he'd be lucky to walk at all.

Gigglegigglegiggle. The language of the Kids sounded like bird songs behind him, twittering and chirping, like English had been chopped up into syllables, tossed in a blender, rearranged and pitched up two octaves.

It was light, not just wishes. Spengler stumbled slightly faster towards it, praying that it would be a station, with a clear path up to the light of day, the streets of the City.

And the wall vanished.

Spengler stumbled sideways, wrenching his back to keep himself from falling over. Had he found a station platform already? It seemed to soon, judging by the distant light: he brought his arm down, slowly, to touch air. Nothing. Maybe this was one of those hollows that people could stand in, workers, to let a train pass. Spengler extended his left arm, the one with the hand, slowly and touched cold wall about twenty inches in. That was it. Was there any opportunity in hiding in there? Not really ... the kids weren't lashed to the tracks, after all, and in there he'd have nowhere to run, and not even the freedom to kick and punch to defend himself.

“Stumpy McHandless vs. the Cannibal Kids,” Spengler said, and giggled a bit himself. This was not good. Hysteria was not good. He pulled his hand out to keep going, and touched a rail. A rung? A rung. There was a steel rung bolted to the wall. He felt up, and felt another, also bolted to the wall. He slowly extended his foot and felt ahead. Space. “Good job I opted not to hide in there,” Spengler said.

Giggle giggle giggle. Definitely closer. Two wee girls sharing a friendly pint of blood before heading to school to poke the teacher's eyes out with sharpened bits of chalk. Spengler grabbed a rung with his good hand. Should he? It went down, probably to another, deeper, even worse level of subway, but did it go up? And if it did, to what?

It wasn't worth it, not so close to the light. Spengler released and kept stumbling along, wordlessly urging the light to be a safe passage back to the surface of the City. As he neared, he could see enough light that his desperate eyes began to interpolate even the slightest play of shadow, the nuances of darkness:

It was a station.

There was a platform.

There were stairs leading up.

There was a train parked in it.

Spengler's heart leapt and dropped and leapt like a performing salmon on amphetamines. A possible way out, but could he get by the train? It was tight at the end of the tunnel, and the light he'd seen was seeping through its grimy windows, in the side of the rear car and out the glass at the back. Spengler neared the train.

Giggle giggle giggle. More jabber behind him. Like Muppet Babies reading the Necronomicon. Even closer, having fun with him. The little beasts had to know that he was reaching the station – why weren't they worried about escape? Spengler felt a bead of sweat trickling down past his eye, sliding down the curve of his nose.

He hoped the children behind him were stupid.

He was pretty sure they weren't.

Reaching the rear of the train, he craned his neck to try to see up through its windows, out the sides, and up the stairs. The angles weren't there. Spengler tried to slip by the train car, but it was too tight to the end of the tunnel – he couldn't get his shoulder through, much less his torso. Room underneath to crawl and surface? No good – the subway train hugged the tracks, keeping its body slug-close to the ground. A few more beads of sweat joined the first. Spengler felt a shudder of pain as his wrist started to wake up and say hey guys, there's something REALLY wrong here. In a moment, his wrist would realize the problem and start screaming, waking up every nerve ending in his body, which might just be crippling.

“Shut up wrist,” Spengler whispered. “Go back to sleep.” He was getting dizzy, to boot. How much blood had he lost? And who cared? The point was going to be academic, unless he could get past the train. He looked at the light coming through the door again.

The door. Spengler smacked his forehead with a phantom hand, stopping himself just shy of squishing the bloody stump of a wrist into his forehead. Stupid, but brilliant. Go through the train. He just had to get up...

Giggle giggle giggle.

“It's probably locked,” Spengler said to himself. He found a handhold and hoisted himself up onto the end of a coupling sticking off the back of the train. Leaning against the train body with his right arm, he used his left hand to try the latch.

It opened. The light coming down from the platform seemed much brighter, suddenly. Spengler opened the door, slowly, and winced as it let out a long rusty creak. The kids behind him would know what he was doing, they might hurry to catch him, and he had to move fast. Spengler stepped into the train.

Various pieces of information hit him all at once, or at least fast enough that Spengler had no time to process them individually. In a burst of awareness, Spengler saw/knew:

• the “sta on clo ed” sign on the bulletin board at the back of the platform;

• the thick steel grate blanketing the entrance to the stairs, which he could finally get a decent glimpse of;

• his wrist, finally waking up, calling 911 in a panic and setting off every alarm it could think of;

• dozens of tiny bodies, woken by the squeaking door, stirring in the half-light, their sharpened tiny teeth gleaming as they rubbed their eyes and stretched their little limbs.

“Oh boy,” Spengler said. Then, “ouch.”

The kids started to rise from the seats of the subway, all turning to stare at Spengler, who stood paralyzed with pain in the doorway. He wanted to retch from the pain, but the need to retch from terror struggled with it and the two somehow canceled each other out.

“Stay in your seats,” Spengler said, “or you're all going to the vice-principal's office. I mean it.”

The kids began to rise, some of them clicking their teeth. It's like the Mr. Painter farm team in here, Spengler thought crazily, before he turned to run. The child-babble behind him became a torrent as he turned and leapt down from the car, running back the way he had come, cradling his arm in his hand.

Giggle giggle giggle ahead of him and he saw them, at the periphery of visible light, two little girls in dirty Sunday dresses, teeth sharp and mouths wide, arms open to receive him. In his fear, Spengler felt himself punch through the terror to a brief moment of lucidity – for Pete's sake, man, they're forty pounds each, if that – and without breaking stride, he drew his foot back and punted the one on the left in the face as hard as he could. He felt the one on the right fasten onto his leg as the left one flew back several feet head-first, and howled as the other one sank its teeth into the meaty part of his thigh. He brought his right elbow down, as though the child on his leg was the source of the pain wracking his body, and connected solidly with the top of the Kid's head. As the child dropped, he glanced behind him, and saw a solid mass of tiny heads leaping down from the subway, their babbling now a floodmass of rage.

Where had that ladder been? Spengler flailed against the wall with his left hand. Somewhere, somewhere, here. He grabbed the run with his left hand and swung his bod in, letting his stump-handed right arm hang at this side. Bracing himself with his feet, he shot his left hand up, grabbing the next rung, then steadied himself with his right elbow on the rung below as he pulled up. The gibbering and shrieking of the child-things was closer, and he felt a small hand swipe at his pantscuff. Spengler climbed faster, he didn't know how, somehow moving his good hand and his feet to let him scramble up the ladder, hoping desperately that there was some sort of exit above him.

There wasn't.

Spengler's head met the tunnel roof with a solid, meaty, star-shaped thwack.

Oh no, he thought, I'm unconscious. My arm hurts. I hate kids.

Unconscious, he let go of the ladder and fell.

THIRTY-FOUR

ANOTHER DREAM

“Spengler.”

Spengler is behind the screen at the movie theatre, having a smoke and chatting with Marie DuLac, killing time before ushering people out before the end of the show. Pimply and gawky, he's hoping to talk her into catching the late feature with him, maybe letting him walk her home, maybe – maybe even – stopping by the gazebo in the park for half an hour first. Spengler knows he hasn't got a hope in hell, and Marie's just chatting with him to kill time until her break from the concession stand is over, but he keeps talking anyway, until he's interrupted by this huge toad with a paisley vest that keeps calling his name.

“Spengler. Spengler. Spengler.”

“What?” Spengler asks, walking over with his cigarette still burning.

“I need you, Spengler.” The toad's face is expressionless.

The movie behind Spengler – Apocalypse Now, but it's all screwed up, and Robert Duvall has somehow gotten lost and wound up calling a napalm strike on Casablanca, which Humphrey Bogart is really actually pretty cool about – keeps rolling.

“I'm busy,” Spengler says, gesturing to the girl behind him, but she – Kim Stetters, his first real girlfriend – is vanishing behind the screen, on her way back to her job as an attendant at the Automat.

“I brought you here because I need you, Spengler.” The toad is blasé about Spengler's urge to leave. It extends a mighty tongue, snaps the cigarette pack out of Spengler's shirt pocket, and brings it back. Using its flippers with amazing dexterity, the toad takes out a cigarette. “Got a light?”

Spengler lights the toad's cigarette.

“Thanks,” the toad says, and points at the used car lot behind him, because there is a giant used car lot behind the screen at the theatre, so patrons can buy cars after seeing their movie, or perhaps between the cartoon and the feature. Jesus is there, dressed in a white robe, his beard long and tangled, looking at a white four-door early-nineties sedan.

“I like this one,” Jesus calls, “I'll take it.”

“Y'allright,” the toad says.

“But that's my car,” Spengler says.

“I'm selling it until you pay what y'owe,” the toad says. “I brought you here, and you haven't even dropped by.”

“I'll drop by,” Spengler says. “Honest to Betsy.” The movie is ending, and everybody is getting up in their seats, but without an usher to guide them they're just milling around the theatre, unable to find the doors, bleating like sheep. “I have to get back to work,” he says.

“Lampius,” the toad says.

“What?” Spengler asks.

“Lampius,” the toad says, “God of Traffic Lights. What happened to your hand?”

Spengler looks down and sees that his hand is made of licorice, and a bunch of little kids have gathered around him and are eating it. “Hey, piss off!” he yells, drawing his hand away, but the kids grab his arm with greedy strength and keep eating. Spengler can see thicker licorice making up the meat of his hand, thinner strips for the tendons, and in the middle chicken bones, hard pink candies with chocolate centres, being crunched and licked by the children. Spengler pulls harder, and his arm comes free, but the hand comes off, and the kids keep eating it, and before he can get it away from them the crowd from the theatre, still lost and panicking now, tear down the screen and trample through to the back space, which is now too small, and Spengler is being crushed by them and yelling and yelling, gesturing at the exit, but as he feels a leg snap under the weight of a fat woman yelling through a mouth jumbled with badly-applied lipstick and too much popcorn, the floor drops out from under him and everything is black.

THIRTY-FIVE

THE SOUND OF ONE HAND COMPLAINING

“Ouch,” Spengler said, waking up. “That was the worst dream of my life.”

He raised his right arm, and looked at where his hand had been. The jacket sleeve was still wrapped around it, with various rags and other pieces of cloth Frankensteined on top, all bound with layers of jute rope and twine. The whole assembly was soaked through with blood, and Spengler looked at the gap at the end of the arm.

“Aw, nuts.” he said.

Spengler looked around. He wasn't in the subway, which was good, and wasn't dead, which was better, but where he was didn't look like a particularly shining location, either. He was surrounded with tapestries and rugs, all threadbare and tattered, hanging from hooks and hangers off the top of what seemed to be a tent made from a skeletal garage with no windows or doors, just slits cut in rough tarpaulin and jute cloth.

“Hello?” Spengler called.

An old woman stuck her face through a jagged slit in the tent walls, grinning with several teeth missing. “Oh, you're up,” she said. “That was fast.”

“Define 'fast.'” Spengler tried to sit up, and something happened in his leg a bit like a suicide squirrel chewing a rapid path up from the heel of his foot to his thigh before detonating the twelve pounds of plastique tied to its chest. “Whoa,” he said, lying down again. “Arrgh.”

“We couldn't do much for the hand,” the old woman said. She tried to gesture at Spengler, but her hand was still outside the tent and she just jabbed ineffectively at the cloth. “Oh. Hold on a second.” She vanished, and appeared again, sweeping through a larger slit in the wall, grinning her checkerboard grin. “We couldn't do much for the hand,” she said again, pointing at Spengler's stump, “and we had to carve out a chunk of leg before the infection took hold.”

Spengler saw that his upper thigh, where the kid had bitten him, was swathed in cotton, gauze, jute and what appeared to be Van Gogh's cleaning rags. “You did this to avoid infection?” he asked.

“It's not as bad as it looks,” she said. “It's a variety of remedies to pull the infection out and help the gouge bind.”

“Please don't say 'gouge bind',” Spengler said, closing his eyes. “May I ask where I am?”

“You're in my tent,” the woman said.

“I have to get back,” Spengler said. “I have duties. I need to...” It occurred to him that stacking wood and maintaining the fire would be difficult with one hand. “I need to be reassigned, I guess.”

“What, you're a piano player?” The woman grinned at him again. “You're not going anywhere for a while, boy. You're in deep debt.”

“Thanks for saving me,” Spengler said, “and I'll do what I can. But I need to get back to the House.”

“You work for me now,” the woman said bluntly. “If Murgatroyd and Huffer hadn't found you in the dropmine, you'd be eaten by the kids. Murgatroyd nearly got his hand bit off himself saving you, you know.”

“You're kidnapping me?” Spengler was incredulous.

“You owe me one,” the woman said plainly. “Actually, you owed Huffer one, but he owed me two and we did a trade.”

“I'm part of the House of Nod,” Spengler said weakly. “I don't think you can kidnap me.”

“We're far from the Houses now,” the woman said, laughing. “You're in the scrubs, boy, and the Houses have no influence here.”

“The scrubs?” Spengler struggled to recall the map. “You mean the shanties?”

“Don't hurt yourself thinking,” the woman said. “Baba will take care of you till you're strong, then you will take care of Baba.”

“How about Baba and I just call it even, and I'll buy her a nice gift basket?” Spengler tried to get up again, with similar results. “Yeeowtch.”

The old woman leaned in closer, and Spengler realized that one of her eyes was significantly larger than the other. “Baba sees your value,” the woman said, the larger eye rolling around in its socket, apparently indifferent to what the other eye was doing.

“You'd be a real hit at archery conventions,” Spengler said. “And I'm glad you find me valuable and all, but I really have to go.”

“No,” the woman said. She scowled. “Behave.”

Spengler lay back and closed his eyes. Moments later, he heard the rustling of parting cloth, as the old woman left the tent.

Opening his eyes, Spengler tried to move again, but the pain in his leg hurdled 'extreme' easily and started sprinting towards 'mindbending.' He moaned, looked at the stump at the end of his right arm, and moaned again.

“Spengler.” There was a voice from outside the tent: low, smooth. Spengler looked over, as Cahill's face appeared at one of the rough slits in the tent.

“Cahill,” Spengler said. “Delivered your message.”

“I know.” The hair on Cahill's head ruffled, like in a slight breeze, and Spengler saw he was wincing. “You need to get back to the House of Nod. Now that Brass knows what's going on, it may well be war in a matter of days. Hours. Minutes.”

Spengler gestured at his wounded leg with his stump. “I'm not in much shape to travel. Can't you come through the wall with a wheelbarrow or something?”

Cahill's face was starting to twist in extreme discomfort. “No,” he said. “Baba's walls aren't brick, and they don't know me. They're forcing me back. It's hard just to stand here.”

“Well,” Spengler said, “unless you have any other ideas, I think I'm stuck.”

“Listen,” Cahill said, “I have to tell you something about how you got here.”

“My hand got bitten off, I ran into the subway, fought a bunch of psychotic infants, and fell down a hole,” Spengler said. “Now tell me a joke.”

Cahill was gritting his teeth, and his hair looked like he was walking into a stiff wind. “Listen,” he repeated. “Maw claimed you, but you were brought here by Lampius.”

“The toad?” Spengler asked.

“The Green Fifteen,” Cahill said. Suddenly, the entire tent tilted sharply backwards, and Spengler slid into his pillows. The front of the tent had lifted about three feet.

“CAHILL!” It was Baba's voice, but amplified tenfold. Cahill's face vanished from the window.

“Lampius!” he called from outside. “The Green Fifteen!”

“I have no idea what you're talking about!” Spengler yelled back, as the tent wrenched back forwards, the back lifting to match the front. “Why are we off the ground?”

“CAHILL!” Baba's voice resounded outside again. “GET AWAY FROM MY TENT, YOU INTERFERER!” The tent lurched upwards again, level this time, Spengler had no idea how much. Suddenly, Baba leapt in through the large doorslit.

“You're pretty spry,” Spengler said.

“Hold on,” Baba said. “We're on the move.”

The tent lurched again in a left-right motion, and Spengler had the distinct idea they were also going forward, as though the tent itself was standing on a pair of very long legs in motion. “Where are we going?” Spengler asked.

“Cahill found us.” The old woman spat on the floor. “Interferer. He's gone again, but next time I'll crush him.”

“Listen to me,” Spengler said. He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts as the tent jogged crazily forward. “I'd probably be a lot more compliant if I knew exactly what was going on. Who are you? Who's Cahill? Why does the House of Maw want me so much?”

“The same reason they wanted Cahill,” the old woman said. “And you don't need to know anything about him. He's trouble. He's the one that stirs the pot and takes the meat out. He's the one that holds the door while he picks your pocket clean. He's the one that kisses your baby and sucks the fillings from its mouth.”

“Your baby had fillings?”

Baba made an idle gesture towards Spengler, and he howled in agony as his leg screamed fire. “Behave,” she said. “The poultice is mine, and there are elements to it to keep naughty boys in line.”

“Behaving,” Spengler gasped.

“The Houses discount Baba, here among the scrubs,” the old woman said. “But Baba is cunning and clever.”

“No argument,” Spengler said. “Why am I so valuable?”

“You have a gift,” Baba said. “Brass doesn't recognize it, and Maw doesn't know exactly what it is, but you have a gift.”

“But Cahill knows,” Spengler guessed.

“Hold on,” Baba said, and the tent tilted dangerously as it executed a sharp left turn. Spengler rolled over on his side, and gasped in pain. The tent went through some sharp manouvres, tossing Spengler back and forth as he bit his lip to keep from crying out. “Sorry,” Baba called as the tent resumed a more level course. “He's hard to shake.”

“And he knows,” Spengler persisted.

“There's been a buzz since you got here,” Baba said. “I've never seen anything like it. The air's been charged, and nobody knows why, nobody but Baba. There'll be war between the Houses, Nod may even fall, and nobody knows why but Baba.” Her large eye pivoted towards Spengler. “Isn't that right?”

“Whatever you say,” Spengler said, rolling his eyes in turn. The tent kept lurching, and he was starting to get queasy.

Baba was silent for a while, steering the tent.

“So how are your friends going to find us again?” Spengler asked. “Murgatroyd and Huffer?”

“Not my friends,” the old woman replied simply. “Rather, all the scrubs are my friends. They're the ones without Houses, you see, living outside the City.”

“I thought almost nobody...” Spengler winced as the house settled to a stop. “...almost nobody was unaffiliated.”

“Almost nobody in the City,” the old woman stressed. “They don't look out to the scrubs very often, and when they do, they don't really see. Nobody has seen what's out here, nobody has seen the potential of the scrubs and what they do.” Her large eye glittered. “Nobody but Baba.”

“Baba Marx,” Spengler said.

“That's not my name,” Baba said, “but I know yours.”

“So?” Spengler said.

Baba smiled broadly. “Names are power, little man,” she said. “Half of Baba's power is knowing the proper names for things.”

“Yeah,” Spengler said. “So why aren't you part of a House?”

“I chose not to be.” The old woman turned away from Spengler and looked out the tear in the front of the tent, which now fluttered open to reveal another gathering of nondescript shanties. “We should be safe enough here,” she said. “It's almost night, and Lindy never flies at night. The other flyers won't tell Cahill I'm here. They owe him nothing.”

“Wait,” Spengler said. “You said that the Houses really only operate in the City. What about the dark hotel? The House of Maw? It's located way out there.”

Baba frowned for a moment. “The House of Maw could never fulfill its purpose if it were in the City, child. People would become familiar with it, and it would lose its power with every pair of eyes that gazed on it unafraid.”

“What is its purpose?” Spengler asked. “Other than making you happy you're not there?”

“Every House has a purpose,” Baba said sagely, “and you can determine them yourself, if you're clever and think hard.”

“Great.” Spengler closed his eyes again. “Wake me for the test.”

“Baba!” There was a rustling of cloth, and Spengler opened his eyes a crack to see a man, wild-eyed and grey of hair, dressed in a patchwork quilt that had been turned into a robe, fluster his way through the door-slit. “We're honoured by your presence, your eminence.”

“Hello to you, Clive,” Baba said. “Would you like some tea?”

THIRTY-SIX

MR. PAINTER MEETS HIS MATCH(ES)

“I'm not sure about this,” Mr. Ogh said, staring at the subway entrance.

It had been a long and arduous day for both Mr. Painter and Mr. Ogh, and as Mr. Painter clacked his teeth in frustration, even their steel seemed to have lost its shine. “I'm not sure we have a choice, my dear compatriot,” Mr. Painter replied. “The child is down there. There is nowhere else the child could be.”

The first time the trail led to the subway, Mr. Painter chalked it up to bad triangulation – it took a while to get a good fix on his quarry sometimes – and they circled around as Mr. Painter felt for the child's mind at intervals, moving in a slow spiral towards what turned out to be the middle of Herastone Boulevard, with the child showing as directly underneath them. There was no dropmine below there, they both knew, only a subway line, and they proceeded with great reluctance to the nearest entrance.

“At least we'll be out of the sun,” Mr. Ogh said. He was smoking slightly from his exposure to the light, and his eyes hurt. Mr. Painter, Mr. Ogh saw, was hunched forwards in perpetual discomfort, and had taken to rubbing his gloved hands against each other constantly while clicking his teeth in Morse code.

“We need that child for our plans to come to fruition,” Mr. Painter said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself more than anybody. “Without the child, there will be no Spengler. Without Spengler, we will never return to the House for restoration and renewal.”

Mr. Ogh took a first hesitant step down into the subway. “I don't understand,” he said. “We've never failed before, Mr. Painter.”

“We haven't failed yet,” Mr. Painter said, “and I did fail once before, if I must be perfectly honest, Mr. Ogh.”

Mr. Ogh turned his head in surprise, not only that his companion had failed once in the past to return a specified quarry to the House of Maw, but that he would admit it.

“Mr. Cahill,” Mr. Painter said. “This was long ago, before we were paired. I worked alone then, which left flaws in my technique.” Mr. Painter straightened, shook his yellow-stained gloves, and began to walk down into the dark of the subway. “Your assistance has been a great complement to my own services, Mr. Ogh,” he said.

Mr. Ogh nodded gravely. He couldn't remember when he had been paired with Mr. Painter, and was a little amazed that Mr. Painter could remember that far back at all. Envoys of the House of Maw weren't built to remember.

“Cahill must have burnt you,” Mr. Ogh said, “real bad, for you to remember.”

“Mr. Cahill and I will resolve our accounts on the by and by,” Mr. Painter said. He was at the threshhold of the light now, the very edge of where City ended and Subway began.

“I'll break him open and show you his heart,” Mr. Ogh said. While the subway was no place for even the envoys of Maw, the darkness was strengthening his resolve. “But first, we need Spengler.”

“We need the child,” Mr. Painter said, peering into the pitch black. A solemn giggle wound its way through unseen tunnels towards them, accompanied by the scuffling of tiny feet. “He's close.”

“Just a second.” Mr. Ogh stopped for a moment, and felt his eyes roll back in their sockets, then retreat entirely. Focusing, he called another pair of eyeballs from deep within his chest, which rolled up through his nasal passages, then pushed their way through his flesh to pop out in the appropriate place. These eyes were designed for darkness, with vision ranging in the lower spectrum deep into the infrared. “Got my eyes in,” he said. Staring down the tunnel, he saw a number of small red heat sources moving around. “About a dozen MKKs two hundred metres ahead of us,” he said, then glancing behind. “Six or so closing from the rear, seventy-five metres and bearing down. The ones in the front are waiting for the six to get us busy so they can hit us from behind.”

“Mr. Ogh,” Mr. Painter said, “Our quarry is behind us. Probably one of the six you mention. He is wearing...” Mr. Painter paused. “No idea,” he said.

“Fifty metres,” Mr. Ogh said, “and I don't think I can stop them without killing them, Mr. Painter. He flexed his hands. “It has been a long and frustrating day, Mr. Painter, and I don't want to hold back.”

“Mr. Ogh!” Mr. Painter snapped. “Watch them closely.” Mr. Ogh heard Mr. Painter's steel teeth squeal as he gritted them, and one of the closing Milk Karton Kids suddenly stopped as though stunned and let the others charge on ahead. “He's a feral little bastard. Have him?”

“I do,” Mr. Ogh said.

“Then tend to all but him,” Mr. Painter said. His teeth chattered as he turned to survey the crowd of Kids ahead of them in the tunnel. “I need to vent some frustration myself.”

Mr. Painter heard Mr. Ogh engage the front line of Kids as he strolled down the hall towards the second group. His eyes were nowhere near as good as Mr. Ogh's night-eyes, probably not as good as the kids', but he could see them moving as lighter patches of dark, running towards them as Mr. Ogh tore into the rear guard of cannibal children. Clasping his hands for a moment, Mr. Painter then removed one of his gloves, revealing his scarred and magnificent hand. Twisted nails glittered at the end of ruined fingers. “I'll give you something to giggle about,” Mr. Painter snarled.

He paused. One of them was staying back, doing something unfamiliar. Lifting its arms? A second before the wave of Kids hit him, Mr. Painter felt something small and heavy strike him sharply in the forehead, staving in a skull weakened from a day in the sun and time away from the Vats.

When, Mr. Painter thought, did the little bastards learn to make slingshots?

Then the Kids were swarming all over him, teeth frantic and small nails tearing, and Mr. Painter fell down screaming. It was like being in a cloud of wolverines, but worse, because the wolverines were giggling as they rent his flesh. Mr. Painter crushed a throat with his gloved hand, slashed another with his naked hand, and felt the deaths renew him somewhat, but not enough to compensate for the weight of the children, the biting, the pounding of tiny fists made strong by human meat.

“PAINTER!” No honorific, Mr. Painter noted with annoyance, as Mr. Ogh's feet thudded up the tunnel towards him. Mr. Ogh exploded upon the crowd of children burying Mr. Painter, kicking one off and slapping another back with a broad open hand. His efforts were hampered by the fact that he had a child, unconscious but alive, held tightly in the crook of one arm.

Mr. Painter snarled and bit the nose off another child that was trying to snap his sharpened teeth into his cheek, and the child retreated howling, only to be kicked in the head by Mr. Ogh. Slowly, the pile of children shrank, and finally Mr. Painter was left lying on the subway floor, surrounded by dead or dying Milk Karton Kids, the others retreating down the tunnels and wailing as they went.

“Mr. Painter!” Mr. Ogh's thick hand grabbed him by the collar and started hauling him back down the tunnel towards the entrance. “Eight more left, and the five remaining on the right are regrouping, joined by...” he paused, “...six more.” Mr. Painter, being dragged along the broken concrete of the floor, tried to speak, but felt his energy wane. “Don't worry,” Mr. Ogh said, “we're almost out.” He turned and started pulling Mr. Painter up the stairs.

The child in Mr. Ogh's arm awoke the second the subway's edge was breached, and began to shriek horribly. Mr. Ogh released Mr. Painter for a moment, curled his thumb and forefinger, and flicked Clipper in the head. The boy passed out again.

“You look rough,” Mr. Ogh said, releasing Mr. Painter and looking at him on the street. It was night now, and Mr. Painter could feel in his mind the Milk Karton Kids gathered at the edge of the subway entrance, eager for a chance to get out but fearing the diminishment that leaving their zone would bring them. Mr. Painter felt a dozen wounds seeping ichor across his body, and clacked his teeth.

“Take the child to Maw,” he hissed at Mr. Ogh. “We don't have Mr. Spengler, but we have the key to him. It will suffice.”

“Can't leave you,” Mr. Ogh said. He was unmarked and unharmed, Mr. Painter saw, fit to travel. “You're my partner, Mr. Painter.”

“We are envoys,” Mr. Painter paused, “of the House of Maw, Mr. Ogh. Take the child back. Let the night heal me.”

Mr. Ogh tilted his head silently for a moment. “I'll bring you back some of the Vats,” he said. He jogged off into the night, the unconscious Clipper slung over his shoulder.

Mr. Painter lay on the street, pavement cold under his back, one glove lost in the tunnels, and sighed. Around him, the vendors were beginning to roll out for night sales, all of them dutifully ignoring his presence and going about their business. A bicycle steered around him, and Mr. Painter felt it skid slightly on the puddle of yellow-black that was slowly seeping from his body. The night was binding his wounds, the darkness letting him recover, but not quickly enough. He needed death to renew him, or at least something to sustain him until Mr. Ogh returned with raw material from the Vats to restore his ruined flesh.

“Ring a ding hey,” said a voice above Mr. Painter's head. He opened his eyes and saw a mild-looking man in a white suit gazing down at him. “I know we're not supposed to speak to you fellas, but you look like you could use a little pick-me-up for whatever put you down there, fella.”

“Flesh,” Mr. Painter hissed.

The man smiled, open and pleasant. “A little bit of meat to bind you, a way wah woo?”

“Flesh,” Mr. Painter managed again.

“Will you owe me one?” The man's demeanor was pleasant, but his undertone was serious.

Mr. Painter tried to reach out with his mind, bend the fool into submitting, but he was weak and the man's mind was slippery. “Rather die,” Mr. Painter croaked.

“Whoa hoo ha,” the man sang. “Suit yourself, buttercup.” He pivoted on a heel and strolled away.

Mr. Painter stared at the night above him. He could hear commerce all around him, the walking of feet, the frying and selling of meat raw and cooked, but had no energy to get to it. As they had been taught, trained and raised, those on the street allowed the envoy of the House of Maw to be invisible to them, a shadow among shadows, going about his grisly work. It was an invaluable part of serving Maw, this complicit invisibility, and it was killing him quickly.

The man in white appeared again, holding a massive sausage in a bun and a paper bag. He took a bit bite out of one. “Mmmm,” he said, mouth full. He shook the paper bag. “This bag's full of raw ones. I hear it helps you fellas bind better if the meat isn't cooked. Easier to process.”

Mr. Painter swiped feebly at the man, but he stepped back and laughed.

“Just gotta owe me one, little pard,” he said. “Uncle Cosmo can save your life, but you're gonna have to owe me one.” He smiled. “Sausages ain't cheap, you know.”

Mr. Painter felt himself ebb. If he were to expire here, now, there would be no way that Mr. Ogh would return in time to retrieve his brain and bring it back to the vats for a new body. But owing one to a City dweller... On the other hand, what was owing one compared to the wealth of knowledge, experience and talent he brought to the House of Maw? He was worth more than one favour, Mr. Painter thought. Worth at least one favour.

“Owe you one,” Mr. Painter said between heavy teeth.

“There's'a boy,” Cosmo said, and handed him the raw sausage. Mr. Painter gulped it down. It wasn't nearly as efficient, or easy to process, as Vat material, but it began to work on his more serious wounds. Cosmo gave him another, and another.

Soon, Mr. Painter sat up. “What do you want?” he demanded, his jaundiced yellow eyes boring into Cosmo's watery blue ones.

“I don't know yet,” Cosmo said, stretching. “And you're welcome, fella.”

“Feh.” Mr. Painter stood, limbs weak, and almost fell.

“Steady there, captain,” Cosmo said. “I haven't seen somebody this messed up since that Spengler fella a couple days ago, a ho ho.”

The street noised seemed to stop for Mr. Painter, and he could hear the ichor that passed for blood rushing to his brain. Mr. Painter turned, his hands touching each other like strangers, head cocked, ears attentive.

“What did you say?” Mr. Painter asked.

THIRTY-SEVEN

HYVES GETS HIS OWN BACK

Hyves had spent a long time in the files after dark, and his eyes burned under the harsh fluorescents of the department. He persevered, however, doggedly flipping page after page of records dating back twenty years or more, accident reports and other documents, trying to make all the troubling pieces fall together in his mind.

He had never minded working for Inspector Abronsias before – had rather enjoyed it, actually, despite the senior officer's wooly thinking and somewhat abusive mannerisms, but the events of the day before had bothered him. Immensely. And once the first crack of doubt about Inspector Abronsias appeared, it crazed into a million other micro-fractures over the next twenty-four hours, until Hyves was no longer sure he was working for the police department at all.

As far as Hyves knew, there was nobody else with the rank of Inspector in the city's police department. In fact, now that he cast his mind back, there had been a lot of muffled laughter and sarcastic nods when he'd been appointed to work for the Inspector, in his tiny room at the back of the files and records floor. Why had that been? Why had he never seen the Inspector at official police functions? He wasn't allowed to talk about his work with the Inspector with other officers, and even mentioning that the Inspector existed seemed to be strictly frowned upon. Hyves had always worked in a vacuum with Inspector Abronsias, which he happily assumed meant that the Inspector was a brilliant man who worked best in solitude, and jealousy and respect mingled to keep him isolated from the rest of the department.

That belief was cracking, though, splintering into shards the more Hyves thought about the Inspector, his position at the Department, and especially this man who may or may not be his son. There had been ample reason to arrest him, had the will been there, and they'd let him walk away. And the inference, Darwin's inference that his father was a big a 'grifter' as he...

And so, Hyves pored over documents. He had taken the day off work, “sick,” and had discovered a few things working from home, tracing the name Abronsias back as far as he could. As far as he could tell, Abronsias hadn't existed more than fifteen years ago, and had sprung up, whole-cloth, in the small office at the back of Filing and had toiled there ever since.

He'd been a good Inspector – at least one case wrapped up every month, dozens of glowing letters commending his brilliance here and there in the files, but never worked his way out of the filing floor. Modesty? Something else?

Hyves pursed his lips, which were becoming dry, and blinked to keep his eyes moist. The air conditioning on the floor, designed to prevent mold, was sucking the moisture right out of him. Hyves took another pull at the litre bottle of water he kept with him and kept reading.

Over the past few hours, he had found ample evidence of Abronsias' commendable career as a police officer with a non-existent (or close to it) rank...but what of fifteen years ago? On a hunch, Hyves burrowed through the SP drawer: Spence, Spender, Spenhill, Spenioza...no Spengler.

Hyves shut the drawer and thought hard, hating himself a little. He had never regretted one weird moment working for the Inspector, despite all the humiliation, despite the lack of respect and recognition from his brother officers. He had always been treated as something between a source of fun and a pariah, but now he realized the reasons extended far beyond him alone: the department had its own mad scientist, and he was playing Igor.

“Good policy,” Hyves muttered bitterly, pacing the length of the filing floor. “The weirdo needs an assistant, so give him your worst case of bad self-esteem. He'll just assume that people are laughing at him, not his boss.” He sat down heavily in a chair, files sprawled across the table in front of him, and sucked on his bottle a bit more.

It was, after all, true: Hyves had never considered for a moment, that it was his position under the Inspector that resulted in mockery – it was a strange sort of job, true, but he'd always assumed that the snickers and the less-than-subtle jibes were directed at Hyves, Perpetual Loser, not Hyves, Minion Of The Inspector. He'd been the subject of jokes and abuse since high school, since the day in grade nine when he'd fallen off the edge of the soccer field and rolled down the hill into some poison ivy, getting – unfortunately – hives all over his face and arms. Since then, Hyves had been known as “Hivey Hyves,” which sounded innocuous in retrospect, but at the time had --

Hyves blinked suddenly, sitting up. He was drifting, and the large-faced clock on the wall read a stern 3:15. “I need sleep,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I'm a wreck.” His eyes opened wide. “Oh.” Hyves leapt to his feet, took a long drink, and began anew: Accident Reports, 1985-88.

From there on, it was methodical. There were very few car crashes in which the owner had simply vanished...only one, in fact, where the person the wreck was registered to, the presumed driver, was not in the car, around the car, or ever found again. Hyves noted the name and kept working. He'd had one son, fifteen at the time of the accident, a wife...

...with the name, Hyves started finding misdemeanour and felony convictions stretching back an astonishingly long way. Gambling, petty theft, card sharping (which was, in fact, a crime, Hyves was surprised to note), and strings of petty scams and cons. Among the last records, stamped CONFIDENTIAL and kept in a sealed envelope, was an account of a failed blackmail scheme involving the Mayor and a City Councilor who had been photographed in a compromising position during a holiday leadership retreat.

“You got it right the second time, didn't you?” Hyves muttered. He glanced at the clock. 5:30 a.m. “You locked yourself into the police chief, crashed that car, and became a new person. Hello, Inspector Abronsias.” Hyves started to clean up, putting all the files back in place, closing drawers, cleaning up papers.

At 6 a.m., Inspector Abronsias opened the door to his office to find Hyves already there. “I thought I'd get an early start,” Inspector Abronsias said. “Apparently, you've decided that the first one here gets to sit behind my desk.”

“I'm going to sit wherever I damn well please,” Hyves said. For the first time in years, he didn't look worried. “Good morning, Irwin Cahill.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

SPENGLER MAKES A PROMISE

By the time Clive left, Spengler knew that there was a lot more to Baba than a hyperactive eye and a walking tent.

“You're planning a revolt?” he asked, after the tent flap was clear. “You're actually planning an honest-to-gosh Karl Marx revolt?”

“The scrubs keep this city running,” Baba said simply. “They toil in the factories and bring the goods in through the dropmines. The House of Sift sorts and trades, the House of Nod entertains, the House of Maw polices and the House of Tenn grows and prepares food...but the Scrubs are the grease that keeps the wheels of the City turning, and they're treated as less than dirt. Baba,” she said, scowling, “is treated as less than dirt. And Baba and the Scrubs are going to get their due, and the City is going to pay what it owes.”

“And somehow, I'm the key to all this,” Spengler said.

“You're not the key,” Baba said. “You're a lock-pick.”

“Oh,” Spengler said. “And this lock-pick is going to help you overthrow the City because you've put a bug in my leg.” He smiled. “That's classy. History's going to remember you well.”

“I put that bug in your leg to keep you in line,” Baba said. She gestured, and the house rose slightly. “We're going to travel soon, to visit a god. But you're not going to help me because of my poultice.”

Spengler shrugged. “So why am I going to help you?”

“Because you know it's the right thing to do,” Baba said.

“Check please,” Spengler replied. “I don't know it's the right thing. Not at all.”

“I know where you came from, and I'm the only person in the entire City that knows how to travel there.” She smiled and patted a wall of the tent fondly. “My baby and I know how to travel there. And,” Baba grinned, sly, “I know how you got here.”

“The Green Fifteen,” Spengler said.

Baba's wild eye flashed fury. “How did you know that?”

“I need to see Lampius,” Spengler said.

“Cahill.” Baba pursed her lips. “Interferer.” She tick-tocked her finger in front of her chest. “You're in no position to make demands, boy, and that you know. But we will see Lampius in time.”

“We don't have time,” Spengler said. “War's coming, you said it.”

“You're awfully demanding for somebody who doesn't even know his true name,” Baba said, her sly grin growing.

“My true name? I know my name,” Spengler said. “So do a dozen other people.”

“What's your name?” Baba asked.

“Spengler,” Spengler said.

“What's your other name?” Baba asked.

Spengler thought. There was something in the back of his mind, buried amongst card tricks and sleight-of-hand, but he couldn't bring it forward.

“I know who you are,” Baba said.

“Tell me,” Spengler said.

“Your name,” Baba said, “is Darwin Spengler.”

Spengler's mind exploded.

THIRTY-NINE

MR. PAINTER GETS IT BACK

Mr. Painter shifted uncomfortably in his chair and sipped tea while Cosmo recounted a long and rambling story about his life, how he had met Spengler, what he had said, what Spengler had said, and lots of short improvised songs about life, cats, tea, friendship, apartment living and the nature of sea cucumbers.

Finally, Cosmo finished. “And when I got back, he wasn't here, whoa ho. Lucky I had my spare key, jack. I just put it in the lock and twist, step inside and here I am, wham bam bam. If I hadn't needed to step out for some libation, you'd be pushing up the daisies, six feet under and lazy. Crazy!” Cosmo grinned broadly and sipped his tea. Like Mr. Painter, he was drinking from a cracked china cup with some sort of stencil on it.

“Where is he now?” Mr. Painter's voice was dry. Mr. Ogh would be reaching the House of Maw with the boy soon, if not now, and would probably assume he was dead. Mr. Painter knew he was the House's oldest agent, and if not the most valuable, certainly the most experienced, and Maw would not take this loss lightly.

“Whoa ho, how should I know?” Cosmo snapped his fingers, tilted his head back, and babbled musically. “Zam bam biddy bitty wah zam pow.”

It occurred to Mr. Painter that Cosmo might have put something in the tea. It had an acrid flavour, which tea always had, but underneath that was some sort of hard-to-pinpoint quality that slipped off his tongue. “I need to find Mr. Spengler,” he said. Mr. Painter discovered that his head was swimming oddly and his tongue felt a bit thicker than normal.

From Cosmo's vantage point, Mr. Painter was having a bad time, which meant that Cosmo's duty was to try to turn that around. Nothing, therefore, gratified him more than when Mr. Painter shifted his jaw, poked first one cheek than the other with his tongue, and said in a tone of dry wonder, “Are these really my teeth?”

“Looks like your choppers pull out, pal,” Cosmo said. He had spiked the tea with a wonderous cocktail, not just his five o'clock special but also his six through nine o'clock specials as well, and was desperately bored, praying that Mr. Painter would liven up, become more convivial, and perhaps stop obsessing over his absent houseguest. “So what worked you over and left you on the street like the dog's breakfast, fella?”

“I'm not your fella,” Mr. Painter said, listing distinctly to the left. “I need to find Mr. Spengler before the House of Maw go tuwwa.”

Cosmo blinked. “Go tuwwa?”

Mr. Painter bared his teeth, cleared his through. “goes to wa.”

“Wa?”

“Rrrr.” Mr. Painter said. He dropped his teacup and began to trace small patterns in the air. “Rrrr. Rrrr. Rrrrrrraaaaaaawwwwwwrrrrr.” His teeth clacked, “Missssterrrr Spennnggglleerrrrr isss the keeeyyyy toooo rrrraaaaaawwwwwrrrrrr.”

Cosmo smiled pleasantly. This was better. “Sure thing, fella. I've known a few rawrs myself, in my day.”

Mr. Painter made an obvious attempt to straighten his head, but it kept slumping over sideways. “You drugged me,” Mr. Painter said.

“I enlivened your refreshments to encourage conversation,” Cosmo said.

Mr. Painter's face drew tight and cold in a smile, and Cosmo saw his horrid hand clench and unclench while his gloved hand compulsively smoothed a wrinkle in his pants. Mr. Painter stood up, hissing.

“You owe me,” Cosmo reminded him. “You can't harm me, you owe me.”

“You drugged me,” Mr. Painter said again. “I am an envoy of the House of Mawrrrrr.” He sat down again, and his hand relaxed.

Cosmo pondered. There was no safe way to get this fiend out of his apartment, without using the One he was owed, and even that was temporary: you couldn't ask for one that extended over an infinite period, like “don't ever hurt me;” a One had to be an action with a definable conclusion, like “help me paint the house” or “pass the salt.” He could order Mr. Painter home, but there was nothing to prevent Mr. Painter from eviscerating him the next time he saw him, which could be as soon as Mr. Painter thought judicious.

Mr. Painter lifted his head and spoke again. His voice was different, clearer, deeper. “There was a flash of light,” Mr. Painter said. His hands were relaxed, his eyes unfocused. “I went through the intersection, and a man ran in front of me, a tall man. I think I hit him, but then the truck was spinning, and I saw the pole, and there was a flash of light.”

“That's good,” Cosmo said. Mr. Painter's voice was more familiar to him now – it had the tones and cadence of somebody he knew. Cosmo prided himself on singer's ear, being attuned to the fingerprint-unique way people talked, and he knew this voice.

Mr. Painter shook his head, and his focus returned. “What is happening to me?” he demanded. “Who's in my head?”

Cosmo stretched, casually reaching his arms behind him to try to grab his saxophone, the only thing he could think of that might serve as a weapon. An envoy of the House of Maw could eviscerate ten men in seconds, but a drunk wounded envoy...

Mr. Painter grew slack again. “I've been dealing at the Riviera for six months, but I still have my side games, weeknights and Sundays, a traveling poker pool. They've never seen anything like me, and they know I'm boosting them, but they don't care, they want to see the Houston shuffle, the Anaheim twist, they want to see somebody win, even if it means they lose, they've never been this close to a winner before. That's most of the game, you see. More than half. Projecting winner. I can sit down at the table and people want me to take their money, want me to cheat, lie, do whatever it takes, they want me to win because they can tell, I show them in a million different and subtle ways, I'm a winner and they've all lost, working their humdrum deadend cubicle workaday jobs in this lousy grey slab of a city. They know they're losing, they know, in some part of their minds, that I'm cheating, but they want to lose, they want me to cheat, they want to know that at the very least they lost big once in their lives, and did something definitive with somebody who knew how to win. I provided a service. I should have formed a union.”

Mr. Painter laughed, and Cosmo edged back in his chair. Anything else wouldn't have surprised him: a howl, screech, even a cackle, but this was a warm human chuckle, a tired little laugh, an eminently human noise coming from this product of the assassin vats. Through his own haze of five-through-nine o'clock tea, Cosmo realized why the laugh was so human: it wasn't Mr. Painter's, it was Spengler's.

“But the Riviera,” Mr. Painter said, “but the Riviera took rather a dim view of it. I guess those guys were from the Riviera, or some sore loser I hadn't accounted for. I was getting away from them, and it was raining, and I just kept hitting the stoplights at the right times, going faster and faster and faster. Genuine luck.” Mr. Painter smiled, his face contorting horribly. “The first luck I hadn't manufactured in years. Light after light, speeding up, and then the tall man was in front of the car, and there was an impact, and then I saw the pole and the flash.” Mr. Painter rubbed his face with his ruined hand, one sharp nail opening a cut on his forehead, ichor oozing out. “It's all coming back.”

“You take it easy,” Cosmo said, “I'll get some water.” He began to edge towards the kitchen.

Mr. Painter shook his head savagely again, spraying drops of green-black ooze across Cosmo's floor. “He's bleeding into me,” Mr. Painter said in his own voice. “Mr. Spengler is bleeding into me. He's not blocking, he's broadcasting, he's in some sort of shock.” Mr. Painter touched his forehead, drew his finger away and sucked the ichor off it. “But where is he now?”

Cosmo ran some water into a glass. “I don't know,” he said.

“Do you know the Chicago Five?” Mr. Painter asked, Spengler again. “Royal flush in spades. People always like the Chicago Five. Show 'em a flush in diamonds, they think you're taunting them. Hearts are condescending. Clubs aren't bad, but a little lacklustre. But the Chicago Five: a clean whistle straight up to that Ace of Spades. People love that card. Losers love that card. Brings it on home for them, makes them feel doomed from the start. Don't sweat it, Poindexter, he had the death card all along. He had the death card from the start.” Mr. Painter-as-Spengler laughed again. “I can't stop these memories. They're all flooding back. What happened to me after that crash? Am I dead? Is this...” Mr. Painter looked at his right hand, but Cosmo swore that his eyes were focusing beyond it. “This obviously isn't heaven, but as hell goes, it's pretty relaxed.” Mr. Painter fell silent, tilting his head.

“Mr. Painter?” Cosmo asked. “Want some water, fella?”

“Listening,” Mr. Painter said, head still cocked. Then he stood, eyes flashing, face tight and angry again. “Baba,” he said. “Baba, you interfering old witch.” Mr. Painter strode to the door, then turned and glared at Cosmo. “Give me what you put in the drink,” he said. “I need more.”

“Hey hey, guy, maybe you should do the ten-step,” Cosmo said, attempting a smile.

Mr. Painter crossed the room in two giant strides, teeth chittering, sharp hand extending towards Cosmo's eyes. “Give-it-to-me.”

Cosmo produced a large bottle labeled “MY SWEET KENTUCKY HOME” and gave it to Mr. Painter. “That's got some kick,” he said. “I recommend you cut it with --”

Mr. Painter screwed the top off the bottle and gave it a swig, then doubled over, coughed, and grimaced horribly. “It aids the connection,” he says. “You have ruined me, Mr. Spengler. I am going to kill you.” Gripping the bottle by the neck with his gloved hand, Mr. Painter crossed to the door and threw it open.

“Don't take any wooden nickels,” Cosmo said.

Mr. Painter strode off into the night, bottle in his hand and blood on his mind.

FORTY

MEANWHILE, MR. OGH...

Deep unrest brewed in the Vats as Mr. Ogh explained the situation, howling against the chittering of the squirrel-things, the moans of the Deep Dwellers and the general chaos of Maw itself.

“MR. PAINTER IS DEAD!” Mr. Ogh roared. The swell abated slightly, and he pressed on. “THE HOUSE OF NOD HAS SPENGLER!” The swell rose again, tinged this time with fear. “CAHILL HAS BEEN SCHEMING AGAINST US!” More roar, and Mr. Ogh took an intuitive leap. “CAHILL AND NOD ARE CONSPIRING TO DESTROY US!”

The swell of the denizens of Maw doubled, but Mr. Ogh found something different about it: instead of shouting against it, it was shouting with him. They were listening to him. After immemorial service with Mr. Painter, Mr. Painter the loquatious, Mr. Painter the talker, Mr. Painter the planner and schemer, Mr. Ogh was speaking, and the House of Maw was hanging on his every word. He felt flush with power, and raised his mighty hands above his head.

“WE MUST DESTROY THEM BEFORE THEY CAN STRIKE!” Mr. Ogh roared. Stirring from the Vats, crawling from the spaces between walls, rising up from the deep and slithering down from the dust, the House of Maw screeched, roared and muttered approval. “WE MUST MOVE AGAINST THEM BEFORE THEY USE...” Mr. Ogh paused, not sure what the House of Nod and Cahill were going to use, then decided to improvise: “THEIR ULTIMATE WEAPON!”

The House of Maw moved and shifted and agreed, and from deep within its bowels began to spew forth weapons. It had kept these weapons in the deep vats, steadily producing more over the years, putting them in deeper and deeper storage. The House of Maw had been ready for war for a long, long time, and the dark hotel itched to put its true gifts into service.

Howling, the House of Maw readied for war.

FORTY-ONE

BARGAINING WITH BABA

Whatever was in the poultice, whatever it was that was under Baba's control, the rest was working overtime. After a few hours of agony, Spengler flexed his leg, found he could move it, got out of bed gently, and crept around the tent for a minute.

This did not, of course, escape Baba's notice, and her wild eye rolled around to Spengler. “Feeling better, boy?” she asked.

“Huh?” Spengler walked around the tent, testing his leg, testing his knowledge. It was all there, everything from Darwin Spengler's earliest memories to the moment leading up to the crash and his awakening on the outskirts of the City, but it wasn't quite right. “Sorry,” Spengler said. “Wasn't listening.”

“You'd best not be thinking about leaving Baba, now,” the old woman said. “There's still a dybbuk in your leg, asleep at my behest.”

“Dybbuk,” Spengler said. “Right.” He sat back down on the bed and ran his hands through his hair, now grimy with days of accumulated sweat, sewer and fear. His hands grated through the grease, themselves filthy. “It's weird,” he said, “I know everything now, but I still feel detached. Like it's knowledge that's been plugged into my brain, but nothing I have a connection to. Things I know, but not things I know know.” He scratched his head. “And I still have no connection in my mind to this Lampius guy,” he said, “but I think I should see him.”

Baba shrugged, and her wild eye returned to her current fixation: a string of Christmas-tree lights, powered by who-knew-what, twinkling merrily away above a brazier. As the lights twittered, she fastened small black stones to each of them with thin string.

“Please take me,” Spengler said. “I can't get there on this leg.”

“Damn straight you can't,” Baba said. “And I've already given you much more than anything owed, so don't be pulling claims on me.” Baba squirted a clear liquid on the string of little lights. “

“I'll owe you one,” Spengler said.

Baba guffawed. “So you'll owe me one,” she said. “Big deal from a dead man. I keep you alive, you can keep up with the scrubbing. Lots of cleaning to be done chez Baba, young man.”

“Do you know any more about me?” Spengler asked. “Anything that might help me...connect?”

“Don't be distracting me,” Baba said. “You said the Green Fifteen, and now I have to get us an introduction. You can't just wander in to see Lampius. There are protocols.”

“You just...” Spengler opened and closed his mouth. “You just told me you wouldn't.”

“No such thing, boy,” Baba said. “What I told you was that you owing me one would be useless right now. And it would be. You're as useful as a rubber duck.”

“I don't think that's how...”

“But that doesn't mean it's not a good idea.” Baba lit the bottom of the string of lights, and with a gentle foosh, a flame danced up and around it and turned it into a long, slender, dangling cinder. “Message sent,” she said, dusting her hands off. “Now we wait.”

Spengler thought about it. There was no way he could escape with a dybbuk in his leg, that was for sure. And, for good or for ill, Baba had revealed his true name, giving him access to memories and knowledge hithero forgotten. Her purposes might be batty, but for now, it was still a step up from Maw, and perhaps even from Nod.

“Now we wait,” Spengler said.

“So why do you want to stop this war?” Baba asked.

Spengler blinked, and decided to speak slowly. “War...is...bad,” he said.

Baba shrugged. “There is a school of thought that says it's necessary, like a fire cleanses the forest or a flood renews the shore.”

“Oh,” Spengler said. “I attended the 'War Is Bad' school. I'll pop by that other school some time and drop off some handguns.”

“The House of Maw thinks the House of Nod has you, boy. They're girding for war right now, I'll bet. Maybe, once the Houses are done bashing away for a while, Maw will realize Nod doesn't have you and retreat. Maybe not. There's been bad blood for eternity, between those two.”

“And what happens if they find out you have me?” Spengler asked. “Cahill knows.”

“He doesn't have a welcome ear at Maw,” Baba replied, “nor will Maw believe Nod. Not at first, anyhow. And make no mistake, Nod is spoiling for a scrap as much as Maw is.”

“And then you step in and pick up the pieces.” Spengler shook his head. “I think this tent must have vulture legs.”

“Goose,” said Baba, stroking its side again. “A silly old goose. And if the Houses have the time and resources to go berzerk every few hundred years, they should have the resources to take better care of their labourers.”

“You don't --” Spengler began, but they were interrupted by a slight intermittent buzzing noise. Spengler saw that from inside the charred and twisted strip hanging from the ceiling, lights had once again begun to blink.

“Sacrifice accepted, and permission granted,” Baba said. “Let's go visiting.”

FORTY-TWO

DEEP IN THE VALLEY OF THE HO HO HO

Another lurching tent-ride later – made easier by the fact that his leg had healed, although his head was to some degree reeling – Spengler and Baba arrived at a low flat building festooned with twinkling, sparkling lights. Outside, a rusty battered stoplight swung in the breeze, emitting a solemn green.

“Here we are,” Baba said. She and Spengler had disembarked from the tent – the tent bending forward courteously to let them go, before Baba dismissed it with a “shoo!” and it had bounded forward, leapt up the the roof of the building, and folded itself into invisibility – and now stood before the building. “Lampius.”

“The Home of the Gods looks like a Legion hall at Christmas,” Spengler said. “This isn't all that flashy, pardon the pun.”

Baba looked surprised. “What would a god need to waste his time and energy on aesthetics for? He's got things to do, boy! Four walls, a roof and a bit of worship, that's all the gods need.”

“And how does 'Lampius' get worshipped?” Spengler asked.

“You've worshipped him,” Baba said. She got to the door, and rang the buzzer, which was unsurprisingly a huge glowing button. A grinding mechanical zzzzzzzt penetrated the wall of the building to where they stood. “Most everybody has.”

“I'm pretty sure I haven't,” Spengler said.

“Every time you've been stopped at a streetlight and begged it to change, every time you've caught that unexpected break with a green light, every time the walk signal doesn't turn on and you curse it – you're worshipping him,” Baba said. “He's not a high-glamour god, but he has uses, and he's ubiquitous. You've got to give him that.”

“A god doesn't control all traffic lights,” Spengler said, “computers do.”

“Ha!” Baba laughed. “Have you ever met the people that program and maintain these computers?”

“Well, no,” Spengler said, “but...”

“That money is used to fund a Black Ops operation run by your government over on the Other Side, investigating the possibilities that the City and the other Cities on our plane exist, and if so, the potential of invasion and colonization of the Cities.”

“Wow,” Spengler said, “really?”

“No,” Baba said, “but it shuts up people that ask stupid questions about computers.”

“Ah,” Spengler said.

The door opened. Before Spengler and Baba were three doors, each with a traffic light hanging above them. The light above one of the doors was green, and Baba opened it. A similar room awaited. “It's a simple, but effective safety measure,” Baba said. “He changes the path every day or so, and guides visitors through the maze.”

After a few dozen rooms, Baba and Spengler walked into what seemed to be a church basement hall tricked out as a low-rent arcade. Pinball machines lined the walls, neon signs left tacky ghost-images on the ceiling, and in the middle of it all was a short, immensely fat man in a white suit and a fez.

“Hi,” he said. “C'mon in. I'm busy, but I got a sec.”

Baba and Spengler approached. The man – Lampius, Spengler realized – was shorter still than Baba, the top of his fez coming up to Spengler's nipples. “Hi,” he said.

“Yeah, you're the one I brought over,” Lampius said. “Nobody's invoked the Green Fifteen for years, and then bing bing bing bing bing, I get woken up, everybody's yellin, and I have to punch a hole and let you through. Bit of a botched job, though, and I'm sorry about that.” He looked at Baba and spread his arms wide. “Nobody gets the Green Fifteen any more,” he said. “They drive too fast, you know? There's a system, I can't just screw around.”

“I hear you,” Baba said. “The good old things, they ain't what they used to be.”

“So you, Irwin,” Lampius stabbed Spengler in the chest.

“My name's Spengler,” Spengler said.

“Whatever,” Lampius said. “I don't bring just anyone over, even if they hit the Green Fifteen, but you, you're special. You know why? You know what you got?”

“Rhythm?” Spengler's ribcage hurt from repeated jabbing.

“What? NAH!” Lampius waved his hands, then stopped. “Well, maybe. But you got a way of getting to the heart of things, Irwin. That's why all the Houses want you so bad, because you can manipulate the things at their roots.”

“I think you're confused,” Spengler said. “I'm thrilled that all the fuss is being made, but I don't have any special powers, and my name isn't Irwin.”

“Ah,” Lampius said. “You've already used your powers, son, and in the House of Nod, to boot. That's tricky.”

“I didn't use any powers in the House of Nod.”

“Of course you didn't,” Lampius said. Behind him, a few streetlights flickered green, then yellow. “Then how did you get back in time?”

“Get back in time?”

“When you left the House, it was eighteen hours sooner than when you'd entered. That's why Painter and Ogh were so confused, Irwin. They knew you couldn't be a member of Nod yet, but they could sense you were. Drove them nuts.” Lampius looked over his shoulder, and a red light blinked solemnly at him. “My spies are everywhere,” he said.

Spengler blinked. It would explain things, but... “I'm not Irwin,” he said again. “Among any other people, that was my father's name. Irwin.”

“I know,” Lampius said. “Your name isn't important, Irwin. What's important? You. Hotcha.” The short man stood up on his tiptoes to get closer to Spengler's face. “Listen. On the surface, the Houses have their roles. Nod is art and entertainment, Maw is police and structure, Sift is mercantile, Tenn is agriculture, and the scrubs are labour. They don't even know they're a House yet, but Baba is working to change that.”

“I knew that,” Spengler said, “sort of.”

“But under the surface, the part you can find,” Lampius continued. “Nod is time. Maw is thought. Sift is empathy, Tenn is life, and the scrubs...well, let's leave them for now.” He grinned broadly and snuck a glance over at Baba, who glowered.

“So I can ... get to these things, and use them somehow.” Spengler rubbed the bridge of his nose. “How? Why? Why did you 'bring me here'?”

“I brought you here because you petitioned,” Lampius said. “The Green Fifteen. Fifteen green lights in a row, hit at cruising speed. Anyone who hits the Green Fifteen can be brought here. It's the rule.”

“But I didn't...” Spengler thought back to driving, the rain, wishing desperately he was somewhere, anywhere else, the accident, and the sudden flash of light. “... or maybe I did.”

“It always pisses the Houses off that these old doors exist, but exist they do,” Lampius said. “Back before things were so crowded, recruiting was tough, so there were a lot more ways to get into the City, most of them controlled by the Houses. But the Gods still have their little influences here and there.”

“So I hit the Green Fifteen, and you brought me over, and everybody wants me,” Spengler said. “It's war because I hit the Green Fifteen.”

“That's more or less right,” Lampius said. He shifted uncomfortably.

“What do you mean, more or less?”

“Well.” Lampius coughed. “The Green Fifteen hasn't been used in years, kid. I mean, years. It's a dead road, or so we thought. So when you petitioned, and I had to accept you, well...I botched it. Just a bit.”

“What are you talking about?” Spengler looked at his hands and feet, realized that it was hand and feet, and looked back up angrily. “How do you mean you botched it?”

“Just a bit, Irwin,” Lampius said. “Sorry. Spengler. I botched it the same way with Irwin, fifteen-odd years ago, and that's why I confuse you to. You both look a little unreal to me. A little grey.”

“I'd like to meet this Irwin,” Spengler said.

“You already have,” Baba broke in. “Irwin Cahill, Spengler.”

“Cahill?” Spengler said. Within the jumble of detached memories one broke loose, fell away and tumbled helter-skelter in to his consciousness. “But Irwin Cahill was my father's name.”

“Yeah,” Lampius said. “Life's funny like that sometimes.”

FORTY-THREE

MAW-BILITY

The troops of the House of Maw roiled out of the Dark Hotel, swarming through the revolving door and, when it jammed with too many hot Vat-built bodies, through the windows, too, and a forgotten service entrance, and some of the stronger ones in their exuberance leaping from the second and third-floor windows. Mr. Ogh was at the head of them, leading them down the night road towards the factories, beyond that to the scrubs, and through the dropmines to the House of Nod.

“ONWARD!” roared Mr. Ogh, feeling free and stronger than he ever had before. The House was a comforting presence in his mind, directing him onward. “THE HOUSE OF NOD HAS STOLEN SPENGLER! THEY HAVE MURDERED MR. PAINTER! ONWARD, MAW! ONWARD!” And be believed these things to be true, though he knew neither of them for a fact, but knew that he wanted war, wanted it in his bones and in his blood, and the truth could be malleable to fit this warrior's reality.

Mr. Ogh looked to his left, and saw a boiling legion of beasts. Mr. Sparks was there, with his glittering eyes, and Mr. Lily, tongue a'flickering, and Mr. Tubbs, walking with his springing low-kneed limp. To his right, he saw Mr. Oak, Mr. Neige, Mr. French and Mr. Tithe, all walking side-by-side, eyes glowing red in the darkness, their breath hot and ready.

“ONWARD!” Mr. Ogh roared again, and they surged forward. Mr. Ogh felt a heat inside him he had never known before, a deep satisfaction, a profound idea of power and what it must be like. “TEAR DOWN THE HOUSE OF NOD!”

And they moved on like a sandstorm, like locusts, a million individual pieces of darkness in the night, devouring and destroying all that stood in their past.

FORTY-FOUR

ABRONSIAS TAKES A DRIVE.

“I used to buy soda pop there,” Abronsias said, pointing at the burnt-out hulk of a building. “When I was a kid. Still called it soda pop back then.”

Hyves sighed inwardly. Abronsias had been at this all day, driving around showing Hyves things Hyves didn't really care about, trying to justify, Hyves supposed, his past. Or something.

“The neighborhood has gone to hell,” Abronsias said, signaling a turn. “Partly my fault, I know. When I was a kid, I didn't think things ten years through, just a week ahead, Hyves. I helped destroy this place, but unlike a lot of people, I lived to regret it.”

“Sir,” Hyves said, “when I demanded an explanation, I thought it might be a bit more succinct.”

“Well, this is what you're getting,” Abronsias said. “This is it.”

“This still gives me no idea why,” Hyves said. “Why change your name from Cahill? Why blackmail your way onto the police force? I've been through everything six times with a fine-tooth comb, and you've been clean ever since you became Inspector Abronsias. Spotless. Incorruptible, unbribable, hardworking. What happened?”

“A car accident,” Abronsias said slowly. “Fifteen years ago, I had ... ah ... sharp dealings with some gentlemen who were visiting our country. I was trying to get away from them, early enough in the morning that the streets were empty. Hit I don't know how many green lights in a row, then lost it on a patch of ice – it was February, and I was getting out into the industrial district at that point, where the streets weren't as worn – and hit a building. The goons drove on, they thought I was dead, and I was.” Abronsias' face sagged, and Hyves thought: this man is old. “Half of me was.”

“Sir?” Hyves asked.

“I can't explain it,” Abronsias said, “but half of me – some part of me – left me in that crash. It just left. And when I got out, there was something missing.”

“Trauma,” Hyves said.

“No,” Abronsias insisted. Signaling, he took a slow left and drove past some grimy apartment buildings. “I grew up here,” he gestured. “Raised my wife and my boy here too, until after the accident. I just didn't feel like going back, so I didn't. Never even called. It wasn't me any more. She's dead now, or so I hear.”

“So why the police force?” Hyves asked. “And what's going on with your son?”

“He's a grifter, like his dad,” Abronsias said. “Even without a picture, reading clippings about him ... hell, ever since I saw that wrecked car, I had a feeling. But half of him left in that crash to, and it was the other half.”

“Oh,” Hyves said.

They drove for a while, Abronsias pointing out other personal landmarks.

“Okay, I don't get it,” Hyves said at last. “Other half?”

Abronsias tapped the steering wheel. “When I crashed, it felt like the grifter in me had left. A lot of my past was built on the grifter, and it had gone. I was a shell, a zombie. I just walked around for a few days, trying to figure out who I was when I wasn't looking for the angle. And all that seemed to matter was my childhood, and this place I'd helped destroy. So I decided to play one last angle, and pull one last grift. The biggest one of all.”

“Abronsias,” Hyves said.

“Abronsias,” Abronsias agreed. “That was the biggest and riskiest stunt of my life, but it worked. I'd aged five years in the week since the accident, the blackmail had started before the crash, and after it was all over, I didn't give anyone any reason to complain about me.” Abronsias smiled. “I stepped into that office and I shut the door.”

“And you think Darwin Spengler ... you think the same thing happened to him,” Hyves said.

“That wasn't my boy,” Abronsias said simply. “I became the man without the grift in that accident, Hyves. That was the grift without the man.”

“Ah,” Hyves said.

“So,” Abronsias said. “That's it. What are you going to do, Hyves?”

“I'm going to have a cup of coffee,” Hyves said.

Abronsias smiled. “I meant more about me, Hyves. About my secret.”

“I'm going to have a cup of coffee,” Hyves said.

“I see,” Abronsias said.

The two drove on.

FORTY-FIVE

MR. PAINTER DOES NOT HEED THE CALL

Mr. Painter took another deep pull from My Sweet Kentucky Home, feeling his innards rise and rot in revolt, but not caring. The drums of Maw had been echoing in his brain for hours now, resounding with every step Mr. Ogh and the House took towards a confrontation with the House of Nod, but Mr. Painter didn't care about that, either.

He was useless now, anyway. Mr. Painter felt alcohol dribbling from the corners of his steel-fanged mouth, burning as it hit the still-open wounds on his chest. The alcohol kept the connection open, the connection to Mr. Spengler, who had infected and ruined him.

I remember the swingset, Mr. Painter thought, endless summer days back and forth, riding my bike and leaping off it to tackle the ropes and my momentum carrying me high, Errol Flynn on a Saturday afternoon.

“No no no,” Mr. Painter muttered to himself, “that wasn't me.” But it was in there now, Spengler had shoved his brain full of memories and wretched humanity, and Mr. Painter no longer felt the cold and clinical detached joy he had known as an envoy of the House of Maw. Spengler had cut him off, had destroyed his beautiful link and left him saturated with the disease of memory. But Mr. Painter had the bottle to guide him to Spengler, and while he was no longer Maw's killer, he could certainly be his own.

“We owned a puppy once,” Mr. Painter sang, reeling through the night streets of the City towards Spengler. “His name was Frisco. Frisco had brown eyes and white, white fur.”

The House of Maw was nearing the city every second, Mr. Painter could feel it, and he knew Spengler could feel it too, if Spengler chose only to pay attention. Not that it mattered. Maw would tear Nod apart looking for Spengler, which gave Mr. Painter plenty of time to exact his own personal and highly aesthetic vengeance. He was looking forward to tearing himself apart.

“I'm coming for us, Spengler,” he said, and Sweet Kentucky Home scorched his throat again. “Remember Pixie sticks on the jungle gym after school? I do, Spengler.” Mr. Painter had a vague sense of people clearing off the street in front of him like he was a wedge of force shoving his way down the street, and laughed wildly and madly. “I remember listening to Van Halen while working in the kitchen at Bubby's Pizzeria! I remember kissing Nadine Walthrop behind the bleachers, and her taste of cigarettes and stale nachos! I remember dressing as a spaceman for Hallowe'en, tinfoil on my hockey mask and blue longjohns with sequins on them! I REMEMBER US, SPENGLER!” Mr. Painter had never laughed before, laughed freely and completely, and he felt something inside him seize up and My Sweet Kentucky Home surge forth to reacquaint itself with some foreign air.

Mr. Painter was deeply, gloriously drunk, and it was taking him to Spengler, who he would deeply and gloriously kill.

FORTY-SIX

MR. SPENGLER TUNES IT IN

“Hold on a minute,” Spengler said, deep in the home of Lampius. “You hear that?”

“Hear what?” Lampius said.

Spengler closed his eyes. “I can hear Painter laughing,” he said, “and Ogh...”

His eyes popped open. “They're coming,” he said. “They're coming.”

“Who's coming?” Baba said.

“The House of Maw,” Spengler said. “All of them. Ogh is leading them, and they think...” he listened, “they think the House of Nod has me. They're going to kill everything they can get their hands on, until they get their hands on me.” Spengler began to walk towards the door. “I have to go,” he said.

“Go where, boy?” Baba's eyes were flint. “You owe Baba.”

“I have to turn myself over to them,” Spengler said. “I have to let Maw have me. It's the only way to keep them from killing half the City.”

“That's not what you have to do,” Baba said.

“I'm sorry,” Spengler said. “Let your demon run around in my leg. I'll crawl. I can't let this happen.”

“I'm not talking about me,” Baba said. “If you want to go, I'll let you go.”

“I want you to let me go,” Spengler said.

Baba smiled. “So go,” she said. “Four days ago, my tent was fifty metres to the south of the dropmine where you first entered the City.”

“What was that, nostalgia?” Spengler called over his shoulder.

“Good luck,” Baba called.

Spengler ran up and out of the building, guided by a succession of green lights. There was something else in his mind, something else troubling him: Painter. Painter was in his mind too, but not in the Maw-feed – he was somewhere else in there like a splintered mirror, cackling madly in the back of Spengler's head, and getting closer. For a moment, Spengler thought Painter was drunk, but that didn't make sense. Did it?

“Doesn't matter,” Spengler said. He ran, using his instinctive map of the City to guide him to the House of Nod, breathless and stumbling. He became aware of a figure running alongside him but a block away, matching him, a glimmering black figure glimpsed through alleyways. Painter? No, Painter was somewhere behind him, and gaining, but not close yet. “Cahill,” Spengler panted.

At the next intersection, Cahill crossed through a sidestreet and appeared behind Spengler, running faster to catch up. “Hi dad,” Spengler said.

“Ah,” Cahill said. “I thought you looked familiar. Where are you going?”

“Nod,” Spengler said. “I'm going to wait for Maw, turn myself in. It's the only way to end this.”

“Not hardly,” Cahill said. “You're not looking at the angles, son.”

Spengler stumbled for a moment, picked himself up and kept running. “What?”

“We both have ... gifts ...” Cahill was panting too, and having difficulty speaking. “But yours is better than mine.” Cahill's face suddenly contorted. “Ow!” He slowed to a limp, grabbing his leg. “Charley horse,” he said apologetically.

Spengler cast about with his mind, more frantically now. Maw was still closing, slow but inexorable, and Painter was getting closer still. “I can't stop,” he said. “I can't wait.”

“The House,” Cahill said. “The House of Nod. You know what it can do now. The House is time, Spengler. Nod built it, but instead of it being a reflection of him, he built it too well and became a reflection of it.” He stopped to catch his breath, yelling as Spengler pulled away. “And now he's in the House, and the House is him, and every room is when he built it. Nobody can access this except you, Spengler. The right rooms...the right sequence...you can go when you want.”

“I have to go.” Spengler turned to run again.

“PLAY THE ANGLES!” Cahill's voice was loud behind him. “It's your gift, Spengler! Play the angles!”

Spengler saw, blocks away, a thin shadow come lurching out of the alleyway, bottle in its hand. “Mr. Painter,” Spengler said. And while Mr. Painter had been frightening before, terrifying, now Spengler felt himself in Mr. Painter, mental feedback coming to get him, every memory he'd ever had turned sick and dark and diseased, and coming at him with a bottle in its hand.

Sprinting, Spengler felt Mr. Painter shattering in his mind behind him, shattering and staying together, a cloud of splintered memories and hate traveling in his wake. The House of Nod was in sight, and with a final burst of speed Spengler exploded through the front door, bowling over the man with the digeridoo, nearly colliding with Lindy.

“Hey!” Lindy said. “Spengler! I heard you --”

“Gotta go,” Spengler breathed, shoving Lindy away. Mr. Painter was close, on the steps, and Spengler began to run again. Behind him, he heard a brief you can't come in and then the screaming started. Mr. Painter would cut through them like a wheat through chaff, and Spengler was leading him deeper and deeper into the House of Nod. He had been intending to wait outside, hand himself over peacefully to Maw, but if Mr. Painter caught him – Spengler knew this – Mr. Painter would kill him, and Maw wouldn't stop until the House of Nod was in cinders. And so Spengler tore through the house, throwing open doors, feeling Painter rampaging behind him and using their bond to keep on his tracks.

Spengler ran past Brass, who stopped in mid-stride. “Spengler!” Brass barked. “No running in here, you got me?” Spengler left him behind, and as he ran through another door, he heard “WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HAND?”

But the sound seemed to distend and slow and speed up and change, a tape snapping in an ancient stereo, and as Spengler opened another door he saw Brass again, smoking a cigar and examining a painting. “Who are you?” Brass said suspiciously.

“On the right track,” Spengler said, throwing himself through another door. It was as though the air of the house was pulling at him, sticking to his skin by the pores and holding him ever so slightly, tacky like day-old paint. He was back, at least a day, maybe more. How could he know?

Reaching into his pocket, still throwing himself through doors, Spengler pulled out the map and folded back the corner with the time on it. 76534.8748.09.22.64. What the hell were days? Spengler tossed himself through another door, heading vaguely for the House's exit. He was back, anyway, and... 76534.8742.13.43.02. ... the numbers seemed to be going down. Now he could intercept the House of Maw, and --

“Play the angles,” Spengler said to himself. Why had Baba told him where her tent was?

Just 'cause?

That wasn't an angle. And Baba was tricky, as much as he and his father were. There was a reason for her telling Spengler...

“Oh,” Spengler said.

“Where's your artificial hand?” a grey-at-the-temples Dorian asked Spengler as Spengler flew through another room.

“Wrong direction,” Spengler muttered, and turned on his heel to run back through the room. As soon as he did, the shriek in his head that informed him that Mr. Painter was nearby became a howl, and Spengler realized that Mr. Painter had somehow been following him through the house, and more than through the house.

And was in the door in front of him.

“Misssster Sssspengler,” Mr. Painter hissed, his mouth open and flesh ragged. Life had not been kind to him recently, and riding Spengler's wake even less. He looked like a child's nightmare of Mr. Painter, ragged, emaciated, ichor oozing from a cut in his forehead, his mouth hanging open and panting, eyes green-yellow. “Remember the rope ssswing over the river? How we fell and broke our collarbone?” Mr. Painter lunged forward and took a swipe at Spengler, who dodged. “I don't even have a collarbone!” Mr. Painter shrieked. “What have you done to me?” He was overbalanced from the swing at Spengler, and fell forward to his knees.

“I don't know,” Spengler said. Heart pounding, he turned to run again. “Sorry,” he called.

Spengler tore through the house, conscious of Mr. Painter close behind him now, aware that nobody could help him, because he and Mr. Painter were flickering forwards and backwards with every door they tore open, unable to even see most of the time, let alone stop. Spengler shoved his way through a crowd of painters, clustered around a busy canvas. “'Scuse me,” he said. Another door, another furtive glance at the map: this was it. Screams from behind him as Mr. Painter cut a swath through time and flesh. Spengler threw open another door, leapt through it, and saw the front hall.

And Brass.

“Who the heck are you?” the brass man demanded. “How did you get in here?” He reached out a gleaming hand to stop Spengler, who dropped and did a home-base-slide to get under it.

“I'll see you in a couple days,” Spengler yelled, scrambling to his feet. “Pretend not to know me. Give me a hard time. I'll understand.” He threw the door open and ran out into the night, hearing a yell of surprise from Brass as Mr. Painter ran past him.

Spengler ran through the City, his stump aching, head pounding. He was almost back to where he came up, and then six hundred and twenty-one paces...

“I'm screwed.” Spengler dashed past familiar brownstones, saw Giorgio and his book cart, kept running. As he clambered down into the dropmine, Mr. Painter came into view at the end of the street, now holding his arm as though it were broken – probably from Brass getting a shot in as he went past. He looked bedraggled and hurt, but no less dangerous for it.

“SPENGLER!” Mr. Painter shrieked. His voice sounded hollow in the street. “I...AM...GOING...TO...KILL...YOU!”

“And that's really going to make me slow down,” Spengler muttered, letting himself down into the dropmine.

FORTY-SEVEN

BABA PRE-BABA

By the time he reached the end of the dropmine, Spengler thought his heart would burst. He was astounded that Mr. Painter hadn't caught him, and could hear the beast of Maw staggering through the mine behind him, but not gaining. Perhaps this long away from Maw had weakened Mr. Painter; perhaps he'd taken too much punishment from the streets, from Brass, from whatever it was that had given him that terrible-looking forehead injury.

Spengler had other problems, though. In his panic, he'd forgotten that six hundred and twenty-one paces were significantly different than six hundred and twenty-one running strides, and had collided with the end of the tunnel at five hundred and fourteen. Picking himself up off the ground, he began to flail around for a ladder, finding an iron rung about two feet back from the terminating wall. Spengler scrambled up it and shoved at the hatch at the top. It ground open with a whimpering of steel, and Spengler shoved his head out.

“I can't believe it,” Spengler said. “I actually caught a break.”

Baba's tent was ten feet from the dropmine hatch, and Spengler scrambled out, ran towards it, and shoved his head in the slit. Inside, Baba turned and glared at him. “Who are you?” she asked.

“Listen to me,” Spengler said. “This is the most important thing you will ever hear. I need you to open a door into the other world.”

“Why should I?” Baba demanded.

“I'll tell you,” Spengler said.

And he did.

FORTY-EIGHT

MR. PAINTER CLOSES IN

By the time Mr. Painter reached the end of the dropmine shaft, the new feeling of agony had ceased to be a novelty and had become, well, agony. Brass had broken his shoulder as he tried to slip by him to catch Spengler, he had fallen in the dropmine and felt something tear in his leg, and all of his other wounds and injuries were compounding. His link to Maw was gone now, probably thanks to the journey through the House of Nod, and the source of most of his strength with it.

Mr. Painter hauled himself up the ladder with his one good arm, hissing with every breath. It was like the ride at Harris Island that he'd never been on, the pain like when he'd been knocked off his bike by a car, which had never happened. Mr. Painter, ancient and greatest envoy of the House of Maw, thought back to the childhood that had been forced upon him, and wanted to kill it.

Will kept him going. Will and fierce hatred for the man who had done this to him, hatred for this Spengler, hatred that filled him and bound his wounds in a fashion. Out of the dropmine shaft, Mr. Painter looked up and groaned. It was Baba's tent, where of course Spengler had gone to seek succor. Succor, or something else. Something was happening in the tent, a purplish light, an uneasy, queasy feeling that hit Mr. Painter's stomach when he saw it.

A rift. Baba was doing it again. And Spengler was escaping through it.

Howling, Mr. Painter rose up and charged at the tent. There was no way Spengler could escape him. Not now, not ever. Mr. Painter had to kill Spengler to erase the memories boiling in his fevered brain, and kill him he would.

FORTY-NINE

BACK IN THE REAL WORLD

It was raining when Spengler crossed back, and he struggled to remember if had been raining the night of his accident. It had, hadn't it? He glanced back at the purple rift, eddying slightly on the alley wall behind him. Would it be there in an hour? Baba didn't say how long it would last. He gagged at the smell. The city stank, and Spengler had forgotten how much: exhaust, sewers, the rot of the alleys.

Spengler stepped out onto the street. Close by, a bank's LCD told the time: 2:46. The accident had been at 2:47. How far away? After he had talked to her, Baba had said she could “get him close” by sensing his resonance in the plane, whatever that meant.

His mind howled again, and Spengler knew that Mr. Painter had found Baba, and perhaps the rift. He'd be through in a second, and would probably kill Spengler. That wouldn't matter, as long as Spengler had enough time to act, to save himself. Then Painter could kill him, and his whole self would keep living.

“Ssssspengler.” Mr. Painter struggled through the rift, staggered towards Spengler. Spengler stepped back onto the street.

“Mr. Painter,” Spengler said. “Go home. This isn't your world. Go back to the House of Maw.”

“You've ruined me, Spengler,” Mr. Painter said. “I am going to eat your eyes.”

Spengler took another step back. 2:47. A squeal of tires in the distance.

Mr. Painter stepped off the curb, and took a feeble swipe at Spengler, one eye blind from the constant flow of ichor, limping. Spengler stepped back again.

With a subtle click, barely audible through the rain, the light above his head turned green.

“I'm sorry for whatever happened to you,” Spengler said, “but you don't belong here. You're disintegrating.”

It was true. His tie from Maw truly severed now, through not only time but aspect of space, Mr. Painter was beginning to drip. His flesh was running like warm wax, his one good eye savage in his head. He began to keen, a high wailing sound.

Spengler took another step back.

“This wasn't supposed to happen,” Mr. Painter said, his voice plaintive. “This wasn't supposed to happen to me.”

There was the roar of a motor. Spengler stepped back again, and Mr. Painter took another stumbling lurch onto the street.

“It's about to get worse,” Spengler said. “This is for my hand, you prick.”

Mr. Painter looked up as Darwin Spengler roared through the intersection towards him. His mouth formed an O of surprise around steel teeth, and Spengler saw a similar expression of surprise and horror on his own face, behind the wheel, as Darwin steered to avoid the tall man disintegrating in his headlights. He slid through the green light, skidding sideways, and a pattern of sparks began to explode around the car, a sequence of tiny green pops, as Mr. Painter dissolved in the light, his steel teeth clattering toward the ground and sliding on the wet towards Spengler's feet.

And Spengler realized the truck was skidding right at him. He had the feeling that something was mounting but hadn't taken effect yet, and Lampius had said that it had taken him a while to react. Darwin Spengler was still sliding sideways in the truck in seeming slow-motion, hurtling towards Spengler and the pole behind him, both of them taking breath to scream but not even yet having time to exhale it. The sparks intensified, and Spengler realized that he would be killed the instant he left Darwin's body, some sort of perfect loop, a magic circle of time.

“Well,” he said. “Well, here I go.” And he stepped forward to catch the truck fully, no accidents or escapes, as the green sparks exploded into brilliance and the side of the truck filled his vision.

Then his foot skidded on something on the ground, and Spengler went down. Falling backwards, he saw a pair of gleaming steel teeth fly up in the air, sparking slightly as they arced up above his falling form.

And the truck skidded over him, as he lay flat on his back, the transmission searing his nose as it brushed against it, Spengler sliding under the truck and out the other side, then hearing the horrific steel crunch as it hit the pole.

He lay there for a moment, feeling the rain on his forehead.

His stump ached.

His nose hurt.

The steel teeth landed with a light thump on his stomach, rolled off, and clattered on the pavement.

“Well,” Spengler said, “that sure was something.”

Crawling to his knees, he looked up and saw himself crawling from the window of the car, scratched and seemingly totally unharmed, but not right. It was half of him, it was Darwin, and he, Spengler, was looking at him through four days and another world, handless and more alive. Spengler grabbed the steel teeth and dropped them in his jacket pocket, still on his knees.

Darwin finished writhing through the window, thudded to the ground, got up and looked at Spengler. The truck smoked in the night behind him, the rain hissing as it hit hot metal and turned to steam.

“You look like me,” Darwin said, getting up.

“Yeah,” Spengler said, getting to his feet as well. “My name's Spengler.”

“That's my name,” Darwin said. “Call me Darwin.”

“Will do,” Spengler said. He extended his remaining hand, and Darwin shook it awkwardly. Darwin looked at the stump where Spengler's hand had been, his eyes blunt with shock.

“Looks like you've had a bad time of it,” Darwin said. “Can I get you a drink, Spengler?”

“Naw,” Spengler said. “Got things to do.”

“Gotcha,” Darwin said. He patted Spengler on the shoulder. “See you 'round.”

“Yeah,” Spengler said. “You take care.”

Darwin walked into the rain, and Spengler turned to find the rift again, hoping it was still open. He saw the faint purple glow in the alley, and patted his pocket in satisfaction.

It was empty. The teeth were gone.

“I don't believe it,” Spengler said slowly. “The son of a bitch picked my pocket.”

Then he smiled broadly and walked towards the rift. He had failed in saving himself transit to the City, failed in stopping himself from crashing, failed in preventing the Green Fifteen.

But that was okay.

He'd played the angles.

FIFTY

HOUSE OF YAGA

Spengler came through the City side of the rift as it slithered shut behind him, still smiling as its mauve glow faded from his back.

“You're back,” Baba said from the other side of the tent. “How'd it go?”

“Quickly,” Spengler replied.

“It's been four days here, but I guess it's only been a few minutes for you,” Baba said. Spengler tugged the corner of a window-slit in the tent and saw it was out by the Dark Hotel, where hundreds of ragged men with various weapons – everything from ploughshares to automatic pistols – ran in and out of the building. Spengler saw one ragged yet noble-looking man in a red bandanna wheeling a Howitzer around the side of the building. There were a few low whumps and explosions in the distance. “Softening up the House of Maw members on their way back,” Baba said. “Things have gone well, Spengler. It is still Spengler, right?”

“It is,” Spengler said. “Didn't manage to keep myself from the crash, unfortunately. But it's always nice when Plan B comes together.”

“It was hard as hell to keep a straight face through the whole thing,” Baba said. “And to set all the scrubs up without anybody cluing in that we were waiting to move on the House of Maw.”

“It's always the ones you don't notice,” Spengler said. “Everyone was so busy running around after me, they never picked up on the fact that you were mobilizing everyone in the outlying shanties. When the House of Maw moved on the City, they left the House itself practically defenseless.”

“Why not?” Baba said. “They were the only house with any real militant streak. They would have slaughtered the House of Nod and anyone else that got in their way to get to you. They didn't think anybody could stand up to them face-to-face.”

“But you didn't,” Spengler nodded. “You did an end run around them while they were in the dropmines, and cut off the source of their power.”

“Thanks to you,” Baba said.

“Thanks to me,” Spengler agreed. “I mean, hey. I owed you one. Whether it was in the future or the past is no big deal.”

“You played the angles,” Cahill said from behind them. He was standing inside the tent, grinning.

“You can't get in here,” Baba said. “How did you get in here?”

“Trick I picked up from watching our Mr. Painter follow Spengler around,” Cahill said, pointing at his head. “Don't try to slip through the walls as yourself, just assume the aspect of somebody they like.”

“Couldn't have done it without you, dad,” Spengler said.

Baba's wild eye shot from one to the other. “What?”

“Yeah, you could have,” Cahill said. “To be honest, I don't really recall being your father.”

“You may not remember,” Spengler said. “And you don't look anything like I remember him, but people change in fifteen years.”

There were a series of whump-booms outside. “I should move the tent,” Baba said. “Things might get hairy.”

“How's the House of Maw doing?” Spengler asked.

“Almost wiped out,” Baba said. “They were contained in the dropmines when we sealed the entrances on the City side and started pouring the fire in the scrub side. They killed quite a few of our guys getting back out on this side, but there are only a few stragglers trying to make it back to Maw now.”

“Glad I made it back in time,” Spengler said.

“It was just a matter of opening another rift after I left Lampius' place,” Baba said, gesturing. The tent lurched to its feet and began to step backwards. From the higher vantage point, Spengler saw something that might have been Mr. Ogh in the distance, between two factory buildings. There was a puff of smoke where he stood, and then a crater where he had been. “I didn't have time until just now, given how tight things were. As soon as I opened it, out you came. It was the first available moment for you to return to, I guess.”

“I'm pretty sure I know how all this works,” Cahill said, “but humour me. You went back in time, tipped Baba off to the impending invasion from the House of Maw, went to the other side, and came back now. With four days' warning, Baba was able to organize the scrubs with all the weapons she'd been gathering from the other side for decades now.”

“We needed a House to be taken seriously,” Baba said. “And if we didn't have one, we'd have to take one. So when the opportunity arose...”

“If I'd done what I intended to on the other side, none of this ever would have happened,” Spengler said. “I never would have caught the Green Fifteen, never would have crossed over, Maw would never have mobilized to catch me, and Baba would never have had the opportunity. I would have just been some loon that ran through her tent one day and persuaded her to open a rift with a crazy story. But this was a highly acceptable back-up if I failed to save myself.”

“The angle,” Cahill said proudly. “You are my son.”

“Nice House,” Spengler said. “It's going to need some paint.”

“More than paint,” Baba replied. “It's going to need to be contained. Maw is still in there, part of the bricks and mortar. We'll have to build a new House and keep a close eye on Maw, make sure it doesn't grow new troops. It's taken a thousand years for it to have what it does now, though. I can't see it being a problem in the near future.”

There was a drone outside, a high whine growing lower. “Lindy,” Spengler said.

“Probably bringing Brass for a talk,” Baba said.

“I'd better go,” Cahill said.

“One question,” Spengler said. “Why did you give me that letter to give to Brass? Why did you make him make me a member of the House of Nod? How did you know all this would happen?”

“That's three questions,” Cahill said. “You chew it over. You'll figure it out. The angle was there, Spengler.”

And Cahill was gone, slipping out through the tent door and disappearing like smoke when Spengler stuck his head out after him.

“Interferer,” Baba said behind him.

Outside, there was a bumping cough as the plane landed. Spengler stepped outside, into a tumult of guerrilla fighters in rags swarming around the House of Maw. As Baba said, Brass was in the plane, and he leapt out heavily, raising a small sandstorm around his feet.

“What the heck are you doing here, Spengler?” Brass demanded. “What happened to your hand?”

“Just taking in the sights, sir,” Spengler said. “One last bit of freedom before I dedicate myself wholly and thoroughly to woodbringing.”

“You may be down a hand, but that's no reason to shirk,” Brass said. “I expect you to carry wood in your teeth if the occasion warrants. You got me?”

“Right,” Spengler said. He walked towards the plane.

“Spengler,” Baba called behind him. Spengler turned. Baba was sticking her head out through the door-slit. “Thanks,” she said.

“Yeah,” Spengler said.

“You can stay here,” Baba called, “House of Yaga. Big rank. No wood. What do you say?”

“I'd better dance with the girl whut brung me,” Spengler said, shrugging. “Besides, I like the atmosphere.” He turned and completed the walk to the plane, greeting Lindy in the cockpit. “Let's go,” he said.

“What about Brass?” Lindy asked.

“He said it was fine,” Spengler said. “He wanted to walk back.”

“Hokay,” Lindy replied, switching the propeller on. As they roared off into the dusty post-war sky, Spengler saw a gleam on the sand behind them as Brass ran out of the tent shaking his fist. “So what are you going to do now?” Lindy called back over the wind.

“I think I'll check out the Spire,” Spengler said.

“Good plan,” Lindy said, banking the plane to do a tour 'round the City. It was changing, Spengler saw, streets growing and shrinking, the City itself slowly breathing and flexing. “It's a beautiful City,” Lindy said. “You should see more of it.”

“Yeah,” Spengler replied. “I intend to see a lot of things.”

Day switched to night, and in a blink, the sky was a tapestry of stars.

THE END