"She's already online," Rathand said, glancing furtively toward the door as Zeldan barged into the New You's basement. The Unseleighe was not happy about the interruption; each call to him through the Terminal put a strain on the entire system, including the stored energy he had in the crystal capacitors. Not to mention the time he spent scurrying down here to heed her calls. In general, her presence was annoying. It reminded him of the deal he'd entered into, perhaps in haste, the advantage from which he had yet to see.
Zeldan tried not to wince at the hideous image. "Yes, what is it?" he barked into the Terminal. He made no pretenses; he was mad, and he was going to let her know it.
"Did you send a party of Unseleighe to Underhill for any reason?" she asked accusingly.
The question took Zeldan by surprise. "Well, no. Why?"
"As I suspected," she said, and whispered to someone off screen. "A group of what looked like elves of the Unseleighe court showed up at the Avalon palace today—"
"It no longer belongs to the Tuiereann family," Zeldan pointed out icily.
"And claimed to be sent by you."
Zeldan scratched his long, pointed chin thoughtfully. "Not I, my dear Morrigan. I do hope you've imprisoned them."
She nodded, with some relief evident on her obese features. "They are now in a node shell, on the palace grounds."
"Node shell?" Zeldan said. "But that means, if you made this transmission, you had to pull away power from the prison. Are you certain they're still secure?"
For the first time Zeldan remembered, Morrigan looked uncertain, threatened, even. "What?" she finally said. "Certainly that won't mean . . ."
"Who knows," Zeldan said with an air of resignation. If she's slipped up, and these intruders have escaped, it would really make my day. "My elves are down there. Nagas, if I remember, is in charge of patrolling the area. He is young, true, but he has a firm understanding of leadership." And torture. And maiming. "Have you even bothered to contact him?"
"Of course I have!" Morrigan snapped. "They are on their way to the palace as we speak."
"Find out who the intruders are," he said, wondering who would do such a foolhardy thing. Certainly not the Avalon elves, gone to reclaim the palace? Since we've already sacked it, I'm tempted to give it back to them, so that I can have the satisfaction of taking it from them again.
"One moment," Morrigan said, and left the screen temporarily.
Zeldan sighed. The idea behind communicating with Underhill in this fashion was to keep the messages brief; dead space like that took as much power as dialogue. He glanced at a dial on their bank of storage cells, watched it drop ever so slowly, and resisted a temptation to break the connection. "Hanging up" on Morrigan would give a certain amount of satisfaction. But her wrath would be difficult to deal with later.
She returned to the screen, this time more shaken than before. "It was a mage," she said. "And they've escaped. Nagas intercepted them as they were trying to leave."
"Ah, excellent," Zeldan said confidently. "Then we have nothing to worry about. Nagas will deal with them." A mage? That might only mean . . . certainly not. "Have Nagas report to me immediately. May he use your terminal?"
After a pause, during which Morrigan had a difficult time maintaining eye contact with Zeldan, she said, "He can't, Zeldan. He's dead. The group, whoever they were, killed the entire patrol."
Zeldan stared at her image. If there were some way to wrap my hands around your neck, I would, he thought in the confused rage that followed. Dead? The entire party?
"No witnesses?" Zeldan finally sputtered. This can't be. "Survivors? Anyone?"
She looked distressed, not smug. Zeldan gave her credit for that much. "None. Except, the group of mercenaries I had watching the fields."
"Mercs?" Zeldan asked hopefully. They would have to be formidable to be any match for a mage.
"Gargoyles," she explained.
Zeldan groaned. The weakest creatures in Underhill. I'm surprised they subdued the intruders in the first place.
"Whoever they were, they are long gone," Morrigan said. "Tell me, Zeldan. You'd said that Aedham Tuiereann was no threat. Is it possible he was this mage?"
He withheld a snarl. "Perhaps, but I doubt it," he managed to say.
"You don't sound convinced," she said. "But no matter. Once our plan is completed, we will have all the negative power we need, and then some. Avalon and any other Seleighe clan that happens along will have their hands full with our mayhem. I am not worried."
You should be, Zeldan wanted to say, but that would only make things difficult for himself. "As for the Avalon pestilence, we will have that under control as well. We have a lead that should take us directly to the Tuiereann rat's nest. The McDaris residence, I believe," he said proudly. She probably doesn't care that much about eliminating this particular King, but I certainly do. It was just a matter of simple detective work. Mort has proven his usefulness three times over.
Zeldan continued, "We have already met with our human minions. They are ready to deliver your concentrated Black Dream to the human watering holes."
Morrigan's face turned blood-red. "Then why hasn't it happened already?"
"These things take time," Zeldan replied. And planning, and patience, neither of which you have experience with. "The logistics involved, the different layers of security we must penetrate to disperse our product in the water system. It's more complicated than you realize."
Her face darkened. "Details!" she screamed. "I want action!"
The screen went blank.
Zeldan gazed at it for a long time, then got up, put on his Peter Pritchard human seeming, and went back among the cattle, and their pain.
And with the death of Nagas, Mage Japhet Dhu thought, with no small amount of satisfaction, dies the remaining obstacle to my plan.
The mage had sensed the Gate in Underhill the moment it formed, but instead of intercepting whomever came out of it, he watched from a distance. It was, to his surprise, the former Prince of Avalon.
The Seleighe have returned to Underhill. Come to claim your kingdom, have you? he thought. Nagas was the last remaining Unseleighe leader who had remained faithful to his father, so it was only natural that he seek out this new threat to Zeldan's territory. The others in Japhet's organization remained quietly loyal to Japhet, while his father made a fool of himself chasing down Seleighe children. Japhet had considered approaching Morrigan in hopes of making an arrangement beneficial to both of them, but as it stood Zeldan was providing a substantial amount of raw power, energy which was lacking in this Underhill wasteland. Better to wait until Father is less useful before approaching the bitch.
This new development with the Avalon clan was completely unexpected. At first the mage didn't know what to make of it. The Seleighe King didn't seem to be particularly powerful, in fact had not even bothered to construct any kind of shield. And when the mercenary gargoyles captured them, they had put up no fight whatsoever. Their actions are curious, Japhet thought. What do they expect to gain among the ruins of their former elfhame?
Mage Japhet grew bored with the proceedings, returned to his stronghold, and summoned his fellow mages. While Morrigan's attention was focused on these new intruders, he reasoned, they had the perfect opportunity tap into Morrigan's fresh load of harvested human pain.
My father will pay for his folly, Japhet thought. His obsession for ridding the universe of the Seleighe plague will be his undoing.
And I will be waiting, patiently, until he fails. Then I will claim for myself what is rightfully mine. I am, after all, the sole heir to Zeldan's kingdom.
One of his mages brought a crude oracle to him; it was a construct of one of Morrigan's crystals, stolen from her mines. On occasion they were able to eavesdrop on the transmissions between Zeldan and Underhill, and do so without detection. They used the oracle sparingly.
This had better warrant my special attention, Mage Japhet thought as he took the fist-sized crystal from the cowering Unseleighe elf.
Interesting, Japhet thought, as he took in Zeldan's and Morrigan's conversation. The King of Avalon is a mage. And he is returning to the human's world to destroy my father!
How very kind of him to simplify my life for me.
Daryl returned home from the trip to Lake Tawekoni, in part because he hoped he might shake Mort. The little demon had appeared nearly everywhere else in his life but here, in his house. So here he came, hoping to be alone, at least for a little while.
The house appeared to be empty when he pulled up. Both cars were gone, which meant Mom was probably at her bridge party, and Dad was out God only knew where. Only the porch light was on, but that came on automatically at sunset; the rest of the house was on a computer, which automatically turned on certain lights, but lately hadn't been working right, so Dad had shut it off. The house was dark when he entered, but he didn't find anything peculiar about that.
The Dream had worn off somewhat, but he didn't really want to do more of it right away, for fear Mort might reappear. He knew he had to slow down, he was doing too much of it, and since he wasn't an addict he had to show himself that the stuff didn't have control of him. That meant leaving the Dream alone.
He went into the kitchen in search of a beer or a cooler, found a half-consumed six-pack of Bud, and opened one. The cold suds burned a comfortable path down his throat, and as its numbness spread, he decided he wasn't so anxious anymore.
Maybe I should just switch to beer and leave it at that, he considered. But somehow the thought reminded him of Justin, guzzling suds with those football jocks in the pickup, and the prospect didn't have as much appeal to him.
Maybe scotch. That is the civilized way to imbibe, after all.
On the kitchen counter he found a note, with a twenty-dollar bill. It was from his mother, who was letting him know that she would be out playing bridge, as he'd already guessed. The twenty was for him to use "any way he liked."
A twenty. Mere pocket change, compared to what he'd been making at the New You. That day he'd made the first drop, a whole ki of Dream, and took his cut for that day, one grand, in cash. It was the easiest thousand he'd ever made in his life, and despite his reservations about working for this strange outfit, Mort included, he looked forward to more of the easy money.
The light buzz the beer gave him told him he'd hadn't had any garden-variety coke in awhile. Hell, he thought, I guess that would be okay. It's Dream I'm slowing down on, not coke. Dad has some in his bedroom. He always has some. Might even be able to snatch a few Valiums from Mom's bottle to help me sleep later.
He went into the master bedroom, turned the light on, and reached for the silver tray under the bed. It was an antique, probably about a hundred years old, but was so finely polished that it worked just as well as a mirror. There was enough coke leftover from the last time to make two healthy, go-for-it lines. He took the twenty, rolled it up, and snorted both lines in two deep breaths.
Use it any way I liked, he thought whimsically, regarding the twenty. Mom can occasionally be helpful, if only by accident.
The coke burned for a moment in his sinuses, then became a mild itch, which had just been scratched. The numbness originating with the beer deepened.
Just coke, he thought, as the clouds of heaven descended on his brain. No Mort. Part of him realized that cocaine reduced his thinking to two-syllable snatches. No prob. I'm fine.
He put the tray back, turned off the light, climbed the stairs.
Music from one of the Alan Parsons albums, Daryl didn't know which, poured out of Justin's room. There was no light under his brother's door. The door to his own room was open, leading to darkness. Daryl frowned, vaguely annoyed at this intrusion to his personal space.
He turned the light on, and saw his brother lying facedown on the floor.
"Justin?"
Justin didn't move.
He's playing games. Or he's passed out. I'll just ignore him.
With the intention of taking a shower, he stepped over Justin on his way to the bathroom.
He noticed the five black-stoppered vials, all empty, and his glass pipe, next to Justin's left hand.
"Justin, just what the hell are you doing?"
The words came out weakly, a mere whisper. Daryl's heart thundered in his chest.
"Justin?" he said again, as he knelt over his brother.
As he reached to roll him over, his hand recoiled from the cold arm, the cold shoulder, the cold neck.
No. He isn't. He can't be.
The image of his birthday party at Steve's flashed through his head. His dead friends, and those not so dead. But this was different, this was his brother.
Justin is not dead.
Stars filled his vision as he became light-headed, but he grabbed Justin by the arm anyway, and rolled him completely over. He had never had much of a tan, but now Justin was very pale and very cold.
Justin's eyes were open, unblinking, and filled with terror. His mouth was frozen in a scream.
Justin!
Daryl stared at him, reached for his wrist, found no pulse there, looked for one in his neck. Nothing.
Shaking, he picked up one of the five empty vials. Five? Did he smoke all five of these bottles of Black Dream? Oh, God. He must have. He's so cold. But where the hell did he get it? Sticking out from under the bed was a shoe box, filled with vials. This was also where he'd kept his pipe.
He had no strength to move, so he sat there, staring at his lifeless brother. The pleasing numbness from the coke drained away from him. His face is so horrible, Daryl thought vaguely. I wonder what he saw?
His stomach's contents rose to the back of his throat. As he ran to the toilet to retch his guts out, he thought briefly about D&D, and all the good times he'd had with his brother. And all the times he wouldn't, now.
After he'd completely emptied his stomach, he reached for the telephone and dialed 911 for an ambulance. "Just send one. My brother overdosed. I think he's dead," he said, to the dispatcher's repeated request for details, and hung up.
Without being fully aware of what he was doing, he pulled his wallet out and began looking for something. The piece of paper with Moira's phone number fell out.
Call if you need help.
Through the tears, Daryl picked up the phone and dialed.
Adam woke from a sound sleep on the living room couch. He sat up with a start, then closed his eyes against the headache that threatened to rip him in two.
Holding his head with both hands, he looked around; around the Sony TV he sensed the remains of a Gate recently dismissed. Evidently, Moira had eliminated his Unseleighe glamorie, as he now wore his usual attire: jeans, running shoes, a tank top.
The Unseleighe sword lay on the couch. A fitting trophy, Adam thought, pleased as well as a little sickened at the memory of the levin bolt. The rage that had consumed him earlier, when confronting the Unseleighe, was gone now. He felt a bit queasy, remembering how totally he'd annihilated them. He began to question whether he'd be able to do the same thing again, when confronted with Zeldan. Either answer disturbed him.
He stood up and instantly wished he hadn't. This must be what a hangover feels like.
While in Underhill, he must have overdone the magic bit, he suspected. That would explain his headache, which far surpassed the one he suffered while healing Niamh. He looked around and saw a track of dust leading from the living room to the garage. Our feet must have been covered with the dry soil of Underhill. But why did everyone go into the garage?
He shakily made his way in that direction, which passed through the kitchen, where he grabbed a cold, canned Gatorade.
"Hi, guys," Adam said from the open kitchen door as he popped the can open.
Spence, Marbann, Moira and Niamh stood around the wooden worktable, which had been dragged to the center of the garage floor. A bank of fluorescents lit the garage up a little too brightly for his headache.
"Your Majesty," Marbann said, looking up from the worktable. "How do you feel? Are you well?"
"Uh, no," he said, sipping the Gatorade. "My head's about to burst open. But that's the only damage I suffered. I think."
Marbann nodded, but looked disturbed. "That will pass, in time."
"I'm less than convinced," Adam replied, but what they were doing roused his curiosity more than a cure for his headache. Spence was working on the weapon they'd liberated from Underhill. The mechanism was clamped onto the portable worktable, with a rectangular metal plate removed from its stock, revealing a spaghetti mess of wires and circuit boards. In its present condition, the weapon looked completely harmless. Spence patiently soldered a wire to a circuit board, his face a mask of unbreakable concentration.
Niamh, who had tried to fix the weapon years back, looked on, visibly confused.
"I'm not sure what they had in mind here, when they made it," Spence said. "From what I can tell, it's not steel, but an aluminum magnesium casing, and may have originally been designed for mining or some other industrial purpose. It's missing something, though." He pulled some wires aside, revealing a compartment. "There's a space here. Looks like a battery went there, or something. Damned if I know what kind it was. Doesn't look like anything I've seen."
"Weren't the engineers in Underhill modifying it to use node power?" Moira pointed out. "Instead of a battery, maybe it used something else?"
Spence looked doubtful. "It must be something else. Down in the stock here are chambers for two nine-volt batteries, and they've already been replaced. In this other compartment, there are traces of node power. I wish I could talk to whoever was working on it." He paused to wipe sweat from his forehead. "But all the engineers died in the first wave."
Moira looked up at the King. "Adam, what do you think?"
Adam shrugged, still weary from the ordeal in Underhill. "I'm not sure I can think anything," he said, then he leaned over the table. Indeed, there was a space there, but it didn't look like a place a battery would go. The contacts were cupped, not smooth, like the inside of a flashlight, and were faceted. As if they held something that . . .
Then he saw what it had to be. "A crystal," Adam said. "It must be."
He searched his pockets for what he hoped might work. His father's memory crystal was still in his pocket, and he pulled it out and handed it to Spence.
"I used it in Underhill," Adam explained. "When we were sealed off from the node energy, it was the only power source we had."
Marbann spoke up, "It acted more as a way of focusing the energy we already had among us. The crystal had a minimal amount of power stored in it."
Spence pointed at the weapon, gazing on it admirably. "This mechanism is one big lens for node power, whether by accident or design. Perhaps this crystal is just what we need. Everything else about the weapon appears to be operational, now that I've reconnected some of the loose wires."
He inserted the crystal, which was a bit small for the space. With a screwdriver he loosened one of the contacts, which slid against the crystal, clamping it in place. When he tightened it back, the weapon came to life.
A row of LED lights Adam hadn't noticed before came on, and a tinny, electronic whine, like the sound of a PC booting up, was emitted from somewhere in the stock.
"Now what?" Moira asked, as she stepped back from the weapon. "Do we dare try it here?"
Adam gave Moira a distressed look. "I know it's probably dangerous, but we have to know if it works or not," Adam said. Then, to Spence. "How do you use it?"
Spence pursed his lips, licked them nervously. He looked like he'd been out here a long time and was getting twitchy. "There's a safety near the trigger." He looked around the garage.
"What is that over there, in the corner?"
He was pointing to the big smoker that had been sitting there unused for years. "So far as I'm concerned, it's a big hunk of useless Cold Iron," Adam said.
"Perfect," Spence replied, taking the smoker by the wooden handle and pulling it against the garage door. He flinched from it, evidently feeling the heat all Cold Iron gave off to elven senses. "I see what you mean."
Target practice. "I think everyone should go back in the house. We don't know what this weapon is going to do."
Niamh looked hurt. "But I've been trying to get this thrice-damned thing to work for so long, I have!"
Adam sighed. "Okay. Just stay by the door, would you? Everyone else, out."
As his clan complied, Adam hefted the weapon. The aluminum-magnesium alloy made it somewhat lighter than if it were steel, like most human firearms. It looked and felt like an assault rifle should, and might have passed for one if it'd had a clip. The barrel was short and square, resembling a policeman's radar gun. When he brought it up to aim, the stock was a little awkward. I guess you can't have everything.
Once the garage was empty, he thumbed off the safety. A green LED light near the barrel came on. Nice features. Then he aimed at the smoker and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
"Well?" he heard Spence call.
"Got a problem," Adam replied.
Spence came back in and examined the weapon. "It's a focus for node power," he said. "Why don't you tap into the nodes, and direct them to, say, the crystal. That may be why it needs a crystal."
"I'll try it," Adam said, but he was already beginning to think the trip to Underhill to reclaim this hunk of metal was a waste of time.
Spence stepped back. Adam brought the weapon up again, this time reaching for the Marketplace nodes, keeping his eyes open, and on the target. Their power reached though the ground, through the soles of his feet, coursed through his body and into the weapon's crystal, which was beneath his left palm.
He pulled the trigger.
A tight beam of node energy shot from the barrel of the weapon and bore directly into the smoker. Sparks flew as the beam tore into the Cold Iron, impaling it, then proceeded into the garage door behind it. A half second later, an explosion shook just on the other side of the garage door, which threatened to shake off its track.
"NO!" Adam shouted, as he released the trigger and brought the barrel down. He already had an idea what the explosion was.
"Adam, what was . . ." Spence said, then stared at the garage door. "Oh, no. We didn't."
"I think we did," he said, feeling ill, giving Spence the weapon. "Hide this somewhere, quick. Before the fire trucks get here. And tell everyone else to hide, too. We're going to have human visitors real soon."
Adam tried to open the garage door via the automatic opener, but it would not budge. The explosion must have damaged the door. Damn. He grabbed a fire extinguisher off the garage shelf and ran through the house to the front door.
My ears! I'm still in elf mode! He paused for a full five seconds, cast the glamorie, and inspected himself in the hallway mirror. Satisfied he was presentable to the humans' world, he ran out the front door to deal with the fire.
As expected, his little Geo was engulfed in flames. The beam had shot through the door and struck the car's gas tank. Adam started spraying madly, hoping the extinguisher had enough of a charge. In the distance, he heard the wail of fire engines.
Great, he thought as he sprayed. My tapes! They're history now.
The car was completely engulfed in flames. His extinguisher did little against the fire, which had spread to a few places in the front yard. When the car exploded, pieces of Geo had blown into the street, but the car was still basically intact. Broken glass littered the driveway. Looks like the car's history, too.
As he beat back the fire, he felt strangely unmoved at the demise of his car. Under his frantic struggle to put the fire out was the unrestrained joy at finding something, anything, to use against Zeldan Dhu and his Unseleighe Court. In the flames of his burning car, he imagined Zeldan's face.
A fire truck, followed by a second larger one with a ladder, pulled up in front of the house. Firemen poured off with more extinguishers and started hosing the car down with white fog. They soon had the fire under control, and as they put out the last of the flames, Samantha McDaris pulled up in her cop-issue Chevrolet Caprice.
She had her badge opened and displayed as she walked up to the fireman who appeared to be in charge.
"This is my house, and this is my son. What in the world is going on?" she said, casting a brief questioning look toward Adam.
The fireman looked apologetic. "Perhaps you'd better ask him. A neighbor called in the fire, and when we got here, the car here was burning."
"I . . . don't know how it started," Adam said. "Honest."
"This car's a hazard," the fireman continued. "A tow truck is on the way. And we'll have to call the police."
"I am the police," Samantha said impatiently. Then Adam sensed a change in the man's attitude.
Sammi's using magic on him, Adam thought, but kept his mouth shut. She knows what she's doing.
"On the other hand," the fireman said, "since you're here, we won't need to call the police. The fire's out. I'd still have it moved, if I were you."
"Very well," Samantha said, and the firemen declared the job finished and left.
"In the house," Samantha said shortly.
Once inside, Adam found that everyone had done as he'd said—everyone was so well hidden he didn't even know where they were.
"Now tell me, what the hell happened?" Samantha said, dropping her purse and keys on the kitchen counter.
Adam told her.
"You've got to be kidding."
Adam smiled weakly and tried to sound apologetic. "Well, at least it works. It went right through that old smoker."
Samantha rolled her eyes. "At least we've found something useful for that thrice-damned waste of space."
Moira and Spence appeared, Spence holding the weapon, as the others came out of various hiding places in the house. Petrus startled everyone by popping out of the cabinet at their feet.
"So the damned thing works," Samantha said, holding it up. "Not very heavy. Aluminum?" Spence nodded. "Good thing. I wonder if that college kid from Berkeley had elves in mind when he made this."
The phone rang, and Moira picked it up. As the caller spoke, her face darkened.
"What is it?" Adam asked, but he sensed who it might be.
"Okay, okay . . ." Moira said. "Call an ambulance. You already did? Good." She looked up. "It's Daryl. His brother overdosed. He thinks he's dead."
"Let me talk to him." Adam reached for the phone, and heard sobbing on the other end. "Daryl? It's Adam. What happened?"
"Adam?" Daryl said, after a moment. "It's Justin. He got into some stuff. Black Dream."
For a moment, the King didn't know what to say.
"Don't hang up," Daryl said. "I need to talk to you. You know how you've been telling me about the drugs. How they're going to kill me? They killed Justin instead. . . . "
More crying, into which Adam spoke, uncertain if his words were getting through. "It's okay. . . ."
"No, it's not okay. Hold on." A long pause followed.
"What's going on?" Moira said. "Do we need to go over there?"
Daryl came back on. "Adam, some really weird shit has been going on. And I'm not talking about the drugs."
"I'm listening," Adam said, aware that Moira and Samantha were discussing whose car to take.
"I'm in deep, real deep. I've been selling quantity through my other job at the New You Fitness Center. There's something weird about that place. . . ."
Tell me about it.
"I've been seeing, like, ghosts and demons and shit. I think they're aliens."
Adam became acutely aware of his own pointed ears. "Really?" he replied, trying to sound like he cared. Still it came out sounding like he thought Daryl was nuts.
"There's something big going down. With my dealer. Your mother is a cop. I think . . . she should know about it."
"Okay," Adam agreed. "What's going to happen?"
"I'm not sure. Mort said they were going to call me here tonight."
"I see," Adam said. I'll ask who "Mort" is later.
"The ambulance is here," Daryl said. "I gotta go."
"We'll be there in a few minutes." Adam hung up the phone.
"Well?" Samantha said. "What did he have to say?"
His mother sounded hostile toward Daryl, but then he didn't really blame her. "It sounds like he's ready to turn in some people."
Samantha raised her eyebrows. "Oh really? His suppliers?"
"Yeah, his suppliers. And I think he knows his suppliers aren't exactly humans."
"Gods," Samantha groaned. "Just what we need. Daryl involved with the Unseleighe."
"I think he needs protection," Adam continued, reaching for his car keys. Then he remembered, they didn't go to anything anymore. "Once he starts turning people in to the police, the Unseleighe are going to be after him."
"I think we should all go over there," Marbann said. "It sounds like the young human needs our help."
The only operating vehicle left for them was Sammi's cop car, the '93 Chevy Caprice. It was built to move fast, and had ample room for passengers, and proved to be the perfect vehicle for Adam and his clan to migrate to Daryl's house. Marbann, Moira and Niamh piled into the rear seat, careful to cast glamories before leaving the house. Adam, Spence and Sammi, who drove, took the front after carefully stashing the secret Avalon weapon in the trunk, among the other cop bric-a-brac.
Definitely nonissue, Adam had smirked as he closed the trunk.
Sammi had left Wenlann and Petrus with instructions to "guard" the Gate. This was only to give them the illusion they were doing something important; the two littles were simply not combat ready, and possessed only the rudimentary skills of elven magic.
They'll be safe here, Adam thought as Sammi sped out of the driveway.
When they pulled up in front of Daryl's house, they found an ambulance, a coroner's station wagon, a black-and-white, and the white van Sammi and her new partner did surveillance in. The front door of the house was open, and Adam saw someone standing just inside.
"They must have called Roach," Sammi said, explaining the van. "Depending on how far Daryl is willing to go on this, the gear in that truck might come in real handy." She opened her door and got out.
"We leave the situation in your most capable hands," Marbann said from the rear of the Caprice. "Summon us if you require help." The others stayed behind while Adam and Samantha went inside.
"We'll do that," Adam said, casting a brief but longing look at Moira. Gods, she looks sexy when she's tense, he thought before following his "mother" up to the house.
What struck Adam as being strange was the absence of interest from the neighbors. All along the richly appointed neighborhood block, lights had been turned out or shades drawn. It was almost as if the other humans wanted to shut off what was happening at the Bendis' home. Adam doubted this was the first time police had shown up at this address.
A uniformed officer met them at the open door, and Sammi presented her credentials. It didn't seem to be necessary, only a conditioned reflex, as the officer seemed to already know her.
"The body's upstairs. The coroner just arrived." He looked down, looking disturbed. He was young cop, and apparently had little experience in death.
"Where the hell are the parents?" Samantha said.
"Not here," the cop said. "Kid doesn't know where they are, either."
Adam saw Daryl, crying his eyes out, in the dining room. A suit was questioning him, an older cop he assumed was Sammi's partner.
"This is my son," Sammi said briefly. "He's riding with me on this one."
"It's pretty bad up there," the cop warned, but they were already on their way up the stairs.
The coroner and his assistant waited in the hallway with their gurney, looking annoyed. Another cop was taking pictures of the boy when they came into the room. Justin lay on his side, staring upward. He looked terrified, his face frozen in fear, and Adam wondered why.
"There was a crack pipe and five empty vials of the stuff. It's already bagged for evidence."
Sammi exhaled loudly. "Five? I don't believe it." She stepped around the body, looking down in detached but sincere sympathy. "Did they have black stoppers?"
"Oh, yeah. Black Dream, I think the street name is." The cop snapped another picture, a closeup of Justin's face. "His heart must have given out on the fifth one," the cop commented. "The coroner will let us know for sure if it was heart failure."
"Has the room been searched?"
The cop shrugged. "Not really. We wanted the pictures, first."
"Of course," Sammi said as her foot hit something just under the bed. It sounded like glass bottles. She reached down and pulled out a shoe box, which had twenty or thirty vials of Black Dream. The cop whistled.
"There's got to be more," she said.
Adam took a long look at Justin's body, the whiteness of the skin, the total lack of movement. The only thing animated about him was that hideous face, and Adam wondered what he might have seen. Then he looked away.
I knew this boy. I played D&D with him, countless times, in this very room. And now he's dead. It might have been Daryl.
It might have been me. . . .
He shuddered, feeling suddenly unclean. The cop called the coroner in, and Adam left the room.
"We've got to talk to Daryl," Sammi said from behind him. She had the box of Dream with her, which rattled loudly as she walked.
They joined Roach in the dining room, where Daryl sat on one of the chairs, holding his head in his hands. He quivered as he sobbed.
"Let me talk to him alone," Sammi said. "My son here . . . he knows him."
Roach nodded and left the room. Behind them, the gurney rattled as the coroner wheeled the body down the stairs.
"Daryl," Sammi said. "You need to start talking to us."
Daryl didn't respond at first. Adam felt at first uncomfortable, then anger grew and spread as he considered the forces responsible for the drugs in the first place.
Zeldan. My enemy is now your enemy, he thought.
Daryl sat up slowly in the chair. Not, as Adam first suspected, from reluctance, but from weakness. He looked deathly ill, and Adam was as shocked at his appearance as he was at seeing Justin's body. His face was sunken and hollow, like a skull. Dark rings dwelled under his half-closed eyes, and for a second Adam thought his father had hit him. But it was only the darkness of someone who'd been up too long, not the purplish welt caused by a fist. Adam had seen enough of those on Daryl over the years to know the difference.
Adam had half expected to see a calm but defiant human child who thought he knew everything and wasn't about to let the authorities rattle him. Instead, he found this shivering mess, whose tail had been decisively kicked.
"Good God, Daryl," Samantha said softly.
Daryl looked up at her slowly, blinking. "Yeah, I know," he said, and did something that passed for a laugh. "The stuff finally caught up with me."
Adam sensed surrender in the flat statement, which he'd never heard before.
"Where are your parents?" Samantha asked.
"Who the hell knows," Daryl said slowly. "Mom's playing bridge somewhere. Dad's probably out getting loaded somewhere." He looked at Adam. "Who cares?"
"We care," Adam said, pulling a chair up. He still felt awkward, but he meant what he'd said. He hoped some of that sincerity had leaked through.
Instead of a rude retort, Daryl said nothing at first. "We used to be good friends," Daryl finally said. "What happened?"
"You don't know?" Adam said, but he saw that Daryl did.
"Yeah, I know. All I hafta do is look in a mirror, right?" Adam said nothing. Then, after a brief silence, a tear ran down Daryl's face. "He's dead, isn't he?" he sobbed.
Adam didn't know who reached out first, but the next second he was holding his friend, who had wrapped his arms around Adam. He cried into Adam's shoulder and neck without restraint. Adam felt a tear squeeze between his own shut eyelids. "Oh, God," Daryl moaned into his ear. "How did I get so deep in this crap?"
"Do you want out?" Adam heard himself say.
They withdrew from the embrace, Daryl looking slightly embarrassed. "Hell, yes, I want out. But there's no getting out, don't you see? I'm trapped."
Evidently he'd been doing some thinking about his situation and wanted to backpedal on his earlier remarks.
"There is a way out," Sammi said. She had left the room and reappeared with a Coke in a glass of ice.
"Yeah, right," Daryl snorted, but took the drink nevertheless.
"No, I mean it," she said. "Start talking to us."
Daryl shook his head, waving his arms shakily for emphasis. "No no no no no. You don't understand. They'll kill me."
Samantha held out the box of Black Dream and shook it. The loud rattle of glass indicated a fair number of bottles. "No, you don't understand. What I have here can put you away for ten years, even with parole."
Daryl glared at her.
"Mom, do you really . . ." Adam began, but he saw where she was taking this.
I get it. Good elf, bad elf. Right.
"You'll be almost thirty before you see freedom. If you don't start talking, right now, I'll push for twenty, with manslaughter."
"Do you really think threatening him will do any good?" Adam said.
Daryl looked as if his soul had been deflated. "Okay," he said lifelessly. "You win."
Over the next half hour Daryl told them the whole story, when he started selling bottles for Presto, to the job he had at the New You Fitness Center. Adam's skin crawled as Daryl described Peter Pritchard, a.k.a. Zeldan Dhu, of the Unseleighe Court, and his arrangement at the health club dealing quantity. He pulled out a wad of twenties thick enough to choke a horse. "Take it if you want. It's drug money." He started emptying his pockets, and before he was through had added ten more bottles of Black Dream to the cache. "There's a bunch of coke under my dad's bed."
"Go get it," Samantha said.
Daryl did as he was told, moving laconically, like a zombie. "I think he's finally had it," Samantha said when he vanished into the master bedroom.
I'll believe it when I see it, Adam thought. He hated to be skeptical of his friend's attempts to mend his ways, but he knew he was not only up against the power of the drug, he was against the Unseleighe Court.
"That's all that I know of," Daryl said when he returned from the bedroom with a large silver tray with a visible layer of cocaine on it. "Honest. I probably have stuff all over the house I've forgotten about. I know Dad does." He set the tray down on the dining room table.
"As long as we have your permission," Samantha said, "we can use it all for evidence."
"You have it," he said. Then, his expression became fearful. "Now. I have a few of my own requests."
Samantha waved at Roach to come back in. The cop had been lingering in the hallway ever since she'd shooed him away, and he returned with a big goofy smile on his face, apparently having heard everything.
"You heard the boy," she said. "Search this house." Then she turned to Daryl. "Go ahead," Samantha said. "You've been fair with us. What do you want?"
Daryl returned to the chair again, a little more steadily this time. "First, you need to get me into a treatment center. I'm so strung out on Black Dream right now I'm afraid I'll die without help."
Adam withered at the mention of the Dream. My family did not stop the Unseleighe, and they followed us here, where we fled. We are responsible, if only indirectly.
"And I need protection. Lots of it. From Presto, from the Man, and from my father. After tonight, they're all gonna want my head on a stick."
"You've got it," Samantha said, and they shook hands.
"And there's the big thing," Daryl said. "That's going to happen tonight." He told them about the other little side project the Man and Presto had cooked up, and how it was about to happen real soon now.
He didn't make much sense, but Adam caught the gist of it. "If they put Dream into the water supply, I doubt it would have much effect. The water would dilute it."
"Unless," Samantha said. "Unless it's—"
"It's some sort of concentrate," Daryl supplied. They're convinced it will work. Lake Tawekoni is one of them. I don't know where the rest of it's gonna be dumped. Mort said something about it being millions times stronger than the original. . . ."
Samantha turned to Adam slowly, deliberately. "This is something we need to worry about. I don't like the sound of it one bit."
"And how much is it worth to you?" Daryl pleaded. "My life's on the line here."
"We will protect you," Samantha said. "You have my word. You will get everything you asked for, the treatment center, protection, everything. When is this water supply thing supposed to happen?"
The phone rang. One of the officers reached to pick it up, but Samantha waved at him not to. "Let Daryl get it," she said.
Daryl groaned, but went over to pick up the phone anyway. After a brief conversation with someone, he hung up the phone, paler than he was before.
"It starts happening tonight," he said, his words edged with panic. "Presto wants me at the New You Fitness Center in an hour. What do I do?"
"We've got to know exactly what he's going to do," Adam said. "Unless you can tell us more."
Daryl looked miserable. "I don't know any more than that. Honest."
"But all those people, possibly the entire population of Dallas, hallucinating gods only knows what," Samantha said. "It looked like whatever it was your brother saw, it scared him to death."
Adam flinched, hoping she hadn't just gone too far. Daryl shook his head slowly, said, "I know what Justin saw."
Adam waited for him to continue. Instead, he started to break down and cry again.
"We need you to help us," Samantha said. "We've got to stop this."
"I know, I know . . ." Daryl said through the new tears. "Can't you just go in and bust him? Haven't I told you enough?"
Sammi shifted in her chair. "We need evidence. The kind we can take to court. Your father's a lawyer, you should know all about that."
Daryl rolled his eyes and looked disgusted. "Don't remind me. What do you want to do?"
Sammi waved at Roach, who had just come down from the upstairs. "Roach, do we have a wire in the van we can send in with Daryl here?"
"Oh, we got a couple," he said, glancing from Samantha to Daryl. "What do you have?"
"Daryl here, he's willing to help us collect some information," she replied evenly. Daryl scowled, and Adam wondered if he was even well enough to do the job.
"Guys, I don't know . . ." Daryl began, and Adam put a hand on his shoulder.
"You know, this isn't something you can do halfway," Adam said. "We either do this right or we don't do it at all."
Daryl frowned, but looked resigned to what he had to do. "Okay. I'll do it. We'd better get started quick. Presto is expecting me."