Exceptions to Reality (6 page)

“You were right,” she repeated. “It was beautiful. As beautiful as you had hoped.

“And so were you.”

At Sea

The juxtaposition of entirely different story ideas is one of the joys of writing. This is especially true of science fiction and fantasy, wherein the writer has access to absolutely anything that can be conjured, no matter how seemingly unrelated. The only rule is that the final result has to make sense as a story. You can mix together all manner of ingredients, but the result has to be something palatable to the mind.

Grounding fantasy in the real world is always fun. You have the opportunity to upset all manner of perceptual applecarts. If your concept works well, you also enjoy the pleasure of surprising the reader. Sometimes the most disparate notions will come together to produce a viable tale. Once the story is plotted and the rough draft completed, the writer then has the fun of sprinkling it with details, like adding lace and sequins to a dress. The design of women’s earrings, for example, is not something I often find myself having to ponder when putting in those little touches that add verisimilitude to a fantasy. Nor are the minutiae of drug-running, commercial fishing, and Scandinavian mythology.

Especially not in the
same
story…

“
Hoy
, Cruz—there
are five horses on the stern!”

Sandino was a big man with a squinched puss and huge arms the color of aged bratwurst. Right now his expression was slowly subsiding into his face, like a backstreet into a Florida sinkhole, swallowing his features whole. It was left to his voice, which had the consistency of toxic cheese-whip, to convey his confusion.

Although he was onboard a modern longline fishing boat, Cruz did not know much about fishing. This did not matter, because he did not care much about fishing. Boats, however, were something else. Boats could go where planes and cars could not. As far as fishing boats were concerned, the best thing about them was that they stank. The big swordfish boat reeked of blood, guts, fish oil, and sea bottom. This made it perfect for Cruz’s purpose. This was his ninth run on the
Mary Anne,
and there was no reason to believe it would be any less successful than the previous eight. No one suspected she carried any cargo beyond the limp mass of dead billfish in her hold. No one suspected that one particular dead swordfish contained twenty million dollars’ worth of pure top-grade Bolivian cocaine that did not normally form part of a billfish’s diet. Compressed and packed into dozens of waterproof, odor-proof, break-proof packages, this highly inhalable product of the Andean hinterland fit neatly into the honored fish’s hollowed-out body cavity.

Cruz did know enough to realize that the presence of five horses on the stern of the
Mary Anne,
120 miles out from Providence, Rhode Island, was not in accord with normal commercial fishing procedure. Even if the horses had been dumped at sea, they could not have climbed aboard. Since he had not heard the metallic bang-and-rattle of the big winch that was used to haul in the longlines, they could not somehow have been lifted aboard.

It occurred to Cruz that Sandino might be enjoying a joke at his expense. A single hard stare was enough to put that possibility to rest. There was a lot of meat on Sandino, but not much of it was gray matter. Nor was it the sort of gag that Truque or Weatherford would concoct. Lowenstein—now, he was different. The computer and communications expert was clever. Cruz’s brows furrowed. Too clever to come up with a dumb line about horses on the stern.

“I don’t have time for stupid shit now, Sandino. We’ll be having to look out for Coast Guard soon.”

Cruz turned back to the thick port glass that looked out over the foredeck of the
Mary Anne.
Sullen and silent as they always were in the presence of their unwanted passengers, the crew of the fishing boat went about the business of securing their vessel for the night. They didn’t like Cruz and his unpleasant companions; did not like the way they comported themselves while onboard. Didn’t like the way they hectored and taunted Captain Red and his son David. Did not like the way they acted as if they owned the
Mary Anne.
Why the captain tolerated their presence on so many trips even his closest friends did not know. But when asked about it, Red just stared off into the distance and mumbled something about old obligations, and told the questioners to carry on. Because they loved Red, and because he always found swordfish and made them money, the crew ground their teeth and held their peace.

“Nice cloud cover,” Cruz declared conversationally to Gunnar “Red” Larson as he peered up at the night sky. “Fog would be better.”

“For you. Not for me.” Larson kept his gnarled fisherman’s hands on the ship’s wheel and his eyes straight ahead. He strove to focus only on his instruments: the radar, the GPS, the depth finder, and the weather scan. Most of the devices arrayed across the broad, glowing console he could ignore, knowing as he did the way back to the
Mary Anne
’s home berth the way a puffin knows its flight path back to the North Sea cliffs of its birth. He hated the wiry, soft-talking son-of-a-bitch standing next to him. Hated the man’s face, his manner, his clothing, the smelly Indonesian clove cigarettes he chain-smoked, and his friends. Most of all, he hated Cruz’s business.

No, he told himself as the ulcer-sparked pain that would not go away spasmed his gut and made him wince imperceptibly. There was one more thing he hated: the old gambling debt that had put him in bondage to Cruz more than six years ago. The debt he could not seem to satisfy. The debt from which he had begun to fear he would never emerge.

Three years ago he had stumbled drunkenly out of Portuga’s Bar and Grill on Sixth Street, his arm around David’s shoulder, and on a quiet night in the middle of the river park, had broken down and confessed all to his only son. David, fine young college-educated boy that he was, had listened in stony but sympathetic silence while he waited for his tough-as-hooks father to stop sobbing. Then he had proposed that Red immediately repeat the story to the police. The old man had violently demurred. He knew people like Cruz, he explained. Had known them most of his life. Lock up Cruz and his minions, and others of his filthy kind would take vengeance. Not out of any love for Cruz, who after all was a sly and successful competitor, but as a warning to others. To keep their mouths shut. To pay their debts.

Besides, old man Larson had mumbled, it was only one or two trips a year. Just one or two trips. Meet the courier boat in the open Atlantic, transfer the noisome illegal cargo, stuff it in a conscripted sacrificial swordfish, and it was done. No violence, no confrontations. At the wharf, that one fish would be purchased by a certain buyer from New York, and that was the end of it. Year after year. Soon the debt would be paid, he had assured a dubious David. Soon they would be free of Cruz and his grinning, scornful face. Soon, soon…

Was
soon,
Red Larson reflected as he stared resolutely out the port at his sulking crew and the gathering night, ever to come?

“Fog is better for you,” he repeated. “Not for me. I am responsible for the boat.”

Puffing on one of his sweet, execrable cigarettes, Cruz looked away and tittered. “‘Horses on the stern.’ You’d think Lowenstein, that squeaky little nerd asshole, could come up with something better.”

Unconsciously Larson looked away from the black water athwart the bow and over at his noxious passenger. “What the devil are you talking about?”

“I know what he is talking about. The brigand is insulting our mounts.”

Uttered in a most distinctively steely feminine voice, the observation was bizarre enough. Turning simultaneously there on the bridge of the
Mary Anne,
the sight that Cruz and his sulky captive captain beheld was stranger still. But not, a captivated Cruz reflected, in any way unpleasant. So taken was he by the unexpected vision that he barely gave a thought to the notion that it might somehow be connected to the putative presence of multiple horses on the stern.

Crowding onto the bridge were five of the most simply stunning, utterly gorgeous women Cruz or Larson or Nick Panopolous, who was standing with his mouth open at the far side of the chart table, had ever seen. All of them were blond. Startlingly blond, except for one scintillating redhead, and all had eyes of electric blue, save for two who flashed green, the redhead among them. Variously attired, none was dressed for open-ocean deep-sea fishing. Common to all of them, though visible more on some than on others, was scarlet underwear. One wore a severe off-the-shoulder black dress suitable for performance with a symphony orchestra. She was carrying a violin case. Despite this, her appearance was no more incongruous than that of her four companions. Lost in the rear of the crowd, though not unhappily so, was a visibly dazzled David Larson.

“Hi, Dad,” the young fisherman called out. “I’d like you to make the acquaintance of some new friends of mine.”

Before a flabbergasted Red Larson could reply, the suddenly animated Cruz stepped forward. “It is lovely to meet you all, senoritas. Though I have no idea how you come to be here, on this miserable boat in the middle of the open ocean, I gladly welcome you aboard.” He leered unashamedly at the nearest woman. She wore a comfortable brown business suit, practical flats, and stood five-nine, maybe five-ten. She was also the shortest member of the group. “I assure you I was not intentionally insulting your mounts. Though I am always available to such charming company to discuss matters of mounting.”

Pushing past him without a word, the blonde confronted the bewildered captain. Hands on hips, she looked him slowly up and down, leaned forward to peer deep into his eyes, reached out to take several of the thinning hairs atop his head and rub them between thumb and forefinger, all the while sniffing at him with a nose that was as pert and perfect as the rest of her. She smelled, old man Larson decided, of wild honey and expensive leather, of crisp fresh air and slow-warmed Cognac. Married for thirty-six years to the same woman, he nonetheless felt dizzy in the presence of this impossibly flawless golden goddess.

“Do not be alarmed,” she told him forthrightly. “My name is Herfjötur.”

“Say what, girl?” Even though she was facing away from him, Cruz continued to stare at her, and not at the back of her head.

She spun around to confront the smirking Colombian. “‘War-Fetter’ to you, blackguard.” Raising a hand, she gestured at her watchful companions. “These are my sisters. That’s Sigrdrifa. Next to her are Hrist and Róta. The tall one behind them in the evening gown is Skeggjöld.” The “tall one,” Red Larson noted, towered over his son, who stood six-foot-one in his stocking feet. “When in his misery and desperation a true scion of the Old Believers called out to us”—she indicated David Larson—“we came as soon as we could. The others would have come as well, but they are presently occupied.” She glanced enigmatically back at the confounded captain. “We are wiring Asgard, you know. Being on another temporal plane creates problems that most installers cannot imagine.”

“War-Sister is too modest,” declared Róta. “In this plane she works for Nokia, you know.”

The one called Sigrdrifa nodded. “Having companies like hers and Ericsson right in our ancestral backyard has helped immensely.”

Hrist was shaking her head slowly. “Between battles, Odin insists on being online. And Freyja is simply impossible.”

It was a tentative Gunnar Larson who stuck his head around Herfjötur to inquire cautiously, “You’re not…?” Beneath bushy brows his eyes grew a little wider. “By my grandfather’s honored soul, you
are,
aren’t you?”

The spectacular blonde who was resting an elbow on David Larson’s shoulder essayed a divine smile. “Don’t you recognize us? Of course, we have to adopt our dress to the present time, or we would draw the stares of the meddlesome curious while living and working among them.”

As if you don’t draw stares as you are now, the old captain mused.

With a polished fingernail painted fire-engine red, Skeggjöld flicked one of the long earrings that dangled alongside her neck. It took the form of a pendulant hatchet fashioned from rubies and diamonds. “These sign my name, fisherman. Can you know it?”

Larson struggled to remember the old tales his grandmother had told him over hot cocoa beside crackling fires on midwinter New England nights. He nodded. “Yes, I know you, ‘Wearing-a-War-Ax.’”

Skeggjöld shrugged exquisitely. “I do what little I can with what contemporary fashion allows.”

Cruz, who had been watching and listening to the meaningless wordplay, was interested in only one thing. Well, two things. But matters of paramount importance must perforce come first.

“How did you get on this ship?” He glanced through a port. Outside, it was now black as the inside of a deserted Bronx tenement. “I didn’t hear or see another boat pull up alongside.”

“We did not come by boat,” Róta informed him coolly. “We flew.”

“Low,” Hrist added. “You have to, these days, to stay under the coastal radar.”

Cruz frowned. A glance at the stupefied Sandino showed that no plane or copter had been observed approaching. The smuggler was not entirely displeased with the attempted subterfuge. It would be a pleasure to pull the truth out of liars as attractive as these.

“I don’t know why you’re telling me these loco stories. You’ve been on the
Mary Anne
all along, haven’t you? That’s it!” His gaze narrowed, and the false veneer of good humor vanished. “I could almost think you were agents, planted here for purposes of entrapment. But why only women? And in such clothing?”

“Maybe,” Sandino rumbled from beside the starboard doorway, “they’re hiding something.”

“
Seguro
…sure.” Cruz’s smile returned. Sandino was a good man. Dedicated, loyal. It was time to reward him. “Why don’t you have a look and see? But pick on one your own size.”

A wide, wicked grin of realization slowly oozed across the face of the muscle. Advancing, he unhesitatingly extended a hand in the direction of the bodice of Skeggjöld’s elegant evening gown. As he did so, she reached down and lifted the hem of the exquisite dress, in the process exposing more leg than Cruz or both Larsons or Nick Panopolous had ever seen in their lives.