Grimm Awakening (14 page)

Andy smiled as they paused outside the batwing doors. “Simple explanation, really. This is just an alternate version of my world. Remember when I said it was right next door? In a way, it is. This version of earth has evolved at a slower pace than the one we just left. It’s the early twenty-first century in this world, but this place likely won’t see the advent of smart phones and online social networks for centuries to come, if ever.”

Andy pushed through the batwing doors and they walked into a pub that struck Lucien as a livelier--and more old-fashioned-- version of The Dead End, the hole-in-the-wall dive bar where he’d first met Jack Grimm in Greytown. The Dead End’s defining characteristic was a pervading atmosphere of gloom. It was a place where deceased bottomed-out drunkards spent eons upon eons drinking and wallowing in their regrets. Damned boozers sat in silence in booths and interacted with each other only rarely. In that sense, the contrast between The Dead End and O’Scanlon’s was stark. The atmosphere here was festive. Working men and career alcoholics clustered around tables and booths, engaging in raucous conversation and exchanging bawdy jokes. Close to a dozen card games were in progress. At the far end of the establishment a woman in a pink dress sat at a battered piano and led a rowdy chorus of voices through a barrelhouse boogie.

Andy shoved his way through the crowd, eliciting the occasional angry curse or half-hearted threat. He made his way to the long, gleaming bar and slid onto the only remaining empty stool. Lucien and Siegel hung back a bit behind him and intermittently dodged stumbling drunks.

The bartender noticed Andy at once and his pug-ugly face instantly brightened with a broad grin. He was fat and florid-faced and had a messy tangle of thinning gray hair. He leaned his immense belly against the bar and yelled: “Andy O’Day! As I live and breathe! It’s been too long, my friend. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company on this fine day?”

Andy grinned right back at him. “We seek drink, and much of it, as well as a place quieter than this to discuss matters of great import. Is the Red Room available?”

Lucien sensed a change in the barkeep’s mood, a shift from pleasant good-humor to humor tinged with wariness. “Aye, it is. The Red Room is beyond the budget of most of my patrons.” There was a sparkle in his eyes, a businessman’s anticipation of a big payday in the offing. “But not, of course, for a man of your means, friend.”

Andy reached into his jacket’s inner pocket. Lucien spied a flash of gold as Andy passed a closed fist over the bar. The barkeep palmed the payment and the handful of coins disappeared into a pocket of his apron. He signaled to an assistant, a skinny, pimply young man with a mop of unruly brown hair. “Sidney, mind the store for a bit, will ya?”

Sidney was pouring beer into a wooden stein from the tap of a beer barrel. He glanced their way. “Sure thing, Sean.”

Sean moved to the end of the bar, raised a wooden flap, and joined Andy and his compatriots. “If you’ll just follow me, gentlemen.”

The big barkeep shoved his way through the crowd, heedless of the curses of his customers. Andy slid off the stool and followed him, with Lucien and Siegel following in their wake.

Lucien glanced at Siegel. “What is the Red Room?”

“It’s just what the name implies, son--a
red
room.”

They skirted the thick crowd gathered around the piano and reached the far end of the bar, arriving at a nondescript brown door. Sean produced a key from another pocket and unlocked it. He stepped through the open door, then turned and closed it once the other men had passed through it. They were in a short, lantern-lit hallway. The floor was dusty and there were faintly visible cobwebs here and there. Sean led them to the end of the hallway and with a nod indicated a flight of wooden stairs.

He reached into his apron pocket again and brought out another key. This one he passed to Andy. “I trust you still know the way.”

Andy nodded. “I surely do, Sean.”

The barkeep smiled. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

The big man retreated to the opposite end of the hallway, opened the door there, and a wave of music and laughter rolled in. Until that moment Lucien hadn’t noticed how effectively soundproofed this hallway was--the sound coming from the bar was like that of a television snapped on at high volume. Then Sean O’Scanlon was gone and the noise vanished with him. Pure silence followed the click of a turning lock. Lucien was struck by a sense of unreality--it was hard to believe a raucous barroom was going full-tilt just beyond the wall to his left.

With no further preamble, Andy began to descend the stairs. Lucien gestured for Siegel to follow first, then he trailed after the old man. The stairs creaked beneath their feet but seemed sturdy enough. The musty smell of the hallway was less in evidence the further down they went. In fact, the air was improbably fresh, almost like conditioned air. Assuming he could trust Andy’s account of this world’s level of technological advancement--and he had no reason to doubt it--that shouldn’t be possible. But by the time they reached the bottom of the staircase Lucien trusted his senses--the air here was artificially cooled and was subtly tinged with some pleasant scent.

They followed Andy down another, longer hallway that was clean and nondescript. The door at the end of the hallway was the passage’s lone remarkable feature--it was painted a shade of bright red. Andy unlocked it with the key supplied by the barkeep and entered the Red Room.

The room was about the size of a small apartment. And Siegel had been right--varying hues of red were the only colors in evidence. The profusion of crimson was so overwhelming at first that Lucien had to squint, but his eyes soon adjusted to it the way a human’s would adjust to sudden darkness. There was a single red table at the center of the room. It was ringed by four straight-backed red chairs. A well-stocked bar painted a deep shade of auburn occupied the room’s far left corner. The floor was hardwood varnished a rich shade of scarlet.

A woman in a short dress entered the room from another door, a door Lucien was certain hadn’t existed until it opened. He watched the door swing shut as the smiling woman came their way. To say that the door ‘closed’ wasn’t quite accurate. It
disappeared
. Lucien’s brow knitted as he scrutinized the seamless expanse of red wall.

Perhaps this world lacked the technological advances that had been both blessing and curse to Andy’s world, but it didn’t lack for magic. At least this little corner of it didn’t. Which, now that he thought of it, went a long way toward explaining why Andy O’Day and the barkeep were on such friendly terms.

The woman introduced herself as Delilah. Her dress was red, of course. And it wasn’t just short, it was almost nonexistent. It was more like a slip, a flimsy piece of lingerie that clung to her shapely body in a way that stirred anew the horniness awakened by the streetwalker Siegel had pointed out earlier.

Lucien realized the woman had said something to him and blinked. “What?”

Delilah laughed. The sound carried a strong erotic undertone that sent a shiver up Lucien’s spine. “I merely noted your obvious appreciation of my body, you handsome devil.”

“Um...”

“I could remove my dress for the duration of your stay. Improve the view, so to speak.” She winked. “Nothing is forbidden patrons of the Red Room.”

Lucien felt vaguely embarrassed. “Um...no. That won’t be necessary.” He coughed. “I mean, you are lovely. But…um…we have business…and…”

But then Delilah was laughing again. “Relax. Just wanted you to know the option was available. If you gentlemen will just have a seat...”

They moved to the table, where Lucien pulled out a chair and dropped heavily into it. He was relieved to be off his feet. Until just then, he hadn’t fully realized just how weary he was. Siegel and O‘Day looked similarly relieved.

“Now, then, how would you boys slake your thirst tonight?”

Andy spoke first. “I’d like a pint of your finest stout.”

Siegel said, “Double rye, doll. And bring the bottle.”

Lucien drew in an involuntary sharp breath as Delilah’s hand fell on his shoulder.

“And you, handsome? What sounds good to you tonight?”

“I’ll have bitter ale, if you have it.”

Delilah gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Oh, we do. We have anything you want.” Lucien tried not to sneer at the other men’s chuckles. “I’ll be back with your drinks directly, boys.”

Then she was gone--and Andy and Siegel exploded with laughter.

Lucien leveled his most disdainful glare at each of them. “Yeah, okay, I get it. It’s give the refugee from hell a hard time night. I’m glad you guys are having such a good time. I didn’t realize you transported us to an alternate world to party. Jack is facing torture and likely death and neither of you seems at all worried.” There was venom creeping into his voice now. “Why is that, Andy?”

Andy leaned back in his chair. “Let me ask you something, Lucien. Do you remember the transference chant that brought us here?”

“I remember a lot of Latin-sounding mumbo fucking jumbo coming out of your mouth.”

Andy smiled. “Wasn’t Latin, actually. You wouldn’t recognize the language, of course. It’s not known in either my world or your version of hell.”

“What do you mean, ‘my version of hell’?”

“Just as the world of my birth is but one of an infinite number of earths evolving along different paths, your hell is one of many damnation realms.”

“But that’s not...” Lucien left the thought unfinished. It occurred to him that proof of a multitude of hells was all around him. Logic dictated that inhabitants of this alternate earth unworthy of ascendance to heaven would not be consigned to the hell he knew. Logical or not, though, the concept was disconcerting.

Lucien sighed. “Okay, I believe you. What’s it got to do with leaving Jack high and dry?”

Andy tapped a Marlboro out of a pack and lit it. “Just this--the transference chant was derived from knowledge handed down through generations of master wizards. Not of my world, of course. Nor of this one. Or any other alternate earth. This clan of wizards ruled a world that wasn’t even in our galaxy. Through some means I still don’t understand Theodore Grimm gained knowledge of many of that powerful clan’s most carefully guarded secrets. Dark and powerful magic. A fraction of which he has passed on to me.” He paused to blow a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “You already know that the transference chant allows us to move between realms. It also freezes time.”

Lucien guffawed. He could swallow a lot of far-fetched concepts. He came from hell, after all. But this was too much, even for him. “That’s crazy. What if something were to happen to us here? Suppose we never get back to your world--am I supposed to believe it’d just stay stuck in time forever?”

Andy shook his head. “No. And it wouldn’t. Stay stuck, that is. Time-freezing occurs when one uses a modification of the transference chant. The effect is temporary. We have a few hours, at best.” He smiled. “You see, there’s a catch to using the time-freezing trick. If we don’t transfer back to our world before time there snaps back into motion, we’ll be stuck in this world. Forever.”

“Why couldn’t we get back by just doing the transference chant again?”

Andy shrugged. “Don’t know. All I do know is we could hop between all the other planes of reality almost at will, but our own would be lost to us for good.”

Lucien shook his head. “Damn.”

Andy lit a fresh cigarette from the dwindling stub of his first. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it back in plenty of time. I’ve no intention of allowing any other outcome.”

Delilah arrived bearing their drinks on a red tray. She set each red-tinted glass on a red napkin. “You fellas want anything to eat tonight?”

Andy sipped stout. “Perhaps later, Delilah. We have business to discuss first.”

Delilah’s demeanor shifted with this information. No longer playing the role of flirty sexpot, she exuded an air of cool professionalism. “Of course, sir. Should I excuse myself from the Red Room for the duration of your discussion?”

Andy’s face took on a contemplative cast. He sipped more stout and tapped another bit of ash into the ashtray. “I think so,” he said at last. “There is one thing you could bring us. The Eye of Sylvain. There’ll be an additional fee, I know.”

A small, inscrutable smile touched Delilah’s mouth. “Yes, sir. I’ll let Mr. O’Scanlon know. He can collect the final fee when you leave. I’ll return with the Eye in a few moments. Feel free to refresh your drinks from the bar while I’m gone.”

Andy smiled. “Thank you, Delilah.”

She nodded and left them.

Lucien watched her touch the seamless red wall with the tip of a finger. The outline of a door appeared at once and a doorknob seemed to form out of thin air. Delilah pulled the door open and stepped through it. The door closed and disappeared again.

Lucien looked at Andy. “What in the blue fuck is the ‘Eye of Sylvain’? Is that some sort of horrific delicacy in this backward world’s culture?”

Andy laughed. “Of course not.”

“What is it, then?”

“Explanations should wait until the Eye arrives.” Andy lifted his glass of stout. “In the meantime, have a drink. Relax.” His gaze shifted to Siegel. “Ben, I think it’s time you shared some of your secrets with our new friend.”