The Gates of Winter (13 page)

Surrender Dorothy. It had to be; it made too much sense. In 1816, the Seekers had collected samples with otherworldly connections from a building in Brixton—the same building that, nearly two centuries later, housed the nightclub.

So the Seekers were aware of Surrender Dorothy. At least at one time they were.

Or was it the other way around? Maybe it wasn't chance that Deirdre had met Glinda that day in the Sign of the Green Fairy.

They knew about the Seekers—Glinda, Arion the doorman, all of them—and they were desperate for help. Duratek was using them, hoping their blood might open a gate to Eldh. Who else could they turn to?

Only it had been too late. Deirdre hadn't been able to help them. That night, Surrender Dorothy had burned, taking its strange denizens with it.

Deirdre twirled the silver ring on her finger. “Who were you, Glinda? You and the others. You weren't quite fairies. But you weren't quite human, either. So where did you come from? And why were you in London?”

She opened a new session window on the computer. There had to be more answers in the Seekers' files. And with Echelon 7, she was going to find them. She started a new query, one to call up all otherworldly cases located in London in the last four hundred years, but before she could finish typing the screen went blank.

Deirdre frowned. Was the battery dead? She started to check it, then froze. Words scrolled across the screen.

> You'll never find it that way.

She stared at the computer. She hadn't done that; her hands weren't even on the keyboard. The words pulsed slowly, like a slow laugh. Deirdre moistened her lips, then touched her fingers to the keys.

Find what? [Enter]

> What you're seeking.

The reply had come quickly, as if the person on the other end had been waiting for it. If it was even a person at all. Deirdre thought a moment, then typed.

Who are you? [Enter]

> A friend.
> Make that a secret friend.

Again the reply came quickly, but somehow these words were not comforting.

If you're a friend, where can I find you? [Enter]

> Look out your window, Miss Falling Hawk.

Dread spilled into Deirdre's chest. Her body seemed to move of its own volition as she rose from the chair and moved to the window. Outside, full night had fallen. A few cars passed down the quiet side street; a cat ran along the sidewalk. Then she saw it across the way: a dark figure standing just on the edge of a pool of light beneath a streetlamp. The figure moved. Had it nodded? There was something in its hands.

“Why are you watching me?” she whispered. “What do you want?”

A chime sounded behind her. She turned and glanced at the computer screen.

> I want the same thing you do.
> To understand.

So the other was listening as well as watching. Later she would tear the flat apart and find the bug. Now she kept her back to the window. “I don't believe you,” she said, the words sharp and angry this time.

More words scrolled across the computer screen.

> He's coming.
> You should be careful of what other eyes see.

A knock sounded at the door. Deirdre had to bite her tongue to keep from letting out a cry. At the same moment, the computer screen flickered; the words vanished, and the results of Deirdre's previous searches reappeared—the keystone and the DNA analysis. She glanced again out the window. The pool of light beneath the streetlamp was empty.

Another knock sounded at the door, this one more impatient than the last.

“Coming!” Deirdre called out. She slammed the computer shut, then headed for the door. Her hands were shaking, and she fumbled with the dead bolt before jerking the door open.

A man she had never seen before stood in the hallway. At first she wondered if he was the one she had glimpsed beneath the streetlamp. But she had seen the other just seconds before the knock came at her door; he couldn't have gotten all the way up to her third-floor flat so quickly. Besides, the dark silhouette she had seen had been tall and slender, almost willowy.

In contrast, the man before her was not particularly tall and anything but willowy. The elegant lines of his Italian suit were mostly defeated by the muscles that bulged beneath, straining the fabric. His white-blond hair was cropped close to his head; nor was its color natural, given his short, dark beard. His eyes were shockingly blue above craggy, pitted cheeks.

Deirdre was too startled to say anything but, “Can I help you?”

The man smiled, his blue eyes crinkling. The effect was quite riveting.

“I'm Anders,” he said in a voice at once gravelly and offensively cheerful. She couldn't quite place the accent. New Zealand? Australia? “I'm sure Nakamura told you about me. I blew into town earlier than I expected. You weren't at the office, so I thought I'd stop by.”

Deirdre tried to comprehend these words but failed utterly. “Excuse me, but who the hell are you?”

Still smiling, he held out a large hand.

“Come now, Deirdre. That's no way to greet your new partner.”

16.

If Travis had thought returning to Denver would be like coming home again, then he was wrong. All of those thoughts and feelings that might occur to one when considering the word
home
—things like warmth and comfort and safety—were only shadows here. They were thin and vaporous things, haunting every street corner, fogging every bright shop window: reminders of what was lost and could never be regained. No, this was not his home, and he was anything but safe.

Travis shoved raw hands into the pockets of his battered parka as he trudged down Sixteenth Street. He kept watch out of the corners of his eyes, glancing left and right, staying vigilant as he always must. The sky was as gray as the cement beneath his duct-taped sneakers, and hard bits of ice fell from above like shards of glass. He hunched his shoulders toward his ears. The kindly Chinook winds of January had blown east across the plains weeks ago, and the fast-melting snows of spring were still a month away. It was February, it was cold, and he had nowhere to stay for the coming night.

He peered into brightly lit stores as he passed by. The people in them smiled as they purchased designer shoes or sipped steaming coffee drinks. When they were ready, they would dash out to cars already warmed by waiting valets and speed away home. No one lingered out on the street; no one, that was, except those who had nowhere else to go. Travis's feet scuffed to a halt, and he stared into a men's clothing store, thinking how he might go in and get warm for a moment.

But only a moment. Then a clerk, or possibly two, would hurry up to him and speak in low voices that he had to leave, that if he didn't, they would call the police. Travis knew from experience they would do just that. Then he would be back outside, and the brief flirtation with warmth would only make the cold more bitter. It was better not to go in at all.

As he turned away, he caught a reflection of himself in the store window. His beard and hair were shaggy and unkempt: copper flecked with more gray than he ever would have guessed. His face was haggard beyond his thirty-four years, and dirt smudged his coat and ill-fitting jeans. But it was the eyes that would truly startle the clerks: gray, set deep into his face, and as haunted as the streets of this city. They were the eyes of a man with nowhere left to go.

He hadn't planned on being homeless in Denver in February. Then again, he supposed no one did. However, the gold coins he had brought from Eldh had fetched far less than he had hoped they would at the pawnshop on East Colfax where he had finally been able to sell them.

At first, all of the pawnbrokers he approached had seemed suspicious of the coins. He and Grace had sold Eldhish coins for money once before in Denver. Had agents from Duratek visited the area pawnshops, telling their proprietors to be on the lookout for a man or woman selling strange coins?

Travis didn't know. All the same, he went into a hardware store and, in a back aisle, used a file to smooth away the writing on the coins. After that he managed to sell them, but for less than a third of what he had been counting on. Still, it had been enough money to last several weeks if he was careful. He didn't need much—just enough to find out where in the country Duratek had hidden the gate and to get himself there.

However, focused as he was on Duratek Corporation, he had forgotten to worry about more mundane dangers. He would never know who they were or how they found out about the money. Maybe they had seen him selling the coins at the pawnshop earlier that day, or maybe the shop owner himself had told them. It didn't matter. That night he rented a room in a cheap motel. He left to get some food, and when he returned he found the door of his room ajar, the lock broken. Inside, the bed and dresser had been torn apart. The money, which he had placed beneath the Gideon Bible in the nightstand, was gone. All he had were the few dollars in his pocket left over from buying dinner.

After Travis told the motel's manager of the break-in, she had called the police. By the time the black-and-white cruiser pulled into the parking lot, Travis was already walking away down Colfax, head down. He didn't dare let himself believe the police had stopped looking for him and Grace. Without money and with nowhere to go, he had spent the night wandering the cold streets of Denver.

Tonight was going to be no different.

Travis put his back to the store window and started down the street. He supposed he could walk the ten blocks to the homeless shelter, though there was little point. By this late in the day all of the beds would be claimed. He had planned to head over to the shelter earlier, but he had gotten caught up in the books he had been reading at the Denver Public Library, and he had lost track of time.

The library was a neoclassical fortress of cast stone guarding the south edge of downtown, and it was one establishment people like him weren't automatically thrown out of—at least not if they followed the rules. On the coldest days, when he couldn't stand to be outside, he would clean himself up as best he could in the public rest room, and if he sat at a table and quietly read books, he could stay there as long as he wanted.

Of course, the security guards patrolled by frequently and cast hard looks at him, and he knew no matter how tired he was—no matter how much he wanted to lay his head on the table or, better yet, curl up on the carpet that was softer than anything he had slept on in weeks—he knew he didn't risk it. The moment he slept instead of read, he would be loitering, and the guards would toss him out, and maybe write him up so he could never come back. So he read book after book, and when his brain could no longer force the dancing letters into comprehensible order, he would simply stare with his eyes open and turn a page every few minutes. Then, after that poor facsimile of rest, he would blink, get up, and find another book.

Usually when he was at the library he spent his time in the Western history collection. It was there, just that afternoon, in a bound book of crackling yellow newspapers, that he finally found what he had been searching for. It was a copy of the Castle City Clarion from December 26, 1883. His eyes blurred as he read the title of the first entry in the Obituaries section:

Maude Carlyle, aged 35, hosteller, of consumption

Beneath that was a second entry:

Bartholomew Tanner, aged 37, former sheriff, by his own hand, of a revolver wound to the head

Travis ran a shaking finger over the page as he read the obituaries, but they were short and offered little information, and there were no pictures. Which of them had gone first? Only he knew. Tanner had wanted to spend Maude's last days together with her. And when she was done with this life, so was he. Travis stared, not understanding, as dark blots spread over the page, and only after a while did he realize they were his own tears.

He was still staring at the book when a security guard touched him on the shoulder and told him he had to leave. At first Travis thought he must have fallen asleep in his reverie, that he was being kicked out. Then the announcement came over the loudspeaker that the library was closing. He had hastily shelved the book and hurried out into the failing day.

Travis was right. By the time he made it to the homeless shelter there was already a cluster of men waiting outside the door for any last bed that might become available. Some of the men looked at him through narrowed eyes, and he hurried on; he would find no shelter there tonight.

He supposed he could try one of the churches, but most were a long walk away, and they were likely to be filled as well on a night as cold as this—what few still offered shelter for the homeless. Every day, the newspapers Travis retrieved from waste bins bore news darker than the last. More company closures and layoffs, more bombs planted in shopping malls and random shootings, more strange new diseases without cause or cure. The flood of charity had thinned to a trickle; most churches had been forced to shut their doors to the needy and had become beggars themselves.

Most, but not all. As he walked, Travis looked up. It loomed against the skyline north of downtown, on the other side of the river, as sharp and imposing as a mountain. Only this mountain was not made of stone, but rather of steel and glass. The first time he had seen it, the structure had still been under construction. Now light welled forth from within, like the radiance of heaven spilling through bleak clouds, gold and hard—beautiful but forbidding.

Some of the other men Travis had spoken with from time to time said that you could still get charity at the Steel Cathedral. All you had to do was fall on your knees, confess your sins, and pledge your soul, and you'd get a soft bed and all the hot food you could eat. Only if that was true, why was there a line outside the homeless shelter? Maybe it was just that most people didn't want or need to be saved. All they wanted was some food and a safe place to sleep. Because being poor wasn't a sin, and offering up one's soul seemed like an awfully high price to pay for a bunk and a bowl of soup.

Or maybe souls were cheaper than he thought these days—another side effect of the faltering economy.

He kept walking, not sure where he was going, only knowing it would be colder if he stopped moving. His belly rumbled, but he still had three dollars—money earned from collecting bottles and cans out of trash bins—and that would be enough to buy him a hamburger and a cup of coffee. The garish sign of a fast-food establishment loomed in the night. He would eat—slowly, lingering in the harsh fluorescent warmth as long as possible—then he would decide where to go after that.

The glowing yellow sign filled his vision, and he thought of Calavere's great hall, of the fire that would be roaring even now in the massive fireplace, and of the roasted venison and flagons of wine that would lade the tables. However, it wasn't the thought of food and warmth that caused his breath to fog on the air. It was the faces he could picture sitting at the high table. Grace and Aryn on either side of a blustering King Boreas. Lirith, Sareth, and good, solid Durge. Melia and Falken, speaking in mysterious whispers as always. And on opposite ends of the table, a fair-haired knight with green eyes, and a woman in sleek black leather, her eyes as gold as moons. . . .

He clenched his jaw and stared at the fluorescent interior of the fast-food restaurant, letting the light burn away the visions. He couldn't let himself think about them. It would only lead to despair. Or worse yet, to madness. Besides, both Beltan and Vani had made it clear that they no longer needed him. Somehow he had won their love, then just as inexplicably lost it. Only why should he be surprised? He had lost Alice, and Max, and the saloon. When in his life had he ever been able to hold on to anything good?

You don't preserve things, Travis. Not like a doctor, like Grace. You break them, and it's time to quit denying it. Besides, some things need to be broken. That's what Brother Cy said—and Beltan, too.

Only Travis wasn't going to break a world, not like the Witches and the dragon Sfithrisir believed. He was going to break Duratek Corporation and the gate they had created to get to Eldh. And when he was finished, there was something else he was going to break. Some things . . .

He felt a note of curiosity in his mind. The presence of his old friend Jack Graystone was always there, listening to his every thought. But Travis couldn't let Jack know what he was thinking; Jack would only try to stop him. Travis forced the thoughts from his mind, then stepped off the sidewalk and started across the street.

He froze as a black van cruised silently around a corner just ahead. The crescent moon on the side of the van glowed a sickly orange color in the illumination of sodium streetlights. Travis stumbled back, folding himself into the shadow of an empty atrium, and watched.

The vehicle pulled into the parking lot of the fast-food joint. The door opened, and the driver climbed out, a young man in a black uniform, the same crescent moon emblazoned on the back of his nylon jacket. In his hands was a black plastic tablet with a shimmering green screen. The driver looked around, then headed into the restaurant.

Travis had seen them use the tablets before. The man was a technician, coming to check on the electronic systems installed in the restaurant. It seemed as if almost every store these days used Duratek systems for inventory, communication, and security. No one used a credit card, accessed a computer, or made a phone call without Duratek knowing about it—Travis had learned that quickly enough.

The morning after he fled the police at the motel, he fished a newspaper out of a trash can and read about the contract the city of Denver had signed with Duratek Corporation. Despite the positive spin presented in the article, Travis could only imagine it had been a desperate act, one intended to pacify the anxious populace of Denver. Or had the mayor been compelled by other factors—by money or threats?

Whatever the reason, the city had hired Duratek Corporation and their technology to assist the police in maintaining security. And while that might have made the people of Denver feel safer, no doubt that security came with a price beyond mere dollars. Travis could not bring himself to believe the well-being of Denver's citizens was truly Duratek's primary concern.

After that, he had thought about getting out of Denver as quickly as possible. His goal was to find the gate Duratek was using to send its agents across the Void to Eldh. Just where the gate was located, Travis didn't know. Duratek was a multinational conglomerate; it could be anywhere in the world. All he knew was that, somehow, he would find it—and then he would destroy it, along with any hopes they might have of creating another.

A grand plan began to form in his mind. He would seek out their corporate headquarters, he would blast open the polished doors of their boardroom with the power of the Great Stones, and Duratek's highest executives would cower before him. They would tell him where the gate was located, or they would suffer the wrath of his runes.

There was just one problem with the plan: It was utterly hopeless.

When Travis ventured into the bus terminal, he saw sleek Duratek computer systems poised on the ticketing counter. It was the same at the train station, and no doubt at the airport as well. They were monitoring all ways out of the city, keeping watch. Keeping watch for him and Grace.