It was very quiet in the Oval Office. Except, of course, for the sounds of the rioting mob outside, but it was getting easier to tune those out. The President cleared his throat. "I just want you to know," he said, "that this is all your fault, and I resent you deeply." Stiletto quirked an eyebrow. "Oh really? How, exactly?" "The nuclear warhead was your plan! And now look! I've got five thousand violent protesters on my front lawn!" R.E.D. Ink rolled his eyes. "Yeah, people get so snippy when you accidentally nuke your own civillian populace." Grauswein shifted his ponderous bulk in an armchair that was not really designed for a man of his...stature, and held up one fat finger. "Technically," he said, "I only *suggested* nuclear weapons. The decision to deploy them, especially given preliminary reports on the nature of the barrier, which, at the time, were not available to me, was entirely your own. You made this bed yourself. The Mole may still work, and with any luck--" A window shattered as a lucky shot from a homemade potato cannon sent an extra-large Idaho Russet, traveling at unusually high velocity for a tuber, directly into a large mirror. The resulting noise spooked an elderly black tom, which skedaddled hell-for- leather directly across the president's desk and upset a full umbrella stand. The pops of opening umbrellas--thirteen of them, actually--were joined by the pop of a medicine bottle as Stiletto poured a little mixed grill of antidepressants into her hand and swallowed them dry. "Well," said Grauswein. "Look at the time." ========================================== New Haven ------------------------------------------ from the nightmares of realtors everywhere Scene 1-8: Conflict of Interests by Keith Knop ========================================== When last we saw Charlie, Karen, and Johnny, they had just escaped from an alligator of monstrous proportions and unpleasant temperment and were en route to Kramer's. They were tired and sweaty and, save for Charlie, in a very bad mood. And thus they were very nonplussed when the street yawned and disgorged an alligator of monstrous proportions and unpleasant temperment. "Well," Johnny said nastily, "and there I was afraid we'd lost the little nipper." The three of them turned wearily and prepared to run again. As for the alligator, a couple of things were running through its brain. Since its brain was roughly the size of a half-eaten mini Mars Bar, this naturally created something of a bottleneck. It vaguely recognized the three tiny creatures before it as the ones it had chased around the park, and, on the one claw, it really hated to give up chasing prey. But on the other claw, they were really too small and too mobile to be worth it. It was unseasonably cool out, too, what with the shade and the ash blocking most of the light and whatnot, and although the mutation process had given the alligator many things, warm blood was not among them. Furthermore, it had fairly recently swallowed a running car, and its occupants had inconsiderately died of asphyxiation without shutting the engine off. Also, its stomach acids had just eaten into the gas tank. The alligator was not a happy repitle. A couple of unforseen chemical reactions later, it belched a small cloud of exhaust fumes and exploded, rendering any questions as to the state of its emotional life effectively moot. Hi-ho. This did not provide any immediate relief for Charlie, Karen, and Johnny, as it simply meant a switch from dodging a giant, angry alligator to dodging falling, biohazardous alligator chunks the size of Volvos, not to mention pieces of an *actual* Volvo and, in a moment that Charlie would remember vividly for the rest of his life, about three quarters of Chief Renoir's head. Once the rain of guts had subsided, the three of them stood panting heavily for a moment. Once his breathing had returned to normal, Charlie dusted off his hands and adjusted the fit of his no-longer- quite-black dress shirt. "Right," he said. "I think Kramer's is just over this way." Karen and Johnny stared in awe at his retreating back. Then, wearily, they picked up their feet and trudged wearily after him. Good thing, too, because very soon after, the stench of carrion attracted a flock of three-headed, fire-breathing vultures with truly atrocious table manners. ======== Alicia awoke with a splitting headache. Not surprising, considering she'd been beaned with an examination tray. Muzzily she attempted to sit up, only to discover that she couldn't. A moment's reflection and observation revealed that this was because she was tied to something. After a minute more, she realized with some degree of horror that it was gurney in the morgue. She was not actually inside one of the cabinets, but this was cold comfort. The sheet over her was not comforting, either. Slowly, the roaring noises in the background resolved into voices in the next room. Although they did not help her headache any, she listened as best she could. "--consort? Your *consort*? So what am I, chopped liver?" "Hardly, my dear." That was Harlukia. Alicia guessed the other voice belonged to the woman she'd conked. "'Hardly, my dear'? Look, *darling*, it's quite clear that you have *absolutely* no clue how to go about winning a girl back." "Back? Now, Sapphia, although I do treasure our time together, I have absolutely no desire to rekindle our relationship." There was a moment of shocked silence. Alicia could acutally hear outrage building. "Then *why the hell did you summon me*?" "I *didn't* summon you! You came on your own!" "I most certainly did not! If you didn't summon me, what in the name of Adramelech am I doing in the body of an underpaid civil servant in Bumblefuck, North America? Answer me that!" "My dear, I haven't the faintest--" Alicia stopped listening at the sound of a faint ding from her right, and in walked the last person in the world she would have expected to rescue her, largely because she had not previously been aware of his existence. ======== Acquiring a simple pack of cigarettes should not be a difficult task. And yet, thought Michael Lime, as he entered the elevator for the fourth time and pressed a button more or less at random, somehow nothing is as simple as it was a few days ago. So far he had been to several different floors, none of them containing anything like a gift shop. As a firm believer in the principle of Occam's Hair Tonic, which states that entities should be multiplied whenever and wherever convenient, and sometimes even if not, Michael Lime knew exactly what was happening. Reality was deliberately warping itself to inconvenience him. Oh sure, other people, boring, unimaginative, sheeplike people, people who, for example, did not work for, read, or even register the existence of the Fortean Times, would likely have chalked it up to malfuncioning equipment, fuzzy-headedness, or simple inability to operate an elevator. But Michael knew better. And thus, it was with great consternation but not much surprise that he stepped out of the elevator and was met not with the heady aroma of tobacco and an army of little stuffed bears in nurses' uniforms, but rather with the faint whiff of formaldehyde and a big double door with "B-2: MORGUE" written across it. The voices from the next room were a bit of a surprise, though. "Whore of Babylon!" Huh, though Michael. It would certainly explain some things... "Necrophile!" Or, it could just be a really creepy slap fight going on. Michael hesitated. On the one hand, his reporter's instinct urged him to go find out who else was still in the hospital. On the other, though, he had quite enough weird shit to satisfy any paranormal investigator, and his not-getting-ripped-to-shreds instinct was also quite strong. "Mmmph!" Michael glanced to his left, where he saw a thrashing body on a gurney left suscpiciously close to the elevator. "Right," he said. "Back to the elevator." "*Mmmph!*" Alicia said, more desperately this time. Michael raised an eyebrow. He cast about for something long and slender, eventually finding a collapsable pointer. He used it to flip aside one corner of the sheet, revealing what appeared to be a very tied up and also very non-dead woman. She was very hot, too. "Mmph," she said, which he understood to mean, "Get me out of here, *now*." So he pulled out his trusty silver-bladed Swiss army knife and quietly sawed through her bonds. She was gagged with medical gauze, but as soon as her hands were free she remedied this herself. "Harpy!" "Flying rat!" "Who--" Michael started. Alicia put one hand over his mouth and jerked her head toward the arguing voices. She pulled him over to the elevator, and only after they were inside and moving did she free his face. "Alicia," she said. "Alicia Carmine. You are...?" "I'm Michael Lime. I--" "We have to get out of here," said Alicia. "I've got to find Charlie." "Who's Charlie? Your dog?" "My boyfriend." "Ah." Damn, thought Michael. Well, rescuing a damsel in distress could still count for major bonus points, and you never knew... "He's a cop," Alicia added, casually, off-handedly, with a twist of whimsy. Damn you, Reality, thought Michael. "Not to be rude or ingrateful or anything, but what exactly were you doing in the morgue of a hospital in a quarantined city filled with vampires and zombies and fishmen and God knows what else?" Ah-ha! He still had the dashing investigative journalist card to play! Michael put on his most winning smile. "I'm with the Times," he said, fumbling for a business card. Alicia looked him over. "Your fashion sense doesn't seem to have kept up." Current tally: Reality 4, Lime 0. ======== If Salvador Dali and Hieronymus Bosch had had a love child who had subsequently become addicted to psychotropic drugs and frequently forgot to sleep for weeks at a time, he might concievably have painted something like the warehouse containing Archbishop Alberto Luccini, Father Gregory Bruno, and Father Johnathan Edgewood. The three of them were huddled in a terror-stricken lump around an empty crate. "I think they're back," said Father Edgewood. He was gnawing his nails for all they were worth. As a Geistenkind merry skipped rope past them, using what appeared to be a length of human intestine as a rope, the Archbishop began muttering. "Si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis, non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es..." Father Edgewood continued gnawing at his nails. He wished he had brought another flask. "We're really not supposed to use Latin anymore..." he mumbled. The Archbishop showed no signs of having heard him. Had either priest been in a position to look into his eyes, they would have seen he was in another time and place entirely. Slowly, painfully, Archbishop Alberto Luccini stood on legs that had been all but crippled with arthritis for over a decade. Wavering slightly, he spread his arms. Fathers Bruno and Edgewood stared up at him in apprehension. Then, in a voice cracked with age but still strong and true of pitch, he began to intone the beginning of the High Mass for the Dead. "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis..." One by one, the Geistenkinder ceased their activity and turned to face him. They stood unmoving and stared. "Te decet hymnus, Deus in Zion; et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem." Without moving their legs, the Geistenkinder began drifting glacially toward him. "Um," said Father Bruno. "Exaudi orationem meam; ad te omnis caro veniet." Whether this was a good thing or a very, very bad thing was destined to remain unknown, as at that moment the earth heaved, throwing the Archbishop back to the floor and disrupting whatever had begun to happen. The surreal, Bosch-like decor faded, as did the Geistenkinder themselves, leaving only three very frightened clergymen and the tip of a giant boring machine jutting jauntily up through the floor. After a moment, a hatch popped open and a helmeted head appeared. It looked around, blew a bubble with the gum it was loudly masticating, and said: "Sarge? This don't look like no public park to me. Looks like some kinda warehouse or sump'n." A second voice from inside the machine said, "I told you we should've turned left at Albequerque." "Dammit, Johnson," said a third voice, presumably Sarge, "that wasn't funny in New Mexico and it's not funny now!" There was a sigh. "It'll have to do, Williams." "Uh, Sarge, there's three ol' guys in dresses up here!" "What?" There was a lot of clanking and muttering, and then a second head appeared. "Those are priests, you moron," it said. Father Edgewood began giggling. Father Bruno smiled apologetically. "It's been a rough day," he explained. ======== Such is the nature of small, ecclectic antique shops run by mildly eccentric old men that the casual observer might not immediately notice anything amiss in the one owned by Roderick Kramer, were it not for the big hole where the door once stood. A moment's inspection would then suggest that the swath of destruction leading from the rear room *to* the big hole was not there by sheer coincidence, and that the two were very likely related. Kramer himself was taking the unexpected redecoration of his shop and the loss of his life's work rather well. He had cleared a space around a very 50's art deco table and pulled up a mismatched collection of chairs; currently he was sitting at the table and fiddling with an 18th-century silver tea set. The lesser of the two lesser demons that had escaped from his back room was sullenly wielding a push broom toward the rear of the store while the imps fluttered around his head and blew raspberries at him. The jinn had taken refuge in a (full) bottle of brandy, and now, for inscrutable and rather weepy reasons of its own, refused to grant any wishes that did not involve pork rinds. "One lump, or two?" asked Kramer. "Two, please," said the greater of the lesser demons, who sat on the other side of the table. He was fiddling with the remains of the Watchmaker's Gear. It now looked much like any other broken shell, save for the way the interior seemed to stretch away into an unimaginable vastness that could twist and shatter mortal minds with frightening ease. "Oh look," said Kramer. "Company." "More zombies?" "Nooooo, not yet anyway," Kramer said uncertainly, as three haggard, gore-spattered figures shambled toward Kramer's ruined storefront. As they drew closer, Kramer squinted, at them, and his eyes widened in recognition. "Ah, Mr. Basquain," Kramer called cheerfully. "How's the pharmaceutical business?" Johnny looked undeniably shifty for a moment. This did not go unnoticed by Karen. "My, what a lot of jobs you've had," she said. "Ah...the better to build up my IRA?" "I think we need to talk. Soon." "And is that Charlie Hopewell?" Kramer called. Charlie knew everyone. "Come on in! Have some tea! You aren't dead, are you?" "Um...no?" Charlie hazarded. "Good! Serving tea to the dead is very wasteful, I feel. They can't metabolize it at all." Kramer ushered them all into the remains of his shop and sat them down around the table. "Now, Charlie and Mr. Basquain I know. You are, miss?" Karen introduced herself, somehow thinking that Kramer was not treating the situation with the seriousness and urgency it deserved. "Splendid. And this is Ahzgahzganahznergal, Under-Fiend of the Second Circle." The demon nodded politely. "You can call me Ned." No explanation seemed forthcoming, but by this point all three of them had given up asking why and were concentrating far more on, Is it trying to eat us? "Now," said Kramer, as he poured them all some tea, "surely you haven't come tromping all the way out here through ruin and chaos and apparently, I must say, a functional abbatoir just to purchase ageing kitsch. And if you have, well, I would gently suggest that your priorities are the tiniest bit skewed." Charlie shook his head. "You see, Mr. Basquain said you might be able to give us some information." "Certainly, certainly. I know all kinds of things. I cannot guarantee they will be relevent or helpful, but I will do my best." Charlie coughed a bit uneasily. In the end he decided that directness and honesty were always the best policy and simply spit it out. "I need to find a strange glowing orb and bring it to a vampire named Harlukia so he'll give my girlfriend back." Kramer and Ned choked on their tea. "Is that a problem?" Kramer recovered first. "Harlukia? You've met him?" "Yes." "Oh my. Oh, my my my." "So...about this orb...do you know it?" Kramer nodded weakly. "Yes. Yes, I think I do. And I'm not going to tell you where it is." "WHAT?" shouted Charlie, Karen, and Johnny in unison. "Look, I got showered with gator guts to get here," Johnny started, but Charlie cut him off. "Let's be reasonable," he said. "If Mr. Kramer won't tell us, I'm sure he has his reasons. Perhaps you could tell us why you won't tell us?" Kramer sighed. "Fair enough. That orb is most likely Harlukia's soul." Karen blinked. "His *soul*?" "You might remember huge rampaging armies of firey beasts?" asked Ned. "You may also have noticed that the town hasn't burned down yet. Evidently Harlukia attempted to summon his allies, but without his soul he doesn't have the power to keep them in this plane of existence." "How do you misplace your *soul*?" "Easier than you might think," said Ned. Karen shivered. "You see, Harlukia's archrival is a man named Jebdorn--" "Big hairy fella?" asked Johnny. "Real nature lover? Smells like ten thousand sweat lodges?" "That would be him, yes," said Kramer. "You see, Jebdorn and Harlukia have been trying to one-up each other for centuries. Jebdorn's crowning achievement was sealing Harlukia's soul into a little glass bauble and spiriting it away. This was, oh, thirty, thirty-five years ago. Before he could reclaim it, Harlukia met up with a group of mercenary vampire hunters from some tiny East European village with no vowels in its name, hired by parties unknown, and well, that, we thought, was that." "And if he gets his soul back?" asked Karen. Ned leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "I hope you're fond of soot." ======== Author's notes: Let this be a lesson: Prereaders are Good. Were it not for black dub, there would be a hefty, alligator-related continuity flaw quite early on in this chapter. Thanks also to Mark Poa, t. ogre, and Zeroin for volunteering to preread, though the chapter didn't reach the min time. ======== At 4:34 P.M., Fortune and Disaster got smashed on mint juleps and made hot and sloppy on Disaster's sofa. ======== Purely fortuitously, also at 4:34 P.M., a solitary undead chicken, seperated from its flock and wandering through Coltrane park, came across a roughly beak-sized piece of alligator confetti. Its thoughts, translated from Chicken to English, ran something along the lines of, "Who am I to turn down free food?" It ate the alligator chunk. "Bwaaaaak..." it clucked. It really did taste like chicken. Then it belched, and grew fourteen inches. Hi-ho.