Bad Dreams & Broken Hearts 07: “You are, after all, a member of the family, are you not?”

I sat up. My body felt strange, like a rubber doll, and I shook my hands to get some circulation going again. Jake was sitting in a chair beside the bed, asleep with a book in his lap. Gently I touched his shoulder and he started awake.

He shook his head and looked around, then focused on me.

“Oh, good,” he said, then louder, “He's awake!”

I rubbed my face with my hands. The weird artificial feeling of my skin was fading.

Jake leaned towards me and said, “I wanted to be close by when you woke up.”

Close by. Of course.

“Jake,” I said, “can you get me inside the plant?”

Marji came into screened off section. She looked like she had gotten dressed and then fallen asleep in her clothes “Did you find out anything?” she asked quickly.

Jake cocked his head. “Inside the plant?” he asked. “Maybe. Why?”

I tried to get my thoughts in order.

“I saw Karin. She's in the domain of the Lord Grimm,” I said. “She has been adopted into his household.”

“What?” Marji asked.

“Evidently at some point she swore a binding oath of fealty—” I began.

“That's illegal,” Marji interrupted me. “You can't use magic to enforce a contract. Even the City can't do that.”

I sighed. “Well, illegal or not, it happened. And Nightmare is not in the City's jurisdiction.”

Jake frowned. “Karin swore an oath to a Lord of Nightmare?”

“No,” I explained, “she swore it to a human. The human then sold the fealty to the Grimm.”

“What does this have to do with getting inside the plant?” Jake asked.

“There's a chance that I can negotiate Karin's freedom, but there's a catch,” I sighed. “He will not receive me in spirit—if I go to him, I have to go in the flesh.”

Marji put her hand on Jake's shoulder, as if for support. “Can... your father bring you through?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “There are rules. I don't understand them all, but whatever is going on, my father can't interfere.”

Jake nodded slowly. “So you need to get inside the plant,” he said. “Inside one of the generators.”

“Can you do it?” I asked again.

He glanced up at Marji, patted her hand, then back down at me. “It won't be easy,” he said slowly, “but, yes, I should be able to. After hours, tomorrow, I think. I'll have to call in some favors.”

“Can't we go tonight?” Marji asked him.

Jake shook his head. “If it was just inside the offices, yeah, we could go now. But he's going to need to get into the labs, and that means I'll need to arrange to reserve a lab and authorize him as an observer and set up a voltage pulse. The night desk can't do that. I'll have to talk to the director.”

Marji turned to me, “How is she? Did she tell you what happened?”

“She was asleep,” I said. “Probably enthralled sleep.”

Marji stared. “But how can she be asleep in Nightmare? That doesn't make any sense.”

“She's not there in a dream,” Jake pointed out. “She's physically there. She can sleep there just like she could sleep here.” He turned his attention to me. “You think she's ensorcelled?”

I shrugged. “I only saw her for a moment, but she wasn't dreaming. I would have seen her spirit form if she was. Then the Grimm kicked me out of his world.”

“Oh, the poor girl,” Marji said.

I shrugged. “If she's in a conjured sleep she may not even know where she is right now. That might be for the best.”

Marji frowned, and Jake reached to pat her hand.

I swung my legs off the bed, looked around for my shoes. “Give me a call when you've got it all set up,” I said, then looked to Marji. “And I could use a drink.”

I had Jake drop me off at my place, the Kosov Arms. Jake shook my hand and Marji gave me a little kiss and I promised both of them that I would be available at a moment's notice tomorrow. I waved at the night doorman on the way to the elevator and he waved back. I went up to nine and into my apartment.

I went into my kitchen, turned on the stove, opened the refrigerator, and realized that I wasn't hungry. I turned the stove off and went out into my living room.

I powered up my theremin, ran through a couple of scales, and couldn't think of anything to play. I had a new issue of Amazing Adventure magazine, I read a half dozen pages and had no idea what the story was about.

It was just after three. There was someone else I needed to talk to about all this, but after some consideration I decided it would have to wait until morning. There were some people that you just didn't wake up in the middle of the night.

I needed out. I needed lights and people and music. I had the stink of Nightmare on my soul. I took a quick shower and changed clothes, midnight blue silk shirt and black trousers, my calfskin boots and an electric blue silk scarf. I'm not vain about my appearance, but I know that I look good and I have the money to indulge my sense of style...

Well, okay, I am vain about my appearance. I enjoy knowing that I can turn the ladies' heads. There are worse things.

I went back downstairs and had the doorman call me a cab. I had a jazz club in mind, a late night place that would still be jumping.

I knew the band—upright bass, electric piano, drum kit, and tenor sax. I waved on the way to the bar and the girl on bass gave me a little nod back without missing a beat. I ordered an absinthe and took it to a table against the wall.

The events of the past few hours felt like a jigsaw puzzle without any corner pieces. There didn't seem to be any place to start. Karin was mixed up in black market magic—that much was obvious. Those drawings were done from clear visions of the outer worlds, not to mention being able to insert her image into the one in Marji's study. Whomever she had worked for had gotten her to swear a binding oath, which as Marji pointed out was against the law in the Midworld. All of that added up to membership in the criminal magic underworld, probably smuggling junk.

But it didn't look like she had done any spellslinging recently. Jake would have noticed anything in her loft, and there wasn't any evidence that she was coming up with large amounts of cash. So maybe she had gone straight, left the underworld behind, and tried to make a go at being a legitimate artist.

So far so good, but why would her old boss sell her off to Nightmare now? If it was revenge for leaving the outfit, why wait a couple of years?

And why was Lord Grimm so intent on getting me into Nivose in the flesh? That was troubling. I had been a guest in the Grimm's court before, in the spirit, and he had always treated me with the honor due to an envoy of Messidor.

I finished my absinthe, considered another one, and switched to coffee instead. When I was at the bar a pretty girl smiled at me, I smiled back, and gestured at the floor. She came into my arms and I led her out for a spin. Thinking was getting me nowhere, it was time to dance.

I danced with her, and then with her friend, and then I got invited up to sit in for a set—on the piano, which I'm not great on, but I can keep a melody line going while the sax and drums went off into the aether to bounce riffs off each other. Then I handed the keyboards back to the regular man. By then the girls I had danced with had left, but I found a couple of others. All in all, the sky was growing light in the east when I hit the sidewalk, feeling refreshed and alive.

I pretended not to notice one of the girls waving to me from a car and walked on home, but only stayed long enough to change clothes and to call my service. No messages. I dressed down, dungarees and a work shirt and an oily leather jacket, a tradesman's cloth cap pulled down low. I went out the back door of my place and down the service elevator, using a key that I had bought from one of the janitors.

I went out the delivery entrance, and through an alley that doesn't look like it connects to my street, came out on Weaver's Street and headed to Founder's Square.

Government House sits all alone in the middle of Founder's Square park, surrounded by wide green lawns and plenty of bright lights to rival the growing dawn. I didn't go there, instead I went to the shopping area across the park. There's a blank door between a bookseller's and a tobacco shop, it looks like it could be a side door to either business. It isn't.

I opened it with my own key and took the stairs down. The room at the bottom of the stairs has a desk, a heavy iron door, and serious young man with a machine gun and the uniform of the Mayor's Guards. I presented him with a card from the back of my wallet—a simple isinglass coated cardboard strip with nothing on it but a long number. The guard checked the number against a book on his desk and nodded. He pushed a button on his desk and the heavy door opened.

On the other side of the door was a long brick hallway, lit by caged electric bulbs. It goes straight under the park and into the basement of Government House. There was another guardsman there, and I presented my ID card again, then the guard wrote my number in his log book.

Government House wakes up early on the lower levels. Upstairs, where the general public went to apply for a wedding license or pay a fine, they kept nine-to-five business hours. Down below, where the real work goes on, the City's day had already begun.

I went down two flights of stairs to the outer office of the Mayor's staff command. Behind an impressive expanse of oaken desk a middle-aged woman in a severe suit glared at me, three telephones and typewriter close at hand.

“Yes?” she asked. Her expression implied that I was probably a waste of her valuable time.

“Sam Jackknife to see His Honor,” I said.

A thinly penciled eyebrow raised. “Regarding?”

“I'll discuss that with the Mayor,” I said firmly.

We traded glares for a moment. Then she allowed, “I will inform his secretary.”

“Thanks,” I smiled down at her. “I'll wait.”

She didn't return the smile. “It may be some time before he is available.”

I retreated and took a seat on one of the large leather armchairs. I sat still and looked at the receptionist, smiling gently at her.

It was some time before the Mayor was available—just over an hour, as it turned out. I waited, watching the clock.

The receptionist answered the phones when they rang. From time to time messengers came in and left papers on her desk. Other messengers came from deeper inside the office and picked them up.

Eventually a younger woman, in a nicer suit and shorter skirt, came out of the inner office and walked up to me.

“Sir?” she smiled, “the Mayor will see you now.”

I got up and followed her.

We went down another long hallway, offices on both sides, to a heavy iron-bound door twice the height of a man. The woman tugged it open and gestured.

“He said you would know your way from here,” she said.

I nodded and headed into the Mayor's inner office.

It had begun as a vast natural cavern, but over the years the Mayor had it enlarged, the floor tiled with smooth marble, and lights installed across the vaulted ceiling. I walked slowly into the huge echoing space to where the Mayor of the City lay in the center of his office.

He looked supremely comfortable, curled up with his tail under his chin and his wings folded across his back. I glanced around—none of his staff was in the cavern, he and I were alone.

“Your Honor,” I said, and bowed.

“Envoy Jackknife,” he said. His voice was deep and rumbling. “What brings you to me today?”

“Well, Sir,” I said, “that's a little hard to explain. It may be nothing...”

The Mayor nodded his massive head and fixed me with his golden eyes. “Or it may not...”

Quite aside from the fact that the Mayor is the most powerful political figure in the City—or, honestly, anywhere in the settled lands—his physical presence is intimidating. Lying flat on his belly, his legs tucked underneath him, the spines along his backbone were higher than my head. His scales, which shaded from green to black in intricate patterns, were each the size of my palm. Those eyes that regarded me calmly were the size of footballs and his jaws—which he kept mostly closed, opening them only slightly to talk—could have swallowed a galloping horseman whole.

I seldom see him in person. He seldom sees anyone outside of his personal staff, except for on holidays when he takes to the skies above the City to remind his subjects that they are ruled by a dragon. Tonight's events, though, seemed strange enough that I didn't want to go through channels. Better to go straight to the source.

I quickly outlined what Jake and Marji had told me about Karin, my visit to my father, and my aborted audience with the Grimm.

“Interesting,” he said at last. “Yes, you were right to bring this to me directly. Things are... delicate with the parliament at the moment. I must investigate this matter further. You will pursue matters in Nightmare?”

I swallowed hard. “Your Honor,” I chose my words with great care. “I may not be the best person to look into the matter. As I said, Lord Grimm will not speak with me in the spirit and I am not at all certain that I can get to Nivose in the flesh.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, as if in thought, then opened them again. “Your friends, the Karnes, they are well connected, are they not? He is an engineer at the generating station, I believe?”

“He is, yes,” I agreed. “But there is no guarantee that he will be able to arrange a transit.”

“Oh, I believe that should be simple enough,” he said calmly.

“Even so,” I went on, “Maybe this would be better handled by official diplomatic channels.”

“Perhaps,” the Mayor agreed. “But I should like you to pursue it unofficially, first. Through your own contacts. You are, after all, a member of the family, are you not?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I agreed.

“Good.” He paused, and cocked his head, looking at me from one eye. It was a disturbingly reptilian gesture. “You will keep me informed.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I repeated.

“I will await further news,” he said. It was a dismissal. I turned and headed back to the massive iron-bound door.

I stopped in to a diner and had breakfast, sharing the counter with men in work clothes who were getting ready to start a new day. Twenty minutes later I was back in my apartment, having snuck back in the way I sneaked out.

Across town Jake would be getting ready to head into the plant and work out the details of sending me bodily into Nightmare.

He called about ten in the morning to tell me that Marji would pick me up and take me to the plant at six. I promised that I would be ready.

I walked to my athletic club and swum a dozen laps, then headed for a little diner—the same place I'd had breakfast—for lunch. A Gentle boy was selling papers on the sidewalk outside, I picked one up and took it in with me. Over a pork sandwich I read the news.

More conflicts between loyalists and separatists in the Northeast. Everyone was still being careful not to call it a war—it was always “tension” or “trouble”. People were dying, though, on both sides. An editorial asked in a bold headline, “Who Is Arming The Separatists?”

Somebody who had guns and wanted money, I figured. Even in the City there were those who were sympathetic to the secession movement, and a lot more who didn't give a damn about politics but wanted to sell arms.

Representative Castor Tak gave a speech on behalf of the Mayor's Privy Council urging calm and assuring the City that His Honor had no intention of entering hostilities. And by the way remember to vote for me next month.

The Centrists blamed the Majoritarians and the Majoritarians blamed the Centrists and the Crazy Grays blamed the system and the Theosophists blamed malign vibrations and the man on the street thought that 'lix and pickled eggs were too damned expensive and when was somebody going to do something about that, huh?

Me, I figured that a bunch of folks had decided that they'd rather go to Hell in their own handbasket than in someone else's and why not just let them?

I turned over to the sports page. Joe Steel had challenged the Red Mask to a no-limits cage match at the Thomist Arena two weeks hence and the Red Mask accepted, vowing to destroy Joe Steel once and for all. Now there was a conflict that the man in the street would care about.

There were a couple of new shows that I hadn't seen, so I folded up the theater section and stuck it in my pocket and left the rest of the paper on the counter for the next guy.

I took the long way home, stopped by a hardware store where I'd left a couple of knives to be sharpened—I love knives, I get that from my father, too. What with one thing and another, I killed the next few hours and was downstairs in my building lobby by five thirty, watching for Marji's car. I was wearing my stout dungarees and work boots, a heavy wool shirt, and I had my overcoat draped over my arm. I must have looked odd, and I was sweating even in the air conditioned lobby of my building, but it was going to be cold where I was going.