All of life is a road, and I met the Dark Horseman down a very remote
road in my life.
Tolkien was right, you see, when he warned that setting foot outside
your door is dangerous.
The road will sweep you along where "way leads onto way" and down many
of those ways the
Horseman waits. A lone footpath led me away from the dead end.
When I see the horseman again, I will not be hoisted into the saddle
kicking and
screaming, like a bad adaptation of The Rape of the Sabine Women.
I will greet him as a lover
and allow him to hand me into the saddle before him. He will
notice my chill, wrap me in his
great cloak of midnight velvet and take me home. Or else I will
vault up under my own power.
The explosion made the evening news, as I knew it would. Three
doctors and several
nurses dead in the explosion. I went back to sifting out the
fertilizer, in preparation for the next.
I started to plan my itinerary. It would be wise to leave the
midwest. Delivering a few harvests
in the northeast might give the impression I was a larger organization.
I cocked one ear back to
the TV, and found I was plural.
"...The terrorist group calling itself Instant Karma has claimed credit
for this bombing as
well as the other ten in various cities. The FBI is on the lookout."
It went on, having everyone on all sides decry my actions. Ah,
well, if you want it done
right, do it yourself. When you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind,
and I was stirring up a
nice little tornado for someone special. Someone in Boston who
had confused my files and
settled out of court.
Instant karma: he who lives by the curette and scalpel dies by the plastique.
"Listen, please, dear," he pleaded with his fiance. "It's a curse,
but temporary. I'll get
over it. All I have to do is get married."
"Really? Are you sure it will go away? I'm sorry, Fred,
but I can't take anymore. I'm
leaving. Take care of yourself." She laid the engagement
ring on the table and walked out.
Fredrick Klausheim went to the refrigerator and got out the corsage
he had bought for
her, and set it on the table next to the dozen roses. At least
she hadn't been allergic to roses like
his former girlfriend. He waited for moonrise.
Late that night, after he'd eaten the roses, he wandered out, moonlight
glinting on his
golden horn, to look for more. He hadn't lied to Melanie, or
any of them, he really did need to
get married. The old legends had never quite gotten it right.
It wasn't the maid who was a
virgin, but the unicorn.
"Call off the attack," came the signal from the scouts. "The Earthlings
are a danger to us.
They have trained their children to worship rodents and appear to be
breeding with them to
produce horrible mutants. We must leave ere famine and pestilence
are returned with us."
Disney saves the world.
Acushla, (he began) I tell you this tale so you'll be knowing what kind
of man you're a-
marrying. I was coming home late one night from me favorite inn,
about half in the wineskin. If
I'd been thinking straight, I'd have never taken the Glen Road home.
The Glen is haunted, you
see. But I wasn't thinking of anything save me warm bed.
Off by the side of the road, I saw him: the finest bit of horseflesh
ever seen this side of
Sleipnir. Glossy black all over, and shining like the stars.
Thinking to make a fair penny in
Dublin, I walked over, slow so as not to spook him.
He looked up and said, "Don't even think about it."
A talking horse will bring a right fair piece anywheres, so I seized
the moment and leapt
on his back. What a ride that was! Over high hill and low
dale, to where you wouldn't know
night from morning or morning from night. Past Dublin town, Bay
of Biscay, Cove of Cork and
Old Tom Fox with his bugle horn. He rode me faster than
the birds fly, and jumped to France in
one mighty bound. All over Europe and to the Holy Land, fast
as the Angels who move like
thought. Through far Cathay and the lands of Prester John.
Finally, he stopped dead, just at the
edge of a rock filled chasm not half a league from my own door.
Pitched me right over his head, stopping stock still like that, but
I picked meself up off
the soft rock he'd been so kind as to throw me onto, and climbed back
on him.
"That was a fair trip, but now, I'm too tired to get home. Drop
me if you would, as a
favor," I asked him.
The beastie stopped outside St. Agnes' orphanage and said, "You are
impossible. Put
what's in your pouch in the alms box."
So I dropped in Widow O'Connor's good mourning brooch, Mistress Dougal's
silver, a
few odd pennies and bezants and some other gew-gaws. And that,
my love is why half our
money will always go to St. Agnes.
I looked at him, when he had finished, and said "Only an Irishman would
tell a tale like
that."
"Aye," he grinned back at me. "But it takes an Orkney Norse like
you to believe it."
I had emptied my pockets onto the desk: crucifix, star of David, garlic,
wolvesbane,
rosepetals, .44 with silver bullets, .22 with regular ones, holy water
and a couple ash stakes. I
hate this town. Being a normal who knows about the Nightside
of Ravenscar is the pits. The
Nightfolk know I know. That's worse. The benign ones hire
me. The nasty ones, well, let's just
say I don't carry all that stuff 'cause I like the bumps it makes.
She walked in the door as I poured myself a second drink.
I couldn't tell much about her
looks, what with that black cloak all bunched around her. Most
dames don't go that big though.
Me, I'm tall, but even I don't fill the doorway like she did.
She kept the hood up, and I only saw
the lower portion of her face.
"Investigator Admire?" she asked.
"D.J. Admire, at your service, lady." My name is Dixie Jolene.
I hate it almost as bad as
I hate this town.
"Miss Admire, I need your help."
"Most people who come in here do," I told her.
"My sister is missing. She was last seen going into a bar.
We're from out of town, and
she doesn't know where's safe and where's dangerous. She can
usually take care of herself, but
she hasn't checked back in four days. I'm worried."
"I don't usually take missing persons cases," I began. It was
a lie, of course. MP was all
I'd done for the last six months. I didn't want another one.
The last three were all in various
phases of dead when I found them. This gal bothered me and I
couldn't think why.
"I can make it worth your while, Miss Admire." The lady could
be very persuasive.
Especially when she sat that bankroll on my desk.
"Fill out this form," I told her. It was the standard. "I
get seventy-five dollars a day plus
expenses for missing persons. I'll need all the information I can get
on your sister, where she was
last seen and that other stuff."
"Oh, you needn't worry, Miss Admire. My sister looks just like
me." The lady unhooked
her cloak and let it fall to the ground. She unfurled a huge
set of bat wings. I'm no
aerodynamicist, but I know there was more lift area on those than she
really needed. The hood
had been covering a set of horns and she grinned toothily, showing
a pearly pair of fangs. A slim
tail found its way up on the desk and took over the pen as she stretched
her slim, taloned fingers.
"No more Sooky cases!" I snarled. The last time I'd worked
for a succubus, she'd tried
setting me up with her brother as payment. These demons never
pay if they can welsh.
"Really, Miss Admire? I was told by Marishka you were the best.
I suppose I can always
try R&G Detective Services, but I would prefer to deal with a woman."
She laid down the pen
and picked up the bankroll. "I'm staying at the Raven's Nest.
Contact me if you change your
mind."
I watched as she left and poured myself more Captain Morgan.
I'd probably take her
case, but not just yet. Sookies were more trouble than they were
worth. Sis probably just went
to find herself some entertainment.
It started to rain harder. I hoped the infernal bitch got
soaked.
His wife and tour leader sought him anxiously, calling his name.
At last, the sound
reached the underwater cave where he lay with the undine. The
first calling of his name
awakened him. The second stole the water-breathing from him.
At the third, the undine
released his body to float back to the mortals.
They found him on the beach, tangled in seaweed from a river so polluted
it would not
support algae, with the marks of the suckerlike lips of the sea-sprite
on him. It was listed as
"death by water."
I parcel out the daily meds: a multi-vitamin for him, a chewable
with dinosaurs for her, a
birth-control, multi with iron, and a B-1 for me. I set his by
his plate and my daughter greets me
in the hall with open mouth. I lay the vitamin pill on her tongue
like the Eucharist; chemical
communion. An altar girl in the high temple of health, I dispense
nutrition, not salvation.
The Congress, before voting to disband itself, decided to retire the
audio-animatronics
that had been doing presidential work for the last decade and have
the shaman revive the
cryogenically frozen president.
It succeeded. Admirably. The Speaker of the House, Oliver
North, stated, "We now
have a leader with the vision for the next century." The Congress
adjourned forever, taking up
their permanent residences in stasis capsules next to the Supreme Court,
in the Warehouse.
They sleep, like Arthur and Barbarossa, three rows from the Ark of
the Covenant and five
columns down from Elvis's baby sired on a space alien.
And you only thought we elected an old hippie...