Brett Davis - The Faery Convention

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But First—A Little Coffee

Suddenly he was aware of a figure leaping out at him from the tree next to the steps. He saw only a blur of red and black before he was mashed against the iron railing on the other side of the steps, mashed so hard and so quickly that it felt like he was being stabbed.

“Get your keys out now,” a gruff voice instructed him, breathing hot in his ear.

He fumbled in his jacket. His hands were shaking and he was standing only because he was being held upright. When he did manage to grasp the keys they jingled in his fingers like a windchime.

Once inside, the man ordered Joe and Ellen to sit on the loveseat while he closed the drapes.

“I don’t have much time so I’ll make it short,” the man said. “I am not at all what I seem. I am not human. I am a Shapeshifter. We are supernatural who have not revealed ourselves to you, or to anyone. We are going to destroy the Grimm Accord and make sure that all human and supernaturals break all their previous agreements. We are set to create nationwide havoc. That’s the plan. Except that I have changed my mind, and I want to stop it. I need your help.”

Ellen and Joe sat stunned.

“Would you like some coffee?” Joe asked tentatively.

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THE FAERY CONVENTION

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, N.Y. 10471

ISBN: 0-671-87656-2

Cover art by Larry Elmore

First printing, April 1995

Distributed by SIMON & SCHUSTER
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10020

Printed in the United States of America

To my family, and

in memory of

Joan Smith, who always

kept the scribblings.

ONE

Shards of glass glistened in the streetlights like shiny green teeth. They bit at Joe Cork’s soles, making him curse his thrifty nature that prompted him to buy cheap shoes. The sea of glass used to be the streetside window of a Capitol Hill watering hole named the Small Bar; in the middle of the sea floated a body covered with a white cloth, a body roughly the size of a large pig. A police photographer snapped quick photographs as if the body was the star of some ghoulish fashion show, his flash causing the shards to glint ever brighter. Other cops milled around, some almost aimlessly, hands in pockets, looking around. One cop, apparently a tad more alert than some of the others, stopped Joe Cork as he swung open the Small Bar’s green wooden door and moved to step inside.

“The bar’s closed,” the policeman said. Bits of blond hair stuck out from under his hat. He was young, but had already assumed the gruff manner of a man many years his age. “You want a drink, why don’t you move on down to the Hawk and Dove?”

Joe Cork smiled a spectacular false smile that would not have looked out of place on a skull and slowly pulled from his jacket pocket the silver chain that held his congressional ID. The central feature of the ID was a terrible photograph of him, one that emphasized his yellowish skin, slanted eyebrows and pointed ears. It made him look sallow and nervous, whereas in real life his face appeared more healthy, more relaxed, more fully human.

“What are you, an Elf?” the policeman asked, his face canted sideways in a distinctly unfriendly manner.

“Half Elf,” Cork replied in a voice a bit gruffer and deeper than usual. “But that doesn’t matter. I’m the—”

“Look, I didn’t say it did matter,” the policeman said. “I wasn’t trying to be condescending, or anything, I was just curious.”

“Well—”

“You supernaturals can be so touchy,” the cop said. “Not to generalize. I just hate that tone you take, that superior tone, like, you know, humans should know their place.”

Cork touched his fingertips to his forehead as if trying to fend off a headache.

“I assure you I was not trying to insult you in any way. I simply need to get inside this bar.”

“Bar’s closed. You want a drink, why don’t you move on down to the Hawk and Dove?”

Cork waved his ID like it was a dogtag. “I am the chief investigator for the Senate Supernatural Affairs Committee. The Faery Convention is next week. As you can imagine, this situation concerns us.”

The policeman frowned.

“Sort of a cop yourself, huh?”

“Sort of.”

“You boys mostly chase paper, though, don’tcha?”

Cork rolled his eyes. “It’s harder to catch sometimes than you can probably imagine. But I’m not chasing paper this time. I just need to see what’s going on.”

The young policeman gave him a brotherly smile.

“Okay, you can go in, but don’t get in the way of the real police.”

Cork smiled again, even more falsely than before, and stuck his ID back in the inside pocket of his dark blue poplin jacket. He straightened his cheap tie, which he had purchased from a street vendor, and glanced back out the window at the covered body still sprawled on the sidewalk. In the repeated glare of the photographer’s flash, he could see that the already smallish lump was getting even smaller; the body was decaying rapidly.

Inside, he saw that the Small Bar wasn’t that small at all. The main room was as big as a good-sized hotel lobby. The dark wooden bar, festooned with glasses and ashtrays, began about fifteen feet down the left wall and extended for about thirty more. Cork glanced at the bar where a hulking man in a white T-shirt which declared FRIENDS DONT LET FRIENDS VOTE LIBERTARIAN was nervously tapping his fingers across the tops of upended beer glasses. Another youngish policeman—this one in plainclothes, and with a nicer expression on his face—was interviewing the barkeep. Cork sidled up to him, pulling a small, battered datacorder from another jacket pocket. The policeman’s face lost its nice expression when Cork drew close.

“You got a ticket to this?” the cop asked.

Cork gave a quick, professional smile, once again flashed his ID, and asked if he could listen in. The policeman looked disdainfully at the ID.

“Oh, so you find out all we know, and then you blab to the press,” he said. His voice sounded as if it were lifted from an old Cagney flick. “If we wanted Moe Public to know stuff as we know it, we’d just question all our witnesses at a morning press conference.”

Cork cleared his throat. “Look, I don’t talk to the press. That’s the policy of the Supernatural Affairs Committee, in case you didn’t know.”

There was no way the cop would know that, of course, but Cork was betting that he wouldn’t admit that in front of the barkeep. Police in Washington tended to treat Capitol Hill types with a certain grudging respect, as if they were small dogs that just might turn out to have nasty bites. With a dramatic sigh of resignation, the policeman caved in to the bluff.

“All right. You can listen in. This here’s Johnson the bartender, who was on duty when the, uh, unpleasantness occurred.”

Johnson nodded and gave Cork a surprisingly sweet smile for such a large man.

“But here’s what I won’t do,” the policeman said. “See that crowd there?”

He indicated four bar patrons who were lined up against the wall, nervously slugging beers.

“We’ve already talked to them. You can’t talk to them. When we’re done here with this man, you’re gone, right?”

Cork scanned the four quickly. Not much of a Thursday night crowd. He nodded patronizingly to the policeman.

“I’m gone.”

Johnson resumed his story:

“Like I said, it’s unusual for a supernatural to come in here at all. No offense,” he said to Joe Cork, who nodded. “I mean, usually when they’re in town they go down the street to Lughnasa’s, where they got a permit to do a little magic. But anyway here this little guy comes in and orders a drink, so I figure okay. He wasn’t all that little, really—pretty heavy for a Faery, and taller than I expected. But he was a Faery, all right, got those pointy ears and that greenish skin. He was one of the bigger types of Faeries.”

Johnson squinted at Cork, rubbing his meaty jaw in thought.

“You, you’re Elf, right?”

“Half Elf,” Cork replied.

“Yeah, okay. I guess you look a little tall for an Elf. I’m not the greatest at picking out the supernaturals, but I did peg this guy as a Faery. It’s a slow night, plenty of room at the bar. He bellies up—I mean really bellies up, he ain’t done no flyin‘ and wavin’ a magic wand in a while—and orders a shot and a beer. That’s kind of standard, so no problem.”

Cork knew a slur when he heard one, even if it were most likely unintentional. Most varieties of Faeries couldn’t fly, and all of them, especially Pixies, hated being compared to Tinkerbell.

“He downs the shot and sips at the beer, starts watching the tube, you know, he’s not making small talk, we’re just watching the tube and I’m starting to total up for the night ’cause I figure it will be slow from here on out. So this little guy orders another shot and another beer. He’s not a slob or anything—he’s got on a little blue suit and a power tie, all neat and pressed, I figure he’s around on some kind of business—so no problem. We watch the tube some more, some old cop show. Couple people leave, couple come in, this woman—” and here Johnson pointed at one of the four witnesses leaning against the wall, a curvaceous young woman whose face was streaked with dried tears “—comes over. She sits next to this guy, and is kind of looking at him, you know, she’s probably never seen a supernatural before, and so he’s kind of interesting. Well, you know how some of the Faeries are, they got those big yellowish eyes and that really smooth skin and that odd leafy kind of hair, like they been outdoors a lot, but it’s clean. So she’s kind of looking at him without really looking at him, if you know what I mean. So this guy has one more shot and one more beer. This is packin’ it away, but I don’t know what capacity the supernaturals have, so I don’t have a clue if it’s excessive or not. Y’know?”

Cork and the policeman both nodded, both glanced down to make sure their datacorders were getting all this.

“I mean, you. How does alcohol affect supernaturals?”

Cork continued squinting at the little red light on his datacorder until he realized he was being addressed.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“How does alcohol affect supernaturals?”

“Oh. Uh, it depends. I mean, it affects Elves in about the same way it does humans. Elves usually can’t drink all that much, not as much as most human people because humans tend to be bigger. That whole body size thing. But, like, Faeries or Centaurs or something, I don’t know. It depends.”

The bartender nodded, looked thoughtful for a second as if calculating just how much booze a Centaur could put down, and how sizable a bar tab would result.

“So—” the cop said, to spur things along.

“So he drinks this drink, really slams both the shot and the beer down this time, and starts acting crazy. He yells out, and I’m not kidding about this, yells out ‘It’s good to be a Faery!’ And then he turns to face this chick—this woman—and he reaches his little arms over and grabs both her tits—her breasts—and tweaks ‘em like they’re old radio knobs or something, and she starts yelling, and this guy, I guess it was her boyfriend or something, this big guy, he’s in the back room there playing pool, he comes in and sees what’s going on and grabs this little guy and smashes him on the forehead with his forehead, and damn near knocks both of them out.”

“You got a picture of this guy?” the cop asked, and Johnson nodded and pulled a color 8 by 10 from between some bar glasses.

“From the security cam.”

The picture showed a sizable man with a shaggy mane of blond hair. He had something in his hands, something about the size of a large pig, and appeared to be shaking it because everything past his elbows was out of focus. Cork guessed the fuzzy blob to be the misbehaving Faery.

“So these guys are both staggering around, this big guy in black leather and this little green guy in a suit, and then the crazy little bastard reaches up and grabs his beer bottle off the bar and smashes it across this guy’s hip, ’cause it’s about all he can reach on this guy. Of course the bottle don’t break, it just sails off across the floor. And the big guy picks the Faery up and holds him with one hand and smacks him a couple of times hard with the other. And I’m over here kinda stunned, you know, and I start yelling for both these clowns to get out of here because this ain’t some kind of fighting bar, it’s a nice place.

“So the big guy pauses for a second, and he yells back, ‘You want us out of here? YOU WANT US OUT OF HERE?!’ And he whips the little guy around like they’re doing a two-step and then he lets go and the little guy sails right out the window and he hits the sidewalk and glass is all over the place and he don’t get up. The big guy just looks out the window for about one second and then realizes what’s happened and what he’s done and he just heads out the window and runs crunching through the glass and down the street and that’s the last I see of him.”

The cop frowned, punched a button on his datacorder and held it up to his ear for a second. After listening to whatever notes the disk played back, he said, “The, uh, the girl there said something about the little guy whipping out a knife before her boyfriend introduced him to the sidewalk. You see that?”

The bartender shook his sizable head.

“I didn’t see that. And, believe me, I was watching this deal the whole time.”

The cop nodded.

“I figured she might be going the self-defense route. It would be nice to have this big guy around to corroborate.”

He extended a hand to the bartender, who shook it solemnly.

“We’ll need a formal statement later, of course. Come by the station in the morning, if you would.”

“Anything to help. You put in a word for me with the insurance company?”

“Glad to.”

Joe Cork nodded as well and shook the bartender’s hand, and heard his earnest advice: “You keep an eye on those little guys. You Elves seem all right, though. Come back in here, I’ll pour you a drink sometime.”

“I promise not to break your window,” Cork replied.

As they walked away from the bar, Cork asked the policeman for the name of the Faery involved in the incident. The policeman frowned but complied. Sure enough, it was Haark Frendalar. Haark Frendalar, the vice president for Human Relations with Faeries International, the lobbying group for Faery rights. A staffer on the Supernatural Affairs Committee had been tipped off by someone who heard mention of Frendalar’s name on a police scanner.

“Who is he, though?” the policeman asked. “We don’t usually get you Beltway types down here nosing around. And this is the first time we’ve had trouble with supernaturals like this. They come and go, I mean—you, you supernaturals come and go, but you—they—don’t fight much.”

“He’s in for the Faery Convention next week,” Cork said, ignoring the policeman’s quandary of how a half-supernatural should be addressed.

The policeman mock-slapped himself on the forehead.

“Forgot all about that.”

They headed outside, where the sheet had gone completely flat. One of the major differences between supernaturals and humans was that supernatural disintegrated into nothingness very quickly after death, which was one reason why they had escaped human scientific detection for so many centuries. Despite the speed with which it happened, it was never a pretty sight to watch a supernatural disappear. On the odd occasions when one died in an accident, police covered the body as soon as possible. For their own part, the supernatural were disgusted with the idea that humans decayed slowly into the ground. Amongst themselves, they derisively referred to humans as “mulch.”

“Did he have anything in particular to do with the convention?” the policeman asked, lifting up one edge of the white sheet.

“He’s one of the top Faeries in charge of putting it together.”

The policeman whipped up the sheet, sending a fine white powder dancing into the night air. The powder whirled about like snow before settling slowly onto the broken glass and sidewalk and the now-rumpled tiny blue suit, and then it disappeared altogether.

“He was, you mean.”

TWO

In the late morning sky, pinwheeling around like a cheap kite caught in a windstorm, was a dragon of what appeared to be Chinese extraction. About one hundred feet long—a bit on the small side for dragons—it had the bright green scales of a well-eared-for, freshly scrubbed beast. Now and again it would emit a burst of fire, though these were short and infrequent. It had no doubt been trained for restraint; too many big bursts would violate federal regulations and could result in a stiff fine for whatever company was providing the dragon. Joe Cork first saw the dragon out of the corner of his eye as he approached the Hart Senate Office Building from his Capitol Hill apartment. He squinted to make out the sign the dragon was towing. It was an advertisement for a local luxury hotel: STAY AT THE HAMPSHIRE. WELCOME, CONVENTIONEERS. The convention didn’t officially start until Monday, but many of the bigwigs were already coming to town and the Hampshire Hotel was apparently aiming to get the drop on them. Cork flashed his ID at the guard at the door, who waved him through with an easy smile.

Cork had one foot in the door before remembering his decision to get in better shape. He took the stairs, although he was only going to the third floor and wouldn’t get much exercise. He walked through a door labeled SUPERNATURAL AFFAIRS COMMITT E. The other “E” had disappeared a year ago, and no one had bothered to replace it. Cork glanced around. No one at the front desk, which was not unusual. John, the receptionist, was notorious for running personal errands on company time, not that it mattered a whole lot these days. The committee’s work was done; all that remained was some red tape and the signing ceremony. Cork didn’t bother going through the rabbit warrens of back offices to see who was around, but instead ducked down a narrow hallway that led off to the side and to his cubicle.

It was technically an office, although it reminded him more of a closet. It didn’t help that he kept it as hopelessly cluttered as his closets at home. His office consisted of a green metal filing cabinet, a gray metal rack that leaned against the wall, a desk, a chair, and a plant stand that supported a brown planter that was the final resting place for a long-dead cactus. He kicked a pile of papers out of the way and drummed his fingers atop another pile. The papers on the bottom of that particular stack probably dated back to 1997, well before his time; he considered them somewhat sacred and wouldn’t think of tossing them out. Plus, they formed the foundation of a dandy coatrack.

He checked his watch to confirm the inevitable. He had dawdled too long in the arms of Morpheus this morning, and was now extremely late. He scanned the office, which didn’t take long, for his datacorder. Where had he put it last night? If he had dropped it into the sea of papers on his desk, it was surely lost. Then he remembered. He had stashed it where he always kept valuable items. With solemn gravity befitting the disturbing of the dead, he lifted the mummy cactus from its pot and recovered the datacorder, slipping it into a pocket without even bothering to blow off the dirt.

Four flights of stairs later, he swung open one of the two sizable glass doors of Senator Horton Howard’s office, ignoring the small sign affixed next to it which proclaimed this office belongs to the people of west Virginia. Howard’s newest correspondence assistant/receptionist held up a manila envelope without so much as a how-do-you-do and said, “He wants to see you.” Cork slid out of his suit jacket and hung it on the coat-rack before taking the envelope from her hand. She was wearing one of those new hoverset speakerphones, which dangled a small round floating microphone before her mouth, making it appear that she was forever attempting to snatch a small cookie from the air.

She had fairly dark skin and deep brown eyes that perfectly complemented her dark brown hair, which was razor-cut into a Prince Valiant bob. She was new, and he didn’t know her well. Her predecessor, Valerie, had been a friend of his. Valerie was middle-aged, overweight, dressed poorly and chain smoked, but she had a rumpled dignity that few on the Hill could match. Cork had spent many a late night talking with her about failed loves and hoped-for dreams. When she had left suddenly three weeks ago, without so much as a goodbye, he had been hurt. She had sent only a postcard to the office from Bolivia, jokingly calling it “Oblivia” and saying she had met a man that she loved, whom she felt obliged to follow to South America. Joe had looked for his name on the card, some special message, but it wasn’t there. If Valerie had only scribbled his name, it would have made him feel better.

“I hope you have had a very nice day so far today, Ellen,” he said with much mock courtesy to Valerie’s replacement, Ellen King. Her severe face faded into a big grin.

“And you, too, there, Mr. Cork,” she replied. “I hope your day has been just corky.”

He did not have time to wonder if this was intended as perhaps the slightest of slurs, because at just that moment his boss, the generously proportioned distinguished gentleman from West Virginia, the chairman of the Senate Supernatural Affairs Committee, whipped open the inner office door and bellowed for him. He didn’t even look to see if Cork were present, merely opened the door, shouted his name, and slammed it back again.

“What have you been feeding him?” Cork asked.

Ellen smiled and shrugged. “He’s on a new high-volume diet. He’s been like this all morning. It’s like having a big cuckoo clock in the office. Every five seconds, he sticks his head out and yells for you.”

Cork coughed out a laugh. This Ellen might turn out to be all right after all.

“High technology is wasted on this man,” he said. “It’s not like I don’t have a communicator on my belt.”

Inside Horton Howard’s inner sanctum, the senator expressed extreme gratitude at Cork’s belated presence and then groaned his way into an overstuffed leather seat that perched behind his massive teak desk like an elephant trying to hide behind a table. The senator motioned for Cork to sit also, although Cork’s destination was a metal-and-leather contraption only slightly more comfortable than the relic in his own tiny office.

“Do we have a problem?”

He leaned forward so that Cork could smell the sausage he had had for breakfast hours earlier and repeated his query: “Do we have a problem?”

“I don’t think so, sir,” Cork said. “At least, not yet. This thing with Frendalar seems to be an isolated incident.”

“Is this something you know, or just a hunch?”

“Just a hunch.”

“An Elfin hunch or just a human hunch?”

“Just, uh, a human hunch enhanced with Elfin sensibilities. Sir.”

“You know, Cork,” the senator said as he leaned back, which caused his chair to squeak in wooden pain, “I suppose it was a good idea to hire a committee staffer who has ties to both the human and supernatural world, but sometimes, damn it, I wish you could do magic. It would be nice to get the inside scoop on things now and then.”

Cork fidgeted. “Sometimes I would agree with you, sir.”

Howard made a gargling sound and rearranged something in his fleshy throat before indicating that Cork should investigate the contents of the manila envelope he was holding. Inside the envelope were about a dozen neatly stacked press clippings, all newspaper editorials referring to the upcoming Faery Convention. Most of them seemed to be against what was being proposed. The senator—or, more likely, one of his staffers—had highlighted the salient points.

“Corralling all supernaturals into a spot of miserable desert only the size of Delaware would be a crime,” concluded the editors of the Centaur Daily. “We simply need more space.”

The Leprechaun Times said that “we should continue to fight for a homeland deeper in the West or further in the South. The United States’ offer of the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandle area is shortsighted and insulting.”

The leftist California Faery Gazette’s beef was that “we should not have to move to the middle of nowhere in order to practice magic, something that is as natural to us as breathing. We should be able to practice magic anywhere we want, at any time. But Big Brother says no, and it looks like Big Brother is going to get what he wants. The Supernatural Treaty Act—or, to use its popular and condescending nickname, the Grimm Accord—is an act of popular culture terrorism.”

Cork shuffled through a few more, reading the words of vitriol that shone through the yellow marks.

“As you can see, not everybody is on board yet,” Howard said gruffly as Cork scanned the clippings. “Some of them go a bit overboard, though.”

Sure enough, Cork came to a clipping from the Troll newspaper, Under the Bridge, which said simply, in bold letters, THE GRIMM ACCORD IS GENOCIDE.

“Subtle, huh?” Cork said, somehow resisting the impulse to laugh.

“The Faery Convention is happening in little more than two days,” Howard said sternly. “If any more Faeries—or anyone else—are planning to act up beforehand, we need to know about it.”

Cork remembered the tale of Johnson the bartender, his surprise at having trouble from a diminutive supernatural.

“I think that was an isolated incident,” Cork said. “A Faery gets a bit drunk and rambunctious. I think he was just acting up, not representing anyone. That seemed to be the consensus of the witnesses at the bar, according to the police. I have some of this stuff on the datacorder, if you’d like to hear it.”

The senator waved off the suggestion.

“Nah, I’ll get a transcript later.”

Cork pawed through some more clippings until they started to get away from him, their edges sticking out at all angles. He attempted to straighten them by tapping them on the desk, which only made them worse, before giving up and dropping the heap back in the envelope.

“These are interesting, but the Supernatural Council is on board with the Grimm Accord, aren’t they?”

“Well, most of them are. The vast majority. Obviously some of the Trolls were complaining, but they just like to bitch a lot anyway. I mean, yes, there’s still some work to be done, but it’s mostly technical crap. I think we have enough votes in the Senate and I think the supernaturals have enough votes. Once the votes are tallied, I guess the newspapers can just print whatever they want.”

He leaned forward again, and took on the magisterial air of an old-timey gospel preacher, the sort of air that had persuaded the good people of the state of West Virginia to send him to Washington over and over.

“That is, only technical crap remains to be done, unless something goes wrong. Having Faeries go out of control in bars falls under that classification. We need this to work, Joe. We need to make sure we aren’t going to have any more surprises. This newspaper stuff is probably just carping, but it shows that there is a depth of sentiment against the treaty out there. We just need to make sure it’s not too deep before we step in.”

“Hint taken,” Cork said. “I’ll nose around and see what’s happening. I have a meeting in a few minutes with some lobbyists, and I may need appointments with some of the supernatural chiefs on short notice. Can you set that up?”

“My boy, I’d be glad to. You say the word.”

“Dorton Hraavik? This afternoon?”

“Done. I’ll have Ellen call and tell you when. Keep me posted.”

Cork rose to leave, but Howard reached for a newspaper on the corner of his desk and motioned Cork to come closer. Howard held up the front page of the Washington Post for him to read. On the lower left corner was a fairly large picture of the shattered Small Bar window, with a sheeted figure in a sea of glass. Cork and a policeman were looking over the sheet. Their heads were kind of small, and they almost looked the same, but Cork’s large, pointed eyebrows gave away the fact that he was quite different in origin from the policeman on his right.

“You made the papers,” Howard said.

Cork was worried at first. The Supernatural Affairs Committee was more paranoid than most, with a standing order that its staffers were not to talk to the press anywhere, anytime, about anything. The committee’s press secretary was very skilled at giving evasive answers, which was why he was the only one authorized to do so. Cork looked up from the photo to see if his boss was mad. The“ photo didn’t identify him, but you never could tell. He was surprised to see the senator was smiling.

“It’s a good picture, don’t you think?”

THREE

Cork had passed the now-empty front desk and had made it all the way to the sidewalk outside the Hart Building before Ellen King caught up to him and grabbed his arm. She was out of breath, and it took her a moment of gasping to regain her voice.

“Oh, I was in the back when you left,” she said. “I’m glad I caught you.”

He looked to where her fingers were still twined around his forearm, and said, “Yes, literally.”

She yanked her hand away as if he were on fire, and her dark cheeks blushed to a nice maroon.

“Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

He tried to smile and frown at the same time, to show he was kidding and that he was sorry if he had hurt her feelings. She didn’t seem to notice.

“Is everything okay? With the convention and the treaty, I mean?” she asked, brushing her hair away when it blew into her eyes.

He paused, puzzled.

“Um, yes. I think so.”

“I mean I heard about what happened last night, and it sounded bad. The senator seemed really concerned.”

“Noooo, I think he’s just worried about next week. Everyone is. There’s a lot riding on the convention.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve been keeping up with it, as much as I can. I’d like to be of some use, if that’s possible.”

“I don’t think there’s that much to be done. It’s up to the senators and the supernaturals, really. We can just sit back and watch it happen.”

She smiled a strained smile.

“Just anything, anything that comes up, let me know if I can help. I want to move up on the committee. I think it would be good to have had something to do with the convention. It might help me move up and over to some other committee later.”

Aha, Cork thought. Therein hangs a clutched arm. And he thought he’d been pursued because of his good looks. He thought about offering words of encouragement, but couldn’t think of any, and after an awkward moment she changed the subject.

“It really seems odd, doesn’t it? I mean, to set aside this land for the supernaturals.” She paused for a second, and he knew what was coming next. “I mean, you’re—”

“Half Elf,” he said. “My mom is an Elf, my dad is a human. The human genes are dominant, but I look pretty Elfish.”

“Elfish is good, though,” she said, nodding her head in newfound Elfin appreciation. “You should be proud. You’re pretty unique, I guess.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

She was silent for a moment, and he knew what question was coming next.

“You’re half Elf. Can you do magic?”

He squinted and held his hand out straight towards an acorn that lay in the grass next to the sidewalk. He held his hand steady for a moment and then began to shake it furiously. Some passersby glanced at him quizzically, but the acorn was unmoved.

“No,” he said after a minute, by which time Ellen was laughing helplessly. “I can’t.”

She let her laugh peter out and then asked, “So, this Faery thing last night isn’t a big problem?”

“I don’t think so. Not sure yet.”

“Is the land issue the biggest problem left?”

He smiled at her tenacity, but quickly dropped it when he saw she was serious.

“Not really. The magic issue is the biggest hang-up, but I don’t think even that will be a problem.”

She bit her lip and looked away.

“There are some files on that in the computer somewhere if you want some background,” he offered helpfully, and was pleased to see that her face brightened.

“This whole thing is pretty amazing, isn’t it?” she asked, and he nodded.

“Rosa Parks just didn’t know what all she was letting out of the bag that day in Alabama when she wouldn’t move to the back of the bus.”

Ellen laughed, and for a moment it seemed as if he were talking to Valerie again.

“My father and mother saw her, you know,” Joe continued, encouraged. “It was here in town, in 1975. Some group held a reception for her, to celebrate her for breaking the ice for African Americans and gays. They also invited some supernaturals, since they realized that she sort of broke the ice for them, too. My dad said that Rosa Parks was sweet, and she was just amazed at the supernaturals, as you can imagine. My mother went to thank her for giving the Elves the idea that they could come into the modern world, and my dad said that Rosa Parks just held my mother’s head in her hands, and just stared into her eyes for a long time, kind of shaking her head in wonder, and after a while she said that my mother was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.”

Ellen smiled, drinking in the vision. She then casually glanced at her watch and uttered a little gasp.

“Oh, jeez. I’m sorry. I gotta get back.”

He glanced at his watch and realized that he, too, was late for yet another meeting. Being late seemed to be today’s modus operandi.

Ellen was already moving back to the building when she said, “listen, really, if I can be of any help with stuff next week, or even this week, any help at all, you let me know, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try to help you make your mark.”

FOUR

On her way back into the Hart Building, Ellen paused to pull one of the city’s free weekly newspapers from its dispenser to see what it said about the Faery Convention. The one she had selected was apparently one of the more left-wing papers: U.S. TO CREATE NEW OPPRESSIVE RESERVATION SYSTEM. She stuffed the paper under her arm and started to push open the door when a familiar voice stopped her.

“Hey, good lookin‘. Wanna start something cookin’?”

She paused and glared coldly at the young security guard who was lounging on one of the massive concrete planters, smoking one of the new fake cigarettes that provided all the smoke but didn’t cause cancer. It was Casper Harrison, a rookie who had only been on the job for a month but had already made himself an object of her loathing. He hung around the Hart Building all the time, harrassing her every time he saw her.

“Do you go to Neanderthal school to learn lines like that?” she asked briskly. “Just what sort of sleazy fish is bait like that supposed to attract?”

“You don’t seem too particular for someone with such a sharp mouth,” he replied snidely. “After all, you like them magic boys, don’t ya? The ones with pointy ears?” She entered the building so fast she was almost running and pulled the door shut with as much force as she could muster. She wished that the door could be made to slam, but instead it insisted on gliding to a smooth, noiseless stop. She could see Casper outside laughing, sending blocky clouds of safe smoke into the air. She imagined that his testicles were wedged in the door’s rapidly shrinking opening; that made her feel a little better.

FIVE

“I just want to describe it to you because I know you’ve never known it,” said Dorton Hraavik.

He was wearing a nicely cut three-piece Armani suit, which was a bit out of fashion but which he carried well on his four-foot-tall body. Even though he was older, in his sixties, he kept in shape. He was smoking a slim, expensive cigar, the scent of which did not bother Joe Cork, unlike the scent of many lesser cigars. His feet were shod in pricey leather. His leafy hair was carefully combed and moussed, giving it the appearance of being a well-tended moss bed. A tastefully sized gold watch chain dangled from his vest pocket, but Cork suspected that the item on the other end of the chain was a buzzing pager, not a watch. Faeries had a terrible sense of time and tended to ignore watches, but could be smart enough to have secretaries buzz them when it was time for meetings.

Mr. Dorton Hraavik, chairman of Faeries International, the Faery lobbying group, had done well for himself since the time of the Revelation. He was clothed in the trappings of human success. His office was larger than Cork’s entire apartment, and far more luxurious; it looked like a high-priced hotel suite had been moved lock, stock and gold-plated sink. The office walls were carpeted in a thin fabric that felt smoother to the touch than anything Cork had slept on in his life. Dorton Hraavik had done well for himself, yet he was explaining to Joe Cork what it was like to be a Faery in the wild when he was growing up.

“My tribe camped in Maine most summers,” he said, waving the cigar around, creating interesting smoke trails in his office. “By the Elders, it was glorious. You’d wake up and crawl out from under the log or whatever and mist would be coming off the lakes and streams, and the black flies would rise like burnt clouds and start moving along, following the landscape. I don’t know about Elves, but Faeries have a great ability to detect life. Definitely a better sense than anything humans have. A human can look at a tree and see a big brown thing with a bunch of green stuff at the top. If there’s a bird sitting on a branch, they can see that. If wind blows through the tree, they can hear that. But that’s it. Then if the tree doesn’t do something interesting they cut it down. But Faeries, now, a Faery will look at a tree and can sense the roots growing, can feel water flowing up into the tree, can feel worms crawling around under the bark, can see little bugs traipsing around on the outside, can tell when a tiny twig breaks off a branch and falls to the ground, can hear the leaves start to change color. We call it the tree’s song. Each tree has a different song, just like each snowflake has a different shape. Each group of trees has a similar accent, though, so that’s why Faeries never get lost. You can tell by the accents of the trees where you are.

“Now, we would get up and gather flowers and roots and herbs to eat. Even the little ones, everyone had to work. But it wasn’t like seeing these old pictures of the human slaves working. We weren’t hunched over, miserably grabbing whatever was in front of us. We would sing and chant poems and whatever else while we worked. If no humans were around at all—and it was easy to tell if there were, they’re so noisy—we‘d just sing and shout out loud, as loud as we could go. If there were humans near, we would just sing and shout in really high voices, so high the humans couldn’t hear. Their dogs could hear, though, and it would drive them nuts. They would yowl. But if the dogs came over and found us in the woods, we would appear and they would make friends with us, and after that, whenever they heard us they would wag their tails and yelp greetings. Sometimes they’d come into the woods and we’d ride on their backs. That’s why a lot of times you used to see dogs come out of the woods and they’d wiggle around on their backs on the ground. They were trying to get rid of our scent.”

Cork’s eyes must have wandered, because suddenly Hraavik stopped pacing and leaned so close into his face that Hraavik’s face distorted as if he were peering through a peephole.

“Am I boring you?” he asked.

Cork sat up straight and shook his head “no.”

“Good. But I don’t really care. Like it or not, you need to hear this. I want you to know just what we’re all giving away. And what we’re gaining.”

He resumed pacing and gnawing on the fingerlike stub of the cigar.

“I remember my days as idyllic because they were. But as the years went on things got more and more crowded. The oral tradition from the old days tells of wide open plains and fields, but we never knew those. They all had roads across them. As time went on there were just more and more people. We couldn’t hear the worms moving in the trees anymore, we couldn’t hear the trees singing sometimes. Humans make so much noise. One day my uncle gets separated from us while we’re gathering because he can’t even hear the high frequency stuff because of some rumbling lawn mower or something. He got hit by a car, knocked in a ditch. He was an old traditionalist, still wore clothes made out of grass and big leaves and stuff, so of course by the time the big human stopped the car and lumbered back to see what he’d hit, he didn’t see anything but a lump of grass.”

He stopped again and looked deeply into Cork’s eyes, and then gestured around his office like a barker summoning all to a carnival sideshow.

“We can’t live like this. We want it back. We want to go back to the wild, even if it’s a goddamn reservation.”

Judging by some of the houses he’d seen supernatural living in, Cork figured that quite a few of them would happily choose to live like Mr. Dorton Hraavik, successful politician, with his tasteful mansion on Massachusetts Avenue. But now was not the time to go into that. Instead, he looked down and rather nonchalantly punched up the screen of his notebook.

“Which is why you say that Mr. Frendalar was acting alone.”

Hraavik took a furious puff on this cigar.

“Had I known that Mr. Frendalar was going to get drunk and pull a stunt like that, I would have killed him myself. I do not want this convention to be delayed or hurt in any way. All supernaturals and humans have a tremendous stake in this.”

Cork studied him for a second. Cork believed him.

“Have you seen the news today?”

Cork shook his head. “Not yet. I read the paper, though.”

“Pah,” Hraavik snorted. “Yesterday’s news. You gotta keep up. Here, watch this.”

He snapped his fingers at the wall, and a panel slid aside to reveal a 30-inch television monitor.

“News,” he said. “First story.”

The monitor clicked on and displayed an image of a group of human protesters, most fairly young, most with nice haircuts and nice clothes, parading around in front of the Small Bar.

“Hey ho! Go home!” they shouted. One held a cardboard sign on which he had scribbled in big letters, FAERIES! GO BACK TO EUROPE.

Hraavik snapped his fingers again and the monitor went dead and the panel slid back into place.

“This is the land of shit we’re up against. They don’t like what we’re about to accomplish here. And it’s not just them. Some of the supernatural don’t like it either. Even if we all get hit by cars, they want us to just hang in there in the modern world. But I don’t want that to be my legacy, at least not for the Faeries. The Centaurs can all become kiddie rides at state fairs if they want to, but I want my people back in the woods as soon as possible.”

The cigar finally died, and he stubbed it out in an ornate sand-filled ashtray that reached up to his knee. The ashtray was shaped like a leering demon.

“Look, I know it’s your job to come snooping around here, and I don’t blame you, but you’re really wasting your time talking to me. If you find that Frendalar died as part of some weird Faery conspiracy, you tell me and I’ll personally flog every one we got until I get answers. But in the meantime, I’ll tell you that your problems are not with us. Your problems are with the humans and with the Trolls and with whoever else is kvetching this week. You keep all them in line, we’ll do our part.”

Cork cleared his throat and tried to sound thoughtful.

“Um, do you see much of a problem with the magic issue among Faeries?”

Hraavik shook his head.

“No. Not yet. From what I hear, your government is about to go our way on that, and let us do magic while we’re traveling outside the Homeland.”

He assumed a mock conspiratorial air, whispering loudly behind his hand to Cork.

“But I’ll tell you a secret. The supes complaining the loudest about that are the ones that can’t do magic worth a flip anyway.”

Cork nodded his head and rose to go. They shook hands, and Hraavik walked him to his office door. At the door, he paused and looked up into Cork’s eyes, this time with a sort of playfulness.

“You ever get in touch with your Elf side? Not just your human side?”

Cork smiled. “Not very much.”

“You ought to. You kids today, you know, you just have no idea what anything was like before. I mean, you probably grew up like just some human kid, thinking about getting a car, worrying about good grades and getting dates.”

He spoke without malice, like a grandfather playfully reminding his grandchildren how tough things used to be, how he had to walk 20 miles to school through the snow.

‘Tell your boss to stuff it, go outside, forget all this shit, forget about bills you got to pay, go outside and lay on the grass.“

Cork opened the door and began walking down the hall.

“My computer pays the bills anyway. And I was out on the grass at lunch one day last week.”

“You’re learning, then. You’re learning.”

Outside, Cork stopped to look up at the building that housed Faeries International. The name was misleading, as the organization represented only the officially announced American Faeries, but Cork guessed that Faeries National or Faeries Limited just didn’t have the same ring. The office may have been sumptuous, but the building itself was not. It was a drab, tan square, like all the others on that side of the street. It looked as if a giant had thrown down a bunch of shoeboxes that just happened to land all in a row.

Cork squinted up at the window that he thought was Hraavik’s office, the window where the shades had remained closed all through the interview. As he set off down the street, Cork wondered how long it had been since Dorton Hraavik had heard the trees sing.

SIX

The first thing Joe Cork noticed when he flicked on the light in his apartment was that the cockroaches were moving slower than usual. They went for cover, but not too fast; they were getting fat. He had come to the conclusion that, in some perverse roachian way, they wanted him to see them, they wanted him to know that they were able to pull off such a good living from his scraps that it was all they could do to waddle out of the light. Each return home exposed him to the sight of them heaving their bulky selves under the stove or trying to stuff themselves through sizable cracks in the wood.

Having recovered from the familiar horror of seeing the retreating insects, Cork took a step forward and kicked something across the floor. The roaches were big, but not big enough that he had ever managed to loft one. He squinted and saw that his impromptu football was a catalog that someone had slipped under the door. The picture on the cover is what got his attention; it was a big black roach with a red slash across it. Cork was excited about the potential answer to his problems until he saw what company the catalog was from—Majik Incorporated, the commercial arm of the Wizards Council.

The wizards had been selling magic-related products for years based on their spell-weaving reputations, something that no supernatural group had ever bothered doing. Some of the Leprechauns and Little People sold crafts now and then, but that was about it. The wizards were something else. Cork flipped through the catalog, saw flashy ads for no muss-no fuss bug killers, car alarm systems that could freeze burglars temporarily, lawn mowers that never needed repair. That was what the ads said, anyway. In truth, the various products marketed by Majik Incorporated were notoriously unreliable, sometimes even dangerous, like the laser-equipped earrings that had to be taken off the market three years ago. Consumer Reports blasted wizard-made products in almost every issue, but people still bought the stuff for the novelty aspect, and environmentalists liked the bug killers because they didn’t contain pesticides. Cork sighed, thinking of his own army of dependents. Maybe he’d order the Roaches Be Ye Gone system advertised in the catalog. If it didn’t kill them, maybe it would at least make them lose weight.

He tossed the catalog on the kitchen counter, placed his briefcase somewhat precariously against the bookshelf and faced his flat-screen computer, which was leaned up against one arm of his tattered blue loveseat.

“Computer, give me the news capsule.”

The screen suddenly came alive, displaying a yellow smiley face that would have been bright were it not showing from under a mat of dust so thick that the computer looked almost organic. He had cleaned the screen once but had realized that its purity bothered him, that he preferred looking at his high-tech equipment through a film of dust. It made it seem more approachable, more alive.

“I have five things for you,” the computer said in a slightly tinny male tone. The smiley face faded, replaced with the worried face of a TV news anchor.

“Maryland police conducted a raid on a magic-using gang of Faeries in Prince Georges County in the wee hours of this morning,” the woman intoned solemnly. “The gang has apparently been using magic to modify stolen televisions so that they appear to be new, brand-name models. Police said they have been using magic detectors to track the gang’s movements for the past few weeks, and then went in for the roundup this morning. The gang members are juveniles, and may face fines rather than jail time. We go now to—”

“Next,” Cork said. The anchor faded, to be replaced with scratchy, grainy old news clips.

“It was a day no one in this country could forget,” a funereal voice said over footage of several supernaturals posed around President Nixon, who waved nervously at the camera. “April 16, 1969, the day thousands of previously mythical creatures poured from the woods all over America to demand their place in the modern world.”

Cork rolled his eyes. Ancient history.

“Next, please.”

That story faded, to be replaced with another nostalgia piece, this one apparently about the tough times that some supernaturals had in assimilating. It included interviews with the notorious Elf Lords biker gang from the early seventies who had become so enamored with biker movies that they all bought beat-up choppers and commenced terrorizing the highways of southern California. Unfortunately for them, they had inherited the typically poor Elfin hand-to-eye coordination, and all had eventually perished in nasty traffic accidents.

“Shut it off,” Cork said. “I’ll watch the others later.”

He fished a Coke from the refrigerator and eased down on the loveseat, moving the computer screen to the floor to lean against his stereo speaker.

“Any calls? Any mail?”

“One letter from your mom. I printed it out. It’s in the paper tray.”

Cork glanced at the printer tray to see a two-page letter.

“One bill from the cable company. I paid it from your credit account; you have $187.88 available until next Friday. One phone message, from 202-555-3784, at 6:23 P.M. Bills to that number are addressed to Ellen King.”

“Play the call,” Cork said with more excitement than he had meant to convey, although the computer didn’t notice.

The smiley face disappeared, to be replaced for an instant with the face of Ellen, who looked at the screen for the barest portion of time before turning away as the screen went blank again. She had called and hung up, but not so fast that the vidphone hadn’t captured her image.

“Do you need me for anything else?” the smiley face said.

“Nope,” Cork replied.

“I’m outta here, then,” the computer said, and the smiley face turned gray once more.

Cork stretched out and kicked off his shoes, which thudded on the wooden floor somewhere amid the mess on the other side of the loveseat. He rested his thin, hairless legs against the arm, wiggling his toes under his dark socks. He sipped the Coke and looked out the window. There were still a few faint streaks of light on the horizon, and a few neighborhood children played on the plastic monkey bars in the park across the street as their parents stood nearby. He could hear their shouts and shrieks of pleasure. He never remembered hearing adults shriek with pleasure, or not in the park, anyway. A couple of jogging silhouettes moved slowly around the perimeter of the park, outside the black metal fence that defined its borders. Were they to shriek, they would be shrieks of pain.

He took a sip of Coke and held it in his mouth, feeling it burn under his teeth. He no doubt would regret this habit in later years when the sugar had rotted his ivories away and left him with a mouthful of stubby gums, but for the time being it felt good, strangely cleansing.

Ellen’s face flashed before his mind again. He could reach over and get the computer and look at her again, but he was too lazy, and he preferred the image in his mind: her, looking at the screen, eyes partially lidded, sultry smile on her face.... Who am I kidding? he thought. I hardly know her. He was sliding into nappy thoughts about what a one-quarter Elf child would look like when he remembered that his mother had sent him a letter. It was in his printer basket, but he was now too settled to get up and fetch it.

“Computer,” he said, as if coaxing a dog to bring his slippers. He didn’t turn around, but knew mat the smiley face was looking at him. “Could you please read mother’s letter? In mother’s voice?”

“I printed it out,” the computer said, but did not pause to argue the point. Its voice suddenly became that of his mother. He once had her speak into the computer microphone so her voice could be digitized and on record, and she had said at that time that it was the weirdest thing she had ever done. He was glad he had insisted, however; the sound of her gentle singsong, even in digital form, comforted him.

“Dear son. I realize that this is a tough week for you, so I wrote instead of calling. I know you’re probably worried about how things are going to turn out, but don’t let it eat at you. You’re doing the right thing. Things have been crazy for so long. I know that some people are complaining in the supernatural community but they will get over it once they realize how much happier they will be out in the wild, even if it isn’t much wild. Your father and I—and your father says hi, by the way—understand that mixed couples like us will have the option of whether to move to the new homeland. We’ve decided that we won’t.”

Cork raised his eyebrows slowly.

“I enjoyed growing up in the wild, and I still like camping, as you well know, but I haven’t lived in the woods in such an awfully long time that I think it would be foolish of me to go back. I’ve just gotten used to so much. I like the fact that my refrigerator dispenses the ice cubes. I like my computer. I even like some of the television shows these days; they don’t seem as smutty as they used to. Your father will be happier, too. Don’t tell him I said so, you know how he is, but some of the supernaturals just drive him crazy. He is just outright afraid of Trolls, I think, but he won’t admit it.

“But, anyway, the point is, son, that you may be in for some rough sledding. People on both sides, humans and supernaturals, may criticize you. But keep faith in yourself. The supernaturals mostly like the woods and fields, and they don’t like having people around. People like to build and build, and they don’t like having Elves and Faeries and Goblins and Trolls around doing magic and generally scaring the children and getting underfoot. So everyone is better off. I think, in most cases, we just aren’t meant to live together in peace. We’re too different. And then there’s people like you and me, with feet in both worlds. It’s hard on me sometimes, and I know it’s hard on you. Just remember that your father and I love you. You’ll do what’s right. I love you, son. Sincerely, your mother.”

The computer reverted to its male voice and added, “No signature, no date,” but Cork didn’t hear it. He was staring at his ceiling, suprised to find that he had tears in his eyes.

He thought of his early memories of his mother, her small, yellowish body, her long brown hair, her dark brown eyes, her pale lips that always seemed to be turning up into a smile. She had a well-developed and sly sense of humor, a rarity among Elves, who tended to be fairly serious.

“You must have been a reverse changeling, a human left to be raised by the Elves,” Cork’s father used to say, and sometimes his mother would agree, and sometimes she would playfully give him a light punch on the arm.

His father, he of the full red beard, jolly manner, and leftist politics, had been drawn to his mother because at first glance she represented everything that the hippie movement held dear—freedom, a return to nature, and ignorance or dislike of the prevailing power structure. They had met at a sit-in protest at Syracuse University and had been virtually inseparable ever since. Of course, in later years, his mother had turned to materialism in a big way, a way that his father had surely not anticipated. Having been raised in the woods with literally leaves for clothing and stick houses for shelter, she quickly developed a fondness for expensive clothes and accessories, not to mention a hankering for any gimmick-laden household appliance that found its way to market. Her early anti-war protests were done more for fun than anything else, as her own political bent tended to be conservative, which in retrospect seemed more in keeping with her isolated, nomadic roots. Elves didn’t like for anyone outside the tribe to mess with them, so Cork was less than astonished in later years to learn that his mother had twice voted for Ronald Reagan. Cork’s father was flabbergasted and somewhat upset to discover that his wife had turned into a money-grubbing tool of the oppressor, but he did love her, after all, and later discovered his own capacity for materialism when he surprised the family by buying a BMW, and surprised them even more by polishing it faithfully once a week.

They had tried to have a sister for young Joseph, but childbirth was hard on Elves, which was one reason there weren’t more of them to begin with. In Elfin lore, families with two children at the same time were sizable, and three children were a veritable stick house full. So he had grown up an only child, one learning bits of culture from two very different worlds. He would watch reruns of Gilligan’s Island, and his mother would point out how Elves would be able to live off the various trees and shrubs depicted while still leaving very little trace of their existence; certainly they would never build a small village in the middle of the clearing, and would not allow the sort of carrying on and tomfoolery practiced by Gilligan and the Skipper. Cork had emerged an unusually well-centered child, one showing little of the strain often seen in those who must bridge two races.

Coming from this sort of background, he had displayed an interest in politics early. When his friends fought in the playground, he was frequently the adjudicator who sought an amicable end to the altercation. In high school, he both played sports and joined the chess club, to have the widest mix of friends possible. In college at the University of Vermont, he narrowly lost an election to become Student Government Association president, but nevertheless redoubled his volunteer efforts on behalf of that organization. His passion for conflict resolution had not gone unnoticed by his mother; when he was young, she had given him a tiny Rubik’s Cube, the puzzle that called for one to match together different colors on a small square. He had never solved it, and didn’t intend to; he just enjoyed moving the pieces around. Years later, he still had the thing, having glued gold links to it and pressed it into service as a keychain. Its colors had faded almost to invisibility, but the movement of the pieces was still notchy, just the way he liked it.

Now, at the ripe old age of 32, he was in a decent position on a renowned Senate committee. The Supernatural Affairs Committee was relatively famous even among the general public for spearheading some of the laws relating to the supernaturals. It did pretty much the sort of thing he had been doing all his life—settling disagreements between warring groups, bridging the gaps between those with different points of view. As the committee’s chief investigator, he was at the forefront of this. The investigators of some committees were lawyers, and operated almost like private detectives. That would not be the life for him. He had majored in political science and had then become a paralegal, and that only because he needed to paw his way through reams of legal documents for the committee. His job was to sort through statements and old treaties and find ways to bring people and supernaturals together, a way of working that suited him more than the private-eye type sleuthing he had been forced into suddenly this week.

Despite his achievement in getting a job that suited him nearly perfectly, sometimes he still felt empty. Although there were plenty of people on Capitol Hill who would kill for his job, now and then he secretly wished he had a job on the Appropriations Committee. That would be a job that would absolutely fit him to a tee. Now there was a committee that did a lot of wheeling and dealing, that had to juggle numerous competing interests. Plus, its staffers got paid more. He had all the respect, but not the cash; his tiny bug-ridden apartment, with its bed that folded into the wall with a groan each morning, could attest to that.

Maybe he needed a love life. It had been a while since he’d had a date. He was a nice guy, with honorable intentions, and his looks were exotic enough to be interesting, or so he thought. Years ago, growing up in various small towns in New York state, he had been able to attract dates by virtue of being an oddity. Everyone knew of supernaturals by then, but few had actually seen one, much less one who was half human and who badly wanted to go out with members of the opposite sex. Looking back, he realized that the problems came when people expected him to act according to the way they thought Elves should act. If he wasn’t jolly all the time, his dates told him that Elves were supposed to be jolly. If he wasn’t deep and mystical, forever nattering on about the mystery of life and how birds navigate and whether snails can see in color, they told him that Elves were supposed to be deep and mystical. On one particularly memorable date, when he had parked the car in some woods for the ritual kissing, his date asked him if he wouldn’t be more comfortable running around naked in the woods. He at first thought it was a come-on, and a particularly intriguing one at that, until he realized that she meant that he should do that alone. He looked at the woods and all he could think of was how many bugs and stinging plants and poison ivy they might contain. Elf or not, he wasn’t about to jump around in there naked. Not without help. He explained to his date that he had grown up in suburbs and small towns, and that he was just as accustomed to concrete as he was to grass. His date was not impressed. She gave him a few perfunctory kisses and then demanded to go home, and so they drove away. Many dates had gone that way.

When he arrived in Washington four years ago, he thought it would be different. Mostly, it wasn’t. Maybe it was just the Washington scene. He wasn’t one to pick people up in bars, and all the young women he worked with on the committee were either married or extremely uninterested.

He had actually dated a full-blooded Elf for nearly two months soon after his arrival, a woman five years his junior who worked for an environmental organization. Somewhat to his surprise, they turned out to have little in common. She was an Elfin separatist in her off-hours and would not attend a human movie, play, club or restaurant. Their dates had taken place in various wooded areas around town, including one memorable rendezvous in Rock Creek Park. She was stridently anti-human, which bothered him. She told him that his human blood was spoiling him, and that she needed to save him by returning him to his roots. She angrily explained that humans had always hated Elves, and pointed out as an example that one of the most beloved human icons was a fat old man who kept Elves as slaves at a workshop in the North Pole. He attempted to argue on that point, saying that this mythology had developed before humans knew that Elves really existed, and that after the Revelation it was rewritten to say that all of Santa’s toys were made in a cooperative staffed by not only Elves but other supernaturals and even humans. He noted that Santa Claus was sometimes referred to as an Elf himself, but she said that was only further evidence of human hatred, as they sought to paint Elves as being self-loathing.

They had tired of each other fairly quickly and had broken up. Now and then he wondered what had become of her, but not enough to seek her out.

He realized that it was getting late, and that his wandering thoughts indicated he was much sleepier than he thought. This was his Elf side coming through, he figured. Elves were very capable of sleep, as they had grown used to snoozing away big portions of hot days in the wild. Caffeine wouldn’t put a dent in an Elf’s sleepiness—Cork could drink five cups of coffee and still drop off immediately if he was sufficiently tired. He ambled to his closet and peeled off his socks and his shirt, depositing both in the sizable clothes lump that lurked behind the door. He hung his pants carefully on a fat plastic hanger. He was too tired to brush his teeth, and instead padded over to the Murphy bed and pulled it down. It creaked all the way to the floor, and he flicked off the light and jumped into it with some relish. It had been a long day.

He just needed someone with some balance. He thought of Ellen King right before he went to sleep. He pictured her the way she had been on the computer screen, her head turning slowly away....

SEVEN

“This is where history will be made, lady and gentlemen,” said Vassil McIlheney, the chairman of the Table of Gnomes. He gestured across the empty stage of the old Washington Convention Center and out at the seats that had been arranged on the floor. Green and white banners hung from the rafters, some draping over the backs of seats in the upper balconies. McIlheney was tiny—even Faeries were significantly taller than Gnomes—but his voice, amplified by his cordless microphone, boomed out across the chairs. Although the seats were empty, the convention center itself was swarming with activity, as human and supernatural workers busied themselves with the task of getting the place into shape.

McIlheney was one of about one hundred supernaturals in charge of convention preparations. Nearly every supernatural in the country would be here in only two days, in addition to thousands of government representatives and other humans and hundreds of members of the press, human and supernatural, from all over the world. This was the first major accord to be signed between humans and supernaturals, and everyone was interested. The choice of the old convention center as the site for the Faery Convention had been the cause of some controversy, as had nearly every other part of the proceedings. Some in the supernatural community felt that the gathering should be held in the new convention center, which was in a better area and had a bit more luster. City officials had noted that the old center had been thoroughly renovated, and was in a much better position to handle the crush of people. Nevertheless, the city pledged to pay for additional improvements, like new carpeting. That, and the fact that the old convention center was closer to more good bars and restaurants, sealed the deal.

“Notice the new curtains over here, which we’ve ordered just for this event,” McIlheney said.

He gestured to massive, tassel-ridden draperies that were being raised on either side of the stage by small swarms of workers.

“Since most of us are woodland fanciers, they’re green and brown.”

McIlheney had been leading tours all day, but this group was accommodated by special senatorial request and consisted only of Joe Cork, Sen. Horton Howard, Elves United President Urdu Dublin and, last but not least, Ellen King, who apparently had pretty much forced herself on the proceedings even though it was a Saturday and she didn’t have to be at work. She hadn’t even requested a comp day.

“She damn near gnawed my head off to let her come,” the senator whispered to Cork at one point. Cork thought he detected a bit of confused pride in the senator’s breathy voice. “She’s just a damn receptionist, but by God she’s interested in this stuff.”

The tour contingent was a study in contrasts. McIlheney was tiny, looking like a human dwarf. He was playing up his Gnomishness for all it was worth by wearing a jaunty green suit, a yellow shirt with a green bow tie and green shoes whose ends tapered into curled points. He wore his white, curly hair long, so that it cascaded like foamy water around his green, peaked driver’s cap. He even had a pipe fashioned out of some dark wood, although Cork noticed that he never lit it and actually held it as if it were a distasteful object.

The others looked like typical Washington policy wonks, although Urdu Dublin’s Brooks Brothers suit was a bit baggy on him, a clue that either his tailors were lax or he hadn’t always been at home in the world of people. Urdu Dublin looked like Cork, but more so; where Cork was a pasty sort of yellow, Dublin was deep yellow. His eyes were a shade or two darker than Cork’s, and his graying eyebrows were even more pointed and wild. He looked like he might be Cork’s father. Had he been his father, he might have chided his son on his selection of clothes; Cork was wearing baggy khaki pants and a blazer that was in need of a cleaning, but it was all he could stand to clothe himself in on a Saturday.

The senator was wearing one of his usual gray suits, a three-piece despite the warmth of the day.

Ellen King, she who was trying to learn so much in so little time, had done such a fine job of picking out clothes that she actually looked a little overdressed compared to the rest of the crowd, with the possible exception of McIlheney. She was wearing a black dress with white accents and white hose, and looked as sharp as a razor.

McIlheney was walking the group through the convention scene in his typically methodical Gnomish way, taking his time and giving them a look at virtually every facet of the convention.

He walked them behind the huge super-high-definition video monitors that would allow those in the nosebleed seats to see what was happening onstage. He showed them the ingenious prompter system that had been set up by the Wizards Council to help the speakers. The words appeared magically in midair and were visible only at a certain angle, and only to the person at the podium. If the speaker faltered, the last word he or she had spoken would blink as a little reminder.

He showed them the table that had been situated toward the back of the stage for the Grimm Accord signing ceremony, a gigantic semioval which had been created just for the occasion. This was where the leaders of the various supernatural groups and the humans were to sit down together, have a ceremonial toast (of water, the only substance they could all agree on), and finally, at long last, sign the damned thing. It was an impressive piece of furniture that had been meticulously designed around the leading delegates; it had higher chairs for the Faeries, Elves, and little people, lower chairs for the Big-foot and Sasquatch, backless chairs for the Moth People, a softly padded area where Sibelius, the Centaur king, could stomp his hooves if he felt so inclined, and a patched-in microphone system for the Merpeople, as it would be necessary to locate them elswhere in the convention center given that they were in an aquarium that was fifteen feet on each side and six feet across the middle. The table’s builder had constructed the furniture so precisely that should one supernatural leader fail to show and another have to be appointed in his or her place, the whole symmetry of the table could be seriously compromised. The massive table was oak, stained and polished to an almost black sheen and covered with thick green cloth. Cork thought it looked like a lopsided billiard table, but kept this to himself. McIlheney was evidently quite proud of it; Ellen King ran just the slightest tip of one finger across the outer edge of one corner, but a nasty look from the diminutive Gnome indicated that even such a cursory touch was not welcome.

In his desire to be thorough, McIlheney even showed them the ad hoc restrooms that had to be built to accommodate the various body sizes of those in attendance.

“You can imagine the plumbing difficulties alone,” McIlheney said, and no one asked him to elaborate.

It was no mistake that a Gnome had been placed in charge of whipping the old convention center into shape for the Faery Convention. Gnomes were, in general, good organizers, and were fanatics for detail; until the Revelation, they had tended secret gardens in the woods, gardens that would put most human green thumbs to shame. A few had even cultivated some exquisite patches of highly potent marijuana, and had profited quite handsomely as a result, but this was generally frowned upon within the Gnome community.

McIlheney walked his visitors to the convention center’s large front entrance, where workmen were installing the platform for a sculpture that was to be dedicated during the convention. The sculpture hadn’t been delivered yet, but Mclheney gestured to the round marble platform where it would stand and then walked them over to a side wall where a five-foot-square sketch of the sculpture was hanging. The sculpture would be like, a Who’s Who of the supernatural world, Cork noted. It showed supernaturals of all kinds, all standing close together, all reaching above their heads to where a five-pointed star was hanging, twinkling, just above their reach. There was an Elf and a Faery and a Gnome and a Goblin and a Centaur and a Little Person and a Troll and a Mermaid and Bigfoot and a few that even Cork had trouble recognizing. Near the center, slightly off to the left, was a male human figure, also reaching up, showing unity with the supernaturals.

“You all know what a hell of a time the Monuments Commission had coming up with this design,” McIlheney said.

Cork remembered a bit of that particular controversy; all the groups involved felt slighted. The Centaurs said that the Centaur’s legs were too thin; the Faeries wanted the Faery figure to be more front and center; human women’s groups complained that the lone human figure was a man, and a white man at that; the Elves thought the Elf’s eyes looked funny; the Mermaids said that the Mermaid’s breasts were too large, and would only perpetuate the old sexist human notion that all Mermaids were aquatic sexpots. The wizards wanted a separate wizard figure, wearing a hat with stars on it, but the Monuments Commission members concluded that since wizards were just humans who could do magic, the one human figure would just have to do a double duty.

“Since everyone hated it, we figured we had it about right,” McIlheney said. “I think you’ll agree that it does a pretty good job of representing what we’re trying to do here.”

All nodded their heads, though Cork noted that Urdu Dublin was looking intently at the Elfin figure. He couldn’t decide if Dublin liked it or not.

“God bless America,” Sen. Horton Howard said, and to Cork’s surprise, Urdu Dublin chimed in with his own hearty, “God bless America.”

Cork thought the old familiar words sounded strange coming out of an Elfin mouth, but he didn’t know why. He looked at Ellen, and she just raised her eyebrows the tiniest bit, as if she wanted to laugh but didn’t dare.

EIGHT

The gigantic, ornate caucus room in the Cannon Office Building could hardly hold everyone, and even its gaudy splendor was overshadowed by the diversity of the types gathered there. It was Sunday, the last day of business before the Faery Convention got officially under way downtown, and the leaders of the convention decided to convene a meeting to make sure that all the ducks were in rows. The lesser conventioneers were scattered around town, sightseeing or dining at long liquid breakfasts or snoozing at their hotel rooms, but there was to be no rest for the weary top brass.

As Joe Cork entered the room it struck him that the assembled throng made the caucus room resemble a surrealistic version of Noah’s Ark. There were plump congressmen and senators, serious-faced aides to the congressmen and senators, slick-haired lobbyists, and at least one of every supernatural group, the ones that were relatively ordinary these days and some that were a bit more rare. Even, in a huge glass-walled water tank that had been wheeled into the room with great difficulty, a Mermaid and Merman who were representing the various Mertribes that were even now swimming up the intracoastal waterway to the capital city.

Many of the supernaturals were wearing human garb, some of it modified to fit. The Moth People sported very nice gray suits, the jackets of which were slit down the back to make room for their huge, leathery wings. Others had on their traditional garb, including Aurelius, the chief lobbyist for Centaurs United, who was easily the most imposing figure in the room next to the Bigfoot and Sasquatch representatives (they had been discovered to be related but not quite the same). Aurelius wore a bright gold breastplate and a matching helmet, complete with red and purple plumage. The Bigfoot and Sasquatch, by contrast, wore absolutely nothing, but stood nearly eight feet tall and three feet wide. Both were covered in shaggy but well-groomed hair, and Cork wasn’t sure, but he thought the Sasquatch had a tiny blue bow in his or her hair. With them, it was hard to tell about a lot of things.

The room was alive with the buzz of every sort of language imaginable, and Cork could barely hear himself think as he wended his way to the huge hearing table, where his boss was supposed to be stationed to press the flesh.

He could smell coffee from somewhere, and then saw a cup nearly lost in the furry hand of a Bigfoot. He would have loved to stumble across an entire pot of coffee and pour it down his throat, after allowing it to cool suitably, of course. It was a Sunday, a day when he should have opened his eyes at the crack of noon before stumbling out of bed to fetch a paper, and stumbling back into bed to read it. This represented his seventh work day in a row. The life of a workaholic was not for him, and now he was trapped in this gigantic bureaucratic zoo. The cacaphony was driving him crazy, and he suddenly wished that they could just declare the Cannon Caucus Room to be the Homeland and get it over with.

The faces of many others in the room were smiling, even the faces not particularly designed by nature to smile, but not the face of Joe Cork. To top it off, he could not find the Senator.

But, wait, no, his boss was there after all, talking to one of the little people, which necessitated that he be down on one knee so as to be on eye level. Cork moved closer through the babbling throng and noted with faint irritation that Howard was conversing with Jodo Arendo, the outspoken activist for the often overlooked Little People. They were overlooked because they were small, as befitted the name, and also because they had no special features to distinguish them. They couldn’t do much more than the basic camouflage magic to hide themselves in the woods, and even that not particularly well. They had no particularly nasty quirks, they were just small. They lived in among Faeries and Elves—and in folklore, had often been confused with them—but had their own culture, of which they were very proprietary.

“We’d like to see if we could work something out so that we have maybe some land to ourselves, sort of a homeland within the Homeland,” Arendo was saying, and Howard was nodding, although when Arendo finished the senator shot back, “With all due respect, sir, you know that’s impossible to guarantee at this point.”

Cork stuck his head down and whispered, not too quietly, as the senator’s ears weren’t what they used to be, “Stokely’s standing by. Give him a call on your communicator.”

Howard nodded his head and quickly stood up. He looked down on Arendo and said, “Of course, if you’d like to make a small donation for my political committee from Little People United Will Never Be Defeated, we’ll see what we can do. My associate here has the number to call.”

Arendo looked expectantly at Cork, who was not at all pleased with having to do this errand boy routine. The call from Texas Gov. Andrew Stokely was vital to today’s proceedings, however, and he had been the only one left in the office when it came in. Even Ellen King, who had suddenly turned into a workaholic herself, was out making a trek to a convenience store for jumbo cups of coffee and sticky rolls.

Arendo was still looking at Cork, who refused to squat.

“Oh, I don’t have the number,” Cork said in a curt tone. “He was just saying that.”

Arendo frowned. “Never mind that. You say Stokely called? Is Texas going to finally agree to actually pay to help give us a nice Homeland?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Cork said quickly, and wished immediately that he had given a better answer.

Arendo could be relentless when it came to seeking information, and Cork thought it best to escape while he still could. He waved to a lobbyist he knew, muttered a quick “excuse me” to Arendo, and resumed threading through the crowd. As it turned out, he didn’t need to worry. He had gone only a few feet when he heard the dry clanking of the gavel, Sen. Howard’s signal that this show was finally getting on the road. The governor’s call had gone surprisingly fast, which didn’t bode well.

With much shuffling of chairs and clearing of throats, the delegates began to settle around the tables that had been dragged to the center of the room. They weren’t as fancy as the big table that awaited the delegates at the convention center, but they would have to do for a quickie Sunday meeting.

Those seated at the tables represented the cream of the supernatural crop, as well as the ranking members of the Supernatural Affairs Committee. Staff aides, including Cork, were placed on stiff chairs arranged somewhat haphazardly around the caucus room’s outer rim. The unluckiest of these were the ones who were placed near the door, as that meant they were behind the fish tank that held the Merpeople. Those in lesser positions had managed to find seats as best they could, and the walls of the room were lined with reporters, lobbyists, and a few members of the public, looking somewhat baffled and blinking in the room’s bright lights. Near the door stood a bank of broadcast cameras, recording historic images that would be sent to computers and televisions around the world.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and all those somewhere in between or beyond,” Sen. Howard said in his usual lazy drawl. “I don’t have to tell you what a momentous occasion this is. I don’t have to underscore to you the importance of what we’re trying to do here. I do apologize that we have to do it on a Sunday.”

There was a buzz of laughter in the room, and he paused until it subsided.

“That problem aside, if we pull this off to everyone’s satisfaction, we will have shown that rational beings can come to agreements to live separately in order to live happily. We will have pointed the way for other countries around this world to follow.”

There was a general “hear hear” murmur, and Howard waited for it to subside.

“I have just received word from the governor of Texas that he is willing to fund part of the improvements to the Texas portion of the Homeland.”

He paused for another murmur, but there was none. This was not exciting news. Cork knew from being around his boss that the issue of Texas funding was not at all a foregone conclusion, but the supernatural had apparently been led to believe that it was pretty much a sure thing.

“However,” Howard said, before pausing to clear his throat. The room became eerily silent. That wbrd usually meant trouble. “Gov. Stokely has indicated that it may take a while longer than we would like. Now, this is not a problem, and we do have a promise on the money from Oklahoma, but it does mean that some of the beautification of the Homeland may be delayed just a bit longer than was previously suspected.”

Suddenly there was all manner of racket emanating from around the tables. Aurelius was stamping his hooves, not just on the padding, but on the carpeted floor, which gave off great thuds. The Goblin representative banged his fists on the table, as did the chief spokesman of the Leprechauns, although his pudgy fists didn’t make the same clattering sound as did the scaly extremities of the Goblin. The speaker system patched into the aquarium wasn’t silent, either.

“This is an outrage!” shouted Principia, the Mermaid. “Are you saying you’re not going to build the waterway system from Optima Lake?”

Sen. Howard turned to look into the tank. He apparently had temporarily forgotten that Mermaids were naked from the waist up because he stared for a second or two too long at Principia’s large breasts, which were bobbing in the watery confines of the tank like fleshy buoys. The senator was caught just as he prepared to speak, so that his mouth was frozen partially open, giving him something of a fishy look of his own.

Cork rolled his eyes, and hoped that the cameras weren’t getting this. It was going to be such a long day.

With Sen. Howard having briefly relinquished control of the meeting, the Senate committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. John King of Massachusetts, took over.

“Okay, everyone, okay. Your anger is quite obvious to all here. We need some quiet so we can talk.”

Few seemed to want to talk. The Bigfoot made a sound in its throat that sounded like a drill bit being shoved through a tin roof, and Aurelius’ hooves continued to boom like muffled bombs. But silence finally did return to the table, once Dorton Hraavik, inarguably the most influential supernatural seated at the table, slowly raised his small but thick arms to indicate the need for peace. Once peace was achieved, he spoke.

“I understand your anger. I feel it too,” he said. “No one likes to think they’re being shortchanged, or being lied to.”

Cork had seen him step out of a limousine wearing an electric blue Armani suit, but at some point before he entered the caucus room he had changed into a simple brown Faery tunic to show just which side he wished to be thought of as representing.

“Now, we know that not everyone is crazy about the Panhandle. I personally would prefer a nice site in southern California, but that’s just me.”

Cork could feel a slight easing of tension in the room, but there was no laughter as Hraavik continued.

“But need I remind you that we don’t have to decide these issues today. We can vote this week to reject or accept the offer that the United States has so thoughtfully made. We can vote to formally propose our own counteroffer, and the United States can decide whether to accept or reject our offer, and we can go from there. That’s why we’re going to have this convention, to work these things out amicably. But in the meantime, let us not lose sight of what we’re doing here. Let us not get bogged down in timetables and line-for-line agreements. Nothing is in stone yet, my friends. We must not look at the small print just yet. We must consider the philosophy of this historic meeting, must consider the social artistry—and, yes, that’s the word, artistry—that underlies it. We are going to change the very definition of freedom, one way or another. We will either define freedom as the ability to do as you please within a small area, or as the ability to work together with those that outnumber you in a large area. We will make this choice, but we will do so without raising our voices. We use magic when the mood suits us. This time we will use our intellects.”

Hraavik’s voice had deepened and gained sureness as he talked, and by the end of his minispeech it swelled as if it carried the language of poetry. Once he finished, there was a moment of hushed silence in the room before a wave of spontaneous applause broke out from the audience, humans and supernaturals alike. Cork found himself clapping along. If this whole thing falls through and there is no Homeland created, Hraavik could probably move somewhere and run for Congress.

Out of the corner of his eye, Cork saw something moving, like a flesh-colored snake. He swiveled his head and saw that it was an arm, and that the arm was attached to a Capitol policeman who was standing inside the Cannon caucus room door. He wondered to whom the policeman was waving. The policeman seemed to be pointing in his direction. After a few seconds more, the policeman took his hands and pulled up on the tips of his ears until they resembled Elfin auditory organs, and it was then that Cork realized that he was the one being summoned. Nice to know that he was so indispensable that his presence was urgently required somewhere, but he didn’t like the method used to contact him. Perhaps this policeman could be punished for insensitivity.

Cork shuffled past the other Senate aides until he was at the door, and the policeman planted a firm grip on his arm and pulled him into the hallway. He was a young cop, with thick brown sideburns, and he was strong.

“We got a problem,” he said. “We found a Goblin with a gun, and we think he was going to be aiming for that little Faery fella that was just talking in there.”

The policeman half dragged him around a corridor, to where a half dozen or so of his brethren were gathered in a fleshpile atop a green figure that Cork saw was, indeed, a Goblin. The police had sealed off the corridor to all foot traffic and had put up portable curtains at either end to block the scene from view. Never could tell where those TV cameras would show up.

“We didn’t want to interrupt the meeting and bother the senator, so our boss said to call you,” the policeman said.

“I’m glad you didn’t make a scene,” Cork said, though he was somewhat perturbed that he wasn’t the first choice of contact.

He walked to the crush of bodies and knelt down. It looked as though a particularly nasty football tackle had occurred in the hall. Underneath a mass of white police officers, the Goblin’s green, scaly face stuck out, fixed in a typical Goblin frown. The Goblin’s yellow eyes flashed, and his sharp white teeth were visible behind his thin green lips.

“What seems to be the problem here?” Cork asked, to anyone who cared to answer.

“Found him in the bathroom with a gun,” one of the police officers on top of the pile said. “Just accidentally. I walked in to take a leak. Lizard Boy here was trying to load it, but he had dropped the bullets everywhere.”

“What kind of gun was it?”

“A Glock-Wesson, holds 45 mini-explosive rounds.”

“By the sticks and stones!” Cork said, trotting out an old Elfin curse he didn’t even know he remembered. “What were you gonna do, turn him into a sieve?”

“He is a race traitor,” the Goblin replied, his voice strong, scratchy and resonant despite the fact that several hundred pounds of police flesh were pressing down on his lungs. “You are a race traitor as well.”

Cork stretched out on his stomach along the floor, the better to be eye-to-eye with the Goblin.

“Actually, we’re not the same race. Look at you, look at me. Not the same race at all.”

“Well, general classification traitor, then,” the Goblin growled. “Call it what you like. You deserve to die.”

“And for what, may I ask?”

“For the Grimm Accord, what do you think?” the Goblin snarled. He seemed unable to speak unless it was in anger. “It means death for all.”

“What’s your name?”

“Mragen Scindakk.”

Cork sighed. The name didn’t ring a bell. This wasn’t the sort of situation that he was used to handling, and he didn’t know what to do. He slowly pushed himself up into a squatting position.

“You see anyone else around here who looks suspicious?” he asked, and the sideburned cop shook his head no. Cork leaned in closer to the Goblin.

“Who are you with?”

The snarl again: “Who do you think?”

“You mean to tell me that this is an officially sanctioned action of the National Organization of Goblins?”

The Goblin snorted.

“Of course. Look me up.”

“I intend to.”

Cork stood up and motioned to the sideburned policeman.

“Can I talk to you over here?”

The policeman followed, and when they were out of earshot, Cork said in a low voice, “Look, this is not my usual department. I recommend that you do just whatever it is you do with assassins, but I would say that we should tell as few people as possible. I think you should tell the senator, but I’m not so sure you should even tell Dorton Hraavik.”

The policeman nodded.

“I just get a weird feeling about this,” Cork said.

“I’m not reading this right, either,” the policeman said. “He seems all too willing to tell you his name and who he’s with. He’s like some terrorist taking claim for a car bombing or something.”

“Hey, can we hurry this up?” one of the cops yelled from the fleshpile atop the Goblin. “This guy is starting to smell!”

At that, the Goblin squirmed, but was unable to cast off his tormentors.

“Okay,” the sideburned cop yelled back. “Take him away. But don’t call anyone until I give the okay.” He turned back to Cork. “And I won’t give the okay until you give me the okay.”

“Okay,” Cork said. “Thanks.”

“Hey, listen, about that stuff I did with my ears to get your attention. I didn’t mean anything by that. But as you see, we needed you out here quick. If I offended you, I’m sorry.”

Cork smiled. “No offense taken. They are pointed. Just be glad you didn’t have to call out the Sasquatch.”

NINE

As Cork had requested, the Goblin incident was hushed up. Only his boss and a few other members of the committee were told, as were a few top members of the Supernatural Council, minus Dorton Hraavik, as it was feared that he might become paranoid. All agreed that it should be kept out of the press, given that it wasn’t the sort of news one wanted splashed everywhere on the morning the Faery Convention opened.

The top item on Cork’s late afternoon agenda was the meeting between Sen. Howard and Migik Haveran, the executive director of the National Organization of Goblins. Shortly before it was to start, Cork wedged himself in the office’s tiny storage room and poured a cup of coffee from the ancient machine that was stuffed in one corner, above a tiny sink that didn’t appear to have been cleaned in some time. The senator did not drink coffee, so it never occurred to him to have the machine put in a nice place. Cork then walked to the meeting room, not even looking around until he was comfortably ensconced in the chair nearest the senator’s desk.

He didn’t look around because he knew he would only see a scowl from Jimmy Tellas, the senator’s top personal aide. Tellas was tall and imposing in a bearlike way. He hailed from West Virginia, went back years with the senator, and never let anyone forget it. He wore his hair slicked back and was so immaculate that he appeared to have been waxed, but unlike many large people, he was anything but laid back. Tellas constantly fidgeted with his tie and his shirt cuffs, and Cork suspected that one day he was just going to explode. Tellas didn’t like Cork. Somehow he had gotten the idea that Cork was usurping his territory, although pleasing the residents of West Virginia was usually about the last thing on Cork’s mind.

The senator shuffled in from a side door and placed himself with a slow groan in his chair.

“Hello, boys,” he said, and both Cork and Tellas nodded. “Damn, this day’s never going to end.”

There was some commotion outside and then the Goblin leader walked in, flanked by two Goblin escorts. With the wave of one hand he sent them to wait outside. Haveran walked as if he weighed six hundred pounds, and Cork couldn’t swear that he didn’t. He was solid, his chest as round as a barrel. He was up there, in his sixties, but Goblins didn’t reflect the years so he may as well have been twenty. The only clue that he was aging was the pair of glasses that perched somewhat precariously on the bridge of his scaly nose. They didn’t stick well to scales, and Haveran appeared to have fixed them in place with tiny pieces of clear adhesive tape that glinted when the office light hit them just right. Haveran was as natty a dresser as was Dorton Hraavik, and wore even more stylish suits. He covered his green scales in a custom-made salmon two-piece that showed off his impressive muscles without constraining their movement.

After the preliminary niceties were exchanged, and a suitably strong chair was found for the visitor, Haveran told the senator that he had spent the late morning and early afternoon in a one-on-one interview with Mragen Scindakk, and had returned convinced that somehow, whatever the cause, this was not the Mragen Scindakk he knew. Cork held out his datacorder to make sure it got everything down.

Scindakk turned out to be the Number 5 man in the NOG, and Haveran said he had done a considerable amount of the lobbying within the Goblin community to whip up support for the Grimm Accord.

“It just doesn’t make sense that he would suddenly turn and want to kill Dorton Hraavik,” Haveran told Sen. Howard. “He’s been almost as much an activist behind the Grimm Accord as Hraavik. They worked together on this. They spent Zarkon knows how many hours together on buses and planes, traveling around holding meetings.”

Haveran’s concerns went deeper than that, however. He noted that had Scindakk wanted to kill Hraavik, he could easily have done it just by breaking his neck. To illustrate, he took off his jacket and cufflinks and rolled up one heavily-starched sleeve. His muscles undulated like rolling hills, and he urged the senator to touch them.

Sen. Howard gave a few cursory pats up and down the diplomat’s arm and then made one extended squeeze of the bicep before concluding, “They’re like rocks.”

Haveran smiled as he rolled his sleeve back down.

“And I don’t even work out,” he said. “It’s all genetic. We’re all like this, even the women and children. You don’t monkey with Goblins. No offense to anyone, but there is not a Faery in this entire world who could take out even a five-year-old Goblin child. That’s why I don’t understand why Mragen had a gun. As far as I know, he’d never even seen a gun. It’s like he had forgotten the power contained in his own body.”

He ran his coarse fingers across his ridged forehead.

‘There’s one more thing. I don’t know now to tell you this, it’s going to sound stupid. But I sat all this morning and looked into that Goblin’s eyes, and he just did not look the same. There was something about his eyes that wasn’t right.“

The senator frowned, and Cork and Tellas exchanged curious glances.

“That’s not the sort of thing we can prove in court,” the senator said.

Haveran nodded.

“I know. Believe me, I know, and I didn’t want to bring it up, but the feeling struck me so hard that I thought there must be something behind it. I just looked at him and ... you know that feeling you get when you are talking to someone, a human, and they’re very sleepy? Or they’re in a coma or something?”

Cork wondered how many humans in comas that Haveran had seen up close, and why, but he merely nodded in agreement even though Haveran wasn’t looking at him.

“It was like that, looking at Mragen.”

The senator cleared his throat, and then leaned forward in his chair, brushing his elbows across his expansive desk, looking like a schoolmaster trying to make a difficult point.

“Mr. Haveran, I believe you. I believe everything you say. I believed Dorton Hraavik when he said that some sudden fit of drunken madness must have descended on Haark Frendalar. I believed him when he told me—well, he didn’t tell me directly, but I believed him nonetheless when he told me that we would have no surprises from Faeries International during the Faery—I mean during the Supernatural Convention—and I would like to believe that we can get a similar assurance from you. Not that we expect trouble from Goblins, mind you, but ...”

Haveran interrupted him with a wave of his hand, and the senator fell silent.

“You have my word as a Goblin,” Haveran said. “There is no group more on board with the Grimm Accord than are we. Excuse my French, but we have to put up with a lot of shit from humans because of our appearance, and I don’t mean that to be offensive. We want this. We will do nothing to harm the progress of the convention.”

He chuckled, deep rumbling sound. “And we don’t mind if you call it the Faery Convention. Everyone does. We do.”

The senator nodded gravely.

“Allow me to apologize for some of my fellow humans,” the senator said. “Not everyone is progressing at the same level.”

He was serious, but Haveran just laughed, infectiously enough to make the senator, Tellas and Cork smile.

“I understand. You helped us on that case years ago against that company making Goblin Halloween masks, so we know your heart’s in the right place.”

“I like to think so,” the senator said, standing to shake Haveran’s hand.

Haveran looked deeply into the senator’s eyes.

“Just keep on your toes in the next few days, and we’ll do the same. If you have any trouble, you come to me.”

“I will.”

After the Goblin leader departed and Tellas had gone home, Cork had a few moments alone with Sen. Howard. His boss remained behind his desk, but now he was slumped back in his seat, his glasses suspended in one hand. His eyes were faintly bloodshot, nearly pink, and his usually immaculate white hair was beginning to resemble the famous unruly locks of Albert Einstein. Cork, only a little less rumpled, slouched in the chair that had been vacated by Haveran.

“Joe, Joe, Joe,” the senator said, rubbing his eyes. “What are we going to do? We’re supposed to be near the end of this process. Why aren’t things going smoothly?”

Cork was not used to comforting his boss and wasn’t at all sure what to say.

“Well, I think things aren’t going so badly....”

Sen. Howard suddenly straightened up.

“Are you telling me that the fact that two key negotiators in a very important conference have suddenly gone bonkers on the eve of the conference itself is of no consequence? Are you saying that in the past, at, say, the START talks, that the negotiators would not have worried had some of the participants suddenly started threatening to rain nuclear missiles down on the other conferees? Would that not be some cause for concern?”

Cork suddenly became interested in his shoes.

“I suppose it would.”

The senator sighed, which sounded like a whale surfacing.

“I’m sorry, Joe, I don’t mean to take it out on you. It’s not your fault. It’s just not everyone is as interested in consensus as you are, and we’ve got to stay suspicious until this thing is over and the ink is dry. There’s still so much that can go wrong. There’s so much that can fall apart.”

Sen. Howard got up slowly and Cork became aware, as he so rarely did, of how old the senator was. Horton Howard had served in the Senate since 1978, and had served in the House for more than a decade before that. The senator walked stiffly to the coatrack and put his gray jacket on so slowly that it might as well have been made of concrete. Once he had put his glasses back on, however, he looked proud and senatorial once more. He leaned almost jauntily against the deeply varnished wood-frame of his office door. The only person visible in the outer office was Ellen King, and she knew she wasn’t supposed to be listening, so she didn’t turn to face him.

“You know, I’ve been in Congress, in one body or the other, so long I forget what the real world is like sometimes. But I remember what it was like when the Faeries and the Elves and everybody else introduced themselves to us. It was so amazing, so magical.”

His voice had taken on a husky tone that Cork had not heard before. He wondered if the senator was telling him this because he was half Elf, or because he was the only staffer left around.

“We got the sense that all our knowledge could be wrong, that maybe there were things out there we couldn’t see. All these mysteries were revealed. I don’t mean revealed as in solved, but revealed in that their existence suddenly came to our attention.”

He swiveled slightly against the doorframe like he was scratching his back.

“You know, attendance in churches shot up after the Revelation. People started to believe there was a God again, all these new people, new creatures popping up everywhere, and science couldn’t account for it. That’s why I want this convention to succeed, why I want this damn accord to go through. We’ve taken this great gift and we’ve pissed it away, legislated it out of existence, taken all the fun out of the mystery.”

Howard reached over to his coatrack and thumped the magic detector that hung there. It had been a gift from someone, but the senator never could figure out what to do with it. It twisted back and forth where he had touched it, giving Cork a clear view of the familiar IBM logo.

“A supernatural has to fill out seven forms just to do magic and avoid a ticket,” the senator mused. “Seven forms, just to do what comes naturally. No wonder that the supernaturals in other countries refuse to show themselves even after almost forty years, seeing what we’ve done here. Why should they? They come wandering in with all the mysteries in the universe and right away we start hitting them with magic detectors and zoning ordinances, just tightening the belt year after year. If we separate now, then the supernaturals can be happy and we can be happy, and we can each have our own folklore back and just live like—I don’t know, I guess like we were supposed to live.”

As he talked, the senator seemed to shake off the events of the day, which Cork guessed was how he was able to survive in politics for so long.

“You know, at one point, a long time ago, some of the wizards said they could probably find out and tell us whether there was a Loch Ness monster or not. They said they’d need some public money to do it, though. And we thought about it, some of the senators and congressmen and me. If there was one, then the tourism industry in Scotland would do even better business. And if not, then we would just not tell. But in the end, we told them we didn’t want to know. They could find out for themselves, or like as not they already knew, but we didn’t want to know. It’s still a mystery. I like it that way. There aren’t enough mysteries anymore.”

He toddled through the office, nodding at Ellen as if he had just noticed her.

“Did you hear that?” Cork said to Ellen King after the senator had bid them goodnight and left. “Not enough mysteries.”

He sat on the edge of her desk, slumping as if there was no body within his suit. It was nearly 8 P.M. on Sunday, which was supposed to be a day of rest, and tomorrow promised to be another very long day.

Ellen was tired, too, but managed an impish smile.

“The real mystery is ... where are you going to take me to dinner? Where’s a good place where you can tell me all the secrets you’ve learned today?”

TEN

The senator was humming a tune as he walked out of the building, even though he had no idea what the song was. It was something that he must have picked up from the radio the girls always had turned on in the office. The melody was floating around like perfume and had gotten stuck in his head. He had an idea that the song was rock and roll, but he wasn’t sure because it was an enjoyable little ditty to hum and he ordinarily didn’t like any sort of rock and roll at all, didn’t consider it listenable, much less hummable.

He nodded goodnight to the security guard and continued down the sidewalk, humming all the while. It was a good night to hum. Clear, warm but not hot. He hummed all the way down the block to his car, and was still humming when the dry sound of hands clapping interrupted him.

“That’s a very nice song,” a voice said. “One of my favorites.”

The voice came from the direction of the silver Buick parked in front of his own car. He looked and, sure enough, a figure was leaning on the Buick, looking back at him, clapping slowly. The figure wore a long, dark coat despite the balmy spring night.

“Thank you. Glad I could entertain you.”

“I appreciate the music, but I’m here on business,” the figure said, stuffing his hands deep in the long coat’s pockets. “Do we have a problem that I should know about?”

“Of course not, Merlin. You would have been notified.”

“Well, that’s what I would have thought ordinarily, but I tried to get through to you all afternoon and got no response. I understand there was some difficulty with a certain scaly member of the supernatural community.”

Sen. Howard sighed. Sometimes Merlin could be so insensitive.

“I believe ‘Goblin’ is the word you’re struggling for.”

“Believe what you like. Why didn’t you respond?”

Howard unlocked his car and tossed his black briefcase on the passenger seat.

“I had people in my office all day. All day long. In and out, back and forth. Having meetings. Making sure there was no trouble. I couldn’t respond, they’d think I was nuts.”

“You should have taken the chance. Senators are allowed certain personality quirks. I like to get my information from the horse’s mouth whenever possible. I don’t like having to do extra work to find out what’s going on. We have an agreement.”

“We do indeed. And I honored it. We determined that there was no danger to the convention, no danger to the accord. The situation was under control. There was no need to get you all worried. I was going to call you when I got home, anyway.”

Merlin laughed. “I should hope so. So everything’s okay, then? No worries?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“I’d like to think so, but I’m not sure. I understand that there’s a strong chance that the Senate will agree to allow magic to be committed outside the Homeland.”

The senator sighed.

“You understand right. Stokely in Texas is balking on funding. We’ve got to give them something.”

“I wish you’d give them something else.”

“Merlin, if you wish to get more involved with the convention as the duly elected president of the Wizards Council, you’re more than welcome, you know that.”

“I am deeply involved.”

“You never come to Supernatural Council meetings.”

“I’m busy. But I am involved. Don’t be surprised if that vote goes the other way.”

“Nothing surprises me any more. Merlin, I’m in a good mood right now, God knows why, and I wish to remain this way. If you keep talking, I won’t.”

“Goodnight then. I’ll be in touch. Hope the fundraising continues to go well.”

Sen. Howard filled the night air with curses, but Merlin had already slammed his car’s door and Howard knew he couldn’t hear them. Merlin screeched away from the curb. Sen. Howard shook his head. He tried to start humming again, but wasn’t surprised to find he had lost the tune.

ELEVEN

Ellen King leaned against Cork’s car, a somewhat battered Chevrolet Electric Impact that was in dire need of a battery change.

“I’ll just wait here,” she said.

It was still fairly light, and his street was generally safe, so Joe Cork figured it was okay for her to stay unattended for a minute. He needed to stop by his apartment, as he had forgotten his credit card and would need it if he intended to buy anything for dinner. As he walked half a block down die street and trotted up the short flight of stairs leading to his apartment building’s door, he was wondering if she actually intended for him to pay for everything, or if that was a joke, or if he even had a balance sufficient to buy anything more exotic than a burrito at Quinchy’s Healthy Taco Haus on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Suddenly he was awn California, but that’s just me.”

Cork could feel a slight easing of tension in the room, but there was no laughter as Hraavik continued.

“But need I remind you that we don’t haf felt like he was being stabbed. He would have cried out in pain had his breath not been knocked out in a rush. He was aware of strong arms pinioning his own, and that he was suddenly hurtling backwards. At any moment his head was going to smash into the concrete at the bottom of the steps and his life would be obliterated. Instead, the strong arms broke his fall and he felt himself suddenly being pulled upwards toward the apartment door.

“Get out your keys now

“Wh-why didn’t you wait until I had opened the door to jump me?” he asked, his investigatory instincts rising to the fore even in the face of crisis.

“I intended to, but I slipped,” the voice said. “Hurry up.”

Cork had just opened the door, when he heard a female voice somewhere behind him and his attacker.

“All right, get ’em up!” Ellen shouted. Cork hoped that she had used his car communicator to contact the police before embarking on these heroics.

The owner of the gruff voice turned around. When he did, Cork had a chance to look at him closely. Given the strength of his attacker, Cork had thought he was dealing with at least a Goblin, but instead it was a male human. He was tall, wearing a red shirt and a black leather jacket over black leather pants. He had long, shaggy blond hair. Cork felt a rush of recognition, taking him back to the night in the Small Bar. His attacker was undeniably the same guy who had tossed Haark Frendalar through the front window.

Ellen stood at the foot of the steps, legs spread slightly apart, pointing a stun gun at the shaggy man. She held it as rigidly and seriously as if it were a flamethrower. The gun was one of the older models, which worked by shooting two tiny electric darts into its chosen victim. They were illegal in the District of Columbia, but given the city’s crime rate, he wasn’t surprised that she had one. The gruff guy looked at Ellen closely for several seconds that seemed more like minutes.

“I see you have selected the Zap’Em model 164 for tonight’s encounter with the criminal element,” he said. “You should know that this particular model, manufactured by the Electro Company of New Jersey, has a range of approximately fifteen feet. Given that the treads of the steps below us are approximately one foot long each, and that there are ten steps, you can see that you are at the extreme edge of the weapon’s range. Also, you must factor in that I am currently clothed in a leather jacket, purchased through the mail from the Harley-Davidson Motor Company, and that there is a very good chance that at least one of those darts will lodge in the jacket, which is thick enough to blunt the charge. In the meantime, I will have ample opportunity to snap the neck of your compatriot here.”

He slapped a heavy arm around Cork’s shoulders and squeezed him as if they were best pals.

Ellen appeared flustered. She kept the stun gun pointed in die general direction of the hairy human, but its exact aim wavered a bit.

“Well,” she said after a moment. “Well. Maybe I had the gun altered.”

“You did not,” the man said. “Throw me the gun and come inside with us and maybe I won’t kill this little guy.”

She hesitated, looked at Cork, but he could do nothing but shrug his shoulders, and even that was difficult with the man’s arm across them. She tossed the gun to the man. He looked it over for a second, passing it from hand to hand, and then suddenly held it out straight and squeezed. The gun flew apart like the cheap plastic device that it was, its darts hanging uselessly from the shattered barrel.

“If it ain’t a real gun, it ain’t worth the trouble,” the man said.

“Isn’t,” Cork corrected him, but he was ignored.

They clomped up the stairs, the man courteously letting Cork and King go before him. Cork’s hands were still shaking, and it took him a minute to get his door open. Once inside, the man ordered Joe and Ellen to sit on the loveseat while he closed the drapes.

“Did you call the police?” Cork whispered as quietly as possible.

He thought for a moment that Ellen didn’t hear him, but then she whispered back, “Your communicator wouldn’t let me make the call. You didn’t pay the bill.”

Cork grimaced. The communicator was a new videophone system that he had just installed in the car, and was the only account he had not yet transferred to his new computer payment system. That would be the first thing he would do when this was over. If it ever ended.

The shaggy man pulled up Cork’s only chair and sat down. It was a scrawny metal chair that Cork used for a dinner table and to change light bulbs, and the man’s massive weight made it creak in protest.

“I don’t h. She tossed the gun to the man. He looked it over for a second, passing it from hand to hand, and then suddenly held it out straight and squeezed. The gun s who have not revealed ourselves to you, or to anyone. We are going to destroy the Grimm Accord and make sure that humans and supernaturals break all their previou;t worth the trouble,” the man said.

“Isn’t,” Cork corrected him, but he was ignored.

They clomped up the stairs, the man courteously letting Cork and King go before him. Cork’s hands were still shaking, and it ntatively.

TWELVE

He declined coffee. He told of a new world.

“People have known about us for centuries, all through time, but they didn’t know what we were. They knew that somewhere out there were creatures capable of taking other forms. We have figured in their folklore. They thought we were werewolves or vampires or creatures of that sort, but we’re something else entirely. At times, we have been called Shapeshifters. But we’ve never formally announced what we are to anyone. We have remained alone.”

He told of the mythology, of the religion of a race of creatures as everchanging as a mountain stream.

“The world was a dark and ugly place, full of fear and death. All the creatures within it and on it were ignorant and ignoble. The Great One wanted to learn all there was to know of wisdom and knowledge, so he set up a garden of towering fruit trees where, with every bite of fruit he ate, he learned more. Each bite contained knowledge enough for all the dictionaries in the world. He planned to wait until he knew all, and then to share it with the rest of the world, to bring light into the darkness. But before he could finish, two of the base and ignoble creatures snuck into the garden and ate his fruit, and gained his knowledge, and took it out into the world to use it for evil. They used it to war amongst themselves and to build great towers of darkness.

“But the Great One had one last trick. He created a new race of beings to go out into the world and take different forms, to see that the world would progress properly. He made us—the Shapeshifters—the guardian angels of the world.”

Ellen ran her fingers through her hair and spoke nervously. “I don’t believe this. This is fantastic. I mean fantastic in the sense that I don’t believe it.”

“It’s the Garden of Eden story from the snake’s viewpoint,” Cork said.

“The Great One was not a snake,” the hairy man corrected, but politely.

Cork found himself a little skeptical.

“So you guys, you Shapeshifters, go around doing great deeds? Is that right?”

The hairy man smiled for the first time.

“That’s just the mythology. I wouldn’t think it’s very accurate. I just wanted you to know a bit about our background.”

Cork leaned forward, his finger pointed forward like a prosecutor’s.

“You were in that bar last week. You killed Haark Frendalar.”

The hairy man shook his head, an action which made his blonde hair flip from side to side like that of a model in a shampoo commercial.

“No, I killed the man who killed Haark Frendalar. And then I took his place. And anyway, that wasn’t Haark Frendalar. It was one of us. He made a mistake and he got killed by accident.”

“Well, who the hell are you then?”

“My name is not pronounceable to you, so just call me Othello.”

Ellen stared at him, her brows knit, her eyes wide, and he smiled again.

“It’s a long story, so let’s just say that we like the classics.”

“Why did you kill ... yourself? I mean, the guy that you are now? How is it that you are him?” Cork asked, getting himself confused.

Othello leaned back in the chair.

“I think I have to explain a bit more about us before we continue. A Shapeshifter can, as you might guess, take the shape of anything. Well, anything living. We can form ourselves into the shape of a person or an animal, but only if the subject is unconscious or dead at the time. If they’re unconscious, they’d better be in a permanent coma, because if they wake back up while we’re in the process of shifting, it kills us.”

“Why is that?”

“I have no idea. One unfortunate side effect of remaining totally secret to everyone is that we don’t know much about our own biology. It’s not like we can just check ourselves in to the doctor for X-rays. And, anyway, that wouldn’t help.”

He turned his shaggy head from side to side. He waved his fingers around in the air.

“I am a perfect replica of the guy I killed, down to the cells and beyond. I just don’t have his memories, don’t have his soul, if he had one.”

“Why did you kill the guy? The guy you are now?” Ellen asked.

“When I heard about what Prospero did—he was the one of us who took that Faery’s place—I saw a good chance to take on human form. I did it because I needed to talk to you, Joe Cork.”

Cork didn’t know which question to ask first.

“Why did the—Prospero—do what he did? Why did you need human form? Why do you want to talk to me? What exactly is going on here?”

The shaggy man held out his hands palm up, as if fending off blows.

“Wait, wait. First, more background. What we’ve been trying to do is study the habits of some of the members of the Supernatural Council. The deal is to kill them and take their places just before the—but I’m getting ahead of myself. Just say that Prospero screwed up by taking Haark Frendalar’s place too quickly, and then by overestimating how much hootch a Faery can swallow.”

“And he got killed.”

“Yes, and then I saw a chance. By killing this human, I saw a chance to make it look like I was acting to cover every loose end, while still getting a human body so I could fit in better.”

“You walk around in a six-foot-five body dressed in black leather with shaggy blonde hair, a body incidentally wanted for murder, so you can fit in better?” Cork asked, but Othello laughed.

“That didn’t occur to me until later, I admit. But everything has worked out now.”

Ellen had begun fidgeting quite furiously while the conversation progressed. Finally she asked if she could have some of that coffee that Cork had mentioned.

“Yeah, I’ll make it,” Cork said, but Ellen jumped up ahead of him and said she’d be glad to do it if he’d tell her where the grounds were.

Othello kept a watchful eye on her, and Cork caught him noting the location of the windows.

“I wouldn’t try to scream or jump out a window or anything, because I will kill you,” he said.

She stopped midstride and balled up her fists.

“That’s one thing bothering me about all this. You talk about killing people like you’re just—just shedding a skin or something.”

Othello gave her a stern look.

“You’re wearing leather shoes which came from a dead animal. Your purse is leather. You probably had some land of animal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. To us, taking human form involves killing, yes, and it’s just like changing clothes is to you. Or, rather, it used to be, for me. But I changed. Now I have gained a better understanding of human life.”

“That’s very nice,” Ellen said slowly, drawing out the words.

Othello motioned for her to sit down.

“Listen, I’d rather you not have coffee, because you’d just get the water hot and throw it in my face or something, and I’d have to kill you, and take your place, which I don’t want to do because of my newfound respect for human life, and anyway then the love interest you have going with this gentleman here just wouldn’t work out, and frankly I’m a bit tired right now. So sit down and let me finish.”

She paused for a moment, looking at Othello as if he were a reeking heap of fertilizer. She then grudgingly obeyed, settling in next to Cork, who had for the moment ignored the comment about being a love interest and was furiously replaying earlier bits of the conversation with Othello in his mind.

“You were saying something about the convention? About your plans for it?”

“Yes, exactly. The plan is that one of us is to impersonate every one of the top supernatural leaders. Dorton Hraavik. Urdu Dublin. Prince Ramon. Migik Haveran. Zethryn. Sibelius. The top guys and the seconds-in-command, the thirds-in-command, in some cases the fourths- and fifths- and sixths- and sevenths-in-command. Some are going to take over just the basic supernatural rabble, too. There are about eight hundred of us poised to strike. Those of us slated to take over the top leaders have been shadowing our targets for months, reading their mail when we can get it, learning their habits, their mannerisms, who they know, watching how they eat, where they sleep, everything. That way, even if we don’t have their memories, we come close enough.”

“And this guy playing Haark Frendalar just made a mistake.”

“As I said, yes.”

“Has anyone else made a mistake?”

If Othello didn’t know about Mragen Scindakk and the would-be shooting incident, then Cork thought that he might just be dealing with a human rather than a vengeful plot by hitherto unknown supernaturals. A large, brutally powerful and insane human, to be sure, but just one person nonetheless.

“Yes, as you know, Mragen Scindakk went bonkers yesterday. Well, actually he didn’t. I believe that was Hal, and Hal did seem a bit excitable. He probably just couldn’t wait to get started.”

“Why did he have a gun?”

“Hal hadn’t done his homework sufficiently on Goblins. He was not willing to put in the time required to learn how a Goblin works. Usually when you move to a new body, you spend a little time getting used to it, testing it out, getting your balance. Hal didn’t do it. He snuffed Mragen Scindakk too early, and then was just ready to kill Dorton Hraavik—which wasn’t even his job, by the way—but he couldn’t get the Goblin’s muscles to work right so he just decided to shoot him. I have not the slightest where he got the gun. But because he didn’t do his homework, his motor control was so lousy that he dropped the bullets everywhere, and you know the rest.”

“Why was he going to kill Dorton Hraavik if that wasn’t his part of the plan?”

Othello smiled. He actually had something of a nice smile, or, rather, the person he had killed had something of a nice smile.

“Well, we Shapeshifters are loners who don’t follow game plans very well. Most of us spend our lives jumping from body to body, from animal to person to whatever, totally isolated from each other, so pulling off this kind of operation is a lot of work. I’m surprised things have gone so well this far.”

Ellen chimed in. “You keep talking about this plan. What is it? How is Joe here supposed to help?”

“Okay, quickly, first the plan. Like I said, we have sized up all these supernaturals and we’re going to take their place on Wednesday, just before everything is signed and sealed on the Grimm Accord. Then we’re going to lead off a rampage. The Shapeshifters impersonating the Moth People are going to swoop down and pick up little lads and drop them in the streets. The Centaurs are going to kick people and stomp them to death. The Faeries are going to screw up whatever they can, traffic lights, fire hydrants, you name it. Same for the Elves and the Leprechauns and whoever else wants to get in on it. The Bigfoots and Sasquatches will raise holy hell. Smashing store windows, killing, looting if we have time, whatever it takes.”

Ellen stood up again, her fists like small cannonballs on the ends of her arms.

“What the hell for?”

Cork sunk back in the couch. He ran his hands over his face, causing his skin to ebb and flow like a mud puddle in the rain.

“I see. On the eve of being granted this big chunk of land and all these federal and state grants, the supernaturals will prove to be untrustworthy. Dangerous. Nobody will sign that paper with them.”

“Exactly,” Othello said, and looked up at Ellen. “Please sit down.”

She did, her wide eyes never leaving his benign face.

“You will kill so many people.”

“Yes. Organized chaos. Panic in the streets. All trust between humans and supernaturals will be broken. The humans will of course try to stop us by attacking any supernaturals, and when they do the thousands of supernaturals who don’t know what’s going on will naturally follow their leaders and fight back. That means that we’ll have twenty thousand supernaturals rioting in the streets of downtown Washington. So we’ll have a little civil war of sorts, and the supernaturals aren’t going to be willing to live under the laws anymore. It will be just like old times, before the Revelation.”

“Jesus,” Ellen said.

“But wait, you forget. Why do you think I’m here explaining all this to you? You think I have nothing better to do? I want to stop the plan. I need your help to stop it.”

“Why?” Ellen asked snidely. “It’s such a good plan.”

Othello got up and stretched his long human body, and the chair squeaked in relief.

“It is a good plan. It makes wonderful use of our best talent and everyone else’s worst impulses. But I have to stop it because I have something else worth fighting for now that means a great deal more to me.”

Cork was surprised at how well he was following things to this point, and was almost irritated that Othello was about to throw in a new twist.

“And that is—”

Othello sat back down and smiled like a high school student contemplating the senior prom.

“I met a girl.”

THIRTEEN

She was Shiena, daughter of Sibelius, king of the Centaurs. She was 14 Centaur years old, which correlated to roughly 22 human years, 16 Faery years, and 31 Goblin years, which made no difference at all for a Shapeshifter. She was in fine shape, her flanks muscular, her legs taut, her mane and tail well groomed, her hair long, lustrous and dark, her eyes flashing, her stomach flat and yet with a hint of softness, her breasts firm and round, her arms long, but trim. Her sense of humor was sparkling, her laugh fresh and clear as a new-cut gem. Othello had fallen in love with her in a matter of days, and had resolved to make their love possible.

He had been in Hong Kong, working his way methodically through the millions of a businessman whose place he had taken, when he opened the China Today newspaper and saw the ad, no larger than a business card, but suddenly riveting: “The Great One’s loss is your gain. We are called forth. Stay tuned.” Over the next several weeks, as Othello made dubious business deals over his Rolls Royce’s computer, he continued to read China Today, which continued its series of cryptic messages that were obviously meant for Shapeshifters. Further messages revealed that something was afoot in America, and their services were required. Messages would now be transmitted via the New York Daily News. Othello made a quick bundle at his partners’ expense and came to America, where he had not been for decades. He didn’t know it, but he was soon to meet the only known visionary the breed of Shapeshifters had ever produced.

Once in America, Othello took up the body of a Manhattan call girl and had a lot of human sex while she waited for further messages. Othello figured that if she needed a new body quickly, having a few of them come through her room each night would be the best way to have a good supply at the ready. As it was, she didn’t need to bother. One month after she had arrived in New York, the Daily News ran an ad which said, “The Great One will be there ... Will you?” Underneath that it had an 800-line telephone number to call. Othello gave it a try one night between customers. The number rang and rang and rang, a sufficient number of rings to deter most any creature, but Shapeshifters were generally extremely patient. What was time to them? Finally a female voice answered, a voice that carried all the harshness of the Bronx.

“You got a choice between a snake and a pig. Which one you want guardin’ your room?” the incredibly nasal voice demanded without so much as a “hello” first.

‘The pig,“ Othello answered in her most seductive voice. Not that it would be very effective on this line, but she felt she needed to stay in practice.

“Right,” the voice answered. Shapeshifters hated snakes; the Great One was not a snake. No matter what the other choice had been, the correct answer would be to keep clear of anything resembling a snake.

“You see two lizards on the wall, a bloody chameleon and a nice clean skink. Which one you want crawlin‘ around inside your house?”

“The chameleon,” Othello said. That one was easy.

“Right. It’s rainin’, you got a choice of a convertible Volkswagen with a torn top and a Rolls Royce limousine. Which one you gonna ride in?”

“The Volkswagen.” A convertible.

“Rightchooah.”

The questions continued in this mode for fifteen more minutes. Some were easy, some more difficult, but all were aimed at separating the wheat from the chaff. Eventually Othello satisfied the voice, but her only reward was a nasal “Hold please” in the ear.

The voice vanished, replaced by innocuous music. After half an hour of waiting another voice came on the line. This one was deeper and seemed to have some sort of echo behind it.

“This is Puck. You are needed. Come to the warehouse at 176th and West Broadway at midnight one week from tonight. Come alone. The Great One awaits his greater glory.”

Othello made a significant pile of money having sex that week, before walking out of this latest life and heading uptown on the appointed date. It was an unusually warm January night, so she decided to walk. She also decided to keep her body for the time being, especially as most of her clients were not terribly physically appealing.

She surveyed the scene at the warehouse as she approached. She had half expected an overflow crowd for the great reunion, but there were obviously only about a thousand people in attendance. Even though the crowd was smaller than she would have wished, Othello found herself overwhelmed to the point of tears—she had never seen another Shapeshifter before, aside from her parent, and now she was to be surrounded by them.

The interior of the warehouse was appropriately barren and spooky. The Shapeshifters filtered in through the doors and stood around, looking nervously at each other, some chatting shyly. Othello realized that most everyone must have been in the same boat, having never set eyes on their own kind. Now that they were all together, they didn’t know what to say. Someone had thoughtfully set up a free wet bar in one corner as an icebreaker. Two Shapeshifters were standing by it, pints in hand, loudly arguing about football teams in Cockney accents. Othello squeezed between them and ordered a drink from the bartender, a smiling man of about thirty. The man gave her a long look and suggested that they could perhaps get together after the meeting, and Othello smiled her best come-hither smile. Two Shapeshifters mating physically while in the forms of other creatures was an idea that intrigued her. She had just received her double vodka on the rocks when there was a commotion at the other side of the warehouse, and a spotlight suddenly hit a figure who had appeared on a makeshift stage; she squinted and saw that it was a man, a tall thin black man with thick knots of hair that hung almost to his waist. She began to move forward along with the crowd.

“Manchester sucks,” she heard one of the Cockneys say.

The man stood by a single microphone that adorned the otherwise barren stage. Othello guessed that this Shapeshifter must have a taste for flair that had prompted him to knock off a Bob Marley impersonator, and there were certainly plenty enough to go around in New York.

“Thank you for coming,” Marley said, his voice deep and comforting over the speakers. He looked like a Rastafarian, but Othello thought she detected a faint southern accent. “My name is Puck. I guess you’re all wondering why I called you here. My children, the time has come for us to assert our destiny. The time has come for us to make a difference.”

What happened in that warehouse in upper Manhattan over the next few hours was that one Shapeshifter, convinced that he had a divine mission, was able to convince roughly one thousand other Shapeshifters that they should undertake a mission so risky that they very well might die, and that they should undertake it on behalf of creatures aside from themselves to boot.

“You see, you see the supernaturals have come under the spell of the humans, and the humans have come under the spell of the supernaturals,” Puck explained, shaking a thin arm. “And each has convinced the others that by staying apart from each other they will find happiness! My brothers and sisters, this is not the way the Great One taught! The Great One said that all should know the truth, and the truth, oh, the truth, would set us free! But now, and I don’t know why, but now the humans and the supernaturals are going to lock each other out of the garden of knowledge and deny each other the fruits of righteousness!”

Puck went on like this seemingly forever until everyone in the audience, Othello included, found themselves agreeing that the way of nature was about to be cast aside by meaningless laws. It was Puck’s contention that Shapeshifters were the footsoldiers of evolution.

“My sisters and brothers, Mr. Darwin had it wrong. It is not natural selection at work. It is us. We are the ones who take over the lives of others to see what works and see what doesn’t! If we see something that doesn’t work, we leave that body, and the factors that made it that body cease to be factors in the force of evolution! It is for this reason that after these millenia we must stand against the forces of base evil and stupidity and stop the humans and supernaturals from putting their fingers in the dike of evolution! My brothers and sisters, they are intent on limiting our options! They will make of themselves separate realities, and a house divided against itself will not stand!“

He was sweating now, just like Marley sweated in the old concert films, a look of beatific exhaustion on his face. “I see what you are saying. You’re saying, what will become of us? What will we do? What will happen to us, us who are minding our own business, bothering no one?”

Othello stared into Puck’s eyes, across the distance, and felt a connection; she felt that she was there, on stage with Puck, feeling his thoughts, sharing the great responsibility that had befallen them both.

“And I say to you, my children, that this is not just some idle idea I have come up with. This is our reason for being, my children. Think back to the basic teachings you have received and you will know. This is the time for the Great One to rekindle the fire of the Earth for knowledge, and we are the loyal vessels for the Great One’s ambition! My children—if you are with me—this is why ...” And here his voice dropped almost to the lowest whisper, so that those in attendance strained to hear, leaned forward, their bodies touching one another, “... we are here.”

If Othello was any indication, the Shapeshifters left that warehouse that evening on fire as they had never been in their lives. Puck had brought them together, something no one had ever done before. Puck had shown them that not only were they not alone in this world, but they were here for a purpose. Many in the crowd in the warehouse were leading empty lives, hopping from body to body. Puck had given them a purpose. Puck had laid out the plan for them, and they were determined to see it through. Othello had as her assignment to shadow Sibelius, king of the Centaurs. She had a map of Sibelius’ mansion and ranch in eastern Montana, she had six or seven airplane vouchers, and she had a small computer to use to tap into Sibelius’ network. She had a tiny communicator with which Puck could send the signal. She had arrived a curious New York hooker armed with the millions of a Hong Kong banker; she departed a zealot.

After Puck had finished speaking, she had wandered back to the bar and the bartender. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, and both had realized that this was something of a holy meeting, and they should not sully it with cheap human sex. Instead, they had held hands and talked of the plan, talked of how it felt to be in charge of evolution on earth. They went to a succession of Manhattan bars with others from the crowd, laughing and sharing life experiences, mulling over their roles in this grand new plan. Othello had never talked so much in her life, had never realized how much fun it was just to be yourself, no matter what body you happen to be occupying.

She left New York for Montana the next day, nursing happy memories and a massive hangover. She had wanted to stay and talk more with the other Shapeshifters, but Puck said time was of the essence. He promised that they would all meet again later, after the plan was accomplished.

So as to get close to Sibelius and watch his lifestyle and his comings and goings, Othello managed to take the form of his head stablehand, a rather unattractive young man who was of course delighted that an East Coast blonde had suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the Montana winter and seemed interested in him. Othello had learned that most of Sibelius’ employees headed to a bar in Billings on the weekend, and Othello started hanging out there as well. She met the young stablehand there one Friday night, got him drunk, let him make love to her out of kindness and then killed him as mercifully as possible and took his form. Othello had feigned an interest in his work, and before he died the stablehand had slurred his way through an explanation of the inner workings of Sibelius’ ranch, thus sparing her several weeks’ worth of espionage.

The plan was going perfectly until Othello saw Shiena. It was several weeks later, and the snow had already melted because of the unseasonably warm weather. He was tossing down some new straw with the robot loader when she suddenly entered the stable. Centaurs were, understandably, curious about horses; they studied them endlessly, they mated with them occasionally. Somewhere in there they saw the common link. Othello first heard the hoof falls and, as it was just past noon and the horses were supposed to be out, assumed that it was a rogue mare that had wandered back. He turned to shoo the horse away and instead looked up into the most brilliant green eyes he had ever seen on any creature in the world. Shapeshifters were, by nature, omnisexual; in the past, even the recent past, Othello had tremendously enjoyed sex with men, women, and various forms of animals. But in that one second that he saw Shiena’s eyes, he became forever a male and forever in love with her. It was as if he had spent his life being batted around in a dinghy, and suddenly he was dumped in the ocean.

Shiena towered above him; her hair flowed around her head, her smile danced across her lower face, her eyes were like green fires seen in the night, her breasts jutted underneath her green tunic like small boulders, her hooves made a sound like gravity personified.

“I noticed that there seemed to be some kind of sinkhole forming out in the east pasture,” she said, her voice a little more steely and full-bodied than he would have expected. “I wondered if you could have someone see to it.”

He nodded, and started to speak, started to express the feelings he suddenly harbored for her, much as early primates must have raised their arms to the sun in gratitude. Then he thought about how he must look; a scabby, short, dirty stablehand, about the size of an ant from her line of vision. She was probably more interested in the 10-foot-tall robot loader that used its eight arms to spread the straw evenly across the stable floor. He knew he must wait.

The problem was, he didn’t have long to wait. The Faery Convention was coming up and Puck’s plan was locked into place. Once that happened, he would have little chance of getting close to her. He had to act soon to get to know her. He was keeping an eye on Sibelius, and at night used his computer to tap into the Centaur king’s files so as to have a pretty good handle on him. But after seeing Shiena, his attention started to wander. One day he just worked at his job, dreamily thinking of her, then wandered back to the bunks to sleep without doing a lick of spy work. Just like this was his real body and his real job!

His initial plan to get close to Shiena was to kill one of the young male Centaurs on the place, as several of them appeared to be interested in her and she appeared to be interested in them. But, for the first time in his life, he didn’t want to do it that way. He wanted to be honest with her. One thing he had retained from the Shapeshifter meeting was the idea that he could be himself. He wanted her to love him for what he really was, not for his outer shell. He wanted to be just Othello, without having to change forms again.

Fortunately, Shiena herself soon gave him reason to intrude upon her life, even in his human form. He was shambling up the dirt road toward the main house one evening for dinner in the side room with the other ranch hands when she trotted up alongside him. He was so surprised he nearly stumbled and fell into the shallow ditch that ran along the road. Showing tremendous dexterity, she twisted the human part of her body down and caught him. Once he was ambling straightforwardly along again, she spoke.

“I noticed that you had copies of Finnegan’s Wake and Ulysses in your room.”

He nodded that he did, never thinking to wonder what she had been doing snooping around in his room. Being largely self-taught, Shapeshifters were free to pick and choose their interests. He had developed a vague interest in Irish literature during a stint in Europe, which of course meant that he had run across James Joyce. He liked Duhliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but had never actually gotten beyond the first few pages of Joyce’s later, much more complicated works, even though he had participated in the Bloomsday run one year in the form of a drunken scholar.

“I’m studying those in class, but the symbolism is really hard for me to pick up,” she said. “Have you read them? Can you help me, in the evenings, after work? I’ll get you extra pay or dinner helpings or something.”

He was perplexed as to the proper course of action. To say yes would severely cut into his spying time. He had an idea of what made Sibelius tick, but needed to see more of him and learn more about his affairs. The plan was to so completely replicate the originals that none of their close companions would be suspicious. He had almost finished the tap into the video and audio systems, which would allow him to perfect the king’s mannerisms and speaking style.

To say no, on the other hand, could anger the most wonderful creature in the world, and in turn might anger her father, who might fire him, which would also have the effect of limiting his spying. He glanced up into her brilliant, almost glowing green eyes, and knew that he would say yes.

“I’m no Joycean scholar, but I know a little,” he replied in a halting voice. “Um, Ulysses is based on Homer’s Odyssey, taking those events and using them as a backdrop for an average mid-nineteenth century day in the life of a Jewish human in Dublin, and Finnegan’s Wake is sort of written in a circle, and Joyce wrote these stories that formed sort of the hub of the book, and then wrote in the spokes, you might say.”

He had just read this off the backs of the editions he had, but he hoped it would be sufficient to pique her interest. It was.

“Sounds like a good start. Tonight, at my place,” she said, and a smile played across her face. “It’s the third cabin on the left off the main house.”

He nodded, and with that she was off, her hooves thumping on the road, sending up little explosions of mud. He liked the way her arms moved slowly back and forth as she ran, as if she were just gathering speed to take off and fly. Seeing her disappear up the road, he knew he could never kill her father. He had been kidding himself to think that he could still go along with Puck’s plan after meeting her. All the newfound fire that had inhabited him since the Shapeshifter meeting had died as surely as if the Montana snow had smothered it. He knew that it was up to him to keep Puck from rerouting history. Puck’s plan was not the way. He knew that at last he had a real purpose in life.

FOURTEEN

“So you renounced Puck’s plan for love,” Ellen King said flatly, and the shaggy-haired Othello nodded his head. “That’s so sweet,” she said, her voice dripping, but not with sincerity. “How was it that you were able to make her fall in love with you?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Othello replied sternly. “Suffice it to say that she did, even while I was in the form of a stablehand. I even told her I wasn’t really a stablehand. I told her the truth. It didn’t bother her, after she knew me. She fell in love with the real me.”

Joe Cork frowned.

“I hate to be rude, but ... did your love take the form of ... carnal knowledge of each other?”

Othello nodded solemnly.

“But you were in human form and she obviously is a Centaur, and ... correct me if I’m wrong, but Centaurs have the hindparts of a horse.”

Othello nodded solemnly once more.

“How ... how did the ... how did the mechanics of that work?”

“Do you really want to know?”

Ellen King jumped in quickly.

“Does Shiena approve of you killing other people?”

“No. She made me promise to take over the forms of only, quote unquote, bad people. I am in this current form because it allows me to be a human, to see Joe Cork.”

He hooked two thumbs under the heavy lapels of his black jacket.

“Believe me, this guy I killed was not a nice guy, although he does have pretty good taste in leather jackets.”

Cork was silent for a moment, thinking. He still wasn’t sure about Othello. He wished there were some way to turn on his computer’s news to see if some lunatic had escaped, but he didn’t figure that would work.

“I’m a little unclear on your motivation here,” Cork said, realizing he sounded like an acting teacher. “Since this Prospero person got killed, it’s obvious that you can die. ...”

Othello nodded.

“If the body we’re in dies, we die with it.”

“But there’s going to be a good chance that a lot of you will get shot if you start acting like nuts on the streets of downtown D.C., not that we don’t have our share of nuts. You can be anything or anyone you want to be, yet you’re willing to take that chance.”

Cork seemed to be getting it, as Othello nodded again.

“It’s not as much of a chance as you might think. The more we change bodies, the better we get. When you first start out, it takes a while, a few minutes, maybe. As you do it more and more, it takes less time. Me, I can kill someone and take their form in no time. Ten seconds, maximum. I drop them, they’re down, I look like them, I’m off. So if there were pandemonium in the streets, and I’m Sibelius, say, and some cop shoots me maybe in the leg, then I can still grab some guy running by and kill him and be him in the time it takes to blink once or twice. Now, there is a chance of death, don’t get me wrong. If the cop happens to blow my head off, then I’m dead.”

“But if Shapeshifters are so autonomous, and can do anything they want, why risk everything for this plot? Why risk your ne—your spiritual necks just to keep humans and supernaturals together?”

Othello stood up quickly and began rummaging around in his pockets, a move that caused Ellen King to jump slightly in her seat from surprise. Finally Othello pulled out a wrinkled stub of paper, which he smoothed with one enormous hand and held out for them to read.

“This is something that Puck gave us to bolster our spirits during the mission. He said that it was the reason we had to risk death. We needed to keep nature on its course.”

The paper, fading black ink on white, said:

Where we are going, my children

Is down the road of

Lost

Dreams

“He likes to sort of hit you over the head with a sledgehammer of symbolism, huh?” Ellen said.

“Yeah, he’s not much of a poet,” Othello agreed. “But the poem isn’t what does it. I mean, we don’t go gaga just because this guy whips together a few lines.”

He began waving his hands around like a passionate preacher at a county fair.

“You’ve gotta understand how hard it is to create a Shapeshifter. We spend our whole lives in the bodies of other creatures, so we have to, you know, replicate asexually. We literally think each other into existence. The process is just a huge pain, which is why I haven’t done it yet myself. That’s why it was so amazing to be in that warehouse, to see even that small a number of your fellow creatures. This meeting was the first time I was completely positive that there even were other Shapeshifters. So once you’re all together, it’s not hard to want to join a plan that makes you feel like you’re part of a group. For a being that spends the equivalent of many human lifetimes alone, that’s no small thing. I mean, probably a lot of us don’t even agree with Puck’s reasoning. But he did something no other Shapeshifter has ever done. He found a way to bring us together. This poem is just a reminder.”

Joe Cork stood up and swiveled at his hips, causing his spine to emit horrendous cracking noises.

“Ooh, that’s soothing,” he muttered. “Okay, listen, it’s getting late and the Faery Convention starts tomorrow morning. If things are as you say they are, we don’t have much time to save human and supernatural relations. What do you propose to do?”

Othello looked surprised. “Well, if I knew that, I wouldn’t have bothered to come to you.”

“And that’s another good question. Why did you come to me?”

Othello smiled. “Saw your picture in the paper after that bar fight this guy was in. Did a little legwork, figured out who you are.”

“Yeah, but why me? You could just march up to the president and tell him what’s going on. He’d put a stop to things real fast.”

“I’m sure he would. But I have good reason to believe that Puck is keeping a close watch on the White House and some members of Congress, probably even your boss. I don’t know if I mentioned it, but not all the Shapeshifters were lined up for takeover duty. Some were saved for other duties, and I suspect that monitoring the big boys around here was one of them. If that’s the case, he wouldn’t let me get near him.”

“How would he know you were trying? He doesn’t know what you look like, does he?”

“No, but he keeps up with the news. He probably saw that Small Bar stuff and figured out that at least one of us was involved, maybe two.”

“So change forms again.”

“Find me a bad guy and I will.”

Cork sighed. “Okay, okay, I get it. So even though you have all this majestic power, you’re afraid to use it. So I’m small fry, and you could get to me.”

Ellen smiled at that, although she quickly covered her mouth with a fist and pretended to be coughing.

“No offense, but yes. Don’t put yourself down, though, you’re not too small a fry. I’ve checked you out. You do have access to the people putting this thing together.”

“So you just show up here, with virtually no time left, and you don’t know what to do next.”

Othello shrugged.

“Yep. I told you. It was your picture in the paper after that bar incident. You’re the government man. You have to tell me what to do.”

Cork looked at Ellen, who merely shrugged her shoulders, and then looked back at Othello, who just looked blank.

“I see.”

He started walking the few steps to the kitchen. “I believe I’m going to need to make that coffee after all.”

FIFTEEN

It was the morning of the first day, and the old convention center was alive with the sound of ancient languages, with the endless padding of feet, the clomping of hooves, the rustle of wings, the swish of exchanged business cards. Dorton Hraavik, as leader of the Faeries, head of the Supernatural Council and president of the Convention, stood at the specially raised podium on center stage, in front of the green draperies and the massive signing table, and looked out at the assembled masses. There were so many of them, and yet so few, compared to humans. But the comparison didn’t make Hraavik sad. We are like jewels, he thought, rare and precious.

According to their tally sheets, there were 21,513 supernaturals of all kinds in attendance, by far the largest gathering ever. In fact, there were only an estimated 2,000 or so supernaturals who weren’t present. Previous supernatural gatherings had been ad hoc and attracted only hundreds, if even that. This particular throng came from every state in the union, and, Hraavik suspected, from overseas as well. Any foreign visitors had not identified themselves as such because this was official U.S. business and they should not have a vote in it, and anyway they had so far failed to officially declare themselves and so technically did not exist. Hraavik knew there was keen interest in the convention outside the U.S. borders, however, and he had heard that the Faeries in Canada and the British Isles were keeping an especially close watch on the proceedings.

That’s what makes me proud of this country, Hraavik thought as he waited for the tumult of voices to die down so the convention could begin. We can do this sort of thing here without having to hide, without bloodshed, with just paper and pen.

Hraavik raised his thin arms, which were sheathed in white Armani silk. Armani suits were considered classy but frumpy, their cutting-edge image having fallen prey to the slinky new looks coming out of Australia and Eastern Europe, but Hraavik still liked them. He raised his arms and held them up, and from the back of the room he and his images on the monitors looked like a trio of angels, two gigantic and one tiny. The lights of seemingly thousands of media cameras lit him, some glowing steadily, some flashing like fireflies, dappling his image, making him luminous.

“My friends, let’s begin, shall we?” he said, and the microphones swelled his voice to fill the room. The growls and laughter down below began to lessen, gradually tapering into a basso murmuring. “First of all, I’d like to welcome you all here. It’s so wonderful to see everyone together. This is truly a historic moment.”

A predictable roar swept across the audience, but Hraavik’s words were not just rhetoric. This was the first time that most of the conventioneers had ever seen other supernaturals in the flesh. Their duly elected representatives on the Supernatural Council had been dealing with each other, but the rank and file were clearly new to the multicultural experience. From his position above the fray, Hraavik had been watching his fellow supernaturals swirling about each other, bending down, looking up, examining. Some spoke English, but the ones who didn’t were keeping the small army of on-site translators busy. The Centaurs were curiously talking to the Bigfoots, their heads cocked to get through the thick accents. These were two of the few creatures who were able to look at each other at eye level, and they seemed to have discovered a natural rapport. The Faeries and Gremlins were fascinated by the Mermen and Mermaids and stood shyly around their enormous tank, peppering them with questions through the water microphone system. The Moth People were absolutely enchanted with the Gnomes and Leprechauns, and the feeling was apparently mutual. The way things were going, Hraavik wouldn’t be surprised if some mixed marriages came out of the convention, especially after the bar opened.

When Hraavik was able to continue again, he introduced a line of supernatural who had come to stand with him on the center stage. They were the poets laureate of the group. There were 17 of them in all, representing most, but not all, of the gathered supernaturals. The Merpeople said they didn’t bother much with poetry, and several other groups, including the Goblins, had poets or their equivalents but didn’t bother to have them sign up for the event. The poets that did sign up, however, had each written a couple of verses explaining what the signing of the Grimm Accord meant for their brethren.

Lasloth Verifin spoke for the Faeries, in a wavering voice that nevertheless carried well:

“When gnarled roots have undercut the

ruins of Lothgrewin

And raised them up again,

Then shall we be free ...“

There wasn’t a dry Faery eye in the house after that one, except for Hraavik’s, and he was a little jittery since he was in charge of the show, so he wasn’t really listening. Lothgrewin was the ancestral Faery homeland, the Mecca of faeries, so removed from memory that even the British Faery scholars weren’t sure if it was myth or if it had some basis in reality. At any rate, for Faeries it recalled a time that had never existed for the current generation, a time when the whole earth was a supernatural playground, when the Faeries sang their joy to the mountains and heard the echoing replies, a time when the only lights at night were the beacons of the stars. The very map of Lothgrewin was emblazoned in the embers of the stars, a map that the humans had made almost invisible with electric lights, a map that they looked at wrong and named The Big Dipper after a base cooking utensil.

Most of the morning’s poetry continued in something of the same vein, with some of the speakers reverting into the old languages, full of trilled r’s and gargled consonants, so that many members of even the same races as the poets had a hard time following the meaning, though the emotions behind the words were evident. The biggest splash of the poetry line, however, was made by the last entrant—the Bigfoot poet, whose name had never been spelled in any language, as the Bigfoots didn’t have a written one, but was pronounced something like yethnog. Yethnog towered before a microphone on a stand. The other poets had sported clip-on wireless mikes, but Yethnog had only hair to clip one to, and that was deemed somewhat unseemly by the convention planners. Given Yethnog’s rather lax hair-care regimen, however, he probably wouldn’t have minded.

Yethnog stood before his microphone and let loose with a story of the land of the Bigfoots and their cousins, a story of the dense northern California forests, a story of the Georgia and Carolina swamps, a story of the lush rainforests of the upper west coast, a story of the windswept mountainsides of Nepal, a story of the thickets of China, a story of a race of gigantic missing links that had striven to stay hidden for so very long. It told of their treks from one place to another, of how they huddled together to fight off the wintry cold, how they used what little magic ability they had to hide themselves away from humans, to make themselves appear to be tree stumps or large bushes.

He recited the poem in Bigfoot, so to anyone but the Bigfoots and Sasquatches in attendance, it was unintelligible noise; Yethnog might as well have been shrieking out the Washington phone book. Yet the power was undeniable, as Yethnog’s voice dipped to the bass valleys and rose to the soprano peaks, summoning forth a message of pain and joy that resonated from a primitive core of each and every being in the convention center, human and supernatural alike. Beyond the polished words of the other poets, his coarse sounds had touched something basic in all of them, had tapped into some wistful memory of looking at the full moon when the earth was still wild. When Yethnog’s last hoarse gasp had finally died away, the convention center came alive with fierce clapping and stamping of feet. Even the media joined in; they would not clap for presidents or kings, but they couldn’t help but praise a creature who had walked out the Carolina backwoods to show them how life had been and how life could be again.

When the applause had died down and the poets had waved and walked offstage, Hraavik took command of the show once more. Joining him onstage was Ransi Milbert, a Leprechaun who had been given the daunting task of explaining some of the logistics of the proposed homeland to a crowd that still wasn’t one hundred percent behind the idea. Milbert stood in great contrast to Hraavik; he was so short, about two and a half feet high, that he made Hraavik look tall, and he was dressed in black from his pointed cap to the rolled-up toes of his shoes. This was not usual Leprechaun dress, but Milbert was no usual Leprechaun; he had eschewed the ways of the forest and had thrown himself into the human world, obtaining advanced electronics engineering degrees at several universities before taking time out to cut a very successful dance album in New York. Milbert’s booming voice belied his small size, and anyway the massive digital screens made him loom over the crowd as he motioned for the holographic projector to start.

Suddenly, there appeared in the air above the crowd a very realistic pastoral scene, of a golden field with a small burbling creek in the foreground. The image was situated at only a slight angle above the crowd, so that it looked like the entire group could shuffle up to frisk about in the field and drink from (or swim in) the stream if only a 15-foot ladder could be found. A low murmur escaped from the conventiongoers. No flash bulbs went off, though, as they wouldn’t work on holographs, and the human media was getting a direct-to-digital feed of the scene that could be sent instantaneously to TV monitors around the country. Dorton Hraavik smiled; it had been his final decision as head of the Supernatural Council to spare no expense with this convention, and it was going to pay off.

As the lovely scene played out overhead, Milbert began to speak of the joys of living in northeast Texas and the Oklahoma panhandle.

“Most of you probably think of this part of the United States as being either completely flat and boring or uninhabitable desert, if you think of it at all. Thanks to modern irrigation and landscaping techniques, this is no longer true. Today, this area is as lush and varied as most of the rest of the country. See for yourselves!”

The camera panned slowly around to reveal a topography thick with green trees and yellow grass, with midsized hills rising in the background. This part of the show was something of a fudge. While a fair amount of the proposed Homeland site was nice, most of it was still flat scrubland. But that wouldn’t be seen in the presentation. Hraavik and the other supernatural leaders had seen to that. A shot of barren land wouldn’t go over well with the crowd, and with a little work and a lot of water, not to mention the eventual delivery of the federal and state funds that had been promised, the remaining land could be made just as lush and lumpy as what was now passing overhead.

“Yes, and what’s even more amazing is that a large, deep river and a system of canals can be built in a land that at one point knew only thin streams of water,” Milbert said. “And to top it off, the EPA has certified that the natural springs in the area flow with the cleanest water in the entire country.”

This was a bone-toss to the Merpeople, the most skeptical of all the supernaturals. They could live in either salt water or fresh water, but preferred the latter, and the fresher the better. One joke that had gone around the Supernatural Council was that the best way to tell if Prince Ramon was around was to see if there was any Perrier left. Hraavik could see the Merpeople representatives, including Ramon, swimming in their tank in the back of the convention center. He couldn’t see the expressions on their faces through the water, couldn’t tell if they were buying it.

While he was thinking, the scenery overhead had shifted. Now the roof of the convention center was filled with shots of roads, buildings and bridges.

“Of course, when the humans leave the Homeland, they will leave some things behind,” Milbert intoned solemnly. “Some of these things will be useless to us ...” there was a shot of a tattoo parlor with several motorcycles parked outside, which caused a ripple of laughter through the crowd “... but some things could come in handy.”

The camera then showed a long row of stables and several bridges. Blatant kiss-ups to the Centaurs and the Trolls. We planned this well, Hraavik thought. The holograph was so well received by the crowd that many delegates forgot that they were bitterly opposed to the idea of living in Texas and Oklahoma, and instead looked on in rapture. The more alert among them wondered why there were no alternate holographs showing the other sites that had been considered, if only for the sake of comparison, but they elected to keep their thoughts to themselves for the time being. At any rate, they would have been drowned out by Milbert’s resonant voice.

While the crowd watched the holograph, Hraavik watched the crowd; so far so good. Two hours into the convention, and all was well. He watched the upturned faces, and wondered if the supernatural could ever be truly united behind any idea, any notion, diverse as they were. He was very aware of the fact that the whole thing could blow up in his face, that all his work could be for naught. He wiped his suddenly sweaty brow with his best handkerchief, hoping that no one noticed; he wanted to seem as carefree as possible. This will be my legacy, he thought. It must work.

Unknown to him, scattered throughout the crowd were two hundred or so Shapeshifters who had already done away with their appointed targets and taken their places. Those slated to take over the higher-ups were still waiting to do so, as they didn’t feel confident enough to assume their roles while there were still significant meetings and workshops to attend. For those assigned to fill the shoes of some of the lesser lights, however, it didn’t really matter. Their appointed targets were not intimately involved in the process of refining and voting on the Grimm Accord. Any strange behavior on their part would be put down to drunkenness. The advantage here was that they could infiltrate the crowd early, and perhaps sow a bit of discord; the disadvantage was that they didn’t really care about the outcome of the convention, and hence were bored silly by the holograph and the soggy poetry recitations. Had Hraavik been aware of the plot at work, he could have rounded up a big chunk of the Shapeshifters by simply arresting those supernaturals who were hovering near the buffet brunch tables that had been set up near the lobby.

SIXTEEN

Joe Cork was sweating profusely by the time he got to speak to his boss on Monday morning. He had been trying to get in touch with Sen. Howard since early, early that morning, since right after the moment in those fuzzy Sunday-Monday hours when he realized that Othello was telling the absolute truth and that this whole house of Tarot cards was about to come tumbling down around their heads. Cork’s clearance was such that he could usually get to the senator at any time, day or night; this only worked if the senator had thought to wear his telebeeper, however, and apparently this most elemental element of communication had once again slipped the senator’s mind.

Cork didn’t have to call the office, because Ellen had showered at Joe’s and had gone straight into work early to monitor things there. They were so rattled by Othello’s words that it later occurred to Joe that Ellen had changed clothes right in front of him, been buck naked right there in his tiny apartment, and he had never even looked at her, never even thought about it. Things must be very serious indeed.

By the time 9 A.M. rolled around, Cork knew that the senator would be at the convention center, so he hopped one of the electric shuttle vans and headed over, pushing his way through the crowd and waving his ID to get inside. Even after he was in the same general location as his boss, however, he still couldn’t get to him. He flashed all the passes he had on his person, but the stone-faced guard would not let him in the room where the senator was holed up with most of the other blue-chip Faery Convention bigwigs, except for Dorton Hraavik, who was on the stage running through the preliminaries. The more that Cork begged for access, the more the guard looked like he was just going to pull his gun and shoot this pesky, sweaty, obviously agitated half Elf.

Cork had changed clothes and scrubbed himself off a little bit with cold water and a washcloth, but he still looked a little ragged and his hair was looking almost like one of the spikey old punk styles. His apartment generally provided hot water for only one shower a day, and he had gallantly given that up for Ellen; now he wished he hadn’t.

He lurked and skulked around until Hraavik announced that the convention would break up for some individual committee meetings, which was when the bigwigs’ room opened up and his boss walked out, clutching the arm of one of the Goblin reps and laughing at some joke told just before the doors opened. The guard was still eyeing Cork, was even fingering his pistol, but this was not the time for subtle behavior. Cork rushed up to his boss and grabbed the arm that was not encumbered by Goblin embrace. He leaned in to whisper the words of grim warning to the senator, but apparently the libation cart had already been broken out in the meeting room despite the early hour, and the senator, surprised by the sudden pressure on his arm, lost his balance and leaned into Cork, causing their heads to come together with considerable force. The resulting hollow knocking sound pleased some of the other attendees of the meeting, and they clapped drunkenly as the porcine senator and the spindly half Elf staggered around, holding their heads.

“Good show!” one of them said as the group passed by.

When the spots that went off like flashbulbs before his eyes had abated, Cork put a hand on the senator’s shoulder and said in a low voice, “I hope you’ve been doing a lot of legislative favors lately. We’re going to need some chits called in. We got trouble.”

“What kinda trouble?” the senator asked, rubbing his forehead with both hands. The room guard was still eyeing him suspiciously, so Cork whispered:

“What do you think about permanent guerrilla warfare between all the supernaturals and humans? I’ve come across a group that is very close to making it happen.”

Sen. Horton Howard stood upright and blinked several times as if a bright light were being shone in his face.

“My god,” he said, his deep, resonant senatorial voice coming through. “I need another drink.”

SEVENTEEN

Although as a group the gathered supernatural had hit things off fairly well, individual committee meetings carried out at the convention proved less than harmonious; this was the time for the lower-level bureaucrats among the various supernatural groups to air their complaints, and they were doing so with considerable enthusiasm.

At the Site Committee, meeting in one of the left side rooms, there was disagreement over the number of trees in the proposed Homeland.

“We feel that the Homeland site, as currently configured, gives too much preference to the ground Faeries,” said Harthen Trever, Lord General of the Gathering of Pixies. Trever knelt and banged a tiny fist upon the table, a fist about the size of a human pinkie fingernail, but no one heard it and the only result of this dramatic action was that he hurt his hand and had to shake it about for a few minutes. “I have an amendment at the table,” he said after a long moment.

While Faeries had generally been imagined by humans to be monolithic, it had turned out that there were literally dozens of subvarieties. Some of them were easily confused; the Brownies, for instance, looked like just the basic run-of-the-mill Faeries. In Olde English mythology, they had been known for, and indeed had taken their name from, dressing in brown, while most other variety of Faeries dressed in green or even red. These days, however, that was an artificial distinction, as the Brownies often shopped at the same J.C. Penny’s or Burlington Coat Factory stores as the other Faeries, and hence looked a great deal like them. Had a human put a Brownie next to a more common low-country Faery such as Dorton Hraavik, he or she would be hard pressed to tell the difference. The Brownies at the convention seemed to favor double-breasted suits more than did the other Faeries, but that was about the extent of their separateness.

The Pixies were another matter. The Pixies represented the type of Faery most often pictured by humans in the days before Faeries were known to exist. They were small; they had wings. Pixies stood about a foot high, and looked for all the world like perfectly-formed humans, albeit miniature ones, except for the wings on their backs. A Pixie’s wings weren’t the wasp type that humans had expected, however, but were instead flesh-colored and leathery like those of a bat. They were so thin that light could shine through them, and were easily damaged. Pixies were paranoid about their wings and hated to have anyone stand behind them, for fear that an accident with a sharp object would occur and their wings would become perforated and useless.

Harthen Trever stood on the table, putting him nearly at eye level with the other members of the Site Committee. Around the table sat two representatives of the major supernatural groups and two humans. They were to hammer away at the issue of the site for about an hour and then break for lunch, to have their conclusions reviewed in the afternoon by the higher-ups within their organizations.

Thinking and talking about the events going on at the Faery Convention were exciting; the actual work of the committees was not. Most of the big proposals to be made at the convention, such as where to put the site, had been finalized long before by the higher-ups and muckety mucks. The committees had to nibble around the edges and write the fine print.

Margeto Serith, a mid-level Gremlin diplomat, was chairing the Site Committee. He was one of the older generations of Gremlins, and an easy few decades of life among the humans had caused him to go to fat. Gremlins, unfortunately for them, lacked the high metabolisms of Goblins, and Serith’s scales stuck nearly straight out from his bloated skin rather than lying sleek along his body.

“Mr. Trever, for what purpose do you complain about the number of trees in the Homeland, and how many signatures do you have on your petition?” he said in a slow, bored-sounding voice.

“It’s not a petition, it’s an amendment. I don’t need signatures for that,” Trever said in a voice that, were it a notch or two higher in pitch, would be audible only to dogs.

“I’m complaining because there are too few trees in the Homeland. That holograph was bullshit. Most of the area doesn’t have trees, and that’s not fair to us. The ground Faeries and most everybody else can make do without them, but we would prefer to live in trees, which, as you know, are where we build our homes.”

Serith made a rumbling sound in his throat as he read over a draft of Trever’s amendment.

“Ahem. So you ask for the planting of an additional two million trees, of the various types outlined below, spruce, larch, etc., with the cost to be added to the Homeland settlement with the two affected states,” Serith said, half reading from the amendment and half summarizing. “That’s basically what it says,” he said, looking over his reading glasses at the other committee members, who merely nodded.

“Is there any disagreement with Mr. Trever’s amendment?” Serith asked, and seeing none, said, “The amendment is agreed to. Two million more trees.”

Trever blinked in surprise and then sat down upon the tiny padded stool that had been placed on the table for that purpose. Had he known it would be so easy, he would have requested four million trees.

Down the hall, things weren’t going along so good for the Membership Committee. The question pending before that august body was defining just what sort of supernaturals were eligible for residency in the Homeland. It was possible, after all, that there were some other supernaturals out there who had never identified themselves at all, even to other supernaturals. For example, there currently was no evidence that Banshees actually existed, or Will o’ the Wisps, or Cyclops, to name just a few. All were present in human mythology and some of the mythologies of other supernaturals, however, so their existence couldn’t be ruled out. The question was what should be done in case members of these or other groups suddenly materialized in the future and demanded access to the new home that they never lifted a finger to help create.

“They’d start bitching,” said Vik of the Moth People through his electronic interpreter.

Nobody but the Moth People could figure out their language, as it wasn’t so much spoken as it was exhaled through rapid spurts of breath. Sensitive receptors on the heads and upper wings of the Moth People could convert the resulting sound and air waves into discrete bits of language, but for most humans and supernaturals, the effect of being addressed in Moth was of having someone come up and blow in your face.

“Oh, yeah, they’ll be all smiles at first, and they’ll go off and live in their little communities, but sooner or later something won’t be to their liking and they’ll start harping to the council, and then to the humans, and they’ll make life hell for everyone,” Vik continued. The anger in his exhalations was evident, but the translator rendered the sounds in a deadpan baritone voice that was almost soothing. “They’ll all be like the friends of Tinkerbell over there, bitching about the trees.”

This committee’s Pixie delegate glared at Vik. The casual use of that hated nickname had started many a bar fight that ended with a cloud of Pixies defeating larger foes by dropping full bottles of beer on their heads. He didn’t say anything, however, and the other members of the committee ignored the slur.

“So you’re saying that should some other supernaturals appear, we just let them roam loose like we do now? And in the meantime we’re stuck in this one area, playing by the rules? I don’t think so,” said Hisky Marwick, a Troll. “If we’re playing by the rules, they gotta play by the rules. It isn’t like we kept these proceedings a secret, after all. If they don’t like the deal we’re making, they can speak up now or they can just hightail it out of here and go to Europe or Asia and pretend like they still don’t exist.”

Further down the hall, a subcommittee of the Membership Committee was meeting to try to figure out what the status would be of supernatural creatures that were a tad less intelligent than the ones that had gathered for the convention. There was the question of what to do with the dragons, after all. Dragons were very docile despite their fearsome exteriors, and were easier to train than dogs, but they were still basically large beasts. They ate; they slept; they were idle and motionless a great deal of the time, but, when the urged seized them, they could fly and breathe fire.

They were wily, to be sure. After being killed by humans in sizable numbers during the Middle Ages, the dragons had successfully managed to drop out of sight at a time when many other supernatural groups, particularly Elves and Faeries, were still operating more or less openly. This was no mean feat given that dragons could reach hundreds of feet in length and could perform only the most rudimentary sorts of camouflage magic, such as changing their color to suit their surroundings. Part of their ability to stay hidden was due to their relative scarcity—only fifty were known to exist currently in the U.S., half of them commercially licensed—but part of it was due simply to their extraordinary ability to avoid other creatures except for the ones they wanted to eat, mostly pigs, dogs and cows. Even when dragons left half-chewed corpses lying about, they were usually put down to UFOs or satanists.

Wiliness cannot make up for an absence of brainpower, however, and on that scale the dragons were clearly lacking. They couldn’t read or speak, and were so notoriously lazy that it was common belief that they wouldn’t if they could. There was the question of how to keep them within the Homeland’s airspace—if dragons wanted to go somewhere, they usually would just up and go there, flying a few dozen feet in the air, hugging the landscape. This same practice, which had served them so well in avoiding Medieval arrows and modern human radar, would also make it difficult to keep them in the big Homeland pen.

A few eyebrows went up when a visitor strode into the room for the subcommittee meeting.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Mr. Merlin, the wizard,” said Hazny Freberk, the Troll representative. “What’s the matter, you wand wavers a little shorthanded over there? You couldn’t get an underling to hobnob with us unworthies?“

“Is that Merlin?” asked Veder Skyy, a Leprechaun. “Merlin’s at a meeting? That’s amazing. I’ve been on the council for twenty years and I’ve never set eyes on him.”

Merlin smiled cordially at his colleagues and ignored the sarcasm. He wore a conservatively-tailored dark gray tropical wool suit over a plain white shirt with a collar starched into complete submission. He sported a neatly-trimmed brown beard and wore thin gold glasses of the sort that made one want to call them spectacles. No purple and gold silk robe for him, no pointy hat and magic wand. He looked more like the old stereotype of a college professor than a wizard who could conjure up a giraffe in the meeting room if he felt it would be helpful.

“I appreciate your ‘interest’ in my presence, but I’m here for a good reason. As an offshoot of some of our commercial work, we have developed a type of sensor that can detect motion. This is nothing new, of course, but ours provides a better field of coverage than anything the regular humans have. Plus, it uses magic, so there are relatively limited power requirements. All you have to do is place the sensors around the area you want to cover and detecting dragons is simple. Of course, we could use it for the commercial market, but we thought the dragon problem might provide an opportunity to do some good with our device and so we’re willing to pass up some potential profits.”

Merlin fiddled with his glasses while looking through a briefcase packed full with white and yellow documents. He finally pulled out a legal-sized paper and passed it around to the subcommittee members. They hmmmmmed as they looked at what appeared to be an old traffic light mounted on a thin pole.

“I’m sorry I don’t have a holograph of this, but we’ve done so little with it that a paper drafting is all we have. We thought, if you and the regular humans would agree, that we could manufacture some of these things and put them around the perimeter of the Homeland. Because of their sensitivity, we’d only need one every half mile or so. If a dragon flies out, we could set up some bright lights to suddenly go off in its eyes, and that would scare it back inside. Or we could set up some kind of system to deliver an electric shock. The regular humans could round it up and scoot it back in, or whatever. We figured we would make them very bright and colorful, very visible, red or yellow or something, so the dragons could see them easily and eventually figure out the boundaries. Problem solved.”

He finished his presentation and looked around at the dozen or so subcommittee members in expectation. Hazny Freberk was less than pleased.

“Oh, great, so our beautiful green Homeland has big ugly red and yellow poles all around it like it’s a damn McDonald’s. And you’re probably going to point your precious sensors at us and while we’re in there looking at these ugly poles you and the regular humans will know exactly every move everyone in the Homeland makes. What a useful idea for you! Why don’t we all just wear little jingly bells on our caps and our feet and make it easier?”

Unlike Freberk, Merlin didn’t increase his volume and pitch as he spoke, instead responding in soothing, mellow tones.

“I assure you, Mister—” he squinted at the Troll’s nametag—“Fribbik, that we have no intention of monitoring the Homeland for your movements. The monitors will be adjusted so that the coverage field extends only straight up and down. Your engineers will be given as much time as they need to verify this.”

It was common knowledge that most Trolls, unlike many of the supernaturals, had not earned professional degrees of any sort. They were sensitive about it, however, so it was rarely mentioned. Freberk sputtered but said nothing, and eventually nodded his head in assent.

“Okay. Thank you for that consideration.”

“Could we vote, please?” Merlin asked the chairman, and hands quickly rose around the table indicating that the issue of the motion detectors was passed, pursuant to any complaints from the Compliance Committee, which was enjoindered to consider issues relating to enforcement of the Homeland habitation laws.

Votes were also taken on a less pressing issue—whether the various water monsters, if indeed they existed, could be moved to the Homeland. This was known as the “Sea Monster Contingency,” even though the creatures in question mostly lived in lakes. The committee members agreed that, should the Lake Champlain (“Champ”) Monster, the Chesapeake Bay (“Chessie”) Monster, the Flathead Lake Monster or any others prove to be real, they should be moved to the Homeland if the locals approved such a transfer, and if the monsters themselves did not raise any objection. Should they prove to possess the approximate intellect of a dragon, then it was agreed that they could be transferred without their express consent. The monsters would be placed in Optima Lake, which could be dredged or filled as needed.

“I do have an advisory at the table which says that the Merpeople are not in agreement with the Sea Monster Bill,” said Ynir Pfligan of the Goblins. “They object to having large, potentially carnivorous creatures in the water with them.”

“Oh, the heck with them!” said Osper Groldum of the Elves. “They’ve had to live around sharks and giant squids and who knows what else for all these years, and you didn’t hear them whining about that.”

“Yes, but they have indicated to us that they are able to communicate at some level with sharks and other large fish and sea mammals,” Pfligan said. “They aren’t sure if the same would be true for these lake monsters.”

Merlin felt a tiny insistent buzzing in the back of his skull, and then a voice, audible only to him, spoke in his ear.

“Merlin, this is Horton. We got trouble. Get over to the council office as soon as you can and call me back.”

He stood up quickly and informed the subcommittee that he had been called away on urgent business.

“Easy come, easy go,” Hazny Freberk said. “You wizards come out and visit us at the Homeland, y’hear?”

Merlin frowned and ignored his petite antagonist. “Could we just vote on this lake monster issue?” he asked. “It probably won’t matter anyway, and if these creatures are dumped in the water and start eating the Merpeople, well, then somebody else can deal with that problem later.”

“That would be the problem solved, if you ask me,” Osper Groldum muttered, but no one asked him.

“All in favor,” Pfligan said.

The members mumbled and the amendment passed unanimously.

EIGHTEEN

Merlin strode briskly from the room, stuffing his glasses into a jacket pocket as he did so. He didn’t need them; his vision was perfect. They were just for show. He quickly walked to the elevator and rode it to the garage level, where his silver Buick Century awaited. It sensed his approach and the smooth metal door opened. He slid across the seat, which formed itself around his buttocks once he had stopped wriggling into position. He pressed the fingerprints of his right hand to a flat black panel on the dash and the electric engine came silently to life.

‘To the council building. Now.“

He didn’t even give the car time to get all its systems going before commanding it to move. He was impatient with technology.

“Access clearance code to permit breaking the speed limit. Proceed to the building as fast as possible.”

Only top government officials were supposed to have that clearance code, but he had it too. He was leader of the Wizards Council, which for all practical purposes was a government agency. He did more work and had more ideas than did any number of actual government officials, besides, so he deserved the clearance code.

After several minutes, the car pulled off the street and headed straight for a heavy metal door that disappeared into thin air at the last second before impact and reappeared immediately once the car was through. Merlin, daydreaming, was momentarily startled when the bright sunlight suddenly disappeared. The car moved slowly through an underground garage populated with other shiny vehicles and finally stopped in his spot and opened its door.

“Thank you,” he said politely as he exited the car.

“You’re welcome,” the car said in a nicely modulated baritone.

Merlin strode to the elevator and pressed his palm to the flat black panel. The elevator appeared immediately and hummed quietly as it zipped him below ground. When the door opened, he stepped out into the brightly lit foyer of the council building, a construct so secret that only the wizards and 15 regular humans knew it existed. There was no receptionist. The council building was housed underneath an old warehouse in a poverty-stricken section of the city near the Anacostia River. The wizards were able to get a good deal by leasing the building from the government of the District of Columbia, and no one bothered them. From above ground, the warehouse appeared to be nothing but an old ruin. Below ground, it bustled with activity.

Usually, anyway. Merlin walked into the control room, which was staffed by two wizards who seemed to be asleep. Their feet were up on desks and their eyes were closed; beneath neatly-trimmed beards, their lips appeared to be moving slowly and rhythmically.

“I trust you gentlemen are well rested,” Merlin boomed in his cavernous voice, and the wizards immediately snapped to life, looking momentarily frightened. So they were human after all.

“Sorry, boss,” the closest one said, running a hand through his shaggy hair. “We haven’t missed anything.”

“Well, I hope not. We don’t pay you to miss things,” Merlin said in a voice that suggested controlled anger. Had he had more time, he might have really been mad.

“How did it go?” the sleepy wizard asked his boss.

Merlin smiled, a genuine smile. He had enjoyed his time at the meeting. He felt that his masterful performance at the Faery Convention showed that he still had that common touch.

“Marvelous. We’ll have those detectors up around their little postage stamp of land in no time, I’m sure. And better yet, we’ll get paid to do it.”

He walked briskly to the far end of the control room and opened the door to his office, which closed with a reassuring hiss. The air was just as he liked it—cool, with a hint of mint. He slid out of his jacket, tossed it casually on an antique wooden coatrack and sat in his oversized leather chair, which was equipped with a holographic masseuse. Unseen, artificially warmed hands began contorting his back, soothing him. Had he bothered to look behind him, he would have seen a holograph of multihued human hands doing the work. The realistic kneading motion of the hands was done by magic; the holograph image, meant to provide a visual cue to go along with the physical sensations, was regular human technology. It was cheaper that way.

“Senator Howard,” Merlin said. His voice activated the private line, as it would not do for others to be able to listen in on the conversation. A large round screen appeared hovering before him, and the senator’s pink, beefy face filled the air.

“Took your time,” he said.

“Did not,” Merlin said, scrunching up his face, making his voice high-pitched like a child’s. He did not like to be accused of being less than punctual.

Senator Howard’s face distorted into anger.

“Damn you, you pointy-hatted sonofabitch, we’ve got a problem.” His voice was so loud that the automatic moderator couldn’t catch up, meaning that it actually hurt Merlin’s ears for a second. “Would you like to know what it is, or do you already know, since you’re so damn smart!”

The senator was usually not like this.

“I’m sorry, Horton, but things were going so well that I guess I’ve gotten lazy. What can I do for you?”

“I thought you told me that your beloved magical database could tell you all about the supernaturals,” the senator continued in the same tone, which the computer had now modified to sound smoother and less threatening, although it was not successful in removing the anger entirely. “I thought you said it could tell you just about anything.”

Merlin sat up in the chair; the massaging hands ceased. He did not like it when anyone derided the abilities of the Wizards Council.

“It can,” he said simply.

“It can’t,” the senator replied. His brown eyes seemed to burn with anger. “There is a group of supernaturals around here this week that you have never even heard of, and if it weren’t for the fact that some of us are on the ball, you could kiss this little convention goodbye!”

Merlin sat back in the chair. The hands began to resume their ministrations, but he waved them off with a quick flash of his right hand.

“Please continue, Horton.”

Sen. Howard shifted in his chair, and the magic camera that had been installed in his office by the wizards shifted with him. The camera was actually an extremely small dual optic unit that had been placed in the eyes of the senator’s ex-wife, who stared out from an 8 X 10 glossy on his desk. His staffers had seen him muttering to and yelling at the picture on his desk before; they figured he was just communing with the woman that he said had given him so much pain. They had no idea that the picture was the senator’s window to the most informed man in the country, perhaps the world.

For Merlin had, up until now, known almost everything. His magic-enhanced computers could pinpoint the exact date of the first Faery birth in the northern hemisphere (969 a.d., in what is now Rhode Island). They could track the travels of the Centaurs, who had secretly come to the North American continent via Greece and Spain shortly after Columbus stumbled on the place. They knew where there were pockets of Elves living almost openly in Italy, and where there were bands of Gnome stragglers desperately huddling away from human repression in Chile. They contained a list of every small gathering site in Louisiana that the Goblins had erected. He could have told those at the committee a great deal more about the lake monsters than whether they merely existed, had those present desired to know. He could also have told them that he had convincing evidence that Banshees existed, and that Cyclops once had but were now extinct, two facts that only a few supernaturals suspected but none knew for sure. Merlin knew. Merlin knew more about supernaturals than did the supernaturals. Until now.

“Shapeshifters?” Merlin asked after the senator explained that they had new friends in town, and that their new friends had some plans that didn’t correspond with their own plans. Merlin had initially intended to bluff and pretend that he knew about the Shapeshifters but just wasn’t saying anything, but his eyes widened with genuine surprise and gave him away. “They can be perfect replicas? They exist?”

He stared at the desk for long minutes, as a staffer knocked on the door and interrupted the senator’s angry discussion with his ex-wife. While the senator looked away, Merlin’s mind raced.

Wizards could actually do Shapeshifting, but it was as difficult as gem cutting. It took so much concentration from even the best wizards that the illusion could be maintained for an hour at best, and in the meantime the wizard resembled a old video tape copy complete with skips and sparks. The illusion had often been sufficient to fool peasants back in the Middle Ages, but it wasn’t much good in the days of perfect-tone digital photography.

He thought back to his recent scan through the supernatural records; there was a section flagged “unexplained sightings,” which mostly contained accounts of werewolf encounters that didn’t seem to quite fit the pattern, or reference to some weird vampires. There was evidence that Shapeshifting played roles in some of these file accounts, but they had never been properly pinned down. There were historical references to Shapeshifters of other sorts throughout history, of course, but the Wizards Council had believed them to be a mishmash of unrelated accounts, and possibly misinterpreted visions of wizards who were practicing that particular skill. The council had gotten away from the thesis that there was one particular group that had developed such a talent as a specialty. Now they would have to recheck the data.

“Now, never you mind about it,” the senator said upon his return. “We bumbling, magic-free humans have this under control. We have invented these things called guns, see, that enable us to control the outcome of certain events. We’ve put the supernatural leaders under extremely close guard, and told them it’s only a quaint human custom for their protection. But if the guards see any one of ’em acting up, they will be arrested. If they persist in acting up, the guards have orders to put so much lead in them that they’ll gain thirty pounds. If one of these stealth supernatural has already taken over, they’ll be in no position to do anything. If they haven’t already taken over, then we’ve put the supernatural bodies out of reach of their slimy little paws.”

Merlin made a tent with his fingers in front of his mouth.

“So despite this setback, you don’t think we have to worry too much about the convention going through as planned? You’re not worried about the top supernaturals?”

“Forewarned is forearmed,” Howard said. “We’ll get their bloody hand and hoofprints on the Grimm Accord if we have to, and then we’ll ship the lot of them out of here and we’ll all be happy and these body-snatcher types can all go turn each other into weiner dogs for all I care.”

Merlin had never heard such negative statements about the supernaturals from the good senator. Usually he droned on about them as if they were angels. The senator was old, and getting tired. Merlin detected something behind the lidded eyes. There was a peace forming there, a peace that Merlin associated with death. The senator wanted to get this convention over with, get these pesky whining creatures that he adored out of his face. This game of life was getting to be too much for him, now that the stakes were so high. Merlin, on the other hand, was 55; he would probably live to be 200, using the occasional magic trick to keep the old body in good shape. He was just getting to like all these risks.

“Your plan seems almost foolproof,” Merlin said, clicking his fingers to activate the chair’s palpitating hands once more. “But listen to me, Horton. I’ve just had an idea. I have a way to make it absolutely foolproof.”

NINETEEN

Joe Cork stumbled into his apartment, exhausted. He knocked some papers off his bookshelf as he entered but didn’t bother to pick them up, instead allowing them to join the general clutter that had accumulated on his wooden floor. He slipped out of his jacket like Harry Houdini escaping a straitjacket and tossed it on the back of the loveseat. He needed sleep. He was not used to staying up this long. He had been up since Saturday morning, and it was now shortly past midnight on Monday.

For the first time in several days he was able to entertain the comforting feeling that things might be under control. Aside from the ever-present threat of pure chaos, the convention’s opening day had gone well. To help make sure it continued that way, Sen. Howard had rallied together a modern-day cavalry to guard the supernaturals. The security that was already scheduled to be in place had been expanded tenfold. His boss had told him that the Secret Service and agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were guarding the all-important members of the Supernatural Council; the U.S. Capitol Police were assisting, and members of the local police and the National Guard had been put on alert in case they were needed. The show was in the hands of professionals now, and Cork thought it safe to get some shut-eye.

Sen. Howard had insisted that Cork’s ghostly source come forward and work with the government authorities, but Othello had already made it clear that such cooperation was out of the question.

“Look, I’m looking forward to living some kind of life after this,” Othello had told him early this morning, as the sun was just beginning to show its face, which seemed like eons ago. “If Puck finds out about me, I’m dust.”

The senator had lost that battle today, but he won another one—he assigned a bodyguard to Cork, over his protests.

“You’re too valuable to lose now,” the senator had told him. “You are the only person who has a connection with these things, and we still really don’t know who we’re dealing with here. I won’t run the risk of something happening to you just because you don’t want somebody tailing you around.”

Cork feared that having a bodyguard would mean that Othello wouldn’t contact him again, but he was too tired to argue the point. Given the level of crime on parts of Capitol Hill lately, he had secretly been glad to have the bodyguard shadowing him as he walked home at this late hour. He had seen the guard trailing 100 yards behind him, conspicuously wearing a blue uniform with a badge. He might as well have been carrying a sign saying, “I AM A COP.” Not exactly inconspicuous, he had thought, but sufficient to keep the muggers away.

He had just sat down on the loveseat and pulled off his shoes when his buzzer sounded. Cork sat there, indecisive from exhaustion; who the hell would be calling at this hour? Should he pretend he wasn’t home? But then, he had just turned the lights on, so that wouldn’t be too convincing. He could activate the video answering system, which would show him who was outside, but that, too, was for use when no one was home. He could punch up the direct connection and see who was outside, but that would definitely let them know he was home. He could do the low-tech thing and actually go downstairs and open the door. He opted for the direct video link, as it required the least amount of energy.

He shambled to the wall near his door and slid open the video panel. He numbly thumped the button that turned on the front door camera and said, “Cork here.”

The five-inch screen showed an unfamiliar face. The screen was old and had faded somewhat, making anyone seen through it look as though they were at the bottom of a fish tank. It was the security guard, he guessed. He had not seen the man up close, but he recognized that uniform. Maybe he just wanted to make sure Cork was safe.

“It’s me,” the guard said. “Othello.” His voice was tinny through the cheap speaker.

It took a couple of seconds for that to sink in, and then Cork said, “What the hell? Why did you take over as the guard?”

“This way we can meet openly,” Othello said. “Plus, this way I get a gun. And, for the record, there were actually two guards assigned to you. One you knew about and one you didn’t. The other one has met with an unfortunate accident.”

“You killed him?”

“No. He met with an unfortunate accident, but he’s not dead. Just incapacitated for a while. Trust me.”

Cork signed and punched the access button. He enjoyed the thought of letting in someone who had now confessed to at least five murders and one incident of what sounded like severe battery.

“Come on up.”

Once he had huffed up the stairs, the murderous Shapeshifter appeared concerned about how Cork was faring.

“You have enormous bags under your eyes,” Othello said when Cork opened the door.

“Elves need sleep,” Cork replied. “And I’m not getting it.”

Othello nodded, casting a glance around the room.

“Then I won’t keep you. I just wanted to show you who I am now and see how things are.”

Cork waved him to a seat, and pulled the bed down from the wall so he could also have someplace to sit down.

“The senator has arranged it so that there is an astonishing amount of firepower around the supernatural leaders. If Puck’s gang tries anything, they’ll be at least arrested, if not blown away.”

Othello nodded.

“Isn’t there some way we can warn him, though?” Cork asked. “It seems like if we could head him off we could save everyone a lot of trouble.”

“If you warn him, he’ll come up with something else. He’s very determined. He has somehow gotten the impression that the Great One is personally telling him what to do, or that’s what he says, anyhow. If you tip him off that his plans are in danger, I assure you he’ll come up with Plan B, and who knows what that could entail.”

Cork rubbed his eyes. “But you have a way to contact him, don’t you, in case we need to do that?”

“Well, yes. It’s actually supposed to be for him to contact us, but I imagine it works both ways. I don’t recommend it, though.”

“All right, all right.”

“Oh, speaking of that,” Othello said, “another advantage of taking over this guard’s body is that I get these.” He pulled out two small video communicators. “You take one, in case you need to get to me or I need to get to you.”

Cork looked at the communicator. It was black, three inches tall, with a tiny video screen that took up almost all of its two-inch width. Cork recognized the brand: police issue, communicated in a closed band, immune to disruption, surprisingly sharp screen.

“Top of the line, huh? Okay.”

Othello rose to leave. For a moment, Cork’s curiosity got the better of his exhaustion.

“Don’t you realize that some of your kind are very close to getting blown away or spending the rest of their lives in prison?”

No trace of emotion crossed the security guard’s face.

“Of course.”

“Doesn’t that bother you? It could be you.”

The security guard’s face remained stony.

“You must really love her.”

Othello nodded, a deep, slow nod.

“I do. I really do. But it’s not just that. I feel like the member of a cult who’s just been deprogrammed. This is a religious thing for Puck, you understand. I’ve just lost my religion.”

Cork merely grunted.

“I’ll be in touch,” Othello said, and walked out quietly, closing the door behind him.

Cork leaned back on the bed, his feet still touching the floor, the lights still burning. He was just about to slide into blessed oblivion when his computer, leaning against the arm of the love seat, came alive and emitted a shriek.

“Emergency message!” it said in a loud, excited voice, its smiley face replaced by a cartoon of an agitated little man with an extremely big mouth.

Cork bolted upright in bed to look at the computer. It displayed the face of Ellen King, who appeared to be in a vidphone booth. Her eyes shown like tiny spotlights even through the mat of dust on the screen.

“Joe!” she shouted. “You have to come over to my place right now!”

“What for? What’s up?”

He leaned toward the computer so she could have a better view of his face, so she could see how tired he was and how he did not need to be traipsing across the city at this hour.

“Just do it!” she said. “I’m not kidding!”

Her left arm was moving back and forth like she was playing a slot machine.

“What are you doing? Where are you calling from?”

“A pay phone! Using change! I don’t want this call to be traced, so I can’t use my card.”

Some of the vidphone booths in the city had been converted from old telephone booths, and the more antiquated ones still accepted change. Vidphone calls were expensive, however, and if cash was used they demanded a constant flow of quarters.

“My arm is getting tired,” Ellen said. Upon closer inspection, she looked as frazzled as he felt and he could sense whatever desperation drove her to this call. “I’ve got to stop. Get over here as soon as you can. It’s 1540 Quebec Street.” Her eyes burned through the phosphors and bored into his own. “If you love me, hurry.” And she was gone, replaced by the dingy yellow smiley face.

“Don’t save that call,” Cork instructed to the computer. “Don’t even record that it happened.”

He wasn’t sure such precautions would be necessary, but he had the idea that something, somewhere, was still going wrong with the damned convention. He was still in his suit pants and dress shirt, so he threw his jacket back on and stepped back into his shoes. Adrenaline was coursing through him now, energizing him like supercharged coffee. His tiredness fell away, replaced by a dull sense of panic. He ran into the street, but Othello was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t sure how long the Shapeshifter had been gone. He could call him, of course, but he wasn’t sure it would be necessary. He jumped into his Impact and headed up to northwest D.C.

On the way, it occurred to him that she had said, “If you love me, hurry.” What did she mean by that? Were her true feelings coming through in a moment of crisis, or did she say it to hurry him up? Either way, it had the same effect. He was hurrying. He drove across town like an extra-crazy maniac in a city already too full of maniacs.

TWENTY

Merlin was deep in thought when he was interrupted by a fellow wizard, one of the two who had been snoozing so peacefully earlier.

“Boss, we got a breach,” said Lawrence O’Kain.

Like all wizards, O’Kain wore his hair neatly trimmed. Like most wizards, he also sported a neatly-trimmed beard. His appearance was immaculate, a perfection marred only by the obvious concern on his face.

Merlin sighed and arose from his desk. What could go wrong now? It was midnight on Monday. Would he get no peace? This was the time that he should be pondering the future, not dealing with these petty details. He almost regretted his earlier harsh assessment of the senator; he, too, was starting to get tired of this little game, and could now understand the senator’s desire to just be done with the whole project.

“What’ve we got?” he asked his fellow wizard upon his arrival in the main control room.

The control room was large and would be empty were it not for the six large screen monitors that hovered in the air, suspended by magic hovering devices manufactured secretly by Wizards Council members. Each monitor was twenty feet square, but only a few inches thick, so that they looked almost like sheets suspended above the floor. Beneath them, also hovering, were a dozen smaller monitors, ranging from two to twelve feet across, but also only inches thick. The monitors were the only thing of interest in the room; it looked like an old airplane hangar that had been painted white. Even the floor was white tile, so slick that it necessitated the wearing of rubber-soled shoes to keep the wizards from sliding into each other when they tried to move. There were six all-white desks located at various points in the room, but that was it for decoration. The monitors were rimmed in black but when not turned on, their screens were white as well. When they weren’t activated, they looked like giant empty picture frames.

O’Kain took a seat at one desk and pointed to a six-foot monitor that hovered four feet off the ground in front of them. Merlin, standing, folded his arms in anticipation. Suddenly the screen lit up with the face of an attractive young woman, who appeared to stare at them intently.

“Is this what we are afraid of?” Merlin asked impatiently. “She doesn’t look frightening.”

“This is the breach,” O’Kain said quickly. “We just found this, but it happened about fifteen minutes ago. For some reason the warning didn’t kick in. This is the photorecord of when she tapped into Sen. Horton Howard’s secret computer files. Including his vidphone files. Including the files recording his conversations with you.”

O’Kain looked up at Merlin, a slight smile on his face.

“Looks like we got staff problems again.”

Merlin nodded.

“Weren’t you going to tell the senator to tighten up his file security?”

Merlin looked at his underling in mock outrage.

“You doubt me? Of course I did. And the security was tightened. I saw to that myself. That’s what worries me about this one.”

Merlin stared at the girl’s face as he ran the fingers of his left hand gingerly through his beard.

“I trust that we know who she is.”

O’Kain nodded. “Ellen King. She’s not one of the biggies within the senator’s staff. She’s a correspondence person and also does some receptionist work.”

Merlin sighed. Another underling poking around. Just what they needed.

“Experience has shown us that staff rank has little to do with curiosity, as you remember. This one is obviously pretty good with computers.”

He walked in a circle a few times until he realized he was pacing. He didn’t want to appear nervous, so he sat down on the edge of the desk.

“So what should we do?” O’Kain asked.

Merlin wasn’t sure. The last time one of the senator’s staffers found some of his secret files, they had known what to do, or at least thought they had. She had been spirited away for a high-tech brainwashing session that turned out badly, and was then spirited to the bottom of the Potomac with a low-tech anchor. The postcard from Bolivia had established the cover, and all traces of the fact that she hadn’t gone to Bolivia were dutifully removed. As far as Merlin knew, no one had even checked it out. That staffer—Valerie?—was somewhat impulsive, according to their files, so they took the risk that her sudden move wouldn’t take anyone by surprise.

“I suppose another postcard from ‘Oblivia’ is out of the question,” O’Kain said with a dry laugh that sounded almost like a cough.

Merlin smiled in spite of himself. “I think so. The good senator didn’t make the connection last time between the missing staffer and the need for better computer security. This time he might get a little suspicious.”

“Not to mention the police.”

Looked at rationally, it was possible that the girl had been poking around out of sheer curiosity, and that her newfound knowledge would not be put to any use that would be detrimental to his plans. But then again, the previous high-tech snoop had apparently discovered the files by accident, back before they were secure. Merlin had been in no mood to take chances then and was in no mood to do so now, especially when the stakes were suddenly so much higher and this hacker seemed to know what she was doing.

“Has she talked to anyone else about this?”

“Not that we know of. Her computer log from the office appears normal. She didn’t talk to anybody out of the ordinary. There were a lot of calls, but they were all from staffers or people who usually do business with the senator. We ran them past our files on each of the people, and there were no calls above the average from any one person.”

“Could she have deleted some of the files? She’s good enough to tap into the senator’s database.”

“Nope. Thanks to an obscure law of some years ago, congressional phone log data is fixed on the computer the minute the calls are made. She’d have to use magic to get around that.”

“And from her home phone?”

“Nothing. The last call she made from there was last week, to one of her coworkers, and that was before she tapped into the senator’s files.”

Merlin stood up. It was late, and he was tired. He had already had enough excitement for one day. This was a serious issue, but he didn’t want to deal with this pesky youngster himself, not right now. Time to delegate some authority.

“Send someone over immediately to pick her up and bring her here. Get the voice modulator out and ready for a sick call to her office in the morning. We’ll see what she knows then.”

“Check.”

“You said she made some call to a co-worker last week—who was it?”

“Joe Cork, the chief investigator for Supe Affairs.”

Oh, yes. Horton had described Cork as being a nice halfbreed, a good, conscientious worker, which was why it was best that he be kept in the dark about a good many things. Merlin had a flash of inspiration.

“We have pictures of him, don’t we?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Have someone go over to her house and shapeshift into Cork’s form. Then put her to sleep and bring her here and I’ll talk to her when I get back in the morning. Just put her on the couch in my office and make sure she can’t get away. Nobody questions her until I return.”

O’Kain nodded. “Sounds good. I think Norton has some free time; we’ll send him.”

Merlin returned to his office to retrieve his jacket, and then passed by O’Kain on the way out. He patted, his charge on the shoulder.

“Thanks for calling this to my attention. Just don’t snooze on the job anymore, okay?”

O’Kain blushed.

Merlin was actually happy as he crossed the parking lot to his car, lifting his face to feel a slight breeze. He enjoyed solving problems, and this one had been a breeze so far. Plus, it was a problem that called for the use of magic. Wizards liked to use magic. Having Norton go over there in the form of Joe Cork was probably quite unnecessary, but then wizards didn’t get to personally show off in public much anymore, so they jumped at the opportunity to use their skills.

Merlin could remember learning the beginner’s tricks at his father’s knee, when his father was a very old man. He remembered concentrating, squinching up his little face, clumsily saying the spells, and then watching in amazement as his little puppy rose slowly into the air, its tiny paws wiggling furiously. He had laughed so hard that he broke his concentration and the puppy dropped back a few inches to the floor with a yelp. His father warned him, in his deep cavernous voice: “Remember, son, what you build you can also destroy.” Merlin stopped laughing. In the years to come he had remembered his father’s warning well. He had devoted his whole life to building.

Before him, the wizards had been content to work their magic in private; the supernaturals weren’t the only ones who had existed in secret for hundreds of years. The wizards, too, had gone underground at some time in the past, and the old alliances they had forged in the Middle Ages fell apart. When the supernaturals had their Revelation, Merlin decided that the wizards should surface as well. He was the first one in centuries to realize the nature of the great gift they had been given. They were human, but they had the capability to go beyond their humanity to something more.

He had realized early on that there was strength in numbers. While there weren’t many wizards—working magic was extremely difficult, and not many humans over the years had demonstrated the stick-to-it-iveness to get it right—they were still an awesome force when they combined their powers. It had taken him a long time to put all the bricks together after the Revelation. Wizards weren’t so easy to find. He had spent what felt like the equivalent of several years on airplanes, flying back and forth across the country, meeting with fellow wizards to convince them to join forces, pool their efforts. One by one, he won them over.

He had found one wizard in Spokane, eking out a living by performing lame magic tricks at kiddie birthday parties. The wizard was bored to death, was even thinking of giving up magic when Merlin found him. Now he was one of the most talented of all the members of the Wizards Council.

Another wizard had been working as a stockbroker, using his magic to make quite a pile of illegal money by manipulating the system. His good fortune had not gone unnoticed, however, and he was probably less than a month away from prison when Merlin found him and convinced him to join his burgeoning new organization. Now he, too, was happy. In fact, he was on his way even now to try out a little Shapeshifting magic at Ellen King’s apartment.

Merlin slid into the car, and the cool leather of the form-fitting seats felt soothing against the thin wool of his suit. He slid his hands around the dashboard, feeling the occasional bump in the otherwise smooth plastic. It occurred to him that perhaps he was fated to make the Wizards Council into a successful organization. He was the first to have the idea of funneling magic forces through more mundane human technological devices. Had he been born a century ago, before mass production, it would not have been possible for him to have accomplished what he was on the verge of accomplishing. Instead, he had gotten the wizards together, and together they had found ways to use transistors and fiber optics and holographs and lasers as the conduits for magic.

The supernaturals could do magic, of course, which was what made them supernatural rather than merely rare and unusual. He had never said so in public, but Merlin felt magic was wasted on them. They generally couldn’t do much with it. Many of the supernaturals could do only camouflage magic to stay hidden, and even the Faeries and Elves, the most adept at using magic, tended to use it much as humans use fireworks—for fun. Faeries, in particular, liked to blow things up or knock things down.

Magic was powerful but inherently unstable; technology was solid and predictable, but limited in power. He had been the first to combine the two to create a new form of technology, a form of technology that was currently imperfect but that soon would be absolutely perfect. It was also going to make him very powerful very soon.

He smiled. He was a worthy successor to his ancestor and legendary namesake. He was Merlin. He was an innovator. He was the Henry Ford of magic.

TWENTY-ONE

Hatred had been planted in him early. From his youngest days, Casper Harrison could remember his father pointing out people who were no better than they were, yet were given unfair opportunities. His father had drummed it into him that, despite their noisy statements to the contrary, the blacks and the Jews and the Hispanics and the gays actually had it easy in this country. And then, worst of all, there were the supernaturals.

“Son, they been laying around out in the woods all these years, doing nothing, stealing our stuff, and then they decide to show up and say that they got special needs. They need special treatment.” His father had fairly spat the words out in disgust. “And we’re so spineless we’re giving it to them. You and I can barely get anyone to give us the time of day, and they’re running around like they’re movie stars.”

Speeches like that had formed an endless chorus in his youth, and he still heard the music. It angered him that he had to keep it to himself. Nobody wanted to hear the truth anymore, no one wanted to hear that white people were an endangered species. The white man, that most reviled of creatures, was a minority now, and an oppressed one at that. But no one wanted to hear it. People would get all worked up about whether the pandas at the zoo could mate and reproduce, but no one seemed to give a damn about a problem that he felt was much more serious. No one was wondering how he was going to reproduce. He saw how even white women were turning away from white men to go out with men of other races, and it disgusted him to the core. He was a good-looking white man, had strong muscles, a good brain, good genes, and he had not had a date in more than a year.

What disturbed him most of all was what he had seen last week—a white woman with a supernatural. An Elf. He could just imagine her healthy naked body writhing atop the Elfs abominable scrawny body, and it made him so furious that he could feel the hatred flowing through his body like it was a new kind of blood. She was so good looking, had such a nice body. He wanted her for himself. Her name was Ellen, and she worked in the Hart Senate Office Building, where he worked. She wouldn’t give him the time of day. She actually went out of her way to insult him when he was trying to be nice.

But his father had taught him, long ago, how to deal with those who would try to take the rightful place of the white man. His father would take him out into the deep Maryland woods and teach him to fight and shoot. He would take bales of hay and stack them and say, “Now there’s a nigger trying to get what’s yours! What’re you going to do?” and little Casper would run and leap upon the figure, tearing at it with a knife until his fingers bled and his enemy was disintegrated. Later, when he was older, his father would paint an old milk jug green and set it on top of a fence, and say, “There’s a Faery crying out for something he don’t deserve!” and Casper would bring the handgun up in a quick arc and blow the jug into the blue summer sky.

Now he was hunched behind a bush outside the town-house that Ellen shared with some other snooty Hill staffers. He had seen her around the building late at night, and followed her home from work when she was done. His shadowing wasn’t very subtle—he drove practically right behind her the whole way—but she was so stupid she didn’t notice him. She never noticed him, except to insult him.

When she went inside, he crept up close to the door and memorized the number on the door. He had been planning to merely mark her address, perhaps try to watch her undress, when suddenly fate handed him a winning hand. She had quickly come back outside, causing him to leap into the bushes that ringed the corner townhouse. He was good; she didn’t see or hear him. She ran across the street to a vidphone booth and began talking to someone. She was calling her little friend, setting up a late-night tryst. He briefly wondered why she would use a pay vidphone for this purpose, and decided that she was ashamed to have it recorded on her bill that she had called an Elf to have him come over and defile her white human body.

He decided to stay in the bushes until her little yellow friend showed up, and then show Ellen who was the better creature. He would show her that a lying yellow magic-doing Elf was no match for a strong white man with a sharp knife. He always had his knife with him. It was five inches long, with a razor-sharp blade. He so wanted to introduce it to supernatural flesh.

Casper didn’t have long to wait, which was good for him because it was beginning to be uncomfortable, crouched down among the bushes with their short, sharp limbs. Here he came, around the corner, dressed just like a human, but unmistakeably unnatural, with his yellow skin and slanted eyebrows. Here he came, looking to sport at the altar of white womanhood. Instead, he had a date with five inches of steel.

The Elf sauntered up the steps and rang the bell. Casper tensed the powerful muscles in his upper legs and sprang from the bushes like an avenging white god. The Elf spun in amazement, drawing his arms up reflexively to protect himself, but it was no good. The Elf protected his face, but Casper went for the gut, and the razor-sharp five inches of steel found itself a home, again and again, four times, eight times, ten times, quicker than the beating of a heart.

Casper’s vision was veiled with hate, but he saw something that amazed him—the Elf was changing. The very image of the Elf seemed to flicker before his eyes, flicker like bad TV reception, and suddenly the hated Elf wasn’t an Elf at all, but had become a human, a white man, a white man wearing a nice brown jacket that was now stained deeply red from the blood that gushed forth from seemingly his entire chest.

“What are you?” Casper screamed at the white man, but his quarry was slumped against the wall beside the front door, far beyond the use of speech. The man’s hands twitched uselessly at his sides. His last bit of life was used to fuel the fear still visible in his eyes.

Vaguely Casper was aware of a high-pitched sound coming from inside the house. He saw the distorted face of Ellen, his Ellen, screaming through the small square window in the middle of the front door. He looked down; he, too, was stained with blood. His right hand was wrapped firmly around the knife, from which blood poured like a small fountain.

This wouldn’t look good at all. He had hoped to show Ellen how easy it was for a strong young man to gut a puny Elf, but instead he had only cut down another white man. He had helped reduce the stock, and for that he was deeply ashamed. Ellen would tell the police that he had killed a white man, and he could barely stand the thought of it. For a second a comforting scenario flashed through his mind—Ellen opening the door, Ellen saying she understood, saying she knew what he meant to show, Ellen taking him upstairs to let him rest his head against her trembling white breast.

But no; she was still screaming through the door’s window. With a faint curse on his lips and his blood hurtling through his limbs, Casper Harrison flung himself off the porch and into the night.

TWENTY-TWO

Given the events of the weekend, Joe Cork was starting to expect surprises. Had a drunken dragon been sprawled across the roof, he would have taken it in stride and gone about his business. Had the yard been filled with laughing, dancing, naked Goblins, he would have considered it just par for the course. Even so, it had never occurred to him that he would arrive to find a bloody human corpse and a near-hysterical Ellen King.

He had to bang on the front door for what seemed like half an hour before she would even open it. Her face was there in the small square window, but she simply stared at him slackjawed, occasionally darting a glance at the corpse.

“It’s me!” he shouted. “It’s me! It’s me! You called me! You said to hurry! I’m here!”

At last, just when he was about to try to break in through a window, Ellen opened the door. The act seemed to take all her energy; she slumped to the floor, and he barely caught her before she banged her head.

“I thought he was you,” she said quietly, almost in a whisper. “He looked like you.”

He wanted to drag her to the couch and let her sleep, but there wasn’t time; someone might have called the police, and they would arrive soon. Even in Washington, D.C., one could not leave a bloody corpse lying on the front porch for long without its being noticed.

“Dear, you need to sit up and tell me what happened. Please.”

She nodded, and he dragged her over to the nearest chair, a puffy pink thing that seemed to have lost a fair bit of its stuffing. Once in place, Ellen sat up and began rubbing her eyes.

“Rest for a second,” Cork said. “Are any of your roommates here?”

She shook her head. “Vacation,” she managed to spit out.

He walked quickly to the front porch. He didn’t like the idea of grabbing a dead body, but neither did he relish the idea of spending some time in jail explaining the situation, so he turned off the porch light, took a deep breath and dragged the heavy corpse into the house. He pretended like he was merely moving a large bag of dog food. He dragged the body into the living room, located to the left of the small nook where Ellen was sitting. He dragged it far back into the shadows, both for her sake and for his; he didn’t want to upset her further, and he didn’t want a dead man staring at him.

By the time he returned to Ellen, she was somewhat composed, although she was sucking in air as though she were drowning.

“Breathe slowly,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

She gasped for another minute before saying, “Oh god, I don’t know where to start.”

“Start with the dead guy.”

“He showed up on the porch and he was you, I mean he looked like you and I had come down to open the door and this guard who works at the building jumped out of the bushes and stabbed him a hundred times and then looked at me and ran and I thought it was you but while he was stabbing him he started sparkling like he was on fire and he turned into someone else and he was dead and I called you because I was fooling around on the computer at work and I managed to get into the boss’s secret files I’ve been using some hacking tricks see and so I got in there and oh Joe there’s so much going on we didn’t know about the senator is in cahoots with the wizards. The wizards are a lot more powerful than anybody thought and they have these magic things and they’re going to seal off the convention center and hold all the Faeries and everybody hostage and not ever let them out and ...“

She finally stopped talking and resumed gasping for air.

Cork was beginning to dread it anytime anyone began giving him a long, complicated explanation for anything.

“Listen, I didn’t follow all of that but we’ve got to get out of here. Did any of your neighbors see this?”

She shook her head again. “The ones on the left have moved out, and the ones on the right are old and deaf. They wouldn’t have seen it unless there were flashing lights around. And the whole thing was pretty quiet.”

Not a bad place to kill someone, if you must, Cork thought. “I’m going to call Othello.”

He pulled the communicator out of his pocket and flicked it on, the tiny screen blinking instantly to life. He couldn’t make out exactly what was going on, but the security guard seemed to be lying naked on some kind of brown carpet.

“Othello! We need you!”

Othello looked around, startled, until finally gazing at his communicator.

“Can’t it wait?”

A female head appeared on the screen, and a naked breast flashed past. Shiena.

“No. I’m sorry to bother you now, but it can’t. Something has gone wrong in a major way. We got a guy over here that showed up looking like me, but he got stabbed by this nut and turned into someone else when he died. Is that one of your boys?”

Othello frowned for a second.

“What nut?”

“Never mind about that. I’ll tell you later. Does the guy sound like one of you?”

“Not if he changed forms when he died. We stick with the same body when we push up the daisies.”

“Sounds like we have a different problem then. Hang on a second.”

Cork took a breath and walked over to where the body was sprawled. Despite the darkness, Cork shut his eyes tightly as he dug around in the corpse’s back pocket and fished out a wallet. He walked back into the light, flipping through the expensive piece of leather until he found what he was afraid he would find—a business card with the gold laminated interlaced leaf logo of the Wizards Council.

“He’s a wizard. Or was.”

“Wizards can shapeshift?” Othello asked. “I’ll be damned. I thought we were the only ones. I bet they aren’t very good at it.”

“Well, whatever, but this guy sure picked the wrong place to do it. Listen, I’m at Ellen’s and we’ve got to get out of here. Meet us back at my place.”

Ellen began waving frantically at him.

“No! No! They know who you are! We can’t go there!”

Great. He’d never get a change of clothes now.

“Okay, wait, change that. Ellen says we can’t go there.”

“What the hell is going on?” Othello asked. He was jumping around, pulling on his pants.

“I don’t know for sure myself.”

“Go to this address,” Othello said. He seemed to be reading something he had pulled out of his pocket. “554 Wood Place. That’s where this guard used to live. It’ll be safer.”

“We’re about four blocks from there. Take us ten minutes.”

“You gonna drag that body along?”

“I don’t think so,” Cork said. He looked into the shadows of the living room, where he imagined that he could see two tiny glints of light glaring out at him. “He looks pretty comfortable right where he is.”

TWENTY-THREE

Othello was waiting when they arrived, standing on the front porch of the modest row house like a father waiting for his teenagers to come home. Cork parked carelessly and he and Ellen walked slowly inside. Ellen was still shaken, but had livened up considerably.

“Killed someone else, huh?” she asked as they passed Othello and entered the house.

Cork feared that Othello would be antagonized, but the security guard’s chubby face didn’t seem to register any offense.

“He was a bad guy. He was dealing drugs on the side.”

Ellen was casting glances around the front room, looking for something, and she muttered “sure, sure,” offhandedly.

“Welcome to this former bad guy’s house,” Othello said. “What are you after?”

“A computer.”

“It’s over by the couch, on the floor. Police special.”

Ellen picked up the thin square monitor and gave it a sharp blast of breath, sending dust particles streaming into the air. Cork coughed. The billowing cloud of dust made him miss his own computer.

“Sorry,” Ellen said. “Here, watch this.”

She inserted a small round disk into the computer’s slot, but before the screen could come alive there was a commotion at the back door.

“Almost forgot,” Othello said.

“Wait a minute,” Ellen instructed the computer, and set it down on the couch after giving its screen a good wiping with her forearm. She was wearing a white blouse, the sleeve of which was now gray. She looked nervously toward the back of the house, and Cork thought he saw her shiver.

“Are you okay? You’re land of jumpy.”

She nodded stiffly. “You’ll see why in a minute.”

Cork and Ellen walked behind Othello through a narrow hallway that led to what would have been a small rear dining area if it had any furniture. Beyond that was a set of French doors which opened onto a sizable backyard. Othello flicked a switch that bathed the backyard in feeble yellow light and tossed open the doors. Cork could see that the backyard fence was wide open, which was good because a truck the size of a small tank was coming through it. The truck roared to a halt ten feet from the house and Ellen let out a little squeal. He reached an arm behind him to comfort her and she put her hand in his. Her hand was surprisingly cold.

The truck was like no other he had ever seen before. It was painted in army camouflage and had wheels the size of tractor tires. There was a sudden grating sound and the entire left side of the truck slid back even with the truckbed. Then he realized why it was a custom truck. Two equine legs came down firmly on the ground, followed by two more bearing a shapely equine body. There was a flash of green and then a human torso appeared in a smooth motion that made it seem as if it were being poured onto the horse’s back. Shiena.

As Othello had said, she was smashing. Cork and Ellen gazed in wonder as she made her way to the French doors. She paused before entering, as squeezing a horse body into a Washington row house was not something to be done carelessly. For one second she stood at her full height, hands on hips. Her brown hair seemed to flow across sturdy shoulders, and even in the dim light her eyes were bright. Her skin was pale but flawless, showing hints of a good musculature underneath.

“She’s beautiful,” Ellen said in a small voice, and Cork nodded silent agreement. He had seen Centaurs before, but never one that so perfectly combined the ideal attributes of human and horse.

“My dear, meet Mr. Joe Cork and Miss Ellen King,” Othello said with exaggerated courtesy.

The fabulous head, up there in the heights, nodded slowly.

“I’m very pleased to meet the people who will save my father.”

The voice, too, was gorgeous, swirling around them like the warmth from a comforting fire.

“You’re wonderful,” Ellen said with all the wonder of a child viewing Mickey Mouse at Disneyland for the first time. Shiena smiled, a slow and languorous smile that matched all the other languorous moves she seemed to make.

Some of the spell that she cast was broken when she had to actually enter the house. The doorframe stood about seven feet high, but Shiena was nearly nine feet tall from the top of her head to the shoes of her shined hooves. On the first try, she bumped her forehead quite hard on the wooden casing, causing her languorous voice to become coarse and issue a few profanities that would have been at home in any smokey backroom of Congress.

“Let me kiss it and make it better,” Othello said in a voice that bordered on baby talk, but she only fixed him with an icy glare and tried again.

Cork now realized why there was no dining furniture in the room; Shiena would have destroyed it. To enter the room, she had to hunch down on her horse legs as far as possible while simultaneously leaning her human torso forward like a football tackle. This precarious position made it difficult to walk, and consequently she stamped her hooves on the floor hard enough to send up wood chips. When she did make it in, she promptly straightened up and hit her head on the fake glass chandelier, which tinkled furiously.

“Damn it!” she said in a voice that was long past languorous. “I told you to move shit like this if I was going to come over here!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Othello dipped his head up and down while apologizing as if such an action helped abase him further.

“I moved all the furniture into the kitchen but I forgot about the chandelier.”

Shiena brushed the tinkling obstacle out the way and rubbed her forehead. “It’s all right.” Thus present and accounted for, she turned quickly to business. She looked down at Cork and said, “What’s this emergency you have?”

Cork, still somewhat amazed at her presence, pointed at Ellen. “It’s her emergency.”

Ellen gave a harsh smile. “It’s our emergency.”

Once they had paraded back up the narrow hallway to the front room—Shiena with some effort, as her flanks almost got stuck—Ellen propped the computer up on the couch and stood back from it. Like a family settling down before a movie, they made themselves comfortable and she dimmed the lights so that only a sickly bluish glow emanated from the ceiling to mingle with the harsh yellow streetlight shining through the slits in the front window blind. Cork took a seat on the couch that ran along the front wall; Othello sat in a chair six feet away. Shiena knelt behind Othello, but Ellen chose to stand, like a teacher guiding students through a complicated biology film.

“I stumbled across some secret phone files that the senator keeps. I managed to tap into them,” Ellen said. “This is stuff I recorded from those files.”

Cork was amazed. “How’d you tap into them?”

“Do you really want to know?”

Cork and Othello exchanged a glance.

“There are a lot of things these days that I don’t want to know.”

“Thought so.” She crossed her arms. “What you’ll see is from a conversation held a few hours ago. Here goes. Computer, play the files on the disk.”

Half the computer screen was suddenly filled with the face of a youngish man with a neatly trimmed beard, the other half with the wizened face of Senator Horton Howard, although the senator did look a little better on the computer screen than he did in real life. The file kicked in in midsentence.

“... solutely foolproof. If we speed up part of our, old plan, you see, I think we can take care of our problem.”

“Who’s that?” Cork asked.

“Shhhhhh,” Ellen hissed. “Merlin.”

Cork had heard of Merlin, head of the Wizards Council, but had never seen him. He knew that the wizards had done some technological work for the convention, but as far as he could remember, Senator Howard had never mentioned that they had any larger role. He was not aware that his boss even knew any wizards personally. And now there was a dead wizard in Ellen’s apartment house.

“You know those detectors we developed to help keep the dragons in the Homeland?” Merlin asked on the screen.

“Of course,” the senator responded drily. “How could I forget?”

“Well, we need to speed things up. You know that one of the subcommittees at the convention has approved their use.”

“But you told them that they would only let people know when a dragon flies out of the Homeland, didn’t you?”

Merlin smiled. “Of course. But we don’t like to brag about our technology. I ran the proper forms through the subcommittee level myself, just to make sure, because that’s where all the petty bureaucrats like to gum things up—but you know that.”

Merlin fluttered his hands like he was trying to rid himself of a pesky insect. Sen. Howard smiled appreciatively, and Cork also found himself smiling. It was so true.

“Now, you know that the sensors will also be aimed inward so we can monitor what’s going on in the Homeland.”

The senator sighed. “I do, and I still don’t know why you see the need for that, Merlin.”

Merlin held up a sizable hand, waving it like a large knife.

“Now, wait a minute. Let’s not get into that again. There’s more. There’s another property of these sensors that we stumbled upon while designing them. This wasn’t something we intended to build in, but there it was. The sensors use magic to set up a sensor field which can be triggered by movement, but they also can be adjusted so that this field becomes impassable. A force field, to use the layman’s terminology.”

Shiena stamped a hoof. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Of course, we didn’t intend to do anything with this feature. We liked the idea of using the sensors to keep an eye on the supernatural—they can get riled up at times, you know—but this? There was no need for it.”

He paused dramatically.

“But now that you tell me that these Shapeshifters have arrived, I sense a need.”

“I don’t know about that,” the senator said, his face forming an avuncular frown. “I think we already have the situation pretty well under control.”

“Oh, you do?” Merlin laced his fingers together like a miniature church roof. “You know virtually nothing about these characters, yet you’re willing to think that because you have guns you have them under control? Forgive me for not trusting in your little bang-sticks, but I’m not so sure. I think we should stop dealing with this crisis like it’s just another supernatural situation. I think we should look upon these Shapeshifters as a malignant disease.”

Othello squinted at the screen. Shiena, standing behind him, touched him lightly on the shoulder.

“You’re a disease, honey. No wonder you’re so hard to get along with.” The disease took her hand in his.

“The best way to slow or even stop the growth of disease is to quarantine those who might have it,” Merlin said. “We don’t know how these creatures take over bodies. They might use one up and hop to another in hours.”

Sen. Howard cleared his throat. “From what I understand, it’s a willful thing. They are picking and choosing their targets, not just grabbing people willy-nilly. That’s why I think we can get them easily enough. From what I understand, there aren’t that many.”

Merlin’s finger church unfolded. “Aha. But you don’t know that for sure. You’re basing it on information obtained from one of the creatures, and that creature might have some agenda of his own.”

“Indeed he does,” Shiena said to the computer.

“You see,” Merlin continued, “perhaps these creatures have less control over their actions than they suppose. Maybe they’re like alcoholics who think they can just take a drink or two and forget about it. They think they can pick and choose, but in looking to some of the case histories, we think that may be a mistake.”

Sen. Howard coughed. “Merlin, up until a few hours ago, you had no idea these creatures even existed. How do you know so much about them now?”

“Kick his ass, boss,” Cork said quietly. He had developed a sudden dislike for this pinstriped, razor-trimmed wizard.

“I don’t, but I’m gifted at making accurate generalizations,” Merlin said with a patronizing smile. “Horton, you’ve trusted me before. Won’t you trust me now? I have everyone’s best interests at heart.”

Sen. Howard looked very tired. “I suppose you do. But sometimes I feel that you’re not telling me everything.”

“Cut,” Ellen said suddenly, jarring everyone. The computer screen suddenly went blank. “They go on like that for quite a while,” she explained. “Apparently the senator doesn’t want to go against Merlin because Merlin has something on him. Illegal campaign contributions from the wizards, I think. But we can worry about that later. I’ll cut to the chase.”

Cork noticed that she looked severe in the dim light; her lips were pursed tight, her brows knit in concentration, forming a ridge that ran across her eyes. Her eyes, normally so bright, were couched in shadow. She looked like the commander of a submarine that was about to embark on a deep dive in dangerous waters.

“Computer. Advance to the next section that I marked.”

Less than a second later, the computer showed the face of a resigned Sen. Howard and a forceful Merlin.

“Senator, I think in the name of order—and to preserve those who have not been infected—you should do this. Let us deploy the beams now, around the convention center. We won’t need very many, it’s not very big. We’ll set them for the force field. On Wednesday, after the delegates have filed in, we’ll turn them on. When that happens, no one will be hurt, but no one will be able to leave. We’ll have all the supernaturals in our net. I suspect we’ll have all the Shapesnifters as well, because if your troops are able to keep them at bay, I think they will follow their targets into the hall, hoping to catch them going to the bathroom or something. We’ll be able to weed them out at our leisure.”

“But what of the Faery Confention? What of the Grimm Accord?”

Merlin smiled, the smile of a doctor telling a patient that he can no longer consume chocolate or fatty foods.

“I’m afraid those are luxuries that will have to wait.”

There was a long, awkward pause before Merlin asked, “What do you think?”

“I think it’s unnecessary. I can’t understand why you think these measures are needed when we’ve done so much work already for the existing site.”

Merlin frowned. Not a frown of disapproval, really, more a frown of concern.

“Senator, I believe that most members of your committee would agree with me.”

The senator frowned as well, an angry frown.

“I have no doubt but that they will,” Howard said. “They always do. Why is that, do you suppose?”

Merlin was apparently pretending to ignore the obvious sarcasm.

“Because I do my homework and I’m always right.”

Othello, who was now leaning back against Shiena’s sizable flank, shot a glance at Cork.

“What are they talking about?”

Cork shook his head helplessly. “I have no idea.”

“Merlin, your plan supposes quite a lot. You’re supposing that we will get all of these Shapeshifters if we just lock everyone inside the convention center using your little gizmos. What if we don’t? What if some of them are down buying doughnuts at some cafe and we don’t get them all? What then?”

“Horton, if you think that we have not thought this through, you are quite wrong. We have. Give me a minute, and let me compare our two plans. Here is your plan. You will use your guns to guard the supernaturals until the Grimm Accord is signed. Then things will be set in motion to actually create the Homeland. That will take time, my dear senator, that will take some time. Now, if a couple of the shifty boys get waxed, I suspect that this Puck person will call the deal off for the time being. But what’s to keep him from calling some sort of strike later on? You can’t afford to guard these creatures forever. Let’s say that six months from now your pal decides to take over some Goblin bodies and rape women in downtown Atlanta. You would be helpless. Absolutely helpless. A few incidents like that around the country and by God you’d have a full-scale recall movement on your hands and all our work here would be for nothing.”

The senator’s face was a mask. Merlin paused for effect before continuing.

“Now. My plan. We use our devices to capture the supernaturals—including the Shapeshifters—inside the convention center. So there they are. They aren’t going anywhere. We need to find out who’s who in there, to separate the wheat from the chaff. Now, I’ll admit I’m not one hundred ten percent sure, but I think we can do it with some of the magic-enhanced equipment we’ve designed for the Pentagon. The problem is that our lab for this stuff is in New Jersey, not in Texas and Oklahoma. Our best people are in New Jersey. So, for the forseeable future, that’s where the supernaturals should be. They will be treated with the utmost courtesy, I assure you. The leaders will be housed in special chambers, and the lesser types will get comfortable quarters. And we will examine them carefully. And the Shapeshifters, when found, will be turned over to you.”

Sen. Howard cleared his throat but said nothing.

“Now. To continue. The flaw in your plan is that the Shapeshifters could strike against the supernaturals at any time in the future. So far, since there are some supernaturals who aren’t here, that looks like the flaw in my plan as well. But it is not. What I propose to do is to round up all the existing supernaturals and run them through our facility to weed out any Shapeshifters. We must be sure. For this, we will need federal troops to comb the country for whatever supernaturals aren’t at the convention. It won’t take long. We can find them for you, but you must get them for us.”

“What if Puck goes after people? Shall we run all our humans through your facility as well?”

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt, but obviously that’s out of the question. But since Puck has only targeted supernaturals, as far as we know, I think my plan is the best chance of catching him and his kind.”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

“What of the mixed couples?”

“I don’t want to be unreasonable. I suppose their cases could be expedited. But we must be sure.”

The senator’s eyes flashed for an instant.

“And their children?”

Merlin smiled and tilted his head. “Like, perhaps, Mr. Joe Cork? Your employee?”

The senator apparently was not planning to nod, but Merlin waited so long that he had no choice.

“We will expedite his case above all others. I don’t want to get in the way of anyone’s productivity.”

Cork felt a hot flash course through his skin. He felt like a turkey near Thanksgiving. Ellen gave him a look that he took to be sympathetic.

“How long will this little operation take?”

“I don’t know.”

“So we will suspend the Grimm Accord and the Homeland and wait for your pronouncements?‘

“Of course, your scientists will be given the chance to follow up our results.”

Merlin’s eyes seemed to glow with unnatural brilliance, even through the recording of a vidphone conversation.

“What do you say, old buddy?”

Sen. Howard rubbed his eyes, a long, deep rub that indicated a tired man.

“All right. We’ll do it your way. I suppose you want me to lobby the president for you.”

Merlin smiled again. “No need. I lobbied him myself. He’s already on board with the whole thing.”

The senator looked so angry that Cork thought he might erupt from his half of the screen and pummel the smiling face on the other half.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that sooner? Why go through all this rigamarole?”

“I wanted you to agree with us of your own free will. I wanted to know that you trusted me, Horton. We go back such a long ways and I value your opinion. I wanted to—”

Ellen walked up and hit the off switch. Merlin was still smiling and talking when the screen went black.

Othello let loose with a long, low whistle, a sound he had picked up from the hooker in New York, a sound she had made when she previewed her Johns, whether or not it was warranted by the physical circumstances.

“Things are getting strange,” he said.

“Strange is right,” Ellen said. “You’re going to jail, Joe, and Shiena, and Othello, and when you get there you’re going to have wizards sticking magic wands up your rear ends.”

“Like to see them try,” Shiena said, twitching a rear hoof.

Like Othello, Cork didn’t quite know what to say.

“Well.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds while Ellen retrieved her disk from the computer and turned on the lights. Everyone squinted in pain at the sudden brightness.

Shiena appeared stunned after her initial outburst. “So they’re going to round us up? And we won’t go to Texas?”

Ellen shook her head. Suddenly this Amazonian Centaur seemed kind of small and pathetic.

“No.”

Othello stroked Shiena’s hair, and leaned his neck back to look deeply in her eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked sweetly.

“This is not what we wanted,” she replied. “Not to be guinea pigs.”

Cork briefly pictured a shapely woman’s torso atop a tiny guinea pig body, but the thought passed almost as quickly as it came. This was no time to let his imagination run wild.

TWENTY-FOUR

“We’ve got to stop them,” Cork said, a little unnecessarily, and he was surprised to find his words coming out slurred.

“But first, we have another problem to attend to,” Othello said, pointing a finger at Cork, whose eyes were at half-mast. “You, sir, need some sleep.”

Cork opened his eyes wide. “But I’m trying to come up with a plan.”

Ellen chimed in on Othello’s side.

“Joe, these guys aren’t planning to move until Wednesday. We still have some time to change the course of history. But we can’t do it if we’re falling-down tired. I’m tired, and I know you are. We need some sleep.”

“She’s right,” Othello said in a voice that would brook no opposition. “Follow me.”

He walked them up a narrow, creaking staircase and showed them the two bedrooms, one slightly larger than the other.

“Your choice,” he said. “This is a cheap hotel. No room service, no wake-up call.”

The house was modest, but well furnished; the windows had snow-white curtains and the wood floors were polished to a fine sheen. Cork thought of the evergrowing dust bunnies in his own apartment, and was jealous of the security guard until he realized that the guard was dead and would never see these nice, clean floors again.

Ellen sat on the edge of the master bed and bounced for a second before declaring it to be perfect.

“That is, if you don’t mind,” she said to Cork with a smile.

Cork replied like a zombie that he did not care if she took the big bed, because he could sleep on a rock right now.

Ellen frowned for a second and stopped bouncing. She rolled off the bed, knelt down and reached her arm under the immaculate snow-white sheets and beneath the box spring and the mattress. She pulled out a plastic packet filled with white chunks that looked like powdered rock sugar.

“What is this?” she asked, turning the bag over and over in her hands.

“Drugs,” Othello said with a big smile. “I told you he was a bad guy. Shiena won’t let me kill good guys anymore, even to protect her father.”

Cork was amazed. “How did you know about this guy?”

“Do you think I’ve been going out looking at the monuments all day? I check things out. This stuff is all over the house. If this plan doesn’t work, we can just sell the drugs and get the hell out of here.”

Things were quiet for a minute, then awkward, and finally Ellen smiled sweetly and said good night. Othello walked Cork down a very short hallway to the smaller bedroom, and on the way Cork waved down the stairs at Shiena, who had wisely decided to sleep on the first floor.

Cork sat on the edge of the queen-sized bed for a couple of minutes, one that was smaller than the other but no less crisp and perfect. The guard must have regularly gotten hopped up on his own supply and cleaned the house from top to bottom. Cork’s earlier sense of urgency was fading, replaced by the warm, pleasant realization that at last he could sleep. He slowly untied his shoes and set them on the floor, and neatly stuffed his socks into their open mouths. He wrinkled his nose. After several days, the socks did not exactly give off a pleasing perfume. The room was sparsely furnished, but it did contain a small wooden chair which he promptly pressed into service as a clothes hanger. He stripped down to his underwear and stretched out.

He was just about to drift off when the door open and Ellen entered so swiftly and quietly that he at first thought she must be a wraith come to kill him. He limply tried to rise from the bed and do battle, but she took his head in her hands and kissed him tenderly, and he decided that she was not a mysterious foe after all.

“Shhhhh,” Ellen said as she leaned him back onto the mattress. “We could all die tomorrow. We shouldn’t sleep alone.”

She was wearing only her panties, and before he could say anything she slipped into bed and pressed her body against his.

“It just feels good to be close to you,” she whispered, and he nodded.

It was a warm night, and her skin was cool against his bare chest. He ran his hands up and down her back, and she did the same, raising goosebumps wherever her fingers traveled. He felt his body buzzing with happiness alongside his exhaustion. Their faces were so close that it became hard to breathe, and he feared that they would inhale each other’s exhalations and die of carbon monoxide poisoning. He decided that Ellen had never been as beautiful as she was when her face was so close to his that he couldn’t see all of it, when it seemed to stretch into infinity. After a few minutes, she kissed him quickly and then rolled over, and he looped an arm across her ribs and up between her breasts. She twined his fingers in hers.

Golden strings from the streetlight outside were the only things that kept the room from being completely dark. It was now nearing three A.M. and the world was temporarily quiet. He traced the beams of light with his eyes. They came through the gaps in the curtains and played across the ceiling like a web spun by a golden spider. He smiled weakly in appreciation of the simple beauty arrayed above him, and then he fell asleep.

They were jolted awake by a loud voice.

“Norton! Norton! This is O’Kain! Where the hell are you? I’m on full volume here, Norton! Can’t you hear me?”

Cork’s whole body jerked at the sound, and Ellen rolled over and thumped noisily to the floor.

“Norton! Norton!”

There was a banging on the steps, and Ellen leaned up and covered her breasts with her arms as Othello bounded into the room and hit the lightswitch, blinding them all.

“What is going on? Who’s shouting?”

“Norton, please come in!”

Cork was squinting so hard it looked like his face was cracked. He pointed feebly at his jacket.

“In the pocket. I got it off the wizard and forgot about it.”

Othello reached into the jacket’s outer pocket and pulled out a tiny gold screenless communicator. It was square and thinner than any communicator on the market. There was a small gold button in its middle, and Othello’s thumb was hovering over it when Ellen said, “Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Just don’t. Let them wonder what happened to him.”

Just then the communicator barked again, and Othello jumped and nearly dropped it.

“Norton, I don’t know what the hell you’re up to, but the boss is going to be pissed if you don’t get back here with the girl. He doesn’t want any screw-ups like the last one.”

Cork frowned. The last one?

“All right, Norton, this is your final warning. The boss has called a meeting for 8:30 A.M. sharp. I would suggest you be in place by then, and have the girl in his office. Goodbye.”

Cork toddled to his feet.

“What time is it?”

“Five-thirty,” Othello said, rubbing his eyes. “What a wake-up call.”

Cork stood as motionless as a tree, until Ellen poked him with her foot to make sure he was okay.

“I’m just thinking,” Cork said. “I think a plan just occurred to me. Come downstairs.”

Ellen padded back to her room for her clothes while Cork got back into his pants and pulled on his undershirt. Othello was wearing only jockey shorts, and didn’t seem eager to put anything else on. They tromped down the stairs to face a surly Shiena, who was sprawled next to the couch.

“Are you watching TV up there? What’s all the noise?”

“The wizards are on the move,” Othello said.

“We need to be, too,” Cork said. “I don’t think we should wait until later today.”

Shiena yawned. “Well, whatever. I’m awake now, anyway.”

Ellen clumped down the stairs, haphazardly buttoning her blouse. She had misaligned the buttons, giving her torso a warped look, but she didn’t seem to care.

“All right, what’s this plan?”

“First of all, Othello, you need to be at that meeting. As a wizard. Call me crazy, but I don’t think Merlin is telling our boss everything.”

“I hereby give you permission to take over as many wizards as you wish,” Shiena said with a smile. “I think I can safely lump them all into the category of being bad guys.”

“I’ll feel like Dorothy in that movie,” Othello said. “Except I’ll be off to be a wizard.”

“Can you go as that Norton guy?” Cork asked.

“Yes, please, get him out of my house,“ Ellen said, but Othello shook his head.

“Sorry. He’s been dead too long. We have to get them while they’re still sort of warm.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know. We just do.”

“Well, okay. We’ll just have to find you someone else. Hell, take two or three, get a good one. Ellen, can the computer track the location of that vidphone call that you have on disk? The wizards have an office on K Street, but I doubt that’s their actual headquarters.”

Ellen sighed, looking at the police special that Othello had leaned against the wall.

“Maybe. But we’ll need some security override codes for the Senate computer system.”

“No problem. I have some favors I can call in to get those. I’m willing to get some people out of bed.”

“You certainly are,” Shiena said, but Cork ignored her.

Cork rubbed his hands together. “Okay, that will be step one. Step two, I need you to make a phone call for me, Othello. I need to have a little face-to-face time with Puck.”

Shiena clacked her rear hooves noisily on the floor.

“No! You will not endanger my father!”

Othello agreed.

“I won’t have you risking anything I have worked for. And you cannot meet Puck. It’s too dangerous.”

Cork spread out his hands in a mollifying gesture.

“I will not do anything that will endanger your father,” he told Shiena, who was nearly at eye level even though she was lying down. “But if I don’t do something, you and your father—and me, for that matter—are going to spend the next few years in New Jersey, and that’s assuming the best. Is that what you want? Is that what you signed up for?”

Shiena continued to scowl, but said nothing.

“If I am to make this work, I have to talk to Puck. No ifs, ands, or buts. My plan is to call this convention off, and we can’t have him jumping up in the middle of things trying to take over. My plan will accomplish his goal of halting the convention, without getting anyone killed.”

“So you think you have a way to stop this convention,” Othello said quietly, tugging on his chin.

“After hearing that conversation, I have no problem with stopping it,” Shiena said, nuzzling her head under his arm. “This isn’t a good idea anymore.”

“That’s exactly what I figure Puck will say,” Cork said. “Of course, I won’t give him all the background that you’ve had, but then he’s already reached the conclusion that the convention should be halted, so he shouldn’t be hard to convince. And don’t worry, Othello, I won’t tell him how I know about his little plan. He isn’t following you, is he?”

Othello shook his head. “Not that I know of. He has other things to worry about.”

“Good. I’ll just say that good old Uncle Sam has ways of knowing things.”

It was not comforting when everyone in the room broke out with a chuckle at this last phrase.

“Well, it will have to do,” Cork said. “Step three, I have a little talk with my boss, who gets me in to see the president.”

“What good will that do?” Ellen asked. “This plan is approved all the way to the top. Weren’t you paying attention? Williamson knows.”

“That’s why I’m going to see him. He’s the one we have to convince to stop this thing. We’ll just need a little leverage. He’s mentioned on your disk, in a somewhat negative light. I’ll juice it up a little, tell him we have better stuff on him, and we won’t be afraid to wave it around in the media if we have to. Ellen, we’ll need your disk, and a copy.”

Ellen walked to the computer.

“Make a copy of the disk, please,” she said, barely able to get the request out before her face opened into an impressive yawn.

The computer began making a faint whirring sound.

“This isn’t much leverage,” Ellen said flatly, looking at the computer.

“He doesn’t know that,” Cork said. “You mentioned something about the good senator from West Virginia being involved in some financial chicanery with Mr. Merlin.”

She nodded.

“Well, it stands to reason that the president probably is, too. He wouldn’t want to be outdone by a mere senator when it comes to criminal behavior. I’ll drop a few hints to the effect that we have registered this information with the local media, who will release it if anything happens to me. That should be enough to make him reconsider his approval of Merlin’s plan.”

Othello snorted.

“Oh, come on. You might as well go in there and tell him he’s got a bunch of unpaid parking tickets and you’re going to rat on him.”

Cork shook his head vigorously and waved his index finger in the air like a schoolmaster making a difficult point.

“No! That’s where you’re wrong. Believe it or not, Williamson is fanatical about his public image. He wants to be thought of as being the boy scout president. He thinks it’s what sets him apart.”

“It would be what sets him apart, if it were true,” Shiena interjected.

“That’s what I mean,” Cork said. “Look at how he reacted to that White House tour business last year. He fired all those people.”

Othello and Shiena looked at Cork blankly, and Ellen looked as if she was trying to remember.

“Well, he did,” Cork said. “Take my word for it. And he wouldn’t want any kind of civil rights scandal now. Merlin can’t be worth that much to him. One whiff of political doom and he’d sell his own grandmother. Instead of going along with Merlin’s plan, we just need to convince him to keep the supernaturals out of the convention center on Wednesday morning. We’ll tell them there’s a bomb scare or something. When Merlin and his boys show up with their gizmos, they will be met by guards, not supernaturals, and they’ll earn a free trip to the big house.”

“And everyone’s happy,” Ellen said, with a slight tone of sarcasm in her voice.

“Relatively happy. Of course, we’ll break our word to President Williamson, and we’ll play our little disk for the supernatural leaders and concerned legislators sometime later on. They can wait for the indictments to be handed down and then we can proceed with a new Grimm Accord, or whatever, if anyone’s still interested.”

“At which time we’ll have to worry about Puck again.”

“Well, yes. But at least then it will just be him, and not him and Merlin. Come on, it’s early, this is the best I can do right now.”

Cork stretched and then clumped his way into the kitchen.

“Who’s up for coffee?” he said over his shoulder.

Othello, one arm draped across Shiena’s left shoulder, laughed loudly.

“You’re just like Hamlet.”

“Pardon me?” Cork said, sticking his head around the kitchen doorway.

“Hamlet. This is like the part in the play where the prince has stopped thinking about everything, and has decided to act.”

“Because I want coffee I’m like Hamlet?”

“No, because you’ve cooked up this plan of yours.”

Cork frowned. “I suppose. What is it with you guys and Shakespeare, anyway?”

“I told you, we reproduce asexually. Our parents teach us in their minds before we’re born. They make us memorize the complete works of the bard as a primer on the sort of things we can expect out of human life.”

“Hmmmm,” Cork said, and then started clattering around in the kitchen.

The computer’s whirring ceased, and the slot produced first the copy, then the original. Ellen held the tiny golden disks up like playing cards.

“Let’s hope Joe’s luck holds up better than Hamlet’s did,” she said.

“You hang on to one of those, Ellen,” Cork said from the kitchen. “Give the other one to Shiena. Needless to say, keep them in safe places.”

“I don’t know if there is a safe place anymore,” Ellen said, but her words were almost drowned out by the noise from Cork’s Java expedition.

“Forget the coffee,” Othello said after a minute. “We’ll run on adrenaline.”

“Just as well,” Cork said, returning to the living room. “I can’t find any.”

Othello smiled and shook his head slowly.

“Joe, your plan is a marvel, but it relies entirely on the idea that all our opponents in this matter will behave logically and rationally.”

Ellen and Shiena nodded solemn agreement, and Cork shrugged.

“I know. It’s a shame to have to depend on that in this town, isn’t it?”

TWENTY-FIVE

Othello had gotten inside just in time. He had hoped to have some time to poke around in the wizards’ den before the meeting, but it was not to be. He had only time to explore electronically before 8:30 rolled around. Even as all the wizards were moving to convene in what appeared to be the facility’s main room, he was tapping away on his latest victim’s computer screen with a tiny pen and muttering to himself.

“Hey there, Wally,” one of the younger wizards said in a snide tone as they walked down the narrow hallway leading from the office warrens to the main meeting room. “Thought you’d be out for a little nip right about now. Glad to see you’re able to walk straight.”

Othello gave him a curt smile and returned his gaze to the computer screen.

“Got work to do there, uh, you. Can’t be drinking on the job, you know.”

It had taken an hour to trace Merlin’s call to the wizards’ lair, Anacostia River. It had taken half an hour to even get there, and then almost another hour before Othello found his prey. He had watched young wizards drive up in fancy cars, but none of them seemed right. He didn’t want a young wizard. Young wizards would be flashy, would have their own lingo, would make it difficult to fit in. He wanted someone older, someone settled, someone less likely to be noticed. When a dirty white Ford Familia went by, going the speed limit, he knew he had his man. His target was named Walter. Walter was older and settled, all right, but was also apparently the wizards’ version of the town drunk. No matter. Walter had a computer, and had access to all the wizards’ files.

Or so it seemed at first. Othello had started poking around in the databanks as soon as he had gotten inside. He found a lot of files, but most of them seemed to be fairly prosaic government contract information. There was one very interesting one labeled spells, but he didn’t feel he had the time to start learning magic yet. He needed information on Merlin’s plan, and he needed it now.

“Um, hey there,” he said nonchalantly to an older gentleman walking along with him. “I was looking for this file I lost on tomorrow’s, uh, plan, about the dragon repeller things, you know, and I can’t seem to find it.”

The older man looked concerned. “Well, Walter, that’s not my department, so I’m not sure. But I doubt it’s in there anyway.”

Othello smiled slightly and moved to shift his attention back to the screen when the older man grabbed his arm.

“Walter, has the drinking gotten really bad? Maybe you should get some help.”

“It’s not bad at all. It’s never been better.”

The man didn’t seem satisfied, but he did let go of Othello’s arm. They continued down the hallway until they reached the main meeting room, but instead of walking straight out into it they were directed up a set of stairs by a young wizard who waved a flashlight capped with a red tip.

“Learn those basic spells and you won’t have to do this kind of stuff, Johnny,” another wizard called out, but the young man merely made a face and said in a bored voice, “Keep it moving, folks, keep it moving.”

Walter trooped up two flights of stairs with the rest of them, to discover that the rear of the main room had retractable bleachers built into it. Once extended, the bleachers took up half the main room and afforded all the wizards good views of the hovering monitors. The wizards filed into the seats like high school students getting ready for a pep rally, but the bleachers themselves were far more plush than anything seen at a school; they consisted of rows of white padded chairs, complete with small but plush armrests, built onto a long white rack that rolled out from the wall on invisible magic tracks and rested an inch above the floor on magic hoverbeams. These wizards have some style, Othello thought.

Once in his seat, he took the chance to scan the crowd. There were a couple of female wizards, but most of the gathering audience was made up of neatly-dressed men. They all looked pretty much alike, as if they belonged to an unusually homogenous fraternal society that had only recently voted to allow females, and then only those who emulated the males.

Othello turned his attention back to the screen and used the pen to tap his way through the files. If there was no good stuff on here, he might as well learn some magic while he waited. He was still tapping and muttering spells softly to himself when the wizard to his left gave him a sharp nudge. He looked up to find Merlin standing before the bleachers, and all the wizards looking at him.

“Walter, your dedication is appreciated, but we really must get started now,” Merlin said. Walter’s seat was fairly high up in the bleacher section, but he had no trouble hearing the boss, as his words were amplified throughout the room.

“I’m sorry,” Othello replied, and was surprised to find that his words, too, were amplified, probably through a magic microphone hidden in the chair. A good way to eliminate unnecessary talking.

Merlin stood alone in front of the group. Even the young wizard who had wielded the red-tipped flashlight was dutifully seated in a bleacher seat, his head pointed straight forward in rapt attention. Once Walter had folded his computer, Merlin began to speak.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is both an informational briefing and a pep talk. This is an informational briefing in the sense that very few of you actually know that we are currently embarked on a great adventure. You know bits and pieces of it, but few of you know the whole story, so please bear with me if I seem to be going over familiar territory at times. This is a pep talk in the sense that I want everyone to be excited about this adventure, and I trust that you will be when I have finished laying it out for you.”

Merlin was dressed in a nondescript gray suit. Were it not for his faintly ominous air, he would seem to be just another white-collar policy slave. Othello wondered if he detected the dark cloud around the speaker because he had watched Merlin present his plan on Ellen’s disk, but he soon decided that Merlin would have seemed somewhat scary even without that prior information.

“I’ll be brief because we don’t have much time.”

Merlin’s hands had been clasped behind his back, but now he brought them forward. He held a pointer in one hand, and waved it about.

“Most people, if they knew I was a wizard, would think this was a magic wand,” he said. “It isn’t. There is no such thing. Anything a wizard chooses to hold can be a magic wand. It’s not the wand, it’s the wizard. That’s what a lot of people and a lot of supernaturals don’t understand. They underestimate us. That will prove to be a grave mistake.”

Othello felt as if he had stepped back in time to some Nazi rally, but his fellow bleacher sitters were silent, as if they were spellbound. Or maybe they were simply wary of the microphones.

“Now, all of you know that we have developed a system to detect when dragons leave the supernatural’s Homeland. You know that. You also know that it can, and will, be used as a force field. What many of you don’t know, however, is that we are going to deploy this force field today. You also don’t know why. I will tell you.”

Othello’s mind raced. Today? Today is Tuesday! He said on the disk he would wait until tomorrow!

His attention was diverted when Merlin waved the pointer and the screens hovering in the air behind him flashed to life. On each screen was a picture of a missile battery, warplane or satellite.

“These are the reasons why we’re doing what we’re doing. Now, you’ve all worked in some capacity or another on one of our Pentagon projects. You may have found yourself installing some sensors or other magic units that maybe weren’t called for in the original contract specs. You may have wondered why you were doing this extra work. Here’s why.

“Ladies and gentlemen, when we first became organized into this Wizards Council, we stepped into the commercial markets. You all know that we have had mixed results.”

There was a general rumble of laughter across the bleacher seats.

“As you know, magic is inherently unstable. It can be useful in some areas, obviously, but it has severe limitations, as the Consumer Products Safety Commission has never let us forget. Magic is unstable because other magic can disrupt it. It doesn’t take much. If someone is using one of our products and a Faery walks by outside and decides to levitate a log, then our product ceases to function, or functions erratically. We aren’t really sure what the range of the interference is, but it seems to be fairly far, a few hundred miles. That’s why so far we haven’t been able to create any large systems—or, to be honest, any really good small ones—that rely on magic alone. The supernatural don’t do that much magic anymore, but they still do some and that’s all it takes.”

A subdued booing emanated from the bleachers, and the microphones amplified it until it sounded truly ominous. Othello wondered if that were perhaps the true reason to have amplified chairs; it made it sound as if there were more wizards than there really were.

“Ordinarily, a company that has faulty products would not be long for the market. But we have prospered. We have even amassed numerous government and Pentagon contracts. Because we are smart. Magic has its limits, but so far we have used it in the best way we could—to collect information. We have used it to build our database. We have sensors that can read books without opening them, and devices to pick up telephone calls and to read information off of satellites and store it for us. As you all know, this has come in handy.”

He aimed the pointer at the largest of the monitors and the image of a stealth bomber disappeared and was replaced with a film of an extremely large, middle-aged man having noisy sex with a young woman. At one point the man raised his head in ecstasy, and Othello was suprised to see that it was none other than the president of the United States, Richard Williamson. The president was married, but the woman on the screen was not the First Lady. In fact, she appeared young enough to be his daughter. Othello gulped. This evidence made Cork’s blackmail scheme look rather petty by comparison. The other wizards broke out into spontaneous applause, applause that boomed off the far walls of the room, and Merlin smiled.

“Yes, yes,” he said, replacing the film with the bomber. “The president has been a big friend of ours lately. He’s helped us get some important Pentagon contracts. Now it’s time to use them. Now it’s time to really start building on our strengths. Soon we’ll be able to achieve more than we have ever dreamed.”

Othello squirmed in his seat, accidentally jostling the wizard next to him, a young man in wire-rimmed glasses and a sharply-cut black suit. The young wizard frowned at him. Othello began to sweat slightly. These guys were serious.

“The reason we’re going to deploy the force fields today is because some individuals may be onto our plan, and may try to stop it. I’d prefer to wait until tomorrow to spring the trap, to be honest, but we’ll probably do all right anyway.”

He cracked his knuckles, the snaps echoing through the room like shots from a pistol.

“We have, at some time or another, worked on some subsystems for each of these Pentagon projects. Nothing fancy, basically putting in magical systems to provide cheaper redundancy. Backup systems, if you will.”

Merlin turned and, as he talked, aimed the pointer at the screens, one by one.

“The second-generation stealth bomber. The Anti-Missile System, which I believe is still popularly called ‘Star Wars.’ The Zydeco long-range nuclear missile. We put in the various subsystems that I mentioned on these, subsystems that were able to do a little more than what the contracts called for. Now. When we get those force fields deployed around the convention center today, we’re going to turn them on and trap the supernaturals. Later, we’ll take them to our New Jersey facility, for reasons that I’ll get into some other time. You may be asking, ‘What about those supernaturals who aren’t at the convention?’ Good question. We have already launched an effort this morning—with the kind cooperation of the United States government—to round them all up with portable force fields. If all goes well, they should be immobilized by the time we throw the switch on their brethren here in Washington.

“So that’s part of our plan, to have all the supernaturals under glass, as it were. You all know this, I think. But here’s something some of you don’t know. The force field design has another property. No magic can be done inside of it. Once the supernaturals are in, they can’t do magic. If they can’t do magic, they can’t disrupt our magic.”

He held his arms up like a grade-school teacher outlining a very simple point.

“Do you see what I’m driving at?”

Some of the wizards were ferociously nodding, others were slowly shaking their heads.

“Here’s something not all of you knew. The subsystems we put in those Pentagon components contain magical software that will override the conventional control systems. They won’t be just backup systems anymore. Then the weapons will be controlled entirely by magic. That means they’ll be controlled entirely by us.”

Merlin whacked his open palm with the pointer for emphasis. Othello heard himself swallow.

“Now, as you can probably guess, we haven’t been able to exploit this little loophole before because our magic is unstable because of the supernaturals. We knew that we could fix that problem eventually, once the Homeland was established. But now something has come up that will enable us to move a lot faster. Rather than having to wait years, my friends, we can get this show on the road in a few hours. If everything goes as planned, by lunchtime today we will be the only beings in the country who can do magic. When that happens, we will also be positioned to take over some of the major weapons systems fielded by the U.S. military. The human race has managed to gain control of some awesome forces with these weapons. But these forces are dangerous, and I feel that our human brethren don’t understand them properly. We as wizards are used to dealing with awesome forces. I, for one, would sleep much better knowing we were in charge.”

He gave a dry laugh.

“Of course, we still face the problem of magic done by supernaturals in other countries. Obviously, we can’t go global just yet. But that just gives us a challenge for the future, my friends, and you’ll have to admit we’re off to a good start.”

Othello was half expecting some melodramatic scene to develop next. He thought that maybe one of the older wizards would rise up in disgust and denounce Merlin’s plan, saying that he hadn’t become a wizard to participate in such an underhanded power grab. He would then stalk out of his seat and toward the door, only to be vaporized by Merlin in a show of magical force. Merlin would then scan the crowd and ask if anyone else wanted to leave. Othello waited, but it didn’t happen. The wizards sat still. Either everyone was afraid of Merlin or everyone was already on board with the plan and willing to carry it through. Neither scenario was comforting.

“So that, in a nutshell, is why we’re mobilizing today. Please report back to your offices and log onto your computers. You’ll find instructions on how to proceed. Some of you will be helping to finish installation of the force fields, others will remain here at headquarters, others will be flying immediately to other states to help transport those few supernatural stragglers to New Jersey. We all have work to do.”

Some wizards stood up and began heading for the doors, but Merlin waved them back to their seats.

“One more second, please. Obviously this operation is beyond anything we’ve attempted before, but I want you all to know that the reason I’ve kept many of you in the dark about this is purely due to security considerations, and because the plan was still in flux until now. It’s not because I trust any of you more than any others. People were simply told on a need-to-know basis. If that has hurt anyone’s feelings, I’m sorry. I feel that we are all brothers and sisters. Now, everything is out in the open. For too long, we’ve been viewed as cheap circus oddities or makers of shoddy products. Not anymore. Now we can rise up and meet our destiny.”

With that, Merlin strode from the room, and the wizards began heading for the exits. Othello cracked open his computer and took a peek—sure enough, some new files had been beamed to the disk. With any luck, he would be assigned to help set up the magic detectors. He could just screw up the alignment and everything would be hunky dory. He read quickly through one new file and found that it was not to be. It seemed that he was to be dispatched to Pennsylvania to help bring in four families of Leprechauns who hadn’t made the trip to Washington. His flight would leave in half an hour, putting him in Pennsylvania shortly after 10 A.M. He was supposed to contact an FBI agent named Saunders to find and contain the families. Probably trying to just keep this old drunk out of the way, he thought. Pennsylvania.

But he had other plans.

TWENTY-SIX

At precisely 9 o’clock Tuesday morning, Cork walked into Banker’s Diner on F Street Northwest and looked around for the King of Reggae. Othello said that it had sounded like Puck was still in his southern-fried Bob Marley mode. Cork scanned the diner for dreadlocks, but there were none to be seen. There were only a half dozen other patrons present, scattered here and there around the large room. None looked like Marley; none looked like they were about to throw the nation into chaos.

Banker’s Diner occupied a former warehouse and had lost none of the charm. Its tables were so heavily carved with initials and crude declarations that a flat surface was a novelty, and the unmistakeable smell of grease wafted from the kitchen that occupied the center of the room. The kitchen looked like it had been hammered out of upright sheet metal and dropped in place; the customers could easily see what the cooks were doing and how their breakfasts were being made, but few customers thought it wise to be privy to that information. It tended to lessen the appetite. The interior of the diner was large and plain—booths along the walls, tables everywhere else, a few stools around a bar that encircled the kitchen. A few forty-year-old calendars on the walls sported faded pictures of emaciated women touting soft drinks and pies, but otherwise there were no decorations.

What was overhead was more interesting. A series of catwalks extended across the ceiling, twelve feet above the floor. At some point in the past they had been painted red, so it looked like a gigantic map was laid out across the top of the otherwise drab diner. In the old days, the catwalks had been used to ferry whatever it was that had been stored here; now they ferried the bulk-purchased boxes of sausage, eggs, ham and pigs’ feet that the diner’s ancient cooks transformed into smelly breakfasts that cost only five bucks apiece, no matter what you ordered.

But there was no Puck. No one in the room even looked at him as he slid into a side booth, save for an aged and extremely wrinkled waitress with moplike white hair who stopped chopping peppers for the omelets, stuck the knife in her splotchy red waistband and came ambling over with a menu.

“You dining alone or expecting someone?”

“Expecting someone, but I’d like some coffee in the meantime, if you don’t mind.”

She flipped the menu down and shambled off, to return moments later with two steaming white mugs of coffee.

“I’ll just need one right now,” Cork said.

The waitress smiled.

“This one’s for me, Mr. Elf.” She slid into the booth across the table from him and took a sip of the scalding coffee. “This female is so old that her mouth has little feeling for hot and cold,” the waitress said, smacking her lips. “How interesting. Not everyday you run across that sort of sensory deprivation in the higher animals.”

Cork’s eyes widened. Puck. He was so surprised that he couldn’t speak.

“Come on, I got hash to sling,” Puck said. “Who are you and what do you want? Are you one of us?”

Cork blew on his coffee and then took a long sip, swallowing it with an audible gulp.

“No. But I know what you’re up to. I’m here to warn you that your plan is going to fail. There are a lot of powerful people who are spending a great deal of time and effort to make it fail. But I also know of a way to achieve your goals, at no risk to you.”

Puck took a big glug of coffee without even bothering to cool it first. She must have been boiling the insides of the waitress, but she didn’t seem to care. Then Cork remembered. The waitress wouldn’t care, would she? She was dead. Given the looks of her, Puck had gotten to her just before she passed away from natural causes.

“Go on.”

As quickly as possible, Cork outlined the plans of the wizards, without going into great detail about how he knew these things or who, exactly, was involved. He did mention the name Merlin, though. Any trouble he could make for that guy would be worth the effort.

Puck received the information with dead eyes, and Cork marched ahead and explained his new plan.

“So you’re saying that you can stop this convention on your own, and you don’t need us anymore?”

She seemed angry; the old woman’s frazzled brows bunched up in the middle of her forehead like a mistreated rug.

“Well—yes. I thought you’d be glad. You can go about your business, and you don’t have to worry about any of your, uh, people being hurt.” He had expected his words to be met with a sigh of relief and a hearty farewell, but so far wasn’t getting either.

“So all this work is for nothing. All this planning I did.”

Cork needed to be diplomatic without revealing too much about where he got his information.

“Your planning was invaluable. It led certain people to make certain discoveries that will help us all.”

He started to add “I think,” but decided it would be better to sound confident.

Puck didn’t really seem to be listening; she was staring up at the red catwalks. They sat in silence for nearly a minute.

“You know, I didn’t make this up on my own,” Puck said at last. “I don’t do anything on my own. The Great One tells me what must be done. This plan is the Great One’s plan. The Great One is not telling me to do anything differently.”

“Well, I don’t know that—”

“Tell me, Mr. Elf, what religion are you?”

Caught short by the question, Cork could only stammer out, “Uh, uh, Episcopalian, I guess.”

The waitress smiled, which sent wrinkles crashing across her face like fleshy waves.

“How boring. Just like some human. I’m what you would call a modified animist, myself. There are gods everywhere, you know. There is a tiny god inside this coffee cup.”

She held up the mug, sending a tiny dribble of brown coffee down its clean white side. Cork nodded politely at the warm, flowing god.

“But the god of all the gods is the Great One. The Great One is not to be trifled with. The Great One is the mirror of all life, the one who sees everything.”

There was an insistent buzzing at Cork’s side.

“Excuse me one moment,” he said. “Don’t you have a table to wait on or something?”

He reached under his jacket and pulled out the police-issue communicator. Its tiny screen lit up, and a lumpy face peered out at him. For an instant he froze, fearing that the wizards had caught on, but then the wizard said, “Staying awake okay?”

“Holding up,” Cork said, and pulled the ear piece from its socket and squished it into his ear. The communicator’s tiny speaker was cut off so Puck couldn’t hear.

“Okay.”

Puck did not leave, but continued to drink her coffee and stare at him. Unluckily for Cork, Banker’s was notorious for its lousy service; it wasn’t at all unusual for a waitress to stay planted in a chair for half an hour or more.

“We got problems, bud. The wizards have moved things up. They’re going to move today, instead of tomorrow. Around lunchtime. Apparently they’re a little worried about leaks.”

“That’s just great” Cork said, but he had to give Merlin points for emergency planning. There was a large catered working lunch scheduled today at the convention center; most of the supernaturals would be there.

“Sad but true,” Othello continued. “And it gets worse. I hate to say this, but I don’t think you’re going to have much luck with the prez.”

“Why not?”

“Can’t tell you right now, but it’s going to be harder than you thought. Make him think that we’ve got some really, really good stuff on him.”

“I will.”

“Better get moving, then. Tell the boss that we’re very sorry to disrupt his plans, and then get the hell out of there and try to get this show on the road. Use that bomb scare story, or whatever, but get the supernaturals out of the convention center, and fast. We got about three hours. If that.”

“Okay.”

“By the way, these wizards are a lot nastier than we thought. I’ll give you details later, but rest assured that if we don’t get all those folks cleared out soon, things will be much, much worse than we thought.”

“Great.”

“Bye. Tell Puck that the Great One is just some dumb old snake.”

Cork smiled despite himself. “I’ll do that.”

Before he had a chance to look up, Puck raised up on her wizened old legs and shoved the knife hard in his ribs. Stunned, Cork threw himself backwards out of the booth, knocking his knees on the underside of the table and his head on the hard linoleum-over-wood floor. Waves of pain shot through him. They should have come from one source—the stab wound—but instead they seemed to emanate from everywhere. He pictured a very melodramatic scene, where he pulled his hand away from his chest, saw that it was covered with blood, and shouted denunciations at his murderer until the life had drained from his body. Instead, he pulled his hand from his chest and found no blood, only a tangled wire from his datacorder.

“Damn,” Puck said, lunging at him again with the knife.

For one instant, Cork wondered why Puck had chosen such a puny vessel for assassination; then he delivered a sound kick from the floor to Puck’s descending head, sending the Shapeshifter and his unfortunate choice of a body sprawling in the floor. Cork jumped to his feet, tossing away the severed remains of the datacorder, and waited for another attack. Puck snuffled on the floor, facedown in a pool of blood.

“Why are you doing this?” Cork spat between gasps. “I’m trying to help you!”

He looked around; it suddenly occurred to him that his actions might be subject to misinterpretation by the other diner patrons. This aged waitress attacked me, honest!

The other patrons had indeed become curious; they had risen from their seats and were eyeing him most suspiciously. One of the men was already rolling up his sleeves, readying for the pounding that he no doubt felt duty-bound to inflict. Cork started to run for the front door when he saw that the cook, a brawny black man of indeterminate age but sizable muscles, had already locked and deadbolted it. Even from his considerable distance from the door, he could hear the tumblers click with a sickening finality. Something was wrong here.

“You didn’t think I’d come here by myself, did you?” Puck said through bubbling blood. She staggered to her feet, knife still in hand.

“I have reinforcements outside,” Cork said with as much confidence as he could muster.

“Pfahhh,” Puck retorted, sending a fine spray of pink mist through the air. “The enemies of the Great One have no reinforcements.”

Cork knew that, in this situation, at least, Puck spoke the truth.

“You were privy to part of the Great One’s plan, but you weren’t privy to all of it, obviously,” Puck said, a most unappetizing smear of blood leaking from her lower lip. “We didn’t intend to just throw this thing into chaos and then slink off into the night like good little do-bees. Once in place, we would be the cream of the supernatural crop. We would be the top dog Faeries and Elves and everything else. We would be the big cheeses of a wild and angry minority population, one that would not be cooped up in some pen out West. We could make certain demands. We could conduct certain operations.”

“Then why didn’t you just say that outright that night in the warehouse?”

Puck’s bloody face registered surprise.

“Oh, we know about that, do we? We must be big government agents indeed. But we don’t understand how the Shapeshifters work at all. We don’t understand that Shapeshifters are terribly independent. It is beyond our comprehension that Shapeshifters might be too independent to sign on for a long-term operation. It might be too much to think that Shapeshifters need to be tricked by the Great One before they can see their destiny. Once that destiny is in hand, then they can be convinced to stick around, stay in the same body for quite a while.”

Cork felt a piercing dread in his stomach. He had seen too many movies growing up. He knew what was next. The bad guy’s evil plan had been explained; death was sure to follow.

On cue, Puck looked around and shouted, “This interloper seeks to block the will of the Great One! Let’s serve him for lunch!”

This was a crowd that evidently took its orders quite literally. The diner patrons stopped by the kitchen on the way over to pick up knives; the burly cook pulled a meat cleaver from his apron. Puck waved the knife menacingly.

“Look, I’m really trying to do what’s best for everybody,” Cork said, waving his hands rapidly to and fro as he backed away.

The Shapeshifters kept advancing, and within seconds there was nowhere left for him to go. His back was to the literal wall, and the tiny, bloody Puck was only ten feet away, the others close behind her. His attackers paused for one second, two seconds, and then Puck screamed, “Get hiiiiiiim!!!” and they rushed forward like ancient Cossacks, cutting utensils held high.

It was at this moment that Cork realized that he could do magic, after all. It was a strange feeling, as if time had slowed down for him and his senses had been broadened. He could see their faces approaching, could sense the rage behind the scowls and open mouths. At the same time, he was able to scan the room and take stock of what might be useful.

In the past, when he had been in the midst of what he knew to be an all-too-human rage, he had blotted out all but the necessary ingredients. He had focused on whatever was making him mad or afraid. If the TV volume was the culprit, then the TV volume increased to the point that it threatened to drown out all other sound, even the sound of his own heart. Nothing else was able to register. Now it was different. Now his fear sent a scout outward, sent a tiny sliver of his soul on patrol to find what was bothering him. It felt as if he had suddenly become the god of a small space; he suddenly knew where everything was, approximately what it weighed, and the damage it could do to the human body. But it all was lacking; the pots and pans were cheap, lightweight aluminum, and he could levitate those and bang them on the heads of his adversaries all day with no ill effects, except that he might give Puck a heart attack. No, all the good weapons were already in the hands of the murderous Shapeshifters who were drawing steadily closer.

His brain was racing. Just as Puck’s knife closed within a yard of his throat, he had an epiphany. He looked upward and focused his attention on the section of the catwalk overhead. Suddenly he felt as if bolts of electricity were flowing from his extremities in violent bursts, forcing their way from his fingers and toes to his heart and his brain. His vision dimmed, then everything was thrown into chromatic reverse, and it looked as if a series of color photographic negatives were attacking him. His magic flowed out from him like water from a firefighter’s hose. Instantly, the inch-thick bolts holding the section of catwalk spun crazily on their screws, spun like propellers, shot themselves out into the empty air. The overhead catwalk creaked and groaned and, pulled along by a force greater than mere gravity, collapsed with a reverberating crash.

The ones in the back, the ones pretending to be customers, were taken out first. He could see their mouths open as the heavy metal forced them to the floor, and he saw their hair appearing to rise up, appearing to stand on end as their heads accelerated violently to the wooden floor.

The burly cook was next. His cleaver sailed from his hand as he collapsed amidst a great shattering of bone and teeth.

Puck, the smallest, was the last to go. She had almost reached him with her slender knife and that was really bothering her; he could see the blind rage in her eyes as the extreme edge of the catwalk dug into the back of the fragile old head, sending blood cascading out like a fountain, complementing the blood that already stained her face. The eyes followed him all the way down until the surprisingly heavy catwalk attempted to blend the head with the floor. It was a good thing the catwalks were already painted red.

Cork was not one for blood. As soon as the surprise of having actually performed magic had passed, he staggered to a nearby booth and threw up violently all over the cheap, tattered vinyl.

Holding his suddenly sweaty head in his hands, he looked back to the diner floor and noticed something he had missed before. A small module, perhaps two inches in diameter, had apparently been dislodged from Puck’s pocket and had rolled to the corner. It looked like an oversized black marble, or the impassive eye of a large shark. Keeping his gaze averted from the spectacularly deceased Shapeshifters, Cork retrieved it, turning it over and over in his palms. His hands were shaking so hard he could barely focus. It appeared to be a communications device, perhaps the signal for the riot. Othello would know. Still averting his gaze, he headed for the front door, until he realized that the keys must still be in the cook’s pocket, somewhere in the carnage. An easy exit was not worth poking about in that soup. He changed direction and headed for the rear of the diner, where the bathrooms were located. There must be a window worth climbing through back there. He had to hurry. He had another meeting to attend.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Ellen tried to keep her face impassive as Joe entered the office, but her concern and fear showed through.

“Are you okay?” she asked in a tense whisper, her neck leaned birdlike across her desk. “What happened?”

Her lack of acting ability could have theoretically harmed them in this little operation, given that they were now actively working against their own boss, but he had to admit he didn’t mind this particular failed performance.

He shrugged at her question. No blood had stained his suit, but it was only a few minutes before that he had finally been able to get his hands to stop shaking.

“We don’t have to worry about Puck anymore,” he said in a low voice. “I think. Now all we have to worry about are the wizards and the president and the Secret Service and the police and the supernaturals.”

Ellen gave a low whistle, and her face brightened.

“Oh, well, that’s a relief. I’ll just go on home then, maybe catch a movie.”

He smiled. Gallows humor suited her. “Yeah, you do that. How about you? Are you okay?”

She scanned the room quickly and then nodded. “No problems. Haven’t seen any cops or wizards. I haven’t gone out at all. I’m afraid to even go to the bathroom.”

There had been some confusion about where, exactly, Ellen King should go on this Tuesday morning. She obviously couldn’t return to her house. Othello wanted her to stay put in the security guard’s house, but she wasn’t keen on sticking around a drug dealer’s house all day. So she went to the office. Cork and Othello had reluctantly agreed that she was probably better off in a public place, and it was probably the last place the wizards would think to look for her.

“Has the boss said anything?”

She shook her head quickly, sending her short hair whipping back and forth.

“I’m afraid to check on the computers, but I’ve been putting my ear to his door pretty often. The old low-tech spying method, you know. I don’t think he’s talked to Merlin today. And I don’t think he knows.”

Cork tossed her such a confused look that she quickly added, “About me, I mean. About the wizard and me.”

Cork nodded. He found it comforting that his boss had not had a hand in trying to abduct or even kill Ellen. That didn’t help too much, but it did help a little.

“Is he around?”

“Time for Part B of the plan, huh? Yeah, he’s in. He’s not expecting you.”

This was a one-sided appointment, written only on Joe’s mental list of things to do.

“I don’t want him to expect me. You wait here, and get ready to leave with me when I come out. Once he knows what’s up, I don’t think you should stick around.”

Cork took a second to try to smooth the lapels of his rumpled jacket and adjust his tie. His anger at his boss for being mixed up in all this had been rising for hours, and now it was time to speak his mind. He began striding briskly towards the senator’s private office, but Ellen halted his progress with a wave of her hand.

“Joe, please be careful.”

For an instant, he had an image of the senator attacking him with a knife as Puck had done, only this was a big shiny knife with PROPERTY OF U.S. SENATE emblazoned on either side of the blade. Then he realized that his fate was not what was causing her concern.

“His heart isn’t so good, you know,” she said softly, her voice settling on his back like a light rain.

He looked down at the brown government-issue carpet that ran to the senator’s door. Despite his anger, it flashed through his mind that the senator must be doing what he thought was right. He went back too far with the supernaturals to let Cork think otherwise. Such conflicting emotions made for a bad negotiator, though. The senator himself had taught Cork that much. When in doubt, cast out all doubts. He had seen his boss wrestle with a complicated legislative problem, only to go on the floor minutes later and argue fiercely—and effectively—in favor of one side or the other. Results came from such arguments, the senator had said, and Cork needed results more than anything else in the world right now. He walked to the senator’s door and rapped lightly three times.

“Who is it?” a voice said.

“Me,” Cork replied.

There was the sound of a chair groaning in pain as its heavy burden rose and shuffled to the door. When it appeared through the door opening, the senator’s face was somber, almost mournful.

“I thought you called in sick today.”

“I did, but I need to see you.”

The senator paused.

“I’m very busy.”

“It’s very urgent.”

Like a father grudgingly speaking to a son who had wrecked the family car, the senator opened the door and motioned Cork inside. Cork sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair that faced the senator’s desk. The senator groaned back into his plush leather-and-wood seat and folded his hands across his desk.

“I thought everything was on track,” the senator said with a faint smile. “What do you need?”

“Oh, not very much,” Cork said in a flat voice. “Just to speak with the president for about ten minutes. Fifteen, maybe.”

The senator gave an ungraceful snort.

“Oh, I thought it would be something difficult.”

He paused for a split second before spitting out, “What the hell are you talking about? I can’t do that.”

Cork felt the anger rising in him again. He would not be spoken to like this, not after knowing what compromises his boss was prepared to make for his wizard buddies.

“You can, too. And you will.”

The senator’s face went red, which made his already white hair seem positively incandescent. He held a trembling hand in the air, pointed at the door. “You get out of here! You’re fired!”

Cork smiled. In a calm voice, he said, “I hereby unfire myself. I am rehired. There’s no need for me to go anywhere.”

The senator’s beefy cheeks undulated with rage. Cork decided to play his hand before Ellen’s warning came true and he found himself talking to a walrus-sized slab of dead meat.

“I know what you’ve been up to. You and your friend Merlin. I know everything.”

He saw something new in the senator’s eyes, something he had never seen there before: fear.

“I know that someone else found out about it, and your pals tried to kill her.”

They weren’t really sure what the wizards had been up to regarding Ellen, but Cork felt it best to go for the jugular. When in doubt, cast out all doubts.

The senator’s eyes widened slightly, fear being crowded aside by apparent confusion.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You don’t know?”

“About killing someone? No!”

Cork squinted at him. The senator looked so flustered that Cork found himself believing him. So there were some things that Merlin didn’t even tell his accomplice. Or maybe they hadn’t been planning to kill Ellen, so the senator could say that in truth.

“Well, this person is alive and fine, anyway, so don’t worry yourself about it. But you have to get me clearance to see the president. Now.”

“I can’t do that,” the senator said gravely. “I really can’t. I don’t even know if the president is in today. And besides, there’s just no need. I don’t know what you think you know but there’s no need.”

Cork leaned back in the chair, lacing his fingers behind his head.

“He’s in, I checked. And I’ll give you a need. I’ll give you a very compelling need. You get us in there, as soon as possible, or—”

He paused, looking across the desk at the man who was his boss, and had been his friend. The senator, once the very figure of regal power, had started looking very old this week. Cork noticed something that he had never seen before; the senator, usually proud of his personal appearance, was wearing a rumpled shirt with cuffs so frayed that the ragged threads were retreating back from his bony wrists. He knew that the senator usually took about an hour each morning to iron and starch his own shirts. He obviously hadn’t done that today. Suddenly, Cork felt like he was playing hardball with just an old man rather than a savvy political opponent.

“Yes? Yes?” the senator urged him forward in a thick voice.

Cork knew that there was only time left for hardball. He had no choice.

“... or my associate will go to the media and play a certain disk containing recordings of certain conversations between certain senators and certain wizard leaders. Your voice and your face—and the things that you said—will go out over the television, all over the place. I suspect that certain lawyers and members of the Ethics Committee will be interested in what you have to say. I suspect the supernaturals will be interested in it, as well. I don’t think they’ll be smiling once they hear the words coming out of your mouth.”

“What do you have on disk?”

“Just minor chitchat. About force fields and New Jersey research labs and things like that. Small talk, you know.”

The old face, so recently bright red like a human cherry, now turned ashen to match the hair.

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“I don’t want to. My hand would be forced.”

The senator slumped back in his chair. Quietly, almost to himself, he said, “You’ll ruin me. I’ve known Dorton Hraavik since he was a young punk. I’ve known Urdu Dublin since he used to eat acorns for lunch. They trust me. They all trust me. I’ve always tried to do what’s best for them.”

Cork’s anger flared back up instantaneously.

“You’ll ruin yourself. I didn’t make you get hooked up with the wizards to plan this... this cattle drive that Merlin has cooked up!”

“Merlin has helped his country more than you could know. And he helped me. Without his help, I doubt I could have afforded to keep my seat.”

“So you suspended your better judgement for money?‘

Sen. Howard didn’t bother to answer, but suddenly became interested in the condition of his thumbnail. Cork, his attention slightly diverted from his anger, noticed that the skin around the nail was yellow and ridged. The senator spoke softly as he picked at it, like he was just ruminating to himself.

“On one level, you have to admit it is a good plan. The growth of these Shapeshifters could be curtailed. We could weed them out. They could do some damage in the future, oh, yes, they could.”

Cork’s anger had dissipated as rapidly as it had come, but his resolve was still there.

“Yes, they could, but so could Merlin. Will you let me meet with the president? Now?”

“He knows, you know. He knows.”

“I know.”

“Joe. What are you going to do?”

“Just talk to him.”

They sat in silence for what seemed like a sizable chunk of forever. The senator pushed the skin on his thumb into a dune that lapped at the edge of his nail.

“What are you going to do?”

“Just talk! What do you think I’m going to do, kill him?”

“Joe, I could call the cops and have you and your pal arrested.”

“You have no idea what he looks like.”

“He’s one of them, isn’t he? That one that you know?”

Cork nodded.

“We could even make you tell us what he looks like,” the senator said with a faint gleam in his eye.

He would probably enjoy torturing me now, Cork thought, and a thin smile appeared on his face.

“I may not even know what he looks like. I believe he may have altered his appearance since last we spoke. You could shove burning matches up my fingernails and I couldn’t tell you a thing.”

Sen. Howard ran a hand through his white mane, then pressed on either side of his nose with his index fingers, as if forcing the idea of surrender into his brain.

“All right. Get out of here, and I’ll make a phone call.”

“I need to see the president right away.”

“Leave here and go straight to the White House. It will be done.”

Cork nodded and stood to go. He had his hand on the knob when he turned back to face his boss.

“Senator? I don’t want any surprises when I get to the White House. If anything happens to delay me, that disk gets played anyway.”

The senator’s brows knit furiously for a fraction of an instant, then the showman in him took over and they smoothed out.

“You have my word.”

As Cork turned the knob, the senator spoke again.

“And if this meeting takes place, you won’t play that disk? You’ll give it to me?”

Cork straightened up, took a deep breath, but didn’t turn around.

“It’ll never see the light of day.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Cork had almost made it back to the front desk to grab Ellen when someone came out of a side door and slammed into him, nearly knocking him off his feet. Cork’s eyes opened wide in fear, and he readied his fists for what would no doubt be a futile attempt at self-defense, but his attacker was only Jimmy Tellas, who was blinded by the vast stack of papers he was carrying.

“Watch where you’re going!” Tellas shouted, before stretching his slick head around to see who he had hit. “Oh, sorry, Joe. I thought you were the intern.”

He didn’t look sorry at all, but Cork nodded politely. Cork resumed his advance to Ellen’s desk, but Tellas managed to beat him to it, papers and all. With a groan, Tellas dumped the whole stack on the front desk, causing a minor deluge that forced Ellen to slide her chair backwards in a hurry.

“Ellen, this shit is the senator’s mail. Constituent mail. Mail that it is your job to respond to. Clearly, that has not been done in the recent past.”

Ellen looked helplessly at Cork, who checked his watch and pointed out the door.

“Don’t look at Joe, this is not his department. This is your job, young lady, and you are not doing it.”

“But, I—”

“You nothing. I am going to stand right here until you have answered each and every one of these letters.”

Cork rocked from one foot to the other. Time was slipping away.

“Look, Jimmy, I need to see Ellen outside for a minute.”

“Joe, with all due respect, you work for the committee, and I work for the senator. Ellen, here, works for the senator, too, at least theoretically. Don’t get in my hair here.”

Cork looked at the thick rubberized glop on top of Tellas’ head and wondered if that were even possible.

“Joe, go ahead,” Ellen said calmly. “I will stay and work.”

“That’s better,” Tellas said.

Ellen scribbled something on a scrap of paper and handed it to Cork.

“Aw, that’s so cute, writing a mash note,” Tellas said, but Ellen ignored him and motioned for Cork to leave. She winked at him as he walked out the door.

“I’ll fake a trip to the can and leave in a minute,” the note said. “Good luck.”

TWENTY-NINE

It only took a few seconds for the police to kick the door in at Banker’s Diner. Several would-be patrons had rattled the locked door, trying to get at the greasy breakfasts they desired. The sign in the window said open, after all, but the door was shut and the curtains closed. Most had shrugged their shoulders and gone their way, but one especially hungry man had taken the time to prowl around the side of the building and squint through a window. Many of the panes were so dirty that they afforded no useful glimpse, but one, only about a foot from the grimy sidewalk, was a porthole to the nightmarish scene inside.

Six police arrived and, after casing the place, unceremoniously forced their way inside. It looked like a horrific industrial accident had occurred, as the old catwalk had fallen and mashed the employees and, presumably, some patrons. The police fanned out through the diner, their hands on their Glock-Wessons just in case.

“Somebody threw up over here,” one cop said.

“Probably from the food,” said Bud Callahan, who was unofficially in charge of the scene. “Tag it and bag it.”

“Righto. Barf to go, always on the menu.”

Finding no psycho with a wrench lurking anywhere, they convened at the bloody mass that occupied a comer of the diner.

Callahan knelt by the scene of the crime, being careful not to get blood on his uniform. He had seen some weird accidents in his fifteen years on the job, but nothing like this. He took off his cap and wiped his forearm across the top of his balding head. One of the other cops, Pierce Bradley, was meticulously picking his way around the scaffolding, making sure that he didn’t put any weight on it so he wouldn’t mash the bodies any more than they already were.

“Hey, this guy here looks kinda like you, Bud,” the cop reported.

Without standing up, Callahan peered over to where Bradley was pointing. The body of a large black man, muscular but tending toward fat, was in the back of the heap.

“A little better shape, looks like,” Bradley said, and the other cops chuckled.

Callahan smiled. Yeah, so he wasn’t sticking with his diet. Big deal. He could still crack Bradley and these other chumps in half if he had to. His attention was focused on the array of cutlery that was splayed around where he squatted. There was a meat cleaver and several wicked-looking knives, one of which looked like it could hack its way through tank armor.

“What were they all doing over here?” another cop asked. “Everyone who’s dead is over here in this corner.”

“Yeah, and look,” another chimed in, pointing to the catwalk. “Look how it only broke loose in that one section, so it would fall right here.”

“And the front door is locked from the inside,” another one said.

Callahan, still squatting, gestured around him. “And look at this shit, these knives. What were they doing?”

Bradley, having negotiated his way back around the catwalk, stood behind Callahan and looked around.

“Maybe they were over here carving up some animal that didn’t wanna be carved up, and the grease fumes or something weakened those screws right up there.”

“The grease fumes from an animal they hadn’t even killed yet?” Callahan said with a laugh. “Sherlock you ain’t.”

“Well, I didn’t say it was a very advanced theory, but so far it’s the only one that fits the facts,” Bradley shot back, and Callahan couldn’t tell if he was serious or joking. “Maybe it was an especially greasy animal, and they were gonna put it on as the special of the day or something.”

Callahan decided that Bradley was surely joking. While Bradley wandered off again with the other cops to continue exploring the diner, he looked more deeply into the morass before him. Once the others had gone far enough away and it had become fairly quiet, he thought he heard a hiss of air. He listened closely: Yes, he did. There it was again. Hsssssssssssssssss. A pause, and then hsssssssssssssssss.

“Guys! Come here! One of these people is alive!”

He clicked on his vidphone and called for paramedics, on the double.

Once reassembled, the other policemen helped him lift the catwalk off the floor.

“Lift with the back, not with the legs!” Bradley shouted, and Callahan started doing just that until someone realized that the advice was backwards and corrected Bradley.

The catwalk creaked and groaned and slowly raised off the floor. Callahan glanced down and saw that some of the corpses were moving, following it up in a grotesque parody of life.

“Don’t look down,” he hissed. “Can you guys hold this thing?”

Once they had it firmly up, he let go of his part and prepared to crawl under the catwalk. He slipped his rubber gloves on automatically, but was no longer worried about getting blood on his uniform. He hunched down over the old woman at the front of the pack, bending his ear down close to where he thought her mouth was, talcing care not to touch her blood-matted white hair. No sound. Sliding through the muck like a kid through a sandbox, he worked his way around to the other bodies. Some were just obviously dead, crunched to the point where life was impossible. He made sure he didn’t look too closely at the bodies, but instead searched for that elusive breath by ear alone. But none of them were breathing anymore. They were too late.

He was sliding his way back out when he heard it again. Hsssssssssssssssss. The old woman? He bent down to her battered form again and waited. There it was again, fainter this time. Hssss. Fading fast, by the sound of it.

He knew that he probably shouldn’t move her at all, in case her back or neck was broken, but in this case he figured it didn’t matter very much. She was probably a goner anyway. Once she was free of the catwalk, he looked for something to prop it up with. It wouldn’t do to just lower the thing and mash them all over again. In the restroom, under the dirty sink, he found a concrete block that looked sturdy enough for a makeshift support. He dragged it across the floor, into the bloody pool where the old woman had sprawled. The other cops slowly lowered the catwalk to the block, which chipped a bit on top but otherwise seemed able to take the weight.

They gathered around the old woman, who appeared to be a waitress. She was still face down. Callahan looked at Bradley and raised his eyebrows, as if to say, What next? Bradley shrugged. Callahan slowly rolled her over. As soon as her face appeared, the other policemen suddenly found themselves interested in other things across the room, or on the ceiling, or on the floor. Anything not to have to look at that face. Callahan made himself look. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Her eyes were closed, but the sign of life was there; bubbles appeared in the blood around her mouth, disappeared, then bubbled up again. She was beat all to hell, but she was definitely alive.

After a moment, the mouth opened wider and let out a crooning moan.

“We’re here, baby, we’re here,” Callahan whispered in encouragement, though he couldn’t imagine that this information would be at all helpful or even inspirational.

The mouth moaned again, and the spindly arms started to move slowly, slithering back and forth across the floor. The legs scissored slowly back and forth. The other cops whistled softly, checked their watches, examined their shoes.

“That’s it, move it, baby,” Callahan whispered.

The old waitress looked like she was trying to make a snow angel in her own blood there on the floor. Then her right hand found the crook of his knee and lingered there, the fingers moving like the legs of a crab. Callahan was not happy at having been so discovered, but thought it best to allow the poor creature whatever tactile sensory input she could come across. Her left arm continued its blind to and fro movements, but the right hand, having come across a new frontier, began to explore, crabbing its way up his leg.

Suddenly the old woman let out a piercing shriek, causing Callahan and everyone else to jump reflexively. The left arm shot straight out in the air. For a second, Callahan didn’t realize that the other hand had found his gun. He had left the thick leather holster unhooked from when he had first entered the diner, and the small but potent Glock-Wesson had slid right out when the hand curled around it.

“Hey, baby, we don’t play with that,” Callahan said, reaching for the gun, but suddenly the waitress’ eyes flew open and the gun barked once, twice, into his chest, sending him reeling back on his haunches.

The other cops, shocked, scrambled backwards, fumbling for their own guns, but now a thick fog had appeared out of nowhere and they couldn’t even see the old lady or Callahan anymore.

“Bud!” Bradley shouted. “Are you okay? What the hell is going on?”

There was no answer; the mist thickened, swirling like a tiny winter storm, and there was the tense feel of electricity in the air. Then the lightning came. Bradley was hit first, sent staggering back over a table like a marionette whose strings were suddenly cut. The others went one by one, cut down by the bullets of an unseen assailant. The last cop, a guy named Jones, managed to squeeze off two rounds into the cloud, but heard them zinging around uselessly on the other side of the diner. He closed his eyes and whispered a quick prayer and before it was even over he had been relieved of the cares of this world.

The mist was fading now, as rapidly as it had formed, revealing a man that the other policemen would have sworn was Bud Callahan, if only they were still alive to swear.

Puck smiled. That waitress had been an interesting experiment, but an unnecessary risk. He needed to be more careful. This body was more like it; relatively young, very strong, armed to the teeth. He walked over to the ashy stain where the waitress had been, poked about on the floor. Nothing. It was gone. He cursed under his breath. Since things were apparently getting out of control, he had meant to sound the call right now, get this show on the road. Forget stealth, he meant to say, just go at your assigned person right now, kick up that mist, get this show on the road. Now he couldn’t, because that damned Elf had absconded with his communicator.

No matter. This was a battle cry that could be delivered in person.

THIRTY

President Richard Williamson did not appear happy to see Joe Cork. “You must be this Elf fellow with friends in high places,” the president said in his soft Georgia twang. It was not a friendly query, and his enormous face bore not even a semblance of a smile.

After checking in at one of the gates, Cork was escorted quickly inside the White House, where he was led through a labyrinthian succession of corridors to a tiny back room that appeared only slightly larger than a closet, although a very ornate closet that featured a wall-size bookshelf holding what Cork guessed to be fake leather books. Cork had hoped for an Oval Office meeting, but it apparently was not to be.

President Williamson was seated on a small leather chair in the room’s center, and didn’t bother to stand up when Cork entered. He shook hands gruffly and motioned for Cork to sit on a small metal folding chair nearby. Spared no luxury, Cork thought. Sitting down proved to involve some physical contortions, as President Williamson took up much of the room’s available space.

Richard Williamson was the largest president since Taft. He dressed well, and his thinning brown hair was neatly combed, but his suit barely fit him; the jacket button had never been acquainted with its intended hole, and probably never would be. Williamson had come of age in an era when politicians discovered regular exercise, but he had taken that road only briefly, preferring to cover the muscles of his youth with a thick coat of flab derived from a notoriously unhealthy lifestyle.

Fortunately for him, the winds of fashion had changed, and it was now considered good for politicians to be a bit obese, or even grossly obese: the Winston Churchill model. Thinking people didn’t run around in jogging shorts, they ate fine foods and ruminated on the human condition. Williamson was a natural exaggeration of this tendency. Rumor had it that he wouldn’t even deign to do his own toddling to the White House junk food dispenser, but instead sent aides on those frequent errands. If sheer bulk was an indication of intelligence, Williamson was a genius surpassing Stephen Hawking or Einstein.

Cork sat stiffly, making sure his knees didn’t touch the president’s. Williamson gave Cork a disgusted look, as if he were a teenager who had wrecked the family car. He was getting that look a lot lately.

“Let’s cut to the chase. I am busy today, even though you don’t seem to think so. What is this meeting all about?”

Cork eyed the steely Secret Service agent who was standing behind the president, trying to look inconspicuous.

“We need to be alone.”

Williamson sighed before looking back at the agent and snapping his fingers.

“John, it’s okay. I could take care of this guy myself if I had to. Just wait outside.”

The agent stepped out of the room so smoothly that for a second Cork wondered if he were on roller skates.

“Now,” the president said. “Begin. What do you want?”

“It’s simple,” Cork said. “I need for you to order the police to escort all of the supernaturals out of the convention center as soon as possible. That’s all.”

The president gave Cork a blank look.

“Shall I stop the earth from orbiting around the sun for a while, too? Say, for a day or so?”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m sure you are. And what horrendous fate will befall me if I don’t do this?”

“I have some information that will prove extremely embarrassing to you. I’ve already given it to—” Cork started to say, when the communicator on the president’s belt made a gentle tone. The president sighed again.

“This may be an emergency even more important than yours,” he said, knocking Cork sideways as he stood up. Remembering his manners, he mumbled, “Please excuse me,” before leaving the room.

When he walked back in two minutes later, he had a smile on his face, which instantly made Cork nervous. The president just kept smiling as the Secret Service agent reentered the room, pistol in hand. Before Cork had time to react, the agent rolled smoothly up behind him and knocked him out cold.

THIRTY-ONE

Merlin entered the office of Sen. Horton Howard so swiftly and quietly that he didn’t catch Ellen King’s eye for several seconds. She was poking around at a huge stack of papers on the desk, under the watchful eye of a strange-looking tall man who seemed to have poured a whole tube of hair gel on his head. Merlin walked up beside the man and smiled down at Ellen, who gave an involuntary little squeal when she saw him. So. She recognized him too. A little reunion.

“Can I help you, sir?” the tall man asked, but Merlin shook his head.

“Your receptionist here will be able to take care of me just fine,” he said, and the tall man nodded and walked away.

Ellen King started to move, perhaps to run, but he extended an arm and said, “No, don’t get up.” After that, she couldn’t.

“Good morning, my dear,” he said in his most patronizing voice. “So nice to see you in person at last.”

This was an unscheduled pit stop, but one he felt obligated to make after the senator’s near-frantic call of minutes ago, when he gasped between puffs of breath that his very own half-Elf employee had acquired some privileged information and was going to turn on them. Merlin had politely inquired as to whether a certain receptionist by the name of“ Ellen King was working today, and was delighted to be told that she was. Yes, it was too good to resist. Fortunately, he was already in the neighborhood and was able to come quickly.

The senator walked out of his office just then, locked eyes with Merlin, and motioned frantically toward his office

“We can’t do anything out there! We get more traffic than Grand Central Station. Get her in here.”

Merlin relaxed the magic force field around his target, and walked behind Ellen into the senator’s office. He saw the rise and fall of her rump and saw how she must have tempted the poor half-Elf fellow. He never had a chance. With the senator watching, Merlin pulled up a chair and sat facing Ellen across the desk. The office was fairly warm, but she shivered with what he hoped was fear.

“Now then, all alone, are we?” Merlin said, casually lacing his fingers like a Nazi general in an old mdvie. “My dear, it isn’t too often that I meet a young person who knows more than I do. You are such a person.”

Ellen said nothing, and her earlier fear seemed to be replaced by a defiant resolve. That could be changed.

“Dear, I know very well that you have tapped into the computer lines between me and your employer.” He shot the senator an angry glance for not hiring someone ignorant of computers, but it didn’t seem to register on the old man’s face. He must have thought that Merlin was just mad at Ellen. “I know that you have made a disk copy of these conversations. I know that you wish to share these conversations with the media. I’m here to tell you that your plans are wrong, and to request that you give me this disk.”

No answer. Ellen looked past him as if he were invisible. Merlin sighed.

“My dear, surely you don’t think that I’m content to just sit here and interrogate you if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

A flash of fear appeared in her eyes, but she didn’t break her silence.

“Who’s in with you on this? We know the Elf is involved. He just marched in here and told us he’s involved, straight up. He told us what your role was, too.”

The eyes flashed again, the eyelids blinked quickly. Anger? Fear?

“So?” Merlin gave her the big eyes like a sympathetic priest, but no response. “Don’t say you weren’t warned.”

He reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a round gray plastic device about the size of a quarter. Her eyes opened wide at the sight of it, but she didn’t try to get up; actually, she couldn’t, as he had thoughtfully reactivated the magic force field as soon as she had sat down behind the senator’s desk.

The small gray device was called the Truthteller, and was a little something the Wizards Council had cooked up for the CIA. It had not been cheap to develop, but the CIA seemed to think it was worth the money. Merlin reached across the desk and placed the device behind her right ear. Her eyes blazed defiantly the whole way. Her skin was smooth, and surprisingly cool for such a hot office. He let his fingertips linger for just an instant.

“Now,” he said, settling back into his straight-backed wooden chair. “I believe you will tell me what I want to know. Who is involved with this little plan to play our vidphone conversations?”

Her eyes were glazed now; the truthtelling device was good for producing the weary look.

“Joe Cork. A Shapeshifter named Othello.”

The senator, perched heavily on the edge of his desk, lifted his eyebrows at that.

“Othello’s girlfriend, a Centaur named Shiena.”

Merlin gave the senator a puzzled look.

“She’s the daughter of the Centaur king,” he said. “He’s very influential.”

“And thus slated for replacement by these Shapeshifters, I take it. No wonder she’s in on it.” He turned his attention back to Ellen. “How many disks are there?”

“I saw Joe make one copy.”

“Was it given to any members of the media?”

“No.”

“So there are only two disks.”

“Yes.”

Merlin looked at the senator. “I’d like to be sure of that. Did Joe say anything to you about making copies of the disk?”

Sen. Howard shook his head slowly. “No. But just in case, after I called you I sent two staffers to search his office. They just called a minute ago. They turned it upside down, but they didn’t find any disks, just a bunch of paper. Ditto for his apartment.”

Merlin nodded slowly, digesting the information. Two disks, that wasn’t so bad.

“And where is the copy?”

“He gave it to Shiena.”

“And where is the original?”

No answer. She was resisting. Her will was strong, but magic was stronger.

“Where?”

“In my shoe.”

An unfortunate drawback of the Truthteller was that the questions had to be fairly precise, which could slow things down sometimes.

“Which one?”

“The left one.”

He stood up and walked around the desk, grabbing hold of her chair with both hands and swiveling it until she faced him. He knelt as if he were going to ask for her hand in marriage. Instead, he reached for her foot. She wore tight shoes, and he had trouble getting the left one off. Once he did, he recoiled slightly; that was no scent of roses that escaped. Merlin upended the black shoe and a tiny gold disk, only an inch in diameter, fell out. He felt like an old gold prospector.

“Eureka,” he said, almost to himself.

He slowly stood back up and held the disk to the light, watching how its smooth surface transformed the pedestrian room light into a rainbow of colors. Then he concentrated briefly and the disk melted in his hand, drooping across his fingers like warm cheese. In another second, it was nothing more than golden droplets, and in another second more he flicked his fingers and the disk scattered across the room like mist.

“Fly, be free,” he said softly, before turning back to the senator. “Where is this Elf?”

“Meeting with the president. That’s what I called you about.”

“Well, we’ve destroyed one disk and we should be able to get our hands on the other. This story about the media is a scam. Call Dick and tell him we have nothing to worry about.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Can you do it in another room? I need to talk to our lovely friend here for a few minutes.”

Sen. Howard looked unhappy at surrendering his territory, but Merlin gave him a determined face until he backed down.

“Okay. I suppose I can call from Jimmy’s office.”

“And call somebody and get this Shiena creature, too.”

Once the door had closed behind the senator, Merlin turned his attention back to Ellen, bringing his face close in to hers for frightening effect.

“Now, my little determined one, we need to explore the full capabilities of the Truthteller, patent not pending, courtesy of your friendly Wizards Council. We’d like for you to forget a few things. This procedure didn’t work too well on your predecessor. She’s in the river, hobnobbing with ex-mobsters now. Let’s hope it works a little better this time.”

Ellen King looked properly terrified.

THIRTY-TWO

Cork returned to consciousness with an aching head, which throbbed slightly each time he opened his eyes to take in a view of his new surroundings: a small, gray room, utterly devoid of cheer or warmth. It was as he had feared upon waking; he was in the Bunker.

President Ross, back before the turn of the century, had ordered the construction of a tiny everything-proof cell in the White House where he could conduct top-secret nasty business. No cameras, no microphones, superthick soundproof walls, no chance of anyone overhearing anything, no chance of assassination. Ross was paranoid, but not stupid; few knew of the existence of the room, which had come to be nicknamed the Bunker. The two succeeding presidents, including the current one, used it as well, though they reportedly didn’t take to it with Ross’ enthusiasm. Cork had learned of the Bunker by accident, from an acquaintance in the Secret Service who had grown quite fond of alcohol and had blabbed of its existence one night after a few too many rounds in the Hawk and Dove.

The pain in his head lessened after a few minutes, so he let his eyes rove across the Bunker. It was a rectangle, about fifteen feet by thirty. Its soundproofed walls appeared to be made of a smooth gray substance. He was tempted to get up and touch a wall, but decided against it. There was no ornamentation of any kind, not even a framed portrait of the president. Nothing to distract from whatever unsavory business was at hand. The only pieces of furniture were a sizable metal desk and two open folding chairs, one of which he was occupying, with three more leaning against one wall.

Just when Cork was getting used to being alone, he had company. The pasty-faced wizard he had seen on his communicator screen walked in, escorted by two stone-faced guards holding guns that were a lot bigger than the Secret Service agent’s pistol. So they had Othello, too. He smiled at Cork, before one of the guards shoved him rudely onto the available chair and took a place behind him. The other guard moved to stand behind Cork.

‘Things are suddenly not going well, I gather,“ Othello said.

“Very perceptive. I could use a drink about now. Wizards don’t carry whiskey flasks in their pockets, do they?”

“ ’Fraid not. But if any of them did, it would be this guy”

“You chatterboxes quiet down,” Cork’s guard barked.

There was a moment of silence, and then Othello raised his right hand and wiggled his fingers slowly. Cork had no earthly idea what this was supposed to signify, but before he could ask the door hissed open again and the president made his entrance, carrying a lumpy plastic bag and pushing a nice leather seat in front of him like it was a baby stroller. He parked the chair behind the desk and lowered himself into it before dumping the contents of the plastic bag on the desktop. Out rolled a small white magic detector and a cheap-looking meter with a bright red indicator needle. The president fumbled with a couple of cords, and then apparently was satisfied.

“I guess you’re wondering why I called you here today,” he began, then quickly laughed at his own joke. “No, really. Gentlemen, playtime is over. You are both in a lot of trouble.”

“What the hell is the idea?” Cork said, and the guard behind him tapped him lightly on the back of the head with the gun barrel.

“Don’t be so excitable,” the president said. He looked quizzically at the needle, but it remained motionless. “And don’t get fancy and do any magic, either. Your boss said you can’t, but we don’t know about your little friend here. These guards are under orders to do nasty things to you at the first sign of magic.”

Cork turned to Othello.

“How did he get you?”

Othello appeared strangely amused by the whole thing.

“I gave myself up.”

“You did what?!”

“Now, now, Elf boy,” the president said, and Cork’s guard tapped him with the gun again, to ensure that his attention was focused in die proper direction. “Your friend obviously saw the error of his ways, and you will too, in a minute. Now shut up. I have something you need to see before we haul you off to an even worse dungeon than this place.”

He fumbled in his jacket pocket and then held up a communicator with a four-inch screen. Cork had to squint to make it out, but he could see that the tiny face belonged to Sen. Horton Howard.

“That was good, what you did, catching me off guard like that,” the senator said, his voice sounding tinny in the desertlike atmosphere of the Bunker. “Joe, I am truly sorry it has come to this, but if you won’t listen to reason, then we have no choice but to lock you up until this whole thing is over.“

The senator coughed into his tiny hand before continuing.

“Joe, after you left, Merlin dropped by and he confirmed my suspicions. We had a little talk with our receptionist, Miss King.”

Joe swallowed hard. So Ellen didn’t make it out in time.

“After a little prodding, she confessed that it’s just you and your pal there who are in on this thing. You and him and a certain young lady Centaur, and we’re on the way to visit with her now.”

Othello was suddenly no longer amused.

“Don’t you touch her, you son of a bitch!” he shouted, and rose half out of his seat.

His outburst got him a crack across the head from the guard behind him, and he dropped back into his chair.

“So you see, we’ve got all of you now. We recovered a certain disk from Miss King. It has been destroyed. I suspect your half-equine friend may have a copy. If so, we’ll find it, and destroy it, too. Miss King confirmed that no copies of it have gone to the media. So we’ve beaten you, Joe. We’ll deal with you and your little friends later. In the meantime, the show must go on.”

Cork shook his head furiously. “You don’t have us all. That disk will be played.”

“I’ll take that chance,” Sen. Howard said. “Goodbye now. Talk to you soon.”

President Williamson clicked a switch with his thumb and the screen went black.

“Isn’t that an amusing twist?” he said. “Here we have—”

“Listen, you bozo,” Othello interrupted angrily. “You have no idea what you’re doing. If you let Merlin take over the supernaturals, he’s going to also take over some very expensive military hardware. When that happens, you won’t be calling the shots anymore.”

President Williamson rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what comic books you’ve been reading, but I can assure you that Merlin is not a problem. Now you’ve had your fun, so it’s time for you to lay low. Boys?” he said to the guards, and Cork felt a hard metal prod at his back.

Suddenly there was a commotion to his left. The guard that had been standing behind Othello sailed overhead, crashing painfully against the wall behind the president. The guard let out a long whoooooof on contact, but never let go of the gun; he was trained well. President Williamson’s eyes flew open in surprise. He glanced quickly at the magic indicator needle, but it didn’t even twitch.

Cork’s guard said, “Hey!” and pointed his gun at Othello. Quicker than a blink, Othello raised his arms and the other guard was able to join in the wonder of human flight, with similarly painful results. Cork shot Othello a surprised glance. Othello just smiled and wiggled his fingers.

“I’m a wizard now, remember? I can do magic.”

The guards didn’t stay prone for long. Both were back on their feet, guns at the ready, faster than Cork expected.

“Shoot them!” the president shouted.

Cork’s mouth fell open.

“Yes, sir! Get down, sir!” one guard yelled, and Williamson let gravity take its toll and slam his heavy body down.

The gun barrel seemed to explode into a pretty yellow flower. Cork felt his mind drifting off again into pre-magic free association; he realized that the walls were designed to absorb bullets rather than repel them, which was a good forethought, otherwise the room would be alive with careening slugs. The red needle on the magic detector started going crazy, spinning like the tachometer in a hot rod.

Othello had thrown his arms over his head in panic. He didn’t know how to do this land of magic. Cork didn’t either, really, but it suddenly seemed like he did. Things had become eerily slow again. He saw the president hunkered down, heard his feeble whimpers; saw the guard, stern determination on his face, letting fly; saw Othello, face covered, expecting the end. Most importantly, he saw the bullets, moving slowly in the air like lethal silver raindrops. Seventeen had been fired so far, more no doubt to come. Seventeen? Bit of an overkill, for two unarmed visitors. Cork concentrated, sent up an invisible wall, and the bullets stopped. That was good, but more were sure to follow. Still moving in slow magic time, Cork extended his arms and the gun barrel twisted like a snake on a griddle.

He blinked and returned to real time; the gun exploded in the hands of the guard as the hot gases went the wrong way down the barrel like hyperactive kids on a funhouse slide, and the already fired bullets thudded harmlessly to the bunker floor. The other guard was just leveling his weapon to fire, but Cork gave his weapon the same treatment.

Then for the coup de grace; he froze the guards, froze them as surely as if they nad been dipped in bronze. He wasn’t sure what this did to them, or when they’d snap out of it; he just followed his Elfin intuition, which said it was the thing to do. It was all over in seconds, bullets littering the floor like candy after a kindergarten party.

Othello slowly peered out from underneath his extended arm.

“What the hell? What happened?”

Cork whistled nonchalantly. Othello gave him a stunned look.

“I thought Ellen said you couldn’t do magic!”

Cork smiled. “You learn a lot about yourself under stress. And how come your magic didn’t set off the detector?‘

Othello shrugged. “Nothing the wizards make works on wizards. Convenient, huh?”

Cork pointed to the three-letter trademark on the white plastic detector.

“I thought IBM made those,” he said, but Othello just shook his head.

“It’s amazing what they can do with licenses these days.”

A slight cough from the president snapped them out of their magical reverie. President Williamson was trying to sneak out the door, but his bulk made that impossible. He made about as much noise as a baby rhinocerous.

“Excuse me, sir, but with all due respect, you’re not going anywhere,” Othello said.

The president of the United States rose to his feet with as much majesty as he could muster, seeing as how he had difficulty shifting from his hands and knees to an erect posture. He bent over and, with a slight huffing sound, dusted off the knees of his suit pants. He then gave a little tug on the lapels.

“Joe, how are we doing on time?” Othello asked.

Cork checked his watch and made a face.

“Not well at all.”

“We’d better get moving, then. I wasn’t kidding about that stuff with Merlin.”

“Now, I will look into that,” the president started to say, but Othello waved him to silence.

“You, sir, are out of the picture. Joe, I think it’s time for me to become president of the United States.”

“Now see here!” the president said, his index finger raised like a flagpole.

“Are you sure, Othello? Is that necessary?”

“Trust me. Merlin’s got worse stuff on him than anything we could dig up. He’s not going to help us. The more I thought about it, the more I knew that this part of your plan wouldn’t work. That’s why I gave myself up, so I could get near him. So I could become him.”

Cork sighed, and then nodded. “Okay. I’ll freeze him like those guards, and you take his form.”

“Well!” the president said in indignation.

Othello shook his head. “You have to guarantee me that he’ll be in a coma, that brainwave activity will be minimal and will stay that way. Otherwise it could kill me.”

“Oh. I can’t be sure of that.”

Othello pushed his fingers together and twisted them, emitting a nasty cracking noise.

“Then we kill him.”

Cork broke into a sudden sweat. He didn’t particularly want to join the ranks of Lee Harvey Oswald or John Wilkes Booth. He didn’t want to be known forever as Joseph Edgar Cork, since three names seemed to be the norm for famous presidential assassins.

Othello stepped forward quickly and blocked the door. President Williamson, his face frozen in terror, proved able to move quicker than Cork had expected. He fairly vaulted over one of the metal chairs and put the metal desk and the frozen guards between himself and his persecutors.

“You just leave here right now and I’ll give you both pardons!” the president shouted. His acrobatics had come with a price; his voice was little more than a series of gasps.

“Can’t do it,” Othello said, advancing slowly. “Hope you’ve said your prayers.”

Cork fretted, his hands closing into fists and opening again, pulsing like starfish on the ends of his arms.

“Geez, isn’t there some other way to do this?”

“You got a frying pan handy?” Othello asked. “We’ll conk him on the head, hope for the best.”

“Yeah, yeah, do that!” the president wheezed.

“H-how are you gonna do it?” Cork asked nervously.

“I could use one of those guns, if you hadn’t done the pretzel trick with them.” He cracked his knuckles again. “Gotta use a more crude method, I’m afraid.”

Othello was preparing to jump the table when their problem was suddenly solved. President Williamson, his face fairly flowing with sweat, scrunched up his face in agony and grabbed his chest with both hands. He uttered a sound like a gorilla in heat and collapsed across the desk, knocking over one of the guardsicles, whose gun clattered on the floor.

“Oh, man, is he dead?” Cork asked, sprinting to the desk.

“Well, we want him dead, don’t we?” Othello asked, checking the corpse’s pulse. “Yes, he’s down. Dead as a post. Killed himself, so don’t feel guilty.”

Cork rubbed his chin. “I think we hastened him along a bit.”

“I suspect we did. Excuse me now, I’m going to do my trick.”

Cork turned his back, thinking that a Shapeshifter exchange might resemble a supernatural’s decay; not something you’d want to watch. He heard a very faint hiss, saw a few wisps of mist curling about his back, shuddered when it felt like a storm front was moving through the room. About five seconds into it, he couldn’t stand the suspense and took a peek.

Othello was covered in mist, which was swirling just enough to let Cork see what was happening. Othello was leaning over the prone president, his hands touching the dead face. Cork could only assume it was Othello by his location; the Shapeshifter had turned into a human-shaped lump, a lump that was half wizard and half president, and which was changing rapidly from one to the other. His facial features seemed to literally flow Uke water, and even the clothes were changing from brown to presidential gray.

The corpse of President Williamson, in the meantime, was giving off strange blue sparks, and with each spark it looked less like the president and more like a lump of coal. Cork wished that he had been able to suppress his curiosity. A Shapeshifter at work was something he did not need to see, and so he quickly turned away. Judging by the cessation of the hiss and the calm that returned to the air, the process was completed in a few more seconds, but Cork waited for almost a full minute before turning back around. When he did, the wizard was gone and President Williamson stood before him, his hand resting on the desk, most of which was covered with a pile of faint gray ash.

“You peeked, didn’t you?”

Cork nodded.

“Did you see it? Maybe you can tell me about it later. I’ve never seen it done, I only do it.”

“Believe me, you get the better end of the deal.”

“Man, this guy is heavy,” Othello said. “It’s going to be tough to move around in this getup.”

“Well, you’re the president now, and congratulations on that,” Cork said quickly, raising an arm to check his watch: 11:15. “We’ve got to get moving. We’ve got to go to the convention center, but I need to make a pit stop at my office first.”

“No problem,” Othello said, testing out his presidential voice in stentorial tones. “The motorcade knows no traffic laws.”

“The wizards have Ellen, and may have Shiena, too.”

“Not for long,” Othello said, his presidential tones suddenly turning raspy. “And they won’t get their supernaturals, either.”

“Do you know enough about the chain of command to order the guards to empty the building?‘

Othello shrugged.

“Not really. I just got this job.” Seeing Cork’s worried face, he added, “Don’t worry, I’ll think of something. After all, I’m the president of the United States, aren’t I?‘

THIRTY-THREE

Merlin staggered out of the Hart Building like an angry wino. His once immaculate shirt was covered with vomit, and he was walking in a caveman’s hunch, every step sending pain shooting from his crotch to his brain. Things weren’t going too well, all of a sudden.

“Double time!” he shouted into his communicator, and with a screech of tires, the Buick rounded the corner two blocks down and smoothly pulled up to his side.

“Old Washington Convention Center,” he growled. “Ignore red lights.”

He heard footsteps behind him as he got into the back seat, and turned to see two Secret Service agents running out of the building, pointing at the car. Something had gone wrong. The president nad turned on him.

He reached inside a compartment between the seats and extracted a clean shirt, tie and pair of pants. No jacket, but this would have to do in a pinch.

“Tint,” he said, and the windows went dark. No point in getting arrested for waving his underwear-clad derriere at fellow commuters while he changed clothes.

He had just been getting to the good stuff when things began to go awry. The senator had left the room to make his phone calls, and Merlin was just beginning work on his immobile captive when there was a clattering at the door. Back so soon? Merlin had turned expecting to see the returning senator, but instead came face to face with the tall man with hair so slicked back that it appeared to be made of plastic. Sen. Howard should have given him the day off.

“I told you that your receptionist would assist me,” Merlin said in a cold tone.

The man ducked his head down and gave Ellen a little wave, and then frowned when she didn’t respond.

“Is something wrong with Ellen?”

“Yes, yes, she’s very sick,” Merlin said. “I’m a doctor, I’m trying to help her. Please give her some air.”

The plastic man looked at Merlin strangely.

“I don’t see any doctor’s kit. And what’s this ‘give her some air’ stuff? That went out a century ago.”

Merlin had rolled his eyes and was prepared to freeze this gentleman as well when suddenly the man caught sight of the strange gray device on Ellen’s head. He apparently didn’t like the sight of it. Before Merlin had been able to react, the man gave him a hearty uppercut to the jaw, causing sparks to shoot across his vision. Merlin took two stumbling steps forward.

It was in that instant that Ellen managed to break free of her magic bonds and kick Merlin in the crotch with her unshod foot. She kicked so hard that he had collapsed straight down on his knees like a dynamited building that had suddenly lost its foundation, and then sprawled out on the floor, vomiting and reflexively going fetal. Damn! He had stopped concentrating on her for an instant. A mortal sin. Never let your guard down.

And he paid for it. He had felt like someone had replaced his spine with molten lava, a feeling that was just now beginning to fade. He remembered turning his head to look around the room, but he hadn’t been able to see Ellen. He had seen only the advancing plastic man, and, with his last burst of energy, he had thrown his tormentor into the wall as hard as he possibly could, before passing out.

When he came to she was gone, and so was the senator. He had hoped to discover plastic man’s dead body sprawled against the office wall, but no such luck; he was gone as well. Merlin had managed to crawl to the front room, but that was all. Then, as if all that wasn’t bad enough, Secret Service agents had shown up, telling him he was under arrest. It had been all he could do to freeze them for a few instants, enabling him to flee the building, panting and aching.

Despite it all, however, Merlin was able to smile as the Buick rounded a corner and he saw the tip of the convention center approaching. Everything would be in place despite the little plot by Sen. Howard’s staffers. Ellen King had temporarily escaped, but despite the pain she had caused him, it was no great matter. In a matter of minutes, it would all be over and he would be in control. He was dressed in a nice clean new shirt and pair of slacks. He was ready. Payback time.

THIRTY-FOUR

To use the vernacular, Shiena was so angry that she was fit to be tied; as a matter of fact, she was in the process of being tied when Merlin arrived. He gingerly pushed his way through a crowd of media and a few human convention protesters—one gentleman had a sign that said no free land to anyone—to see what was happening. A phalanx of D.C. police had Shiena surrounded and were trying to hobble her with ropes. One had apparently gotten too close to a hind hoof, and was lying in the foyer of the convention center, holding his forehead and moaning. He was resting his head on the base of the statue erected to symbolize the new spirit of cooperation between humans and supernaturals. The main lobby was empty, save for the guards.

Inside the convention center, only a few feet away, pandemonium seemed to be the order of the day. Supernaturals of every sort were trying to see what was going on, but were being held back by a large and heavily-armed contingent of U.S. Capitol and D.C. police. Merlin could see the head of Sibelius, king of the Centaurs, poking out above the throng. He was angry, very angry, screaming curses at the police who were wrestling with his daughter.

Shiena, for her part, was fighting all the way. She easily had the best leverage out of the six guards who were trying to restrain her. Whenever one was near to getting a hobbling rope around her legs, she could shift her body weight and throw them off. She was also very strong. Two guards made the mistake of getting too close to her hands, and very nearly had their heads slammed together like coconuts.

Shiena had advantages, but the guards had better traction. Their rubber-soled shoes gripped the foyer’s tile floor, while her hooves slid with a high-pitched squeaking sound. Merlin could see that it was just a matter of time until they won. He sighed. So this was the senator’s way of quietly apprehending the other disk. He wished he had sent his own people instead; Horton was getting so bad that he could screw up a two-car funeral.

Merlin attempted to push through the line of police that were guarding the outer entrance to the lobby, but a fresh-faced young guard stopped him.

“Nobody allowed through, sir; police business.”

Merlin clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder, froze him stiff, and continued walking. He glanced around the foyer; the senator was nowhere to be seen, of course. Have to keep his cowardly fingerprints off this little fracas. Merlin wasn’t wild about doing this in public, but now he had little choice. As he approached the squabbling parties, he whistled nonchalantly and adjusted his tie. Just as one of the guards wrestling Shiena waved him off, saying, “You’ll get hurt, sir! Nothing to see here!” he raised his left hand and froze Shiena with a burst of magic. The guards, having gotten used to shifting around while they wrestled with her, were unable to make a sudden stop and fell to the floor, to the evident amusement of the onlooking supernaturals, who applauded loudly and whistled.

There was silence for a moment, then Sibelius’ voice echoed through the foyer, richocheting off the tiled floor and walls like bullets: “Merlin! When did you start working for the police? What the hell are you doing to my daughter?”

Merlin held up both hands in what he hoped was a universal gesture of conciliation.

“I assure you, Sibelius, she will not be harmed. One moment, and all will be explained.”

He shooed the guards away with a flourish of his fingers and stood looking at the still statue that Shiena had become. Even frozen, she was beautiful. Her ringlets of hair were scattered everywhere, and her thin yellow silk blouse was stuck to her breasts and ribs with sweat. Merlin hmmmmed to himself and looked her over; did she have the disk on her? If so, where? She wore a jacket over her tunic, but it didn’t seem to have any pockets. He glanced back along her flank; no pockets back there. He took two steps back and glanced up into her hair, where a familiar glint of gold caught his eye. He smiled. Very clever. She had taken the tiny disk and turned it into a barrette, hoping that her avalanche of hair would hide it. This was no dumb Centaur.

Merlin reached for the disk, but couldn’t quite get to it. This was a tall Centaur. He held out his hand and the disk began moving, pulling itself slowly out of her long brown hair, pulling free and floating down to his outstretched hand.

“He’s doing magic!” one of the supernaturals shouted from the crowded doorway. “Arrest him!”

A policeman helping guard the door looked down at the magic detector attached to his belt.

“He didn’t set the alarm off,” he told he crowd. “No harm, no foul.”

A few supernaturals booed. Merlin walked around Shiena and held the disk up. He could see Sibelius’ face, still contorted with anger above the crowd.

“I don’t work for the police. I did this for the good of our country. Sir, your daughter was attempting to pass state secrets off to members of a ... a foreign, hostile government. Here is the evidence.”

“It’s a damned hair pin!” Sibelius shouted back.

He attempted to move forward, but even his enormous frame couldn’t make any headway against the mass of bodies between him and the door. The bodies surged forward with him, but the police barricades held them back. Despite their inability to move, the crowd murmured its agreement with Sibelius’ statement.

“Does your daughter routinely wear data systems as jewelry?” Merlin asked, waving the disk around for inspection. The crowd shifted now, murmuring its agreement with his logic. “By your silence, I’d say no. This is now federal evidence, ladies and gentlecreatures. I’m afraid your daughter is under arrest, Sibelius. The appropriate government agencies will be in contact with you.”

Merlin wasn’t sure what to do now, but he figured a quick retreat was the best bet. “Arrest her,” he told a member of the DC. police force.

“This is your show, why don’t you arrest her?” the police officer replied.

“Just do it!” Merlin said through gritted teeth. “Gentlemen, she’s going to be unfrozen in about three seconds. I suggest you hobble her while you can.”

The policemen who had been struggling with her before moved quickly to truss Shiena up; one even took the opportunity to slip a gag over her mouth.

THIRTY-FIVE

President Williamson burst from the right rear door of his black limousine, moving so fast he almost outstripped his Secret Service guards. The presidential motorcade had screeched to a halt a block away from the convention center’s main entrance, as close as it could get given the thick lunchtime traffic. It would have taken only another few seconds to clear the street, but the president obviously wasn’t in a mood to wait.

Cork exited the other side of the limousine, but couldn’t keep up with the suddenly speedy chief executive. The president stormed his bulk up the block to the convention center’s central glass door, shoving reporters and bystanders out of his way. Once there, he grabbed a startled guard and began shouting in his face.

“Who’s in charge here? I’ve been calling on the car communicator and I can’t get a straight answer. Who’s in charge here?”

The guard squinched up his face in a reflex action, as the president was known to be something of a spitter when he talked fast.

“I don’t know, Mr. President, sir,” the guard said, eyes closed. The other guards and police looked at each other in confusion and shrugged.

“Well, you are, then!” Williamson shouted at the unseeing guard. “Get on the horn and tell all the other guards that we need to empty this convention center! Now! Double time!”

The shouting from the crowd that was shoved up against the inner foyer doors quieted for a second, as the mob digested this information.

“We don’t want to come out!” someone in the crowd finally shouted.

Cork, breathing hard, appeared at the president’s right shoulder.

“You look like you all want out,” he said, pointing to where the crowd pushed against the wall of police officers like kids leaning on a rotten fence.

There was a moment of relative silence, and then someone else shouted, “Well, we don’t. We saw what you’ll do to us if we do.”

“Yeah!” Someone further down the foyer yelled. “You’ll freeze us up like the man did that Centaur girl!”

The president’s eyes went wide.

“What Centaur girl? Where is she?”

Cork caught side of Sibelius’ angry face, fifty feet down the foyer, almost hidden behind a door frame.

“I want out!” Sibelius shouted. “I want my daughter!”

“Sibelius!” Cork shouted, cupping his hands over his mouth to be heard. “Where’d they take Shiena?”

“Outside! In a police van!”

A Troll closer to Cork chipped in, “That’s why we don’t want out no more,” a sentence met with muted statements in agreement from others in the supernatural crowd.

Cork jogged back to where President Williamson stood. He was a little worried; he had already seen what that body could do to a bum ticker, and Othello looked mad enough to have another heart attack.

“Go get her,” Cork said. “There’s no way the police can get everyone out in time, especially if they won’t come peacefully. I have another idea.”

He reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a tiny gold disk.

“I think it’s time to play it. In there. For the supernaturals. Now.”

The president’s angry face loosened its frown, and quickly grew solemn.

“Joe . . . you could do what we didn’t want Puck to do. If you play that for them, you could start a riot after all.”

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Cork said, and he was already moving toward one of the doors as he spoke. “It’s time to end this thing. The only way to get them out of the building now is to get them mad.”

“Works for me,” the president replied after a second, his face suddenly animated again. “Guards and supernaturals!” he shouted. “As your president, I order you to let this man through!”

The crowd in the doorway parted for Cork as if the Red Sea had just met Moses.

“And now if you’ll excuse me,” President Williamson said, “I’m off to get my girlfriend.”

THIRTY-SIX

Merlin decided to put a little distance between himself and the convention center foyer after the unfortunate incident that had transpired there. He thought he heard sirens as he walked away, but didn’t want to go back and investigate. Probably just the cops taking Shiena away. He walked the long block down the side of the building, crossed the street and leaned on a lamp post. He waited until a couple of nearby pedestrians had moved on and then whipped out his communicator.

“Watkins, you in there?” he said, keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t be overheard by passers-by on the busy downtown street.

The tiny screen came alive and showed Watkins, although the light was so bad he could barely be seen. “Here, boss.”

“Where are you?”

“Inside the center. Up on the third floor, overlooking the crowd.”

“I’m outside. There’s been some trouble in the foyer. What’s the scene in there?”

Watkins disappeared for a second, then was back. “A bunch of them milling around, a whole bunch of them crammed at the front door. I think they’re breaking for lunch.“

“They’re not breaking for lunch, you idiot! They’re catered today. That crowd at the front door is the trouble I was telling you about. We had to arrest one of them, and the rest are going to be mad. We need to get the force field up as soon as we can. What’s the status?‘

“Only one unit left to go, and some calibration. We put the ceiling ones up last night. Most of the others are in place, up on the walls.”

“How long until you can throw the switch?”

“We could have had it by now if it weren’t for that mob at the door. The unit left is down on the floor, and we can’t do anything for that crowd. Now, I’d say five minutes. Well, check that. Some of the upper units need calibration, too. If that crowd clears out, I’d say ten minutes. But not until they’re cleared. Can we wait until after lunch?”

Waiting an extra hour would be trouble now, what with Ellen King’s escape and the senator’s idiotic move to confront Shiena in front of everyone. It was a good bet that Sibelius wouldn’t spend the time hunched over a salad; he’d be raising hell, and that would make things that much more difficult.

“Is everything okay?”

Merlin jumped; Sen. Horton Howard had appeared at his side, as if out of nowhere.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that! Wait one second.”

Merlin turned his attention back to Watkins. “Keep on working. Get someone on that floor unit as soon as possible. If someone asks, say you’re putting in a vidphone or a fire extinguisher or something. Just do it. Don’t even wait for a signal from me. When you’re ready, do it and hit the switch. We’ll have champagne later.”

“Righto, boss,” Watkins said before his face disappeared into the electronic void.

Merlin turned to face the senator. He was so angry he didn’t quite know where to start complaining. He had been practically desexed by the senator’s employees and left on the floor; the incident with Shiena had been incredibly mishandled, and he, Merlin, had to be the one to step in and be the heavy. And now this pasty, cowardly regular human was going to ask him if things were okay.

“Senator, just what the hell was the idea of leaving me—”

“Merlin! I should have known. You damn freak, what have you done now?”

Oh, he knew that voice. Merlin turned to face his accuser, saw Dorton Hraavik striding up the sidewalk, coming from the other side of the convention center. Along with Shiena, that made two supernaturals who were out of the building, two who would have to be rounded up later. Just great. The Faery leader had eyes for Merlin alone; his fellow pedestrians were forced to get out of his way. Hraavik was dressed in a somewhat overtailored and baggy white suit, but Merlin could see that the formerly thuggish Faery had stayed in shape. His biceps bulged against the suit’s expensive cloth.

“Senator, did you see what transpired out in the lobby a few minutes ago?”

Hraavik didn’t bother getting close to them before he started talking.

“This son of a bitch waltzes in there like he’s James Bond and freezes up Sibelius’ daughter. They carted her out of there like she was bound for a glue factory. I had to worm my way out through a window like a common criminal and follow them around to the police truck, but they wouldn’t release her to me. I want to know what’s going on. And what’s this use of magic here, without setting off the detectors?”

He was talking so fast that spittle was foaming up in the corners of his mouth. His leafy hair, already sent askew by the spring wind, quivered with each shake of his head.

“We are supposed to sign this damned agreement tomorrow and already we’ve got supernaturals in there saying that the whole thing is screwed up. We’ve got people ready to back out of the whole deal. The Trolls are bitching like crazy, and so are the Merpeople.”

Hraavik’s index finger, which was pointed squarely between Merlin’s eyes, was so steady that Merlin half expected to discover that it was a gun, and this pint-sized tormentor was going to blow his head off at any second.

“Merlin, you best get your ass inside and explain to us just what the hell is going on. Like now.”

Merlin sighed, and Hraavik turned his steely finger of accusation on Sen. Howard.

“And you! Did you know about this? What’s this ‘hostile government’ business? Why haven’t you told me about any of this stuff?”

Merlin held up his arm so that Hraavik couldn’t see it and tapped his watch. He mouthed the words “stall him.” Sen. Howard nodded.

“Dorton, there are a lot of enemies that would like to sabotage the convention. You know that.”

Hraavik held out his hands in exasperation.

“Are you saying that Shiena is an enemy? Her father lobbied hard for this damned accord! He’s done most of the legwork! Or hoofwork! I have seen him, when you were sitting on your fat ass in your toasty little office, I have seen him out in the freezing snows of Wyoming talking to some Bigfoots as to why they should agree to the accord! While you were sitting in your air-conditioned office, I have seen him down in Georgia in the middle of July explaining to Gremlins why they should support the Grimm Accord! And you think his daughter would turn on us?”

He paused for a gasp of air. “Where’s the proof? What’s that damn barrette you took out of her hair?”

Merlin fished in a pocket and produced the disk; he saw the senator’s eyes open wide and his lips turn upward in a faint smile.

“It’s not a barrette, obviously.”

Hraavik made a jumping grab for the disk, but Merlin raised his arm higher.

“Not so fast, there, shorty. This is government business.”

“The hell with you!” Hraavik shouted. “Shorty my ass! Since when are you wand wavers involved in doing anything more than making magic toilets for the Pentagon?”

“I think—” the senator started to say, but Merlin’s beeper cut him off.

He pulled the communicator off his belt and spun slightly away from his companions. A flick of the switch produced the face of Watkins. He looked a bit pale; must be the harsh lighting.

“Boss, I think you better get in here however you can. Now.”

“Why? Is something wrong?”

“Some Elf guy came in and now all the crowd is facing the stage.”

“Put a force field on him! Freeze him! At once!”

“Can’t. He’s too far away. He’s playing some kind of disk. It’s you, boss. You’re talking to them about the plan.”

“Throw the switch AS SOON AS YOU CAN!” Merlin snarled into the communicator, before his temper got the better of him.

He let loose with an eardrum-popping shout and hurled the communicator so far that it looked like it would never come down. While it was still in the air, while his companions looked on in surprise at his sudden outburst, it occurred to Merlin that maybe he should have given up this whole thing and just become a baseball player. He never knew he had such a good throwing arm.

THIRTY-SEVEN

As Sen. Howard entered the convention center, frantically pushing police officers out of the way, he heard the sound of his own voice booming through the cavernous building, the echoes giving it a trembling sound that made him sound so terribly old. Merlin’s face had said it all, before he had thrown his communicator and gone stomping off down the street; something was going wrong in here.

When the senator cleared the foyer and carefully took a spot against the far wall, he saw on the screens a gigantic version of his face, his furrows of skin now as large as the furrows of dirt in a West Virginia field. He saw his gigantic head, on the left bank of monitors, saying those things he never wanted to say. He saw his gigantic head conversing with the equally gigantic head of Merlin, which occupied the right bank of monitors.

So. Cork had another disk. He should have known; stopping the plan had been all to easy.

“I’m sorry, Horton, but things were going so well that I guess I’ve gotten lazy. What can I do for you?” the enormous Merlin said, his brusque voice booming out over the convention center crowd.

Sen. Howard glanced around; the crowd, which had only moments ago been straining at the doors to leave the building, was now straining to get closer to the stage, straining not to miss a word of this very special presentation. Thousands of them. Soon to be very angry.

His voice was back, surprising him with its harshness. “I thought you told me that your beloved magical database could tell you all about the supernaturals. I thought you said it could tell you just about anything.”

Merlin again: “It can.”

“It can’t. There is a grplot by Sen. Howard’s staffers. Ellen King had temporarily escaped, but despite the pain she had caused him, it was no great matter. In a matter of minutes, it would all be over and he would be in control. He was There was a gasp throughout the crowd, but Sen. Howard, lost in his own thoughts, didn’t hear it. It seemed so quaint to think that this had been his biggest fear just a few hours ago. Now his biggest fear was of getting torn apart by this crowd when the rest of the disk was played.

Although both his and Merlin’s faces remained emblazoned on the video screens, a different voice suddenly came across the loudspeakers.

“I’ll fast forward this,” said the voice, and Howard knew at once that it was Joe Cork. That half human, half Elf, casting his lots with his mother’s side. He should have known that Cork eventually would.

There was a roar of protest from the crowd at Cork’s words.

“What supernaturals haven’t we heard of?” someone screamed from the middle of the thickening mob in front of the stage.

“Hold on,” Cork said, his face still invisible. “All will be clear soon.”

Sen. Howard thought he could make out the form of his chief investigator, off to the left of the stage, huddled over a console. That damned black-clad Leprechaun, Ransi Milbert, was with him, no doubt giving him advice on how to get to just the right portion of the disk, to play just the right information on how to sink his boss. Howard put a hand down to his side and bumped his telebeeper. Almost without thinking, he drew it to his mouth. It was a cheap one, Senate issue, voice only. He hoped that Cork was still wearing his. He pressed the button.

There was a rustling sound and then a clipped, “Yes?”

“Joe, this is Horton Howard. Ellen said there were only two disks.”

“You don’t always have to tell your friends everything you’re doing. You taught me that.”

“We turned your apartment and your office upside down! Where was the other copy?”

“Nobody ever looks after my poor little cactus. There’s more room in a cactus pot than you’d think.”

“Joe, please don’t do what you’re doing.”

Was that a sigh? A rush of guilt made audible?

“There’s no other way.”

“You promised me you wouldn’t. You said you wouldn’t play the disk if I got you in to see the president.”

“The president tried to kill me.”

Sen. Howard was beyond rational argument now, was begging: “You promised. Please.”

“I have to go now.”

“You miserable Elf! I took you under my wing! You promised!”

Then, softly, “I’m sorry. I lied.” There was a click and the line was dead.

“JOE!”

A few curious supernaturals in the back of the throng turned to look at him when he shouted, and a guard came in from the foyer to ask it he was all right, but he waved them off, waved his hands like the fluttering useless wings of a bird falling to its doom.

The faces on the monitors disappeared for an instant, and then reappeared with a slap, as if both the senator and Merlin had been snoozing and were suddenly jerked awake.

It was him, explaining about Puck.

“—called Shapeshifters. They can apparently take the forms of others at will. They are planning to take over the roles of key supernatural leaders and run amok downtown, so that nobody will trust the supernaturals and the Grimm Accord will fail.”

There was a muffled cheer through the crowd at this, but then the screen froze again.

“Stop cutting it off!” someone shouted.

Cork’s voice returned, the voice of an omniscient god sharing knowlege with children.

“I’m just showing you the good parts.”

The screen revived, Merlin and the senator both jerked electronically awake again. This time it was Merlin speaking.

“Senator, I think in the name of order—and to preserve those who have not beewn and gave Ellen a little wave, and then frowned when she didn’t respond.

“Is something wrong with Ellen?”

“Yes, yes, she’s very sick,” Merlin said. “I’m a doctor, I’m trying to help herm on. When that happens, no one will be hurt, but no one will be able to leave.”

The video froze again. There was stunned silence, and then boos and shouts of anger echoed around the crowd.

“They’re going to make us into slaves!” someone shouted. “Down with the Grimm Accord!”

Within instants, dozens of fights had broken out in the hall. Shouts of “You’re a Shapeshifter!” echoed off the rafters. Episodes of rudeness that had occurred over the last few days were suddenly interpreted in a new light.

“You ignored me in the elevator!” a young Goblin shouted at a nearby Elf. “You must be one of them Shapesorters!”

A fight ensued. Sen. Howard started to edge away, toward the foyer, when the young Elf who had been unjustly accused caught sight of him. His eyes burned with recognition.

‘That’s the guy!“ he shouted pointing a thin arm out through the tangle of limbs that had surrounded him. ”That’s the guy up there talking! Get him!“

Sen. Howard knew he couldn’t make it. He closed his eyes and prepared for his final moment on this earth. Then there came a deafening sound.

THIRTY-EIGHT

The gunshot got Cork’s attention. He was bent over the disk player console with Ransi Milbert, frantically trying to get to the really key part of the disk, when there was the sound of a small explosion behind him. He jumped six inches off the grouna and whirled. A policeman was standing there, gun drawn, his arm lazily bent upwards at the elbow like a gunfighter in an old western. He was a beefy black guy, armed like no cop Cork had ever seen; he was wearing five gunbelts, four of which had guns in them. Come to think of it, he looked less like a gunfighter and more like some stereotypical outlaw bandit.

“You scared me!” Cork shouted. He poked himself hurriedly in the chest. “I’m one of the good guys! The bad guys are down there somewhere! Go arrest them!”

The cop didn’t move, just smiled. “A good guy, huh? I didn’t know that good guys were prone to leaving old ladies dead in restaurants.”

Cork’s eyes widened.

“How the hell did you escape from there? You were mashed flat!”

Milbert followed the conversation with wide eyes, and looked like he was going to go tearing offstage any second, leaving Cork to his own devices.

“I wasn’t quite dead. You didn’t check. You should always check.” Puck aimed the gun at Cork’s head. “Say hello to the Great One for me.”

Cork closed his eyes and waited for the shot. When it came, he flinched, prepared to drop lifeless to his knees. But he was still standing. He opened one eye; if this was the afterlife, it looked a lot like the beforelife. Milbert was gone, but the cop was still there, cradling a bloody hand and cursing. Cork looked to the left; a blond-haired Secret Service agent, clad in a dark suit, had fired a nice shot. Puck’s pistol was nowhere to be seen.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Puck shouted at the agent. “I’m a goddamn police officer!”

“Sorry,” the agent shouted back laconically. “President’s orders.”

“Oh, right,” Puck said.

“Scout’s honor,” the agent said, his gun still at the ready. “You don’t believe me, ask him yourself.”

He gestured behind him. Cork looked and, sure enough, here came the colossal President Williamson, sweating profusely, fighting his way through an unruly mob on the back of a gorgeous female Centaur, Shiena, daughter of Sibelius. Shiena mashed her way through Faeries and Elves and Goblins and Gremlins, and even shoved aside a Bigfoot or two. At last she reached the stage, and turned to the oversized president on her back. “Hold on!” she commanded, and he did, wrapping his arms around her waist, and to Cork’s amazement she vaulted with the tremendous combined weight of her and the president to the stage. Puck was shaking his injured hand as Shiena slowly clopped up to him, but he was staring up at her in amazement. Even the mighty Puck could be impressed by a Centaur. Othello leaned his beefy face over the side of his mount and said, “Hello, there, boss. Hand me one of them guns you got there.”

Puck scowled, but he complied, fishing out a gun with his good hand.

“So you’re the turncoat. I don’t know who you are, but you’ll pay for this.”

Shiena huffed under the president’s weight. “I’m paying for it already, so you’re not scaring us, buster.”

Keeping the gun loosely aimed at Puck, Othello leaned over to Cork, who was still fiddling with the machine. In his fear, Cork had hit the fast forward button and had now lost his place.

“I got her out,” Othello said unnecessarily, and Shiena gave Cork a quick smile before turning her attention back to Puck. “How are we doing on time?”

Cork didn’t even glance at his watch.

“Not good. Where’s Merlin? Thought you’d have him in a headlock.”

“I would, if my boys could find him. People said they saw him outside a few minutes ago, but he’s suddenly made himself scarce. But we don’t need to worry about him right now. Their scheme can proceed without him.”

“That’s what I figured. It would help if we knew exactly what they were up to. You were a wizard! Think! What were their plans?”

President Williamson frowned.

‘They’re going to bring the force field things online right here in the convention hall. They obviously aren’t on yet, so the wizards are probably here now, screwing around with them. They’ve got to make sure the magic link works, or it won’t do any good. They’ve probably put the things in the walls and ceiling.“

He glanced around the hall, past the milling crowd, up to the roof. “No one up there. They must be done there. That means they’re still on the lower floors somewhere.”

He waved a hand around the room like a conductor on horseback.

“Somewhere out there.”

Cork looked down at the formidable video control console. That cowardly Milbert!

‘This is hooked up to cameras as well as monitors,“ Cork muttered, almost to himself. ”If I can find the button....“

He saw one, a big red one, that looked like it might do the trick. He punched it and the giant monitors went dark.

“Hey!” someone in the crowd yelled. “Turn them back on!”

Maybe the black one. He closed his eyes and hit the button, and when he opened them again and leaned back to look at the monitors he saw that the two enormous faces had been replaced by dozens of views, some of which revealed neatly-bearded men hunched over black boxes which appeared to be the size of large stereo speakers.

Cork whirled around, looking up at the various levels that ringed the main convention floor like the cooling fins on a carburetor. On one, two floors up, he thought he saw a quick movement.

“Levels one, three and five!” he shouted, looking to see which camera view corresponded to which floor.

“I see one!” Othello shouted, and fired off a couple of rounds toward level five. The sounds echoed around the convention hall and prompted a sustained roar from the crowd. Sizable sections of the handrail on that level chipped off, but there was no wizard clutching his chest and falling noisily off the railing onto the crowded floor below.

“Just shoot!” Othello yelled. “If we knock out one transmitter, we knock them all out. If they get this thing up, none of us will get out of here.”

“Except the wizards,” Cork said.

Puck reached for another gun, but Shiena fixed him with a tight glare and raised a single hoof in challenge.

“Look, I understand what you’re trying to do now,” Puck said hurriedly. “I’ll help. You want guns, I got guns.”

He gestured to his belt.

“Yeah, give me another one,” President Williamson said. “I’ll be the first two-fisted pistol-packing president since who knows when.”

“Give me one, too,” Shiena said. “I have hands, I think I can shoot.”

Puck reached for his final gun, but his hand was stopped by the blond Secret Service agent.

“I’ll take that last one, if you don’t mind,” the agent said as he emptied Puck’s makeshift bandolier.

Othello fired off another shot, and for an instant all eyes were focused to where it went; more chipped railing, no body. A scowling Puck took a step back and pulled a small pistol that had been hidden under the crisscrossing gunbelts. His first shot hit the Secret Service agent high in the shoulder, sending him windmilling off the stage and into the crowd. His second shot was aimed at the broad back of President Williamson.

He would have made it, too, had it not been for a sudden debilitating blow to a tender spot of his anatomy, courtesy of Ellen King. Instead, his shot whipped into the upper galleries.

“Ellen!” Joe shouted, barely audible over the crowd below, which was now stirring around like boiling soup. “Where have you been? Are you all right?”

She looked exhausted, sweaty.

“My left foot hurts, but don’t worry about it. Do something!” Puck had a stronger temperament than had Merlin; he staggered a few steps, but then was able to point the gun again. This time it was aimed at Ellen.

“No you don’t!” Shiena shouted, and with a swift turn she showed Puck her hindquarters and kicked him so hard that he sailed fifty feet back into the crowd and disappeared amidst a sea of churning limbs.

Ellen ran to the console. “Have you played all the disk?”

Cork shook his head, shook it so fast it was nearly vibrating. “No, I lost my place on the thing. The crowd is still wondering what the hell is going on.”

Ellen hunched over the console. “Here, I’ll turn on the audio command. I keyed vocal commands onto the disk program. I just need to say the word. Are you sure you want to do this, Joe?”

He nodded slowly. “This convention was supposed to be about freedom, not incarceration. Remember the New Hampshire state motto? Live free or die.”

She kissed his forehead quickly and then leaned in close to the console’s microphone.

“Here’s to New Hampshire, then. Computer: Play me the section guaranteed to get me a riot.”

Suddenly Merlin’s face towered over the crowd again. The mob stopped moving and grew quiet faster than Cork would have thought possible.

“We need to find out who’s who in there, to separate the wheat from the chaff. Now, I’ll admit I’m not one hundred ten-percent sure, but I think we can do it with some of the magn a headlock.”

“I would, if my boys could find him. People said they saw him outside a few minutes ago, but he’s suddenly made himself scarce. But we don’ for the forseeable future, that’s where the supernatural shouldm.”

“That’s what I figured. It would help if we knew exactly what they were up to. You were a wizard! Think! What were their plans?”

President Williamson frowned.

‘They’re going to bring the force to you.”

There was an electronic slap, like a lightning bolt across his face, and then Merlin continued.

“What I propose to do is take all the existing supernaturals and run them through our facility to weed out any Shapeshifters. We must be sure,” he said, and Cork pumped up the sound until it made his ears ring. “For this, we will need federal trthe room like a conductor on horseback.

“Somewhere out there.”

Cork looked down at the formidable video control console. That cowardly Milbert!

&Ellen looked out, and frowned. The mob on the convention floor was angrier, all right, as it members were beginning to turn things over and smash furniture against the walls, but they hadn’t grasped that they were in immediate danger.

“They’re not leaving!”

Cork thumped himself on the forehead with his knuckles.

“I played the part a while ago where Merlin mentions Wednesday,” he said in disgust. “They think they still have time.”

Not only was the mob not leaving, but they were turning against each other. Bigfoots and Trolls were going at it, fighting so viciously that other supernaturals were slipping in the blood. A group of Goblins was banging at the enormous tank that contained the Merpeople, who were swimming around furiously and shouting insults through their microphones. The glass between the groups was thick, but then Cork saw other Goblins approaching with hefty metal poles they had found in a storeroom, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before the Merpeople were flopping around on the floor, gasping.

Cork glanced around the upper floors of the convention center. Where were they? Suddenly the tiny form of a man appeared on the third level, a bearded man, who started whirling one arm as if he were trying to land a plane.

“They’re about to do it!” Cork shrieked. He grabbed the microphone, hit the switch and shouted, “Attention, supernaturals! Please take your rioting outside the building!”

He was roundly ignored; the Goblins began chipping away at the glass. The president snatched the microphone away and covered it with a meaty hand.

“We just need to channel some of this energy in a useful direction.” He uncovered the microphone and shouted, “Who here would like to have some words with that gentleman you saw on the screen?”

That got their attention. A roar went up from the floor, and even the Merpeople and the Goblins who were attempting to get at them shouted their approval.

“I have just received word that he and his friends are out in the streets of Washington this very minute!”

The roar grew, became a sound so monstrous that it fed back through the microphone and echoed around the hall like the war cry of a great beast. The supernatural throng began pushing and shoving to get through the front doors, which despite their size were holding up the flow. One group of supernaturals apparently decided to speed things up using magic, as half of a wall leading to the foyer suddenly exploded outward. The Goblins looked menacingly at the Merpeople, threw down their poles, and headed out with the throng. The Merpeople looked relieved; they didn’t appear to mind that they were being left behind.

Othello looked at Cork, and Cork looked at Ellen. Othello put down the microphone and rubbed his palms together as if they were dusty.

“Now they’re getting the idea,” he said.

THIRTY-NINE

Sen. Howard had shuffled out of the auditorium early, after the shots shifted attention away from him and back to the stage. He was glad he did when he saw what ensued later. A sizable chunk of the convention center’s middle wall had crumbled from within, sending dangerously large fragments of concrete falling into the busy roadway. From what he could tell, one traffic accident had already occurred. He crossed the street, walked one block, two blocks, three blocks and sat on a small curb on the outside edge of a parking lot for a store that had long since been closed, taking care not to impale himself on the jagged piece of metal that tied the curb to the black pavement.

He stared vacantly at the rounded hulk of the convention center, and pondered how much it looked like a mushroom that had been left out of the crisper for too long, all brown and inedible. And, now, crowded with roiling bacteria, fighting their way out. As he watched, a section of the wall higher up exploded outward, and the tiny figure of a man followed it down, thumping to rest on the ground below in a cloud of dust. Looked human; probably one of Merlin’s boys. Served them right. The wizards deserved everything they got. He, however, did not deserve to have his career go down in flames this way. He, the 74-year-old senior senator from West Virginia, did not deserve to have his career end on such a sour note. He could no longer look at the giant brown mushroom of the convention center, no longer cared that flames were now licking away at it from the inside, was not even slightly interested that thousands upon thousands of apparently highly volatile supernaturals were pouring out the front door and from any sizable holes in the walls. They could come get him and nail him to a nearby graffiti-splattered wall, and he would show no interest whatsoever. He put his weary head down in his hands. Their folds felt as soft as pillows.

“Horton,” said a voice, and at first he thought it came from within, thought he was going mad, prepared to welcome insanity.

“Horton.”

He raised his head. Dorton Hraavik, his white suit blackened, his jacket ripped, his gold watch chain broken, stood before him. They had known each other for decades now, but all that Horton Howard could manage to say was “hello.”

Hraavik gestured back toward the convention center.

“Everyone’s going downtown or toward Capitol Hill,” he said. “Stay here. You’ll be safer.”

He gestured around to the buildings and parking lots that had never really recovered from the riots so many years ago. Boarded up storefronts, the boards in the windows older than most of the staffers on the Hill. Howard looked around without seeing, and nodded.

“I really wouldn’t mind if you killed me, Dorton,” he said softly, and was surprised to find that he really meant it. At this point, he would value the ignorance he supposed death would bring.

Hraavik knelt beside him, placing warm hands on his shoulder and hip. Sen. Howard was in no mood for intimacy, but Hraavik’s eyes sought out his own, forced them to look. He looked. He saw embers burning in Hraavik’s eyes that he had not seen in years.

“Horton, I would never wish any harm to come to one hair of your head,” Hraavik said, his voice raspy. “I think you’ve made a mistake, but above all, you are my friend.”

Howard nodded, tried to voice words, but could only bark “You, too,” and that roughly. He lowered his head again, and found his voice.

“I’m sorry, Dorton. I wanted to do what I thought was best. The Shapeshifters posed a problem you just don’t understand.”

There was a pause, and he could hear the shouting from the convention center, could hear what he imagined was the burning of the fires crackling on this fine sunny afternoon.

“I wish you had told me about them earlier,” Hraavik said finally. “This is a hell of a way to find out. Did it ever occur to you that we might be able to find out something about them, working together? Don’t you remember all the times we worked together?”

He did. He remembered holding a press conference with Herver Cordelone, the last Faery king, the week after the supernaturals had revealed themselves. He had announced that Congress had passed a law saying that killing a supernatural was equal to human murder. Sen. Howard was only a representative then, but he was already an outspoken member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and in the early days after the Revelation the presence of supernaturals seemed sufficiently foreign to warrant the committee’s attention. Some of Rep. Howard’s rougher West Virginia constituents had already declared open season on supernaturals, and for a time the grotesquely stuffed head of a Faery decorated a bar in the tiny burg of Davis. Rep. Howard had it removed, had the perpetrators thrown in jail and left there for a quite a while. For this action, he won the respect of the supernaturals, won the trust of their leaders, was given a ringside seat as the leadership shifted from the old guard to the new, even as he moved from the House to the Senate. He could remember holding the hand of a young Faery punk, a tough guy, Dorton Hraavik, a security guard of sorts for Cordelone. Holding his hand high for a photo opportunity, showing solidarity. Dorton and Horton. He could remember as Dorton Hraavik moved from young punk to old leader.

“I remember.”

Dorton’s hands stopped moving and went away.

“Good. Keep those memories. I have to go now, Horton. We have work to do.”

Howard looked up again and saw the resolve in his old friend’s eyes. He wasn’t looking at the well-fed elder Faery statesman anymore, was instead seeing the barrel-chested young tough from so long ago.

“Be careful.”

Hraavik nodded. “I will.” He fished around in his inner jacket pocket, produced a tiny American flag, and waved it before Sen. Howard’s nose.

“Do you remember this, Horton?”

It looked familiar, of course, but aside from that, no, and Howard shook his head.

“You gave this to me that day of the press conference where we first met. You looked me in the eyes and said, ”Dorton, you’re not just a Faery now. You’re an American.“

He waved the flag feebly to and fro, and Sen. Howard saw just how feeble the colors were, how frail the thing looked.

“I believed you, Horton.” He gestured behind them to the convention center, which Howard saw was now fully ablaze, as streams of supernaturals continued to pour from its doors and head south and east, like ants drawn along a honey trail.

Hraavik held the flag between them, so close that it made Howards’ eyes cross to keep it in focus. Hraavik’s eyes twitched for an instant, and the flag burst into flame.

“I don’t believe you any more.”

He dropped the flag to the pavement, where it continued to burn, sending off tiny clouds of acrid smoke.

“Goodbye, old friend. I will never see you again.”

Hraavik placed both hands on the senator’s shoulders, and Howard found himself suddenly unable to look up, suddenly unable to take his eyes away from the tiny burning flag and the awful black smoke that it produced. He felt tears burning his eyes, and the smoke wasn’t even blowing his way yet. He heard Hraavik’s footsteps receding toward the din of the other supernaturals.

“May the road rise with you,” he said, and he hoped that his old friend was still close enough to hear.

FORTY

Perhaps the first and most noticeable sign that a riot was in progress was the blaring of car horns, the incredible amplified electronic shrieks that began emanating from the cars as their computer navigators attempted to scoot them around the city in an orderly fashion, only to find their auto-drive commands repeatedly thwarted by the presence of scaly or hairy creatures in the roadways. When the human passengers of the cars looked up from their newspapers or computers to see what the problem was, their shouts of surprise and fear added to the cacophony that had suddenly engulfed downtown Washington, D.C., on this nice spring day, at this busy lunch hour.

Supernaturals came running through the maze of cars that had suddenly stacked up, still as stones on the city streets. Creatures that had so recently been debating policy and passing amendments were now growling in inarticulate fury.

“Get the hell off my car!” one human shouted at a Bigfoot, which had planted both sizable feet on the hood, the Bigfoot’s weight alone enough to crimp the plastic. With little more than a hint of pain or effort, the Bigfoot emitted a piercing cry, leaped to the street, picked the car up and sent it and its owner crashing back onto the other cars behind it, the glass in the windshields shattering like candy.

A group of Leprechauns went tearing through department stores on the way across town, sending mannequins rumbling to the floor, shattering glass, kicking over perfume counters, sending rocks hurtling through windows, so that at the end of their passage the stores were awash in scents and rubble. Startled shoppers streamed into the streets, coughing and rubbing their eyes, accompanied by the smell of roses and jasmine and far-off exotic places. The Leprechauns grabbed dozens of perfume samples during their spree, and used them all over Washington as if they were stink bombs.

Hundreds of Goblins made their way to the National Cathedral, where some scaled the ornate walls like giant lizards and ripped the gargoyles from the ledges. It had been noted that some of the gargoyles looked liked Goblins, and the cry went up that their concrete brothers must be freed. Other Goblins smashed their way into the interior, their fabulous muscles helping them buck the tide of tourists who suddenly wished to leave. The Goblins vaulted up the inside walls to shatter the windows, sending tiny shards of stained glass spinning down on the tourists like a kaleidescopic rain.

Downtown, and indeed all across town, the city sparkled like crystal from the broken glass that was everywhere. Store windows were gone; neon signs shattered; the enormous plate glass windows that gleamed proudly from expensive office buildings were now glittering rubble. The Leprechauns had proven themselves adept at damaging windows with their smelly missiles, but the true champions of this art were the Centaurs, with their firm hooves. Their leader, King Sibelius, was not among them, so the lesser Centaurs cantered through traffic, turning frequently to deliver shattering blows to the windshields and side windows of abandoned cars, turning the insides of cars into shrapnel bombs.

The Moth People were soaring above the melee like the vindictive flying monkeys of Oz. Hundreds of them had visited a nearby construction site, swooping down on its de facto weapons like gulls descending on a garbage dump. Suitably armed, they took to the skies. The view below them was a swirl of color and motion. Humans and supernaturals streamed around the boxy buildings of downtown Washington like many-flavored fondue flowing through a maze. The Moth People hovered on warm drafts of air at the tops of the buildings, and at a signal from their leader began dropping bricks that smashed cars and plummeted through the skylights of buildings, impromptu bombs spurred along by gravity.

The most spectacular act of the day occurred at the Jefferson Memorial, at the edge of the Tidal Basin that connected to the Potomac River. Hundreds of supernaturals had reached the Jefferson after streaming across the National Mall, working pranks as they went. Some used magic to zap the kites of children from the sky, and took as their reward the wailing sounds that followed. Others blew out the tires of passing bicyclists, sending them rolling on the grass and walkways like acrobats. Once at the memorial, they surrounded it and linked hands, trapping dozens of frightened human tourists inside. Four-foot-tall Faeries were linked with five-foot-tall Elves and six-foot-tall Trolls, give or take a few feet, and once the circle was completed they closed their eyes.

Ten seconds later, they broke the circle and jumped back. There was a tremendous groaning sound from the roof of the Jefferson Memorial, and suddenly from out of nowhere a gigantic dark shape appeared, a shape so long that it draped across the rounded memorial like a cat sleeping lazily on a small television. Huge chunks of marble began falling from the Jefferson’s ceiling, and the frightened tourists inside decided that they should probably be frightened outside, away from the decaying structure.

They streamed away from Jefferson and turned to see what appeared to be a dinosaur flailing above their heads. The creature roared and flapped its arms, which appeared to be fins. With a cry that sounded as if the sky itself was cracking open, the creature lost its balance and rolled off the memorial.

One tall, muscular tourist, whose baseball cap proclaimed him to be from Texas, grabbed a nearby Elf by the neck and shook him so hard that his tongue protruded from his mouth.

“What have you done?” the tourist demanded.

The Elf appeared addled for an instant and then pointed a shaking hand at the creature, which was knocking over trees with its flailing tail, thick as an oil pipeline.

“It’s the Loch Ness Monster,” the Elf gasped. “You always wanted to know if it existed. There it is.”

Just as the Texan turned to look in wonder, the creature’s tail caught him and the Elf and sent both sailing into the afternoon sky above the water of the Tidal Basin.

The Loch Ness monster finally managed to support itself somewhat upright on its flippers, and with a defiant roar began slouching toward the water. It wasn’t Loch Ness, but apparently the creature thought it would suffice. The remaining tourists and supernaturals gaped in wonder; the monster looked, surprisingly, just like they thought it would. As lore would have it, the monster had three enormous humps on its back and a long neck and tail, which it was now using to smash the Jefferson Memorial to bits. Its tiny head, perched atop a twenty-foot neck, scanned the crowd, which was frozen still in awe. Seeing nothing it desired to investigate further, the beast lurched down the steps with surprising speed and threw itself into the basin with a mighty groan, sending up a splash that looked like a tidal wave. The water wasn’t deep enough to even cover its humps, but the Loch Ness monster roared its gratification at being in liquid again. A group of paddle boaters had approached the Jefferson Memorial during the melee, but upon seeing the arrival of the monster they turned and began paddling furiously for the opposite shore.

The act of teleporting the monster had taken such a mental toll on the supernaturals that they collapsed in exhaustion, holding their heads and moaning softly. The tourists, some of the shock wearing off, began beating and kicking the prone and supine creatures. They rolled and screamed as boots and fists collided with ribs, but the humans would not let up. The supernaturals were too tired and spent to use magic to protect themselves, and finally many of them managed to scramble to their feet and hurl themselves headlong into the Tidal Basin. They preferred to take their chances with the monster.

FORTY-ONE

The green Buick sped through the night, its tires hissing against the pavement. Merlin hunched over the wheel, occasionally slapping himself to stay awake. The car was well away from the autoguides built into the city streets, so he had been forced to actually take the wheel, an experience that was no longer familiar. But he was getting the hang of it again. Merlin checked his watch: almost midnight. Alabama should be approaching, and then it would be another eight hours to the Gulf Coast, and his secretly chartered yacht.

He spotted a sign advertising coffee and restrooms, and thought that might be just the thing. Merlin squirmed on the seat; it had been nearly ten hours since he had left Washington. He had earned a brief rest. It was dark and the highway was poorly lit, and Merlin was concentrating so hard on finding the off ramp that he didn’t notice the police cruiser until it had hit its blue lights.

“Oh, not now,” he shouted to himself. “I don’t have time!”

He glanced at the speedometer; he was speeding, but not that much. Could they be onto him? Surely not. He hadn’t gone near headquarters or any of the offices after the incident at the convention center. He had taken the wise precaution of magically changing the Buick’s paint to green. He had even installed a new tag from his emergency collection. They couldn’t be onto him, unless the police were pulling over every Buick in the country.

He slowed the car down and eased it onto the broad shoulder of the highway. What was the protocol in this situation? Get out and put your hands up? No, that would look suspicious. He thought back to his teenage days: yes, he should stay in the car, and do only what he was told.

The police cruiser slowly pulled to a stop behind him, crunching its way through the gravel. Its front door opened, and a tall, thin young policeman stepped out, his boots making almost as much noise on the gravel as had the police car’s tires.

“Get out of the car, sir,” the policeman said, while he was still a dozen feet from the Buick.

Merlin thought about pretending that he hadn’t heard the request, then thought better of it. He slowly stepped from the car and faced his pursuer. The police officer was wearing sunglasses, even though it was pitch black, and he had a pistol leveled at Merlin’s chest. This was definitely not a routine stop.

“Hey there, boy,” the cop said. “We’ve got a few things to talk about.”

Well, he had behaved long enough. Time to freeze this cop, disable his car, and keep on truckin‘. Merlin twitched his fingers, and the policeman suddenly froze, as if he were now nothing more than a very lifelike statue. Merlin twitched his fingers again, and the front tires on the police car exploded. He sat back in the Buick, and put his index fingers to his temples. He was out of practice; even that puny display or magic had made him dizzy. Then he heard it.

“Hey, boy,” the cop said. “I said get out of the car.”

Merlin paused for a second, and then complied. The cop still had the gun pointed right at him.

“I wouldn’t do any more magic if I were you,” the policeman advised. “You might make my trigger finger slip.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Puck. I am a Shapeshifter. That’s how I got out of your little spell there. Through considerable practice, I have become able to wiggle my molecules just the tiniest bit. Makes your little freezing trick less effective. But you’re a smart man, you can see that.”

“How did you find me?”

“I met up with one of your compatriots, and after a bit of coaxing he allowed that you have a yacht in the Gulf of Mexico, and might be heading there. You drive fast, certainly. It’s taken me a while to catch up.”

A couple of cars shot by, but no one stopped.

“I think they were speeding,” Merlin said.

“Good for them.”

“Well, you’ve found me. So what do you want?”

“Well, initially I had planned to kill you. You messed up my plans quite severely, after all.”

“Nothing personal.”

“I understand. Yes, I was going to kill you, but I had a better idea. Things are getting a little warm around here, for both of us. I thought maybe a trip to South America might be called for, a vacation of sorts. Judging from what I’ve seen, you obviously are a man with some talent and ambition, and by a great stroke of luck, we’re both already heading in that direction. I thought perhaps you might want to join me.”

Merlin gave a slow smile, and, after a moment, Puck smiled back.

“I do seem to be operating alone all of a sudden.”

“That was my thinking.”

“Do I have a choice?”

Puck continued smiling, but didn’t lower the gun, didn’t waver for an instant.

“Of course.”

Merlin thought hard. South America, with a homicidal creature of partially unknown capabilities and totally unknown temperament. Might be interesting.

“So when do we leave?”

“Now might be good. We’ll take your car, as mine seems to have suddenly developed some tire trouble that probably isn’t under warranty.”

Merlin slowly got back into the driver’s seat. Puck walked around to the other side, his gun still drawn and pointed at Merlin. My next car should be bulletproof, Merlin decided.

“Lots of supernaturals in South America,” Puck said as he slid into the passenger seat.

“So I hear,” Merlin said as he dropped the Buick into gear and drove away.

FORTY-TWO

Joe Cork was in a Senate committee hearing when he noticed that everyone in the audience was looking past his boss, looking right at him. He looked around. What was wrong? His boss was talking, questioning some witnesses, but people in the audience were openly pointing at him, pointing and laughing. He glanced down at the files he was carrying and realized that the chair underneath him was cold . . . because he wasn’t wearing any clothes.

“Wake up!” someone in the audience yelled.

There was a hand on his shoulder. He jumped. The files fell to the floor and he stood stark naked before all. The audience roared.

“Wake up, Joe.”

He opened his eyes and looked around in confusion. Where had they gone? He glanced down fearfully, but it turned out he was properly clad, in a nice new suit at that. He rubbed his eyes, and saw Ellen’s face leaning in close.

“Wake up, sleepyhead.”

He saw that President Williamson stood before him, looking out a window. Shiena towered beside him, although she had her head down, reading through a file.

“Sorry,” Cork said. “These long days are killing me.”

“I understand,” the president said. “You smoke cigars, Joe?”

“No.”

“You wanna start? I think it’s called for.”

“It’s illegal indoors.”

Othello turned and smiled.

“Hell, I’ll make it legal again. Let’s fire up, shall we? To celebrate? Your first day as communications director, and you did just great.”

Shiena looked up and gave her opinion of cigars by frowning, but Ellen said, “I’m for it.”

The president tossed her a stogie that looked like a small log and she popped it in her mouth. He wiggled another in Joe’s direction.

“Lighten up, Joe. It’s all over. Three days have passed and we’re in control.”

Cork wasn’t so tired that he could let that comment go unchallenged.

“It’s just starting, Othello.”

“President Williamson. Or Richard, if you prefer. Got to keep up appearances, you know.”

President Williamson tossed Cork the cigar and began fishing around in his desk.

“Now, where is that lighter . . . ?”

“It’s going to take years to rebuild things. Dick.”

“We’ve got three, at least,” the president replied. He was now on his knees, pawing through a lower drawer. “Damn. I thought there was one in here.”

Cork examined the cigar. Truly nasty.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t count on getting reelected. We’ll be lucky if you don’t get impeached. The press guys were like hyenas out there this morning. You have so many scandals going at once that they can’t even name them. They call the whole thing Scandalgate.”

He started ticking off the points on his fingers.

“Calling off the police while a riot was in progress. Possibly inciting the riot in the first place. Letting the Loch Ness monster swim around in the Potomac. Pardoning everybody in sight but the wizards. Canning your very experienced top staff and replacing them with a former Senate receptionist, a college student majoring in English lit and an obscure half-Elf committee staffer.“

Shiena looked up and smiled.

“A student in English lit who is eminently qualified to do this government crap.”

“Ditto for the receptionist,” Ellen said.

Cork reached over and brushed his fingers along her cheek, which was distended from the enormous stogie. Ellen slithered her fingers in between his and gave them a gentle squeeze.

“Things could be worse,” she said simply, her eyebrows raised, and he nodded.

President Williamson gave up his search.

“We’ll just suck on these things until I can get somebody to bring us a light. And don’t worry about all that other stuff. The public has short memories. We’ll tell them the truth, later on sometime.

“I doubt they’d want to know the truth, if they realized their president had been taken over by a Shapeshifter,” Cork said. “We’re lucky that most of the media stuff was destroyed in the riot. They don’t have any proof, but they know something fishy was going on in that convention hall. They’ll be sniffing around.”

“Let ’em sniff. And the Loch Ness monster is a good tourist attraction, anyway, the mayor said so himself. So I count that as a plus. Speaking of pardons, did I remember to pardon you, Joe?”

“Yes, you did. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Cork freed his fingers from Ellen’s embrace and walked to the window overlooking the green expanse of White House lawn. It was another gorgeous spring day, the sky as clear and blue as crystal, shining over them like a calm, benevolent sea.

“They’re all out there now, somewhere,” he said. “Even the Merpeople took off, although I can’t quite figure out how they got away.”

“They have this truck that picks them up,” Ellen said. “It’s pretty nice.”

“Well, whatever. They’re gone now.”

Behind him, President Williamson and Ellen and Shiena nodded, their heads strangely synchronized. Cork could see their reflections shimmering in the glass.

‘They’re all out there in the woods and the water and they won’t come back anytime soon. We can’t even find them anymore. All the magic detectors are in the junk pile.“

President Williamson perched himself on the edge of his desk and popped the cigar in his mouth. His reflection looked ghostly.

“Don’t forget that Merlin is still out there, too. We searched the Wizards Council headquarters here and their labs in New Jersey and found nothing. He cleared out fast. And as for Puck, who knows. Damn, I wish we had a light.”

A bird made its way across the sky, flickering white lightning against the clear blue.

“We’ve undone decades worth of other people’s work, haven’t we?” Cork asked. Asking the question made him smile, even though he didn’t know why.

‘Tes, we have,“ the president responded. ”It will take us a long time to get everything back like it was. The supernaturals are wild again.“

Cork concentrated for an instant and his cigar began smoking, its end glowing in the window like a coal. The bird was gone from his field of vision. Free.

“Good.”

TK scanned and proofed. (html) (v1.0) January 2012.

CONTENTS

But First—A Little Coffee

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

FORTY

FORTY-ONE

FORTY-TWO