Plus-One (Windrose Chronicles) Read online

  Spectacles and sword-blade flashed, and she stumbled behind Antryg, dizzy with shock.

  He’s covering me. That’s what’s slowing him down.

  Dammit, go after that guy! He’s the one with the mark!

  He started all this…

  Antryg fell, bleeding. Joanna blasted again with the HCL (How much is left in the tank?) and the wizard turned, sword upraised.

  The thing – Joanna could see it clearly now, though she could never afterwards accurately describe it: insect, dog, rat, and something perversely human as well – whirled in a maelstrom of fog, fell upon McClaren. The Plus-One screamed, buried his face in his arms. “Forgive me!”

  The wight twisted, reared back. Flung its flat, triangular head up and down, antennae thrashing. The clawed hands flailed, then began to rip at its own flesh. Antryg grabbed Joanna, dragged her back to the farthest corner of the room between two covered tables, pulled her down under them.

  The creature wrenched out its own guts, and with a shriek – dog, rat, a thousandfold horror of blind rage and savagery – twisted off its own head.

  The stench was apocalyptic.

  The silence, like the end of time.

  Sobbing broke it. McClaren, huddled in his corner, head buried in his arms, waiting to die.

  Joanna staggered to her feet, ran across the spew-boltered horror of the room to his side. “You’re all right,” she said, and he twisted on the floor and clutched her like a drowning man, weeping as if his heart would break. “You’re all right. It killed itself – didn’t it, Antryg?”

  “Quite thoroughly.” He limped to her side, flicked his sword in a long blood-shake and sheathed it, wiped blood from the side of his face. “It’s all right,” he added, kneeling beside her to lay one big, crooked hand on the Plus-One’s heaving shoulder. “You did well, and bravely; I doubt we could have destroyed it. It had to destroy itself – and it would only do so, to protect you… from itself.”

  But the Plus-One could do nothing for a time but sob, shattered and trembling, in Joanna’s arms.

  Quietly, she asked, “Did you know that would happen?”

  “Well,” said Antryg, “I certainly hoped it would happen – particularly once the thing materialized here in the room. We’d probably better get going,” he added, looking around him as the lights suddenly came on again. The cheerful glare revealed the carcass of the kill-wight, already dissolving into a thin, brownish slime that covered walls, floor, sections of the ceiling and – revoltingly – the clothing and hair of the three people kneeling in the corner.

  “Ewww—”

  “It’s quite clean.” Antryg wiped some of it from his cheek. “It’s been materialized and dematerialized so often there can’t possibly be any viable bacteria in it—”

  He made a move to lick his slime-coated fingers in demonstration, and Joanna grabbed his wrist.

  “That,” she warned, “is a dealbreaker, and I will never kiss you again.”

  His smile was wry and he wiped his fingers on her cheek – making her jerk back with a squeak of protest, in spite of the fact that her face was covered with the same smelly brown film.

  “I almost get you killed,” he said softly, “and the dealbreaker is a little slime?”

  Joanna said, “Yes. And if the lights are on, that means they’ve got the elevators working. Let’s get out of here – I do not want to have to explain all this.”

  Together, they helped Dr. McClaren to his feet.

  “I’m desperately curious to hear how Delia accounts for it, though,” Antryg said. “Possibly it’s best not to know. Don’t forget to switch off the fog machines on our way out.”

  ***

  They reassembled – after an extremely thorough shower and a soak in the hotel’s steam-room – in the Piazza coffee-shop, where Ms. Bannister said she would meet them after sorting out the representatives of the Clark County Fire Department and the Palermo Group. It was, by this time, four in the morning, but the lobby was just as lively with returning party-goers as if it had been eight at night, and the casino rattled and clamored on undaunted. According to the waiter, despite repeated warnings from the Fire Inspectors that the hotel might be aflame above their heads, most of the white-haired ladies and graying gents in cowboy boots who had come by the bus-load to play the slot-machines had remained seated at their chosen machines, patiently staking them out by the glare of emergency lamps until power was restored. Ms. Bannister had ordered the coffee-shop to send in coffee, drinks, and cookies on the house.

  I hope they pay her what she’s worth…

  This breakfast was also on the house. Joanna got poached salmon and asparagus; Antryg, his usual revolting concoction of oatmeal, eggs, and syrup. (“Well, it’s marginally better than dematerialized cockroach molecules, but only marginally.”) Dr. McClaren ordered a hot fudge sundae and french fries – “Do you know, it’s the first time I’ve ever had a sit-down meal here?”

  Joanna could not help wondering what he looked like to the waiter. Not like Dr. McClaren, she was willing to bet.

  “What happens now?” asked the Plus-One, a little shyly. “Do I go back… with you? I will,” he added. “I never thought I’d say it – all those years, living in the Undercity, creeping out at night to steal… But I understand that the wrong I did here is… different. I cost eleven people their lives, six of them as innocent and undeserving as my mother and sisters were, when they died in the Plague. What I did… It’s odd.” He shook his head. No brown slime streaked him now – Joanna found she couldn’t remember whether any had, even during the fight.

  Pretty damn good illusion…

  “I always scorned the Chancellery for outlawing the use of the Ancient Ways. Now I think of some of my colleagues in the Thieves’ Guild, or some of my neighbors in the Undercity – I think of the kind of havoc they could wreak if they had been mageborn, and had a little teaching… and I understand.”

  He glanced from Joanna to Antryg. “I’m not excusing myself, or trying to get you to put in a good word with the Chancellery. I do understand.”

  Antryg scooped a spoonful of whip-cream from the sundae, and dropped it into his coffee. From the direction of the casino, the wild cacophony of flashing lights and the Marine Corps Hymn signaled that someone’s machine had paid off. A few moments later a gang of drunk, ecstatic refugees from some small Ohio town reeled into the coffee-shop, handing out money to every waiter and busboy in sight and yelling for Dom Perignon and nachos. Victory at its sweetest.

  “When I used my power for reasons that I thought were good,” said Antryg slowly, “killing far more than eleven innocent people in the process, the Council of Wizards condemned me to imprisonment in a place where I could work no magic; where I would be fed and sheltered, but kept from doing harm. You showed willingness to die – and die frightfully – in expiation of what you had done, if there can be any expiation for causing the deaths of the innocent. If such a place can be found for you, would you be willing to remain there? Delia!” he added, beaming, and held out his hand as the Banquet Director – back in her well-pressed pantsuit and not a hair out of place – crossed to their booth. “Permit me to introduce you to your Plus-One…”

  She halted in her tracks, blinking. “Pastor Seville?” For one instant her expression was shocked disbelief; then she shook her head a little, said, “Or do you just look like our old minister from Church? You have to,” she added, holding out her hand to him. “Aunt Lacey wrote me he’d passed, about ten years ago, back in Jackson. How do you do? I’m Delia Bannister…” Her glance went to Antryg. “I take it everything has been straightened out?”

  “It has,” said Antryg. “Our friend here was not the killer; in fact he was instrumental in destroying it. It will not return.”

  Joanna saw McClaren – or Pastor Seville – glance questioningly at Antryg, then hesitantly take Ms. Bannister’s hand.

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I am.”

  “If you have any quest
ions,” said Joanna, “here’s my card. I’m not carrying any for the investigation side of our business, but the phone number is the same. We guarantee our work.”

  “And that – stuff – on the walls of the Urbino Room…”

  “Ectoplasmic residue,” said Joanna. “You don’t want to know.”

  “A mild solution of vinegar and boric acid should take care of the smell,” added Antryg, with his slightly maniac smile. “The question now is, do you have any objection, per se, to your hotel remaining haunted? Prior to the appearance of the kill-wight, all you were out was a little food from the hotel banquets, and you never mentioned any of the hotel staff quitting because they were troubled by your guest.”

  “Oh, no,” said Ms. Bannister at once. “I didn’t even know the maids had seen him, until Troy Durango told me this evening when he came on-shift. Certainly there was never any trouble with the machines in the casino—”

  Dr. McClaren shook his head. “It would take magic to affect them,” he said. “And in fact, where would I spend the money? What would I spend it on?”

  “Well, that’s really all the Palermo Group is interested in.” She paused, studying the face that looked so familiar. “Are you human?”

  “Not… Not as such,” replied the Plus-One. “I don’t look anything like you people. But I think I’m a lot more human than I was when I came here all those hundreds of nights ago.”

  ***

  As they drove south on the I-15 Tuesday morning – Joanna had spent three hours in the Las Vegas Hospital emergency room getting her gashed arm stitched up, then the rest of Monday either sleeping or on the phone rearranging deadlines with Wondersystems – Joanna said quietly, “About that death-curse—” Gray-white miles of sand and scrub flashed by; trailers parked alone at the end of long pale traces of worn earth; gutted brick single-room sheds with rusted gas-pumps decaying to oblivion. Black specks of buzzards, circling in an aching blue sky. “Is it real?”

  Antryg’s voice was very quiet. “Oh, yes.” He propped his sunglasses more firmly onto the end of his long nose. “It’s part of the Council vows, before they’ll give you training in how to use your powers. I’ve never heard the means by which it’s fulfilled, and if it’s written anywhere, it would be in the library of the Citadel. If I tried to go there it would be fulfilled pretty quickly.”

  He spoke matter-of-factly, long legs propped up before him and his feet on the Mustang’s dashboard. He’d eventually won $10 on the slot machines and had blown the whole of it on a pair of green plastic earrings shaped like flying saucers. Above the collar of his gaudy Hawaiian shirt, three very light gashes marked the left side of his neck, where the kill-wight’s claws had nearly opened the carotid artery, and most of that arm was purple-black with bruises.

  Joanna’s own arm hurt so fiercely it was hard to drive, and she knew from the shower and the steam-room they were both covered with bruises.

  “Wouldn’t Sunday night have been a good time for it to cash in, if it was going to?”

  “You’d think,” he agreed.

  Road noise: the hum of the tires. Trucks passing like towers.

  “There are few things in the world more dangerous,” said Antryg, “than a dog-wizard with good intentions.”

  “Dangerous to who?” returned Joanna. “If you’d been hiding in that hotel, and saw Mr. Hollywood Agent diddling kids, or the Pride of the Skies gang-raping some poor stripper who was just trying to make a living, what would you have done? You know they’d never have been arrested. Never been brought to trial.”

  “I’d have done the same. I’d like to think with my training – both from the Council of Wizards, and from the most dangerous dog-wizard of all time – I’d have been better able to safeguard the kill-wight. But with no magic in this world – certainly none that works on slot-machines – it’s difficult to predict or control what forces one lets loose: where they’ll go, or what the results will be. That’s why the death-curse. And that’s why the Council wants to kill me. But I’d have done the same.”

  She reached across, and put her hand on his knee.

  “And that’s why I love you.”

  About the Author

  Since her first published fantasy in 1982 - The Time of the Dark - Barbara Hambly has touched most of the bases in genre fiction. She has written mysteries, horror, mainstream historicals, graphic novels, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, romances, and Saturday Morning Cartoons. Born and raised in Southern California, she attended the University of California, Riverside, and spent one year at the University of Bordeaux, France. She married science fiction author George Alec Effinger, and lived part-time in New Orleans for a number of years. In her work as a novelist, she currently concentrates on horror (the Don Simon Ysidro vampire series) and historical whodunnits, the well-reviewed Benjamin January novels, though she has also written another historical whodunnit series under the name of Barbara Hamilton.

  Professor Hambly also teaches History part-time, paints, dances, and trains in martial arts. Follow her on Facebook, and on her blog at livejournal.com.

  Now a widow, she shares a house in Los Angeles with several small carnivores.

  She very much hopes you will enjoy these stories.

  The Further Adventures

  by Barbara Hambly

  The concept of “happily ever after” has always fascinated me.

  Just exactly what happens after, “happily ever after”?

  The hero/heroine gets the person of his/her dreams, and rides off into the sunset with their loved one perched on the back of the horse hanging onto saddlebags stuffed with gold. (It’s a very strong horse.)

  So what happens then? Where do they live? Who does the cooking?

  This was one of the reasons I started writing The Further Adventures.

  The other was that so many of the people who loved the various fantasy series that I wrote for Del Rey in the 1980s and ‘90s, really liked the characters. I liked those characters too, and I missed writing about them.

  Thus, in 2009 I opened a corner of my website and started selling stories about what happened to these characters after the closing credits rolled on the last novel of each series.

  The Darwath series centers on the Keep of Dare, where the survivors of humankind attempt to re-build their world in the face of an ice age winter, after the destruction of civilization by the Dark Ones. Ingold the Wizard is assisted by two stray Southern Californians, Gil Patterson - a historian who is now part of the Keep Guards - and Rudy Solis, in training to be a mage.

  The Unschooled Wizard stories involve the former mighty-thewed barbarian mercenary Sun Wolf, who finds himself unexpectedly endowed with wizardly powers. Because the evil Wizard King sought out and killed every trained wizard a hundred years ago, Sun Wolf has no teacher to instruct him in his powers. With his former second-in-command, the warrior woman Starhawk, he must seek one - and hope whatever wizard he finds isn’t evil, too.

  In the Winterlands tales, scholarly dragonslayer John Aversin and his mageborn partner Jenny Waynest do their best to protect the people of their remote villages from whatever threats come along: dragons, bandits, fae spirits, and occasionally the misguided forces of the distant King.

  Antryg Windrose is the archmage of the Council of Wizards in his own dimension, exiled for misbehavior - meddling in the affairs of the non-mageborn - to Los Angeles in the 1980s (that’s when the novels were written). He lives with a young computer programmer, Joanna Sheraton, and keeps a wary eye on the Void between Universes, to defend this world from whatever might come through.

  Though out of print, all four of these series are available digitally on-line.

  To these have been added short stories about the characters from the Benjamin January historical mystery series, set in New Orleans before the Civil War. As a free man of color, Benjamin has to solve crimes while constantly watching his own back lest he be kidnapped and sold as a slave. New Orleans in the 1830s was that kind of town. In the novels he is assisted by his
schoolmistress wife Rose, and his good-for-nothing white buddy Hannibal; two of the four Further Adventures concerning January are in fact about what Rose does while Benjamin is out of town.

  I have always been an enthusiastic fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. Over the years I have been asked to contribute stories to various Sherlock Holmes anthologies, and when the character went into Public Domain, I added these four stories to my collection.

  Quest For Glory is a stand-alone, a short piece I wrote for the program book at a science fiction convention at which I was Guest of Honor.

  Sunrise on Running Water is tenuously connected to the Don Simon Ysidro vampire series, in that Don Simon makes a brief cameo appearance. After seeing the movie Titanic - and reflecting that the doomed ship departed from Ireland after sunset and sank just as dawn was breaking…and that vampires lose their powers over running water - I just had to write it. It’s the only story that’s more about the idea than about the characters.

  The Further Adventures are follow-ons to the main novels of their respective series. They can be read on their own, but the Big Stuff got done in the novels: who these people are, how they met, what the major underlying problems are in their various worlds. I suppose they’re a tribute to the fact that for me - and, it seems, for a lot of fans - these characters are real, and I at least care about what happens to them, and what they do when they’re not saving the world. They’re smaller issues, not world-shakers: puzzle-stories and capers.

  Life goes on.

  Love goes on.

  Everyone continues to have Further Adventures for the rest of their lives.

  *

  Novels in the Antryg Windrose Series (out of print but commercially available digitally)