Harry Turtledove - The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

Neither did I. At the moment, I couldn’t see the Nothing; the dump just looked like a weedy vacant lot. But when I’d stood where Tony was now, the wall beyond that point seemed to recede into infinite space. And yet, at the same time, it was obviously right where it belonged. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that; I got the feeling I wasn’t sensing it entirely through normal vision.

Tony Sudakis came down off tiptoe. He was, as usual, briskly derisive. “When you see something you don’t understand in a toxic spell dump, you’d better start trying to find out what it is just as fast as you can,” he said. “Why don’t you call your wizard—his name was Manstein, right?—and have him get up here? The sooner he can find out what’s going on over there, the sooner we can start trying to deal with it”

“Aren’t you the same fellow I heard yesterday talking about how if Michael or I set so much as a toe inside the confines of the dump, your people would sue us until the vulture let Prometheus’ liver alone?”

“Go ahead, rub it in,” he said. “Yeah, I’m that guy. But I’m also the guy you’ve finally convinced. So come on back to my office.”

I was never so happy to turn around in my life. As we headed back toward the squat, ugly fortress, I asked, “Do you know what got dumped in that area? The more I can tell Michael, the quicker he’ll be able to identify what’s going on.

“Makes sense,” Sudakis said. He looked over toward where we’d seen that. Nothing. It wasn’t there now, of course, because we weren’t in the right spot. “That’d be about, hmm. Area 37. I’ll check for you.”

He pawed through the files, muttering all the time: “No, can’t be that one—that one was exorcised two years ago…

“Maybe this one? No, forget it—I know everything roc’s eggshell can do… Hah!”

“Hah?” I echoed.

“Gotta be this one, Dave. Three-four months ago, one of the Baron’s Watchers of the Shore found the remains of what sure looked like a major conjuration out on Malibu Beach.

They tested the junk for thaumaturgical activity, but it came back negative—and I mean real negative, like there’d never been any magic around it since time began. Nobody believed that, not from the way the stuff was laid out. so they brought it here and dumped it in spite of the tests.”

“I remember that one,” I said. There were letters in the Times complaining about the waste of taxpayers’ crowns.”

“That’s it,” Tony agreed. “You ask me, me only thing worse than the government spending money when it doesn’t need to is not spending it when it does need to.”

I started to pick up the phone, then stopped. “You said ’stuff was laid out. What kind of staff?”

He looked down at his parchments. “Funny stuff—like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Staffs with stone disks mounted on one end, others with those shells called sand crowns instead. If I had to guess, I’d say the stones were carved flat to look like the sand crowns. And there were other staffs, long and short, topped with feathers. Looked like some kind of Indian ritual, maybe, but not one I know.”

“Okay.” I got on the phone and called Michael. While I waited for him to answer, I worried some more: balance of Powers. Indian magic would not be well—inclined toward what I drought of as peace and order, not now.

“Environmental Perfection Agency—Michael Manstein speaking.”

“Michael? Hi, it’s David Fisher. Listen, I’ve got a new job for—”

Michael interrupted, something he hardly ever does:

“David, where are you. What on earth are you up to? Bea is quite vexed”—a word only he would come up with—“with you and Boss is practically in tears.”

That made me feel bad, but it would have made me feel worse if I didn’t feel pretty bad already. In words of one syllable, I explained where I was and what I was up to. I also told him about Judy, which explained why I was up to it “Good heavens, David,” he said, about as big an outburst as you’ll ever hear from him. “No wonder your behavior was so anomalous.”

“Yeah, no wonder at all,” I grunted. Anomalous wasn’t the word for it; shitty was. I could blame it on endless worry, no sleep, and too much coffee, but in the end it came back to me. If you’re not responsible for what you do in this world, who is?

“Have you discovered anything of import in your return to the Devonshire toxic spell containment area?” Michael asked, graciously not saying anything more about what sort of beast I’d been.

“As I matter of fact, I have.” I told him about the Nothing, then put Tony Sudakis on the phone so he could confirm it Tony gave the handset back to me. Michael was saying, shall fly there forthwith to investigate. Your description strikes me as extremely urgent.” He hung up.

“He’s on his way,” I said to Sudakis.

“Okay,” he answered. “I’d better stay here, then, to make sure he can get in and do what he needs to do. What about you? You gonna wait here with me?”

I thought about it, shook my head. “I’ve got to get back and mend my fences. Listen, do you have a telephone at home?” I waited till he nodded, then said, “Would you give me your number? I may need to get hold of you any time.

Like it or not—and I’m not saying you’re liable; please understand that—you’re in the middle of this, too—and they’ve got Judy, whoever they are.”

He scrawled it on a scrap of parchment. “Here you go. Call when you need to.”

“Thanks.” I went out the door, down the warded path (I didn’t even look back for the Nothing this time), over the footbridge, and out to my carpet. On the way back to St. James’

Freeway, I passed a florist’s shop. I stopped and bought Rose some roses. Sometimes words aren’t contrition enough.

Rose’s eyes went wide when I set the vase on her desk She pointed to the closed door to Bea’s office. “She’s in a meeting right now, but she’ll want to see you when she gets out And thank you, David. You didn’t have to do this.

Michael told me what your trouble was. I’ll pray for you.”

Rose is one of the good people. If God was in a mood to listen to anybody. He’d listen to her. “I did have to do this,” I said. “It’s the stuff before that I shouldn’t have done.”

She waved that aside and started to say something more, but I was already on the way back to my office. No matter how much of a big, hairy thing I’d been, I found she’d faithfully taken my messages while I was out. One was from Henry Legion. I’d have to call him back, I thought Then I looked at the next one. It was from Judy.

I don’t know how long I stood there staring at the little piece of parchment in my hand. Every feeling you can imagine ran through my mind—joy that Judy was alive, fear that she was in their clutches, hope, worry, rage, all of them jumbled together at once in a way that would have made me dizzy even if I hadn’t been running on no sleep and too much coffee.

Eventually I started thinking as well as feeling. The message, not surprisingly, left no return number. I ran back j down the hall (I almost ran into Phyllis Kaminsky, too) to | Rose, threw it on her desk. “I meant to tell you about this, David,” she said, “but what with the flowers and all, it went right out of my mind. I’m sorry.”

So even Rose could make mistakes. I hadn’t been sure it was possible. But it didn’t matter, not right then. “Never mind,” I said. “How did she sound? What did she say?”

“She just asked for you and hung up when I told her you were out of the office,” Rose said. “I didn’t know anything was wrong then.” She gave me a reproachful look; if I’d told her earlier, she might have been able to do more.