F. Paul Wilson - Gateways

“I put your beer in the refrigerator so it wouldn’t get warm,” she said on her way to the kitchen. “Do you want one?”

“Thanks, no. I’m not here to drink.”

She stopped at the kitchen counter where the wine bottle waited. An empty glass stood next to one half filled. Not dainty little claret glasses but big glass balloons that held eight to ten ounces if they held a drop. She topped off both and held out the fresh one to Jack.

“Here. Try this. It’s Italian. Valpolicella.”

“No, really. I—”

She locked eyes with him. “I don’t like to talk to people who won’t share a glass with me.”

Jack shrugged and took the glass. He’d done worse things to get someone to talk. He took a sip.

“It’s good.” There. Was she happy? “Now, can I ask you a few questions?”

“If you wish.” She seated herself on the sofa overhung with plants and vines. She lit a cigarette and began shuffling a deck of cards. She pointed him toward the recliner. “Sit. You want to ask me about a Russian woman with a malamute, don’t you.”

Jack felt his jaw drop. “I—I—”

“And an Indian woman with a German shepherd. The one who told you to stay away from that house in Astoria. The one you foolishly ignored.”

“How did you know?” Jack said, finding his voice.

She blew smoke and shrugged as she began laying out the cards in a classic solitaire tableau. “Lucky guess.”

“Since June I’ve been running into women who know too much—women with dogs. You’re the third. Two isn’t a trend. But three…”

“Not to worry. You have nothing to fear from them. Or me.”

Jack took a deep breath and let it out. He’d expected denials or, at the very least, evasions. To have her come right out and confirm his suspicions…it knocked him off balance.

He took a gulp of his wine. Maybe this was why she’d insisted he take a glass.

“Who are you people?”

She finished laying out the cards and began to play, flipping them over with sharp little snaps. “No one in particular.”

“I don’t buy that. You know too much. Back in June, when I was sick, the Russian lady came to my room”—he saw her in his mind, salt-and-pepper hair, gray jogging suit, big white malamute—“and told me things about a war I’d been drafted into. ‘Is war and you are warrior,’ she said. I don’t know if she mentioned it directly or not, but I’m pretty sure she was going on about something called the Otherness and—”

Anya stopped her card play and looked up at him. “You’d already heard of the Otherness by then.”

“Yeah.”

Although he wished he hadn’t. The first mention had been earlier in the year, in the spring at a—surprise—conspiracy convention. Since then his life hadn’t seemed quite his own.

According to what he’d been told, two vast, unimaginably complex cosmic forces have been at war forever. The prize in the war is all existence—all the dimensions, all the realities, all the parallel dimensions up for grabs. Earth and humanity’s corner of reality is a minor piece on the game board, of no special importance. But if one is going to declare itself winner, one has to take all the pieces. Even the inconsequential ones.

One side—a force, a state of being, whatever—is inimical to humankind. It has no name but through the ages came to be called the Otherness by people aware of its existence. If the Otherness takes over, it will transform Earth’s reality into a place toxic to all known life. Fortunately, Earth and its attendant reality are currently in the portfolio of the other side, the force known only as the Ally. From what Jack had learned, “Ally” was a misnomer. This force was not a friend, merely an enemy of humanity’s enemy. The most Earth could expect from it was benign neglect.

“At the time I thought the Russian lady was some sort of fever dream, but then she showed up again and told me…”

“That there would be no more coincidences in your life.”

Jack nodded. The words still chilled him. The implications were devastating.

“Was she right?”

Anya went back to her game, flipping and arranging the cards in the tableau, moving some aces and deuces up to the foundation.

“I’m afraid so, hon.”

“Then it means that my life is being manipulated. Why?”

“Because you are involved.”

“Not by choice.”

“Choice means nothing in these matters.”

“Well, if someone or something thinks I’m its standard bearer, it had better think again.”

“You are not the standard bearer. Not yet.”

If true, that was a relief. A small one.

“Then who is?”

Anya was dealing to herself from the stock now, and Jack couldn’t help but notice that the cards were falling her way, more and more finding places in the tableau or the foundation.

“One who preceded you,” she said. “He preceded the twins as well. You remember the twins, don’t you.”

Jack had a flash of two men in identical black suits and dark glasses, with identical pale, expressionless faces.

“How could I forget?”

“They were meant to replace their predecessor. But when you dispatched them—”

“They didn’t leave me much choice. It was them or me. And I tried to help them at the end, but they refused.”

“They did what they had to do, but their passing left a void. One that you were tapped to fill.”

“But you said there’s someone else.”

Anya nodded as she laid the final card from her stock on the solitaire tableau. All the cards were face up. She’d won. Without bothering to shift all the tableau cards to the foundation, she gathered them up and began shuffling.

“There is. Amensch ofmensches , that one. But he’s old now, and may die before he’s needed again.”

“‘Again’?”

“He was the Ally’s champion for a long time.”

“How long?”

“Verylong. So long you wouldn’t believe. But now his days are numbered. After ages in the Ally’s service—too long, I think, but who listens to an old woman—he was freed. But it seems his liberation was premature. Even though he has aged, he may be needed again. But if he doesn’t live till that day…” Her eyes met Jack’s.

“Then it’ll be me?”

“You.”

Against all reason, Jack believed her. With an effort, he shelved his dismay. Maybe that day would never come. Or maybehe’d have died of old age when it did.

But he hadn’t come here about himself. He’d come about his father.

“Is the Otherness involved in what’s been happening to my father?”

She nodded as she finished shuffling and began to lay out another solitaire tableau.

“The Ally is involved here as well, though tenuously.”

“But I can assume, at least from what I’ve seen, that you and your ladies are on the Ally’s side, right?”

She shook her head. “No. I oppose the Otherness, but I’ve no connection to the Ally.”

“Then whose sideare you on?”

“Yours.”

“But I’m stuck with the Ally, so that means—”

Anya grimaced with irritation and stopped her card play.

“I didn’t say the Ally’s side, did I? No. I said,yours . That meansyou , separate and distinct from the Ally.”

“But why?”

“Because the Ally can be as ruthless as the Otherness. It opposes the Otherness for its own reasons, none of which involves our health and happiness. It will use you and anyone else it can to fend off the Otherness, and not care a whit what happens to you. Humanity’s well-being is not on its agenda. It is, however, on mine.”

“Why? What’s your stake in this?”

She began rearranging the cards in the tableau.

“My stake is your stake. Everyone here on this planet is in the same boat—Earthis a boat, when you think of it—and we all deserve to be free of both these meddling powers. This planet, in this subdivision of reality, is inhabited by sentient beings, which makes it all the more valuable in the struggle. But it’s more than mere property that can be won or lost or traded at will. If it must belong to one of them, then I’d far prefer the Ally over the Otherness. But why belong to either? Why not be shut of both of them?”