Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

“Come on, Josh, I think we ought to stay way out of their way.”

“You’re right. Let’s get back to Star Yard. Maybe we won’t need candles for the trip back.”

They jogged up a Chancery Lane whose sidewalks were increasingly deserted. A few spots of rain began to fly in the wind. They reached Carey Street and crossed over to Star Yard.

As they entered it, however, two young men came toward them. One of them was dressed with almost ridiculous elegance in a long gray coat with a black velour collar. The other was much more bulky, with a round brown face that looked half-Burmese.

Josh took hold of Nancy’s arm and drew her to one side of the yard, so that the two young men could pass them. But the thin young man stopped right beside them and the larger one moved himself in front of them so that they couldn’t go any further.

“What is this?” said Josh. “A mugging, or what?”

“Depends what you’ve got to offer, guvnor. We’re always on the lookout for novelties. Especially if they come from over there.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The thin young man leaned forward and looked into Josh’s face so closely that he could smell the cigarette smoke on his breath. He was elegant, he was so handsome that he was almost beautiful, but he was a wreck.

“Jack be quick?” he ventured. “Now do you know what I’m talking about?”

Twelve

“What do you want?” asked Josh. “If you’re thinking of mugging us, you’re out of luck. We don’t have any money at all.”

“You’re a Yank,” said the thin young man, cocking his head on one side like a parrot. “How about that, then? We don’t often get Yanks.”

“Look, we’re just tourists.”

“Tourists? You’re taking a chance, ain’t you?”

“What’s wrong with being a tourist?”

“What’s wrong with being a gob of spit in a hot frying pan? You ought to thank your lucky moons that the Hoodies didn’t catch a hold of you first.”

The Burmese-looking youth had his eyes half-closed in concentration and his hand cupped to his ear. “They’ve just turned the corner, Sy. We’d better get weaving.”

The thin young man took hold of Josh’s arm with a bony hand covered in silver rings. “Come on … let’s scarper before the dogs pick up the scent.”

“Listen, pal, we’re not going anyplace. Especially with you.”

“You ain’t got much in the way of viable choices,” said the thin young man. “You can’t get back through the door, not today. So it looks like the dogs’ll have you, less’n you follow us along. You ever see a man noshed on by dogs? Not an appetizing sight.”

“You know about the door?”

“What door?”

“You said we can’t go back through the door, not today. So you know about the door.”

“I know where you and your good lady come from, guvnor; and I’ve got a good guess where you’re going now. But it’s no use your trying to get back there, not till the same time tomorrow. Surprised you didn’t know that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s as plain as mud, guvnor,” he said, and slowly spun his finger in the air. “You can only go through the door once in every turn of the earth. Don’t matter which way. Once only per diem and that’s your lot.”

“So we can’t go back until the same time tomorrow, at least?”

“Not now, guvnor. And if you and your good lady don’t want to end up as two matching dogs’ dinners, you’d better come along with me and San here, quickish.”

Josh hesitated. With the Hooded Men bearing down on them, he badly wanted to get them both back to the “real” London. But it looked as if they had run out of time. The dogs were barking and the drummers were drumming, and even if the thin young man weren’t telling the truth, they still didn’t have any candles.

Josh could hear the high excitement in the dogs’ voices, and he knew exactly what they were yapping about. These were dogs who could smell that their quarry was close. These were dogs who smelled blood.

“How did they pick up our scent?” asked Nancy.

“Simple, missus. You lot always smell different. I can smell you myself. Soap and scent and death, that’s what you lot always smell of. Even the geezers.”

The drums came racketing nearer. The Hooded Men reached the corner of Carey Street and began to ricochet like grapeshot off the Bankruptcy Court buildings.

“Josh,” said Nancy, urgently.

Without warning the dogs came sliding and snarling around the corner with their handlers barely able to hold them back. As soon as they saw Josh and Nancy and the two youths, however, the handlers let out whistles of encouragement and snapped the dogs off their leads. Josh didn’t recognize the breed, but he could see that they had the barrel chests and unlockable jaws of pit bull terriers. They came bounding across the street barking insanely – spit flying, claws scrabbling on the cobbles. One of them launched itself toward Nancy as if it had been shot out of a catapult. It knocked her down to the sidewalk and started to tear at the fringes of her leather coat.

The Burmese-looking boy turned and ran up Star Yard as fast as he could; but the thin young man stayed where he was, drawing out a triangular-bladed craft-knife and crouching down in front of the dogs, daring them to go for him. “Come on, pooches! Who wants their lights cut out?”

Josh twisted around and seized the collar of the dog that was raging on top of Nancy. He wrenched it clear off the ground and slapped it across the side of the head, twice. The dog went into a frothing fury, snarling and clawing and whipping its body from side to side, but Josh raised it right up to eye level and pointed his finger at it and said, “Stop.”

He had no idea if his usual dog hysteria management was going to work. Most of the dogs that he had dealt with before had been the neurotic pets of frustrated middle-aged women from Marin County. They hadn’t been trained to rip people’s hearts out, the way this animal obviously had, and he had never in his life encountered any animal in such a rage.

“Stop,” Josh told it. But the dog kept on snarling and twisting and trying to take a bite out of Josh’s forearm.

“Stop!” Josh yelled at it; and quite unexpectedly, it stopped, even though it was still swinging around in the air and half-strangling in its collar. “Stop,” Josh said again, much more quietly. He turned around, stretching out his right hand, and pointed one by one at the jumping, barking animals.

“Listen to me!” he yelled at them. “You are going to be calm!” Then, as their barking diminished, “You are going to be calm. You are going to be reasonable. Listen to me. Don’t move. You are going to think this through.”

The thin young man came backing toward him, his knees bent, still waving his craft-knife from side to side. He glanced at Josh but he obviously couldn’t think of anything to say. The eight attack dogs were now milling around in front of them, their tongues hanging out like red neckties, confused. Their handlers were walking across the street now, their black capes billowing, snapping their leads.

The drummers beat a long, savage roll and then they were silent. They opened their ranks so that the Hooded Men could walk between them, with their swords raised.

“Go on, Max!” shouted one of the dog-handlers; and the other one shouted too, and whipped his dogs across their backs with his lead.

Josh kept his hand raised. In spite of the noise, in spite of the confusion, he tried to radiate calm, as if he were the center of all tranquility. “You are going to stay where you are until I tell you to move. You feel happier, being calm. You feel much more fulfilled.”