Knight Life (39 page)

    
“Uh, no. No, I don't think we should do anything but get down from here.”

    
“All right,” she said agreeably, and with a sudden movement, yanked him away from the tower. Before Kent even knew what was happening, he was treading thin air. He tried to twist, lunge, get back to the tower, but there was no hope at all. From below there were screams in the crowd, which quickly blended with his own screams as he plummeted toward the river. The last thing that went through his mind, for no reason that he could possibly discern, was a sudden craving for an ice cream sandwich, and then he envisioned some sort of segment on a cable TV show where he'd seen cliff-divers easily survive falls from much higher than this, and then remembered something else about how if you didn't hold your body just right, then hitting a body of water from a height wasn't
much different from hitting concrete. Then there was a hideous, broken-sack-of-bones sound as his body struck the water, and blackness enveloped him.

M
ORGAN LE FEY
watched with grim satisfaction as people drew in close, everyone talking at once. In the distance she heard ambulances. No one was looking up at her and pointing, because no one had seen her in the first place. All they'd seen was a mayoral candidate, with election day almost upon him, getting drunk and throwing himself off a bridge in some sort of suicidal despair. As for the specially treated wine, even one sip was enough to send his blood-alcohol level through the roof . . . provided there was enough of him left to test. She took pride in the old adage that, if you want something done right, it's always best to do it yourself.

I
T WAS SEVERAL
minutes before midnight.

    
Arthur sat in his dressing gown, staring at the moon out the window of his modest apartment. The moon had moved from behind the clouds and seemed quite . . . quite what? Thoughtful. Yes, that was it, if such a thing was possible. The moon looked thoughtful, pensive. Just as it reflected sunlight, it also seemed to reflect Arthur's mood.

    
Arthur chose a star and wished fervently on it, so fervently that he stood there for a full minute with his eyes tightly shut. When he opened them he half hoped that his wish would be granted. But Merlin had not materialized in his living room. He paced like a caged panther. It was an incredible feeling of helplessness, not even knowing where to start looking for the kidnapped seer. Was he in New York? New Jersey? The East Coast, the West Coast? Was he even in the United States? Arthur
moaned and rubbed his temples. Merely contemplating the possibilities made his head hurt.

    
He turned and looked at the telephone. It sat there, inviting, so tempting. To talk to
her
for just a moment. That would be all he needed to patch together the relationship that had once meant so much to him. But obviously it hadn't meant anything to her, or she would not have made a mockery of it. But still . . .

    
He stood over the phone, a man decisive in all matters except those of the heart—a failing many men share. He resolved that, if she called him, he would talk to her. Yes, that was it. If she came to him, he would try to find it in his heart to forgive her.

    
“Ring,” he commanded the phone.

    
It rang.

    
He took a step back, stunned, and even a little impressed with himself. Tentatively he answered it and said, “Yes?”

    
“Arthur, it's Ronnie here.”

    
“Yes, of course, Ron,” Arthur sighed, his shoulders sagging. “Late, isn't it?”

    
“Never too late for news like this. You sitting down?”

    
“No. Need I be?”

    
“For this news, you may want to,” and then he continued without waiting for Arthur to seek out a chair, “Kent Taylor got hammered this evening and threw himself off the Fifty-ninth Street bridge.”

    
“What?”
Arthur couldn't believe it. “Taylor? The Democratic nominee? Is he dead?”

    
“No. But they had to pump about twenty gallons of the East River out of his lungs, and he broke half his body. He's in the hospital. He's critical.”

    
“Of what? Is it an exceptionally bad hospital?”

    
Ron grew silent on the other end, clearly not understanding Arthur's reply. But then he said, “Not critical
of the hospital
. He's in critical condition.”

    
“Threw himself off a bridge?” It didn't sound right to
Arthur somehow. It sounded almost . . . convenient.

    
“They said if he makes it through the next twenty-four hours, he's got a chance of pulling through.”

    
“But . . . what happens now?” asked Arthur. “With the election, I mean.”

    
“That's to be determined. Boy, it's certainly ironic, isn't it.”

    
“In what way?”

    
“Well, the papers were all saying that Taylor took a drop in the polls. Who'd've thought he'd take it so literally?”

C
HAPTRE

THE
T
WENTY-FIRST

G
WEN KEPT
HER
face resolutely down toward the sidewalk, not even looking the campaigner in the face as he thrust a flier at her. Arthur's face smiled at her from the paper as the enthusiastic young man said, “Polls close in four hours, be sure to vote for Arthur.” Gwen nodded, knowing that her concerns lay somewhere besides a voting booth.

    
She'd walked the block for hours, looking and looking.
Not look where it isn't
. Did that mean something, or was that simply Miss Basil being cryptic in order to confuse her. It wasn't here. She'd known it wasn't here. She'd known it all along, it was all a joke, it was . . .

    
She sagged onto a stoop, thinking desperately. She'd read about what happened with that candidate, Kent Taylor. She knew it was Morgan's doing; she felt it in her bones. It was all part of some great plan to take down Arthur, to build him up just before knocking the props out from under him. To make her vengeance and schemes all the more stinging when they were completed. Gwen
was positive—even though she couldn't know for sure, she was positive nevertheless . . .

    
Positive.

    
Sure.

    
“I have to be sure,” she whispered. “I have to believe it's here.” Slowly she got to her feet and looked around, wondering how she could be absolutely sure of seeing something that she wasn't sure about. And then she thought about the old thing the Marines said, or maybe it was the Navy SEALS, but she remembered what it was: Failure was not an option. She had to find the book, because it was what her studies told her she needed, and she had to use it to get to Morgan, to find Merlin, to succeed. And she had to succeed because failure was not an option, and the only way to avoid failure was to find the bookstore, so it simply had to be there, that was all, it had to be there because it couldn't
not
be there. With every fiber of her being, she refused, absolutely refused, to think that it wasn't there.

    
She looked in front of her. It had no name, there was no bell, nothing to use to knock on the door, just simply the word
BOOKS
written in the window. She could practically smell the must coming off it, and she hadn't even opened the door yet. The window was so dark that she could see nothing within.

    
Six steps led to the door, and she took them two at a time. At the door, she placed her hand on the knob and wondered what she was going to do if she tried to turn it and it was locked. She jiggled the handle; it didn't turn. There was no sign of life from inside. Then she thought,
It has to be open. No other possibility will be allowed
. She turned the knob with authority this time, and the door opened right up. She stepped in and felt chilled, but pushed it out of her bones, and thus felt warmer.

    
She'd been right about the must. All the air in her lungs was immediately replaced by it. And she had never seen so many books packed into so small a place. The dust
was an inch thick and the lighting so dim she couldn't make out a single title on a single spine. When she heard a creak in a floorboard nearby, it was all she could do not to jump a foot in the air. She whirled and saw an old man standing behind her. He had a pointed black beard and was peering owlishly over half-rim spectacles. He said nothing, obviously waiting for her to speak.

    
“I've been all over town,” she said. No response. “For weeks. Looking for a book.” Still no response. “I need to do something, and I need to find a particular book that can help me do it.” Again, nothing. He just stared at her, even through her. “It has to do with the occult. I was told you had books on the occult here. But it doesn't say so in the window.”

    
Finally he spoke, in a tired whisper. “When you've got the real thing, you don't advertise.” He paused a moment and then said, “What do you need?”

    
“The Carpathian Book of the Fey and Daemonfolk
.”

    
“My,” was all he said. Then he turned and disappeared behind a bookshelf. She wasn't sure if she was expected to follow him, and finally elected to. She headed around the same shelf, and blinked when she saw that the stacks seemed to extend much farther than she would have thought possible, given the confines of the store.

    
There was a loud
haruumph
behind her, and she whirled. He was standing there, and she had no idea how she could possibly have walked past him in the confined space, but there he was. He was holding up a book that was heavy and leathery and had a pentagram embossed on the cover. Slowly, he nodded.

    
There was a crack of thunder from outside, and a flash of lightning illuminated the interior of the store.

    
Not too melodramatic
, she thought.

    
“How much is it?” she asked.

    
“What are you going to use it for?”

    
She took a breath, forming it into words for the first time. “To summon a demon.”

    
He regarded her for a long moment, and then he said, “Take it.”

    
He thrust it into her hands. She took it in surprise, impressed at its heft. “Are you sure?”

    
“I will not ask you for any price ... for you, my dear, will have enough problems.”

    
“Problems?”

    
“You intend to consort with demons, my dear. Even if you bind them to you, compel them to obey you . . . there is always a price to be paid. Always.”

    
“What . . . sort of price?” she asked uneasily.

    
“It could be anything. The demon could ask for it immediately, or it could be karmic in nature. It might not be today, it could be tomorrow, or ten years from now, or in another incarnation. But, somehow, in some way . . . there will be a price.”

    
“If that's the case,” Gwen said grimly, “I may already be paying for it, from a previous lifetime.”

T
HE COLONIAL ROOM
at the Roosevelt Hotel, near Grand Central Station, had been made over completely in preparation for election night. The walls and ceilings had been festooned with balloons and crepe paper. Three televisions had been set up to monitor the election returns as broadcast by local news stations and network affiliates. Tables had been laid with enormous amounts of food, including chicken legs, meatballs, and countless other munchies. The room was already packed with supporters, apprehensive campaign workers, news people, and whoever else had even a semilegitimate reason for being there.

    
Suddenly there was a burst of applause, which quickly spread over the entirety of the room, as the workers saw Arthur enter. Elvis, Buddy, Percival, and Ronnie surrounded him, as did several other upper-echelon campaign workers. As Arthur moved through the crowd, people
came in from all sides, wanting to shake his hand or even just touch his sleeve.

    
“Arthur,” Ronnie was saying, “you're really supposed to wait upstairs until the results are tabulated. Then you make an entrance.”