That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.
To be made honest by an act of Parliament
Call up the bloody Territorials.
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow
Beside me singing in the wilderness.
Now there’s a choice–heartache or tortured liver!
A sweeter draught than ye will ever taste, I ween.”
I concluded with a wolf-howl and bowed off. Nobody applauded. Well, they
were still busy. I barely saw them as deeper shadows, dancing and
gesticulating. Sparks spat blue in midair. I caught a brimstone whiff.
A crystal globe on the desk came alight. Writing appeared in it.
No, nothing alien, nothing ominous. Simply:
3, UPPER SWANDAM LANE
LONDON–
The globe blanked too fast for me to catch the postal zone.
Corposants brightened to normal. Ginny and Frogmorton let out shuddery
breaths. Sweat glistened on their faces. They’d been through a mill.
“Did you get all of that?” I cried.
“Oh, yes,” Ginny whispered. “How could I not?”
“And I,” Frogmorton said, no louder.
He shook himself. Amazingly for an old geezer, he went directly back to
the shelves, took down a huge atlas, spread it on the desk, consulted
the index, and turned to a map of a city section. His finger traced over
the page. Ginny bent close.
“Here,” he said. “A sideway, virtually an alley, in Limehouse.”
Her laugh rattled. “Limehouse? Isn’t that ridiculously obvious?”
“Which may be why he chose it, Dr. Matuchek. I don’t know what the
building is like, although I would guess an abandoned warehouse or a
dubious commercial establishment in that rather decayed district. One
can readily learn. At any rate, there he sits motionless, like a spider
in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he
knows well every quiver of each of them.
“Enough for the nonce.” Frogmorton turned away. “I decree that we have
earned a bit of ease.”
From the cabinet he took glasses and a bottle of Ragganmore, bless his
tasteful heart. His alembic furnished Highland spring water. We sat for
a while in companionable silence. The weather wildened.
“Perhaps we should inform the authorities,” Frogmorton ventured at
length.
“No,” Ginny answered. “You know perfectly well Fu would be gone before
they got there. Later, okay, pro forma, we can if you like. But first
Steve and I have to go.”
“The dangers are incalculable.”
Her tone went steely. “Sir, my brother’s reputation and liberty are at
stake.”
And possibly all our hopes and ambitions, or Western civilization, or
humanity’s future in the cosmos, or something else that I didn’t feel
like windbagging about. Mainly, I was goddamn mad. Whoever or whatever
the jackals were behind our troubles, I wanted at them.
“I know,” Frogmorton said softly. “I raised the question from a sense of
duty.” His glance dropped. “I regret that age and infirmity make me
useless in anything but an advisory capacity. Morbi tristisque
senectus.”
Ginny reached over and patted his hand. “Do you really imagine we can
manage without your counsel?”
“Yeah,” I chimed in. “Unlike the young gaucho named Bruno, I say as a
werewolf I do know that muscles are fine, sharp senses divine, but
brains, they are numero uno.”
Resolution rose afresh in him. “What do you mean to attempt?” he asked.
“That depends,” I replied. “Basically, I guess, break in, confront him,
and demand to know what the hell is going on.”
Frogmorton frowned. “He is well guarded.”
“Unless they keep silver bullets loaded, I’ve a notion I can handle his,
uh, dacoits or whatever you call ’em.”
Now Frogmorton winced. “We don’t want violence, Mr. Matuchek, do we?”
His tone steadied. “Indeed, I suspect Dr. Fu employs it–the physical
kind–only as a last resort. You will be in much greater peril from
things much more recondite.”
“That’s why I’ll need a familiar,” Ginny said.
There’s a lot of misinformation around about familiars. They don’t just
run errands and such. They lend their thaumaturges psychic strength and,
through whatever degree of rapport is possible, their nonhuman
viewpoints, insights. They can serve as vessels of power or of
spirit–they can be comrades in battle–how well we knew!
“Plus a weapon against Fu’s critters,” I added. “Can you help us with