Part 19 (1/2)

But aside from a lingering sense of otherworldliness that hung in the air, there was no sign of any intrusion save the prints in the mud and the phosphor stains, and no trace of a door. The women stayed for a few more minutes, scouted the circ.u.mference of the lake, then gave up and returned to the car. Alouzon headed out Wils.h.i.+re.

”Where are we going now?” asked Manda.

”I want to take a look at what's left of a house,” said Alouzon. ”And then I'll give you a look at a school.” A sudden qualm struck her. ”Is this getting to be too much for you?''

Manda and Wykla were still staring at the city. Wykla wiped sweat from her forehead. ”Were you not here, friend Alouzon,” she said, ”we would be a sorry sight indeed. But since you are ...” She smiled, and Manda nodded agreement.

After fighting her way through heat and traffic for most of an hour, Alouzon drove into the green shade of Bel Air and pulled up to a stop before Helen's house. The lawn-brown and withered from the heat-had been trampled, and the rums had been roped off. Deserted now save for birds and squirrels, and surrounded by untouched trees and the quietude of the expensive neighborhood, it all looked pointless and depressing.

Alouzon got out of the VW and stood for a moment at the brick gateway. Here, all that was left of Suzanne h.e.l.ling had been loaded into an ambulance. Where was her old body now? Still at the coroner's office? Or locked in some drawer in the city morgue with a tag marked Jane Doe attached to the toe?

She shuddered. The ruins were silent.

”Stay by the car,” she said to her companions. ”I'll look fast, and then we'll get out of here.”

While Manda and Wykla waited, Alouzon crossed the lawn, stepped over the ropes, and approached the ruins. Desolation. The hot wind fluttered a paper and sang through the broken wood and steel. Like Bandon. Like some sections of Quay and Hanoi. Like Haiphong, and My Lai, and Quang Tri.

And, yes, there it was again: a p.r.i.c.kling presence in the air, like the fear of a graveyard hand on one's shoulder at midnight. Something that spoke of other worlds, of strange pa.s.sages, of portals and impossible doors.

Alouzon returned to the car. Quietly, thoughtfully, she drove back down towards Sunset Boulevard and UCLA. She had fallen into MacArthur Park, and there was a door there. She and Helen had been taken to Gryylth from Helen's house, and though she had no proof of a door's existence, the feeling was the same. And the university: how many times had Solomon Braithwaite set off for Gryylth from his office in Kinsey Hall?

Holes. Doors. After she and her companions had used up an hour eating hamburgers and onion rings at the cafeteria, she stopped at the archaeology office. ”Is Dr. O'Hara in?” she asked the secretary.

”Urn . . .I'm not sure. Let me check the roster.”

He was definitely not in, and Alouzon knew that: Brian had a cla.s.s this hour. Leaving Wykla and Manda standing nervously in the hall, she smiled and edged past the desk, gambling that her face was still an honest one. ”Can I just go and check real quick?”

”Well ...”

”I want to see if I brought everything he wanted.”

The woman shrugged. ”It can't hurt, I suppose. Last door on the-”

”On the right,” said Alouzon. ”I remember.”

In a moment, she had darted down the inner corridor and had knocked at Brian's door. No answer. She pretended to be disappointed, but as she walked very slowly back to the desk, her senses were straining at the closed door midway up the corridor.

”I'll try again later,” she said when she reached the desk.

”He's been very busy,” the secretary offered. ”One of our new teachers quit and left him with quite a pile of work.”

”Oh. I'm ... sorry to hear that.”

She left the office without looking back. Wykla and Manda followed her down the stairs and outside. ”Was it there?” asked Wykla.

Alouzon wiped her face. ”Yup.”

Manda was deliberating. ”But no hounds. And no ...” She shrugged. ”No real door.”

”Nope.” Alouzon shoved her hands in her pockets and examined the campus from the landing of the outside steps. It was late afternoon. d.i.c.kson Court lay before her, green and tree-shaded, like Blanket Hill at Kent State. Perhaps it was a warrior's instinct, and perhaps her recollections of the days of protest and death had been stirred by her concerns, but she found herself half-consciously considering the best strategies for defending Kinsey Hall against an attack.

She dragged herself out of her thoughts. This was UCLA, not Gryylth. And not Kent State.

But the daylight-unremitting, blinding daylight-had triggered a thought. ”I wonder if you had a point back at the park, Manda,” she said. ”You said it was a good thing you arrived at night.''

Manda's eyes were frank. ”I still say it, Alouzon.”

”Yeah. And I say that maybe there was a reason you arrived at night. The same reason the hounds arrived at night.'' She rubbed the back of her neck. ' 'I want to look at these same places after it gets dark. Let's head home and catch a nap. Unless I miss my guess, we're probably going to be up until dawn.”

They drove back to the apartment. Alouzon gave Manda and Wykla the use of her bedroom, and the young women, tired out by strange happenings, fell asleep instantly. But Alouzon was doubtful as she stretched out on the sofa. She had risen late, and the fatigue left by a day of wading through the mire of Los Angeles traffic was mixed with tension. She was not at all sure she could do anything more than fret about Gryylth.

But she had hardly closed her eyes when her thoughts were spun away down long corridors of darkness and void. She thrashed, but she discovered that she had no arms or legs with which to thrash. Terrified as she was, though, she felt at the same time oddly calm, as if, blindfolded and bound, she were being led along by a kind and familiar hand.

The darkness pa.s.sed with an abrupt flicker, and Alouzon found herself staring straight into a pale, aquiline face framed by hair the color of night.

”h.e.l.lo, Alouzon,” said Kyria.

* CHAPTER 15 *

Alouzon wanted to rush forward and take Kyria in her arms, but she found that she was strangely immobile, her body declining for the time to obey her commands, no matter how urgent. Relief turned to fear, then abruptly to consternation. Body? A moment ago she had no body. ”What the h.e.l.l's going on, Kyria?” she said. ”I can't move.”

Kyria came forward and embraced her. ”You cannot move because you are not yourself, Alouzon. You are in Dindrane's body. She invoked you as she did in Broceliande.”

”Wha?”

The priestess' voice came to her from within her mind. Hail, Dragonmaster . . . Alouzon sensed hesitation, then: My G.o.ddess.

Were Alouzon in her own skin, she would have sagged, would probably have wept. It was one thing to know what the Grail had in store for her, it was entirely another to be addressed as a deity. ”Uh . . . hi, Dindrane,” she said softly. ”Take it easy, huh? I'm just Alouzon.”

A lift of an inner eyebrow. Just Alouzon?

”Well, you know what I mean.” Her borrowed eyes looked helplessly at Kyria. ”Don't you?”

”Not really,” said the sorceress. ”But we have some things to discuss, and quickly. I am aware of the time differential between Earth and Gryylth. This cannot last long.”

Wykla and Manda.

”Exactly,” said Kyria. ”Are they well?”

”Yeah,” said Alouzon. She noticed, unnerved, that she was speaking with Dindrane's voice. ”They're fine. They're a little shook up about everything, and they keep telling me that they'd freak if I wasn't around, but they're holding out. They're d.a.m.ned strong women.”

”And they have a fine leader,” said Kyria.

It was a compliment, open and without qualification, something far different from anything that would have come out of the mouth of Helen Addams. Had Alouzon been able to move, she would have shaken her head. ”Lady, you've changed.”

The door.

Kyria, blus.h.i.+ng, bowed. ”Indeed. Thank you, Dindrane.”

Alouzon was becoming used to the fact that she could not move, and that she sounded like Dindrane, and that the priestess was inside her head. She could appreciate the unlooked-for blessing of this spiritual link. ”The door. Yeah. That's what it was, all right. And I'll tell you: we found two more things that could be doors.”