Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 02 (32 page)

 
          
She
turned onto the street and drove away, and by the time Winter had reached the
cross street the house was no longer in sight.

 
          
Surrounded
by the sights and sounds of weekday-morning
Dayton
traffic, Winter brooded. Ramsey had been
completely honest with her at the end. Motivated by fear ... or because he had
given up trying to protect her? Winter's fingers briefly touched the bag on the
seat beside her. It held Cassie's address. Or what Ramsey said was Cassie's
address, anyway.

 
          
Now
that she was on the road and heading for the interchange that would put her in
I-80, Winter realized that her hasty departure from Ramsey's house had been
motivated as much by panic and guilt as anything else. She'd taken off without
a clear plan in mind, and
California
was a long way to go by car. There were major air-travel hubs in
Chicago
and
St. Louis
; surely it would be more sensible to drive
to either place and fly out from there?

 
          
But
a part of Winter disliked the thought of being without a car once she
arrived—unless she rented one—and, searching her emotions further, she realized
she was reluctant to face
Cassilda
Chandler at all.
Had Cassie changed?
She was the only one
of us who kept faith,
Winter thought with an odd pang. From Ramsey's hints,
Cassie was still deeply involved in ... whatever the five of them had been
deeply involved in. Magic. Occultism. "The dark twin of Science,"
according to the Thorne Blackburn biography. Taken up during their college days,
as far as Winter could reconstruct, and never quite abandoned.

 
          
Not
completely.

 
          
Not
by all of them.

 
          
She
turned onto one of the six-lane roads that led to the interstate, her body
moving the car smoothly and automatically through the rush-hour traffic. Could
it be
Cassie
who had sent the
magickal
child?
The idea had a certain repugnant
logic.

 
          
"After all, if you can't suspect your
friends, who can you suspect?"
Grey said out of memory.

 
          
"I
wish you were here to tell me what's going on," Winter muttered to the
absent Hunter
Greyson
.

 
          
Somehow
she thought that he knew; Grey had always known, or seemed to know, the answer
to everything—at least as much as a college student could be expected to know.
It was hard now to remember how young they'd all been then. They'd felt like
adults, and thought that was all that mattered, but they'd been kids. And now,
all these years later, how well could she say she still knew any of them?
Janelle, entombed in her sad marriage, Ramsey, complacently accepting his myriad
failures— maybe Cassie had undergone the same sort of dark alchemical
transformation, into . . .

 
          
The
interchange for I-80 West loomed ahead in a blaze of red-white-and-blue
shield-shaped signs. Accustomed to making instant decisions, Winter pulled onto
the on ramp and merged smoothly with the heavier traffic, buying herself more
time to think. She had to go west anyway— to reach Chicago, if she decided to
fly; to reach I-90 and California if she didn't. Once she'd settled into the
light autohypnosis of long-distance driving, her mind returned unerringly to
her original problem. The artificial Elemental—the
magickal
child.

 
          
A
power created and sent by a magician was stalking her. Beyond reason or sense,
here, in the declining years of the twentieth century, her problem was a
magickal
assault by a person or persons unknown. Its
danger increased with every day, and she had no idea what to do about it.

 
          
She'd
been searching for Grey because he was the only magician she knew. She could
not believe he would have returned from nowhere to harm her; but how could she
be certain she'd had no contact with Grey since college? Could he be carrying
out some agenda she'd forgotten?

 
          
Winter
frowned. She remembered the farmhouse outside
Glastonbury
, and before that, the sanatorium at
Fall River
. She remembered
Arkham
Miskatonic
King, the day she'd started work there
still as bright in her mind as a new-minted penny. . . .

 
          
And
before that came the garbled half-memories of college, like bright fish in
murky waters. She hardly remembered Grey at all, but she could not believe she
could ever have done something to kindle that degree of hatred in a sane
person. And Grey, whatever else she might have forgotten about him, had been
radiantly sane.

 
          
But
not, now that Winter came to think about it, the only magician she knew. If she
could believe what Ramsey had said,
Cassilda
had
"kept up with" the Blackburn Work as well, so Cassie could be as much
help to Winter as Grey could.

 
          
Or as much harm. Face it, Winter, while
sorcerous
assault strains the credibility, being a victim
chosen at random snaps it right in half. It has to be someone who knows you
—
and who you know.

 
          
Not Cassie. Not Grey.
With the obstinacy
of a child lying alone in the dark, Winter clung to that belief. They had been
her friends. They would never hurt her. Even Ramsey and Janelle, strange as
they were,
changed
as they were, had
meant her no harm.

 
          
/
need time.

 
          
Time
to reason things out, in a situation where no reason was possible. Time to
think. Time to plan.

 
          
Time
to
learn.
About herself, at least, if
nothing else.

 
          
*     
*      *

 
          
But
Ramsey had said Cassie's problem might be urgent, and so, a couple of hours
later, when Winter stopped for gas and to stretch her legs, she sought out a
pay phone to call Cassie.

 
          
She
was at one of those mass-produced rest stops on the interstate that seemed to
have evolved in defiance of every tenet of Lady Bird Johnson's "Keep
America Beautiful" campaign thirty years before. The pay phones were
located in a not-very-quiet corner where the noise of tired children, cash
registers, and
Muzak
made a deadening background mush
of sound. Winter cradled the phone to her ear and thanked her lucky stars that
her
PhoneCard
still worked—she hated to think how
many quarters she would have had to feed the phone if it didn't. Fortunately
the escrow account that had taken care of her bills during the time she'd been
at Fall River had seen to it that her checks didn't bounce, her charge cards
were paid, and there was money in her drawing account.

 
          
Now
that she knew what city's directory assistance to consult, she got Cassie's
home number easily. Winter carefully crossed out the old
Berkeley
number in her
Filofax
and wrote in the new. There was only one
Cassilda
Chandler in the
San Francisco
phone book, but there was no answer at that number. After a moment's
hesitation, she dialed again and asked directory assistance for the number of
the Ancient Mysteries Bookstore on
Haight
Street
, and once the synthetic robot voice had
provided it, dialed it before she had the chance to regret doing so.

 
          
The
phone rang mindlessly on; after a dozen rings, Winter lost count and simply
watched the second hand sweep around the dial of the clock that was hung over
the entrance to the rest-stop cafeteria. As the clock measured off the seconds,
Winter felt herself losing patience. Surely any bookstore, no matter how New
Agey
and laid-back, would answer a phone that had rung for
over a minute?

 
          
Finally
she hung up and moved slowly away from the bank of phones, worry and relief
combining into a disoriented, unsettled feeling. How could she ask Cassie what
was wrong if the woman wouldn't even answer her phone?

 
          
She'd
have to try again later.

 
          
There
was no answer when Winter stopped for lunch, either. Pretty soon she'd cross
the Indiana border, and then she was going to have to make up her mind whether
to head north for Chicago and fly the rest of the way, or drive straight
through, which would take two or three days minimum—at least if she took it
easy and didn't push it.

 
          
Driving
did have a certain perverse appeal. Behind the wheel Winter could always tell
herself that she was on the verge of turning back; that this was a pleasure
trip; that her destination was not as fixed and irrevocable as the stars in
their courses. Behind the wheel, Winter felt
safe.

 
          
And
safety—real or illusory—was a commodity in short supply in her life just now.

 
          
That's it then. I drive
—
unless and until I get through to Cassie and
get some real information. And anyway, almost every major city has at least a
small airport
—
even
Indianapolis
.
No matter where I am, I'm only hours away from the West Coast if there's a real
emergency.

 
          
By
evening Winter had crossed the border from
Indiana
into
Illinois
. She'd taken to trying Cassie every time
she stopped, and had gotten no answer at either of the numbers. While Cassie
might be out of town, surely the bookstore would still be open?

 
          
Maybe they've gone out of business. Places
like that do. Ramsey didn't tell me how long it had been since she called him
—
and I didn't think to ask,
dammit
.

 
          
But
that, at least, was easily remedied.

 
          
A
few hours after dark, Winter stopped for the night in a shabby little motel
that offered a night's lodging for the price of a Wall Street lunch. The room
she got was run-down and depressing—surprising partly in the fact that,
unsatisfactory as it was, people would still pay to rent it—but it had a phone.

 
          
The
nearest restaurant was in the town beyond. Winter, reluctant to face food that
might match her lodgings, settled for a Coke out of the machine. She shouldn't
put off the call anyway. Picking up the phone, she dialed in the fourteen-digit
access number, then Ramsey's number. A moment later she heard him answer.

 
          
"Ramsey?"

 
          
The
sense of relief she felt when she heard his voice made her giddy; she realized
that in some part of her mind she'd just expected him to be gone. Vanished
without a trace, like her past.

 
          
"Winter!"
His voice was politely cheerful . . . and faintly slurred.

 
          
He's drunk,
Winter thought in surprise.
"Hi, I'm in
Illinois
. I thought I'd call and see how you were."

           
"It was good co see you. We'll
have to do this again."

 
          
Winter
recognized the tone in his voice. Someone skating on the thin edge of memory,
not quite sure of the context.

 
          
"Maybe
the five of us could have our own private reunion," she said. "And
actually, that's sort of why I'm calling. I've been trying to reach Cassie all
day and I haven't been able to get through to her either at home or at that
bookstore you said she has. I'm hoping she hasn't moved on; when did you say
you'd talked to her last?"