Her eyes glistened. She held her wand like a Valkyrie’s sword. “We’re set, boys.” The words clanged.
“Let’s go.” Barney heaved his bulk erect. We followed him to the containers. They were ordinary flat one-gallon cans such as you buy paint thinner in, but Solomon’s seal marked the wax that closed each screw top and I could subliminally feel the paranatural forces straining around them. It seemed out of keeping for the scientists to load them on a cart and trundle them off.
Ike and his gang went with me to my section. The apparatus I’d thrown together didn’t look especially impressive either. In fact, it was a haywire monstrosity of coils and wires enclosing a big gasoline-driven electric generator. Sometimes you need more juice for an experiment than the carefully screened public power lines can deliver.
To cobble that stuff on, I’d have to remove the generator’s own magnetic screens. Therefore, what we had was a mass of cold free iron; no spell would work in its immediate vicinity. Ike had been in his element this afternoon, mounting the huge weight and awkward bulk on wheels for me. He was again, now, as he directed it along the halls and skidded it over the stairs.
No doubt he sometimes wished people had never found how to degauss the influences that had held paranatural forces in check since the Bronze Age ended. He wasn’t Orthodox; his faith didn’t prohibit him having anything whatsoever to do with goetics. But neither was he Reform or Neo-Chassidic. He was a Conservative Jew, who could make use of objects that others had put under obedience but who mustn’t originate any cantrips himself. It’s a tribute to him that he was nonetheless a successful and popular foreman.
He’d rigged a husky block—and-tackle arrangement in the garage. The others had already flitted to the flat roof. Ginny had launched the canisters from there. They bobbed about in the air, out of range of the magnetic distortions caused by the generator when we hoisted its iron to their level. Barney swung the machine around until we could ease it down beside the skylight. That made it impossible for us to rise on brooms or a word. We joined our friends via rope ladder.
“Ready?” Barney asked. In the restless pale glow, I saw sweat gleam on his face. If this failed, he’d be responsible for unforeseeable consequences.
I checked the connections. “Yeah, nothing’s come loose. But let me first have a look around.”
I joined Ginny at the parapet. Beneath us roiled the mob, faces and placards turned upward to hate us. They had spied the floating containers and knew a climax was at hand. Behind his altar, Initiate Marmiadon worked at what I took to be reinforcement of his defensive field. Unknown phrases drifted to me: “. . . Heliphomar Mabon Saruth Gefutha Enunnas Sacinos . . .” above the sullen mumble of our besiegers.
The elflight flickered brighter. The air seethed and crackled with energies. I caught a thunderstorm whiff of ozone.
My darling wore a slight, wistful smile. “How Svartalf would love this,” she said.
Barney lumbered to our side. “Might as well start,” he said. “I’ll give them one last chance.” He shouted the same warning as before. Yells drowned him out. Rocks and offal flew against our walls. “Okay,” he growled. “Let ’er rip!”
I went back to the generator and started the motor, leaving the circuits open. It stuttered and shivered. The vile fumes made me glad we’d escaped depending on internal combustion engines. I’ve seen automobiles, as they were called, built around 1900, shortly before the first broomstick flights. Believe me, museums are where they belong—a chamber of horrors, to be exact.
Ginny’s clear call snapped my attention back. She’d directed the canisters into position. I could no longer see them, for they floated ten feet over the heads of the crowd, evenly spaced. She made a chopping gesture with her wand. I threw the main switch.
No, we didn’t use spells to clear Nornwell’s property. We used the absence of spells. The surge of current through the coils on the generator threw out enough magnetism to cancel every charm, ours and theirs alike, within a hundred-yard radius.
We’d stowed whatever gear might be damaged in safe conductive-shell rooms. We’d repeatedly cautioned the mob that we were about to experiment with the transportation of possibly dangerous liquids. No law required us to add that these liquids were in super-pressurized cans which were bound to explode and spray their contents the moment that the wall-strengthening force was annulled.
We’d actually exaggerated the hazard . . . in an attempt to avoid any slightest harm to trespassers. Nothing vicious was in those containers. Whatever might be slightly toxic was present in concentrations too small to matter, although a normal sense of smell would give ample warning regardless. Just a harmless mixture of materials like butyl mercaptan, butyric acid, methanethiol, skatole, cadaverine, putrescine ... well, yes, the organic binder did have penetrative properties; if you got a few drops on your skin, the odor wouldn’t disappear for a week or two . . .
The screams reached me first. I had a moment to gloat. Then the stench arrived. I’d forgotten to don my gas mask, and even when I’m human my nose is quite sensitive. The slight whiff I got sent me gasping and retching backward across the roof. It was skunk, it was spoiled butter, it was used asparagus, it was corruption and doom and the wheels of juggernaut lubricated with Limburger cheese, it was beyond imagining. I barely got my protection on in time.
“Poor dear. Poor Steve.” Ginny held me close.
“Are they gone?” I sputtered.
“Yes. Along with the policemen and, if we don’t get busy, half this postal district.”
I relaxed. The uncertain point in our plan had been whether the opposition would break or would come through our now undefended doors in search of our lives. After my experience I didn’t see how the latter would have been possible. Our chemists had builded better than they knew.
We need hardly expect a return visit, I thought in rising glee. If you suffer arrest or a broken head for the Cause, you’re a hero who inspires others. But if you merely acquire for a while a condition your best friends won’t tell you about because they can’t come within earshot of you-hasn’t the Cause taken a setback?
I grabbed Ginny to me and started to kiss her. Damn, I’d forgotten my gas mask again! She disentangled our snouts. “I’d better help Barney and the rest hex away those molecules before they spread,” she told me. “Switch off your machine and screen it.”
“Uh, yes,” I must agree. “We want our staff returning to work in the morning.”
What with one thing and another, we were busy for a couple of hours. After we finished, Barney produced some bottles, and the celebration lasted till well nigh dawn. The eastern sky blushed pink when Ginny and I wobbled aboard our broom and hiccoughed, “Home, James.”
The air blew cool, heaven reached high. “Know something?” I said over my, shoulder. “I love you.”
“Purr-rr-rr.” She leaned forward to rub her cheek against mine. Her hands wandered.
“Shameless hussy,” I said.
“You prefer some other kind?” she asked.
“Well, no,” I said “but you might wait a while. Here I am in front of you, feeling more lecherous every minute but without any way to lech.”
“Oh, there are ways,” she murmured dreamily. “On a broomstick yet. Have you forgotten?”
“No. But dammit, the local airlanes are going to be crowded with commuter traffic pretty soon, and I’d rather not fly several miles looking for solitude when we’ve got a perfectly good bedroom nearby.”
“Right. I like that thought. Only fifteen minutes away, in the privacy of your own home—Pour on the coal, James.”
The stick accelerated.