He knew about me, and he knew about George the Info Pig. What was up with this guy? I didn’t get it, but I couldn’t just keep waving the gun at him when he wasn’t doing anything except cooperating. Unfortunately, there’s no cool way to put your gun away again. I thumbed the safety on and slipped it back in my pocket. “Okay. But keep talking.”
“I’ve been wanting to meet you for a while, actually. When Edie said you wanted to ask me some questions—well, it seemed like Fate.”
That made me itchy. “Why did you want to meet me?”
“Let’s not hurry ourselves.” He walked past me to the window and stood looking out at the ocean. “Did Edie tell you anything about me?”
“Not a thing. Just your name and how to get here.”
“She’s a good girl.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just watched him. “Look, are you going to give me any information about the auction at Islanders Hall?” I said at last. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Oh, if that’s all you want, I’ll be happy to do it. But I can tell you much more. Why don’t you sit down?”
There was no obvious seating area, just a few chairs scattered around the room, all covered with old volumes and strange objects. Gustibus scooped a few books off the nearest, moved those to another, equally cluttered surface, then gestured. “Please, don’t wait for me. I never sit.”
This guy kept coming up with things that just shut me up. I wasn’t used to it. I sat.
“So?”
“I’ll happily tell you about all the other participants in your auction for the angelic feather, although I’m surprised you didn’t keep your own notes.”
“It got a little busy there,” I said, thinking of Eligor’s soldiers and the huge, burning thing called a ghallu. It had indeed been quite a night.
“Fine. Then as a gesture of good faith—” He proceeded to name everyone who’d been there, including several Edie had forgotten, and to give me a quick capsule biography of each. None of the names or facts gave me any new thoughts on where Anaita might have hidden Eligor’s horn, so I asked him about the Black Sun Faction.
“I know a little about the Black Sun, yes,” he said. “They are all human as far as I know, but a most unpleasant group of humans. Several murders have been ascribed to them, as well as countless arsons, robberies, and other crimes. They are political fanatics, the truly dangerous kind. But they were not at the auction or connected in any way, as far as I know.”
“How about Foxy, then? Mister Fox, the guy who put the auction together—do you know anything about him? Who is he? What is he?”
Gustibus showed me a slight smile. “I’m fairly certain he’s exactly what he says he is. A fox.”
“Um . . . does that mean you find him sexually attractive? Or that he’s actually a small doglike predator with a bushy red tail?”
“Not an ordinary fox. A fox spirit. From Japan, originally, but you know how crowded that country is. I’m reasonably certain he immigrated here a dozen years ago or so.”
“A Japanese fox spirit who deals in stolen supernatural goods from a street corner in downtown Jude?” I shrugged. “Why not? Nothing else makes any sense, so why should he?”
I assume my expression was pretty easy to read, because Gustibus smiled again. “But as I suggested, Mr. Dollar, I can tell you more useful things than that, especially in your current situation. Shall we bargain?”
“Bargain?”
“Oh, come. I’m a collector. I don’t give things away.”
I adjusted my position so I could reach my gun quickly if I had to. “And what do you want in return? Don’t tell me—it begins with S and ends with O-U-L.”
He shook his head, his expression like I’d just broken wind. “Please. I’m not on that side. I’m not really on either side, although both have more power over me than I’d like.” He lifted a fat folio off one of the windowsills and held it out, spread open. The page on top was covered with spidery lines and tiny little notes. “Please, come closer so you can see.”
I edged my chair forward, still not sure of him and not wanting to be within arm’s reach. Not that Gustibus seemed particularly dangerous—actually, he looked a bit like some kind of skinny, Buddhist-Druid version of Santa Claus—but he was tall and his movements suggested he could be quick when he wanted to be.
I squinted because I was still a couple of feet distant. “It looks like a map of San Judas.”
“Actually, it’s a map of the whole peninsula south of San Francisco, down to Alviso. Do you recognize any of the names written on it?”
Now I really had to squint. I gave up at last and got off the chair. The map had been divided with blue pencil lines into little territories. Right over downtown Jude, at the center of the map, in a blue square labeled, Masonic Lodge, and then below it, Now Compasses—taproom, was a list of names. Nahebaroth was the first one—my old off-and-on sweetie Monica Naber’s real name. Beneath were was a couple of dozen others, including Sammariel and Doloriel—yeah, me. I looked up at Gustibus, surprised at how hard my heart was beating. “We’re all on there.”
“You certainly are. That represents years of work. And if you notice the names grouped around the bar on Parade Street called The Emergency Room, you will notice that they are members of the opposing tribe.”
I looked. The crabbed black letters listed Smearhawk, Rotwood, Weepslug, and several others that I recognized, most of them infernal prosecutors. There was even a note for Shitsquelch, the fanboy prosecutor I’d met that morning. “I don’t get it. What is this?”
“What is it? History, Mr. Dollar. Some men spend their entire lives studying just the Battle of Bosworth Field or Marathon, others take a larger view and make the entire War of the Roses or Peloponnesian struggle their area of interest. But the struggle that fascinates me is ongoing. It is the war between Heaven and Hell.”
“You’re a historian?”
He shrugged. “Of a sort. It’s a field of study pursued by a small number of researchers, all of us with far more to do than we can ever hope to accomplish. But the quest for knowledge does not relax its standards because of the inadequacy of its devotees.”
I was really beginning to wonder who this guy was. I’d never heard of him, and yet he’d apparently been around for a while. Was he human or not? “So what could you possibly want from me?”
Gustibus actually looked surprised. “Why, information, of course. What else? I have had very few chances to interview any of the actual combatants in this eternal struggle. In return for answering my questions, I can help you find what you’re seeking.”
“And how do you even know what that is?”
He put the folio back on the windowsill and picked up a little bell with a handle, then shook it briskly. “I know a great deal, both about your struggle with Eligor the Horseman and your current problems with—let us be discreet—certain of your own comrades. I assure you my methods are nothing sinister. I seek out and buy information—some of it in the form of the books you see here,” he waved his hand, “but also intelligence that can only be discovered thanks to modern technology.” He gestured again, this time at a pretty nice desktop computer perched at one end of the refectory table. “But I do not simply gather information, Mr. Dollar—I study it.”
The door of the huge room opened, startling me a trifle, and another little old nun came in. I only knew it wasn’t the same one because her headgear was different, more of a straight wimply-veil thing that fitted close to her head.
“Sister Kassia,” Gustibus said, “Will you bring some refreshment for our guest and myself?”
She nodded and tottered out again like something brought only partially to life by an underachieving mad scientist. I was too nonplussed to think of anything to say about all the things Gustibus had just told me, so instead I asked, “What’s with all the nuns?”
“This property was a Russian convent when I bought it in 1947,” my host said. “The building itself was deconsecrated, but for various reasons having to do with politics and other things, many of the nuns had nowhere to go. I let those who wished to stay remain here. They help me around the house, they tend the gardens—we grow most of our own food. We have received a few novices over the years, but most of the original group have died. I’d say there are only a dozen or so left out of what was once a congregation of nearly a hundred.”