It’s happening now.
She’s surging.
Moving the snowplow sign out of the way, that was the beginning of it.
She wasn’t even tired after it was done.
She loves the double buzz of whiskey and magic.
Sit on your hands.
Her mentor said that, and a mentor’s instructions were law.
At least, according to her mentor.
He said something else, too, but she doesn’t want to remember it.
She tries but fails to chase that thought away with a mouthful of strong, sour warmth.
And for God’s sake don’t drink.
84
The entrance to the cave is easy to miss, situated as it is between two large rocks mostly hidden by maple saplings. Three P.M. Andrew wants to make sure he has plenty of daylight left for this; visiting Ichabod is among the creepiest things he ever does.
He casts a minor light spell, brings a marble-sized amber sphere about twice as bright as a candle into existence, sends it into the cave ahead of him. Ichabod could extinguish that if he wanted to, so he brings backup—a sturdy black flashlight that would also make a fine blunt instrument.
Not that hitting Ichabod would be effective, wise, or useful.
Despite recent shenanigans, he’s pretty sure it still has to obey him, as long as the command is simple and makes sense.
“Ichabod.”
His voice echoes slightly.
The cave is not huge, about the size of a smallish high school cafeteria, but its darkness makes it seem vast. He glances up, sees a cluster of bats hanging directly above him.
“Here, sir,” a voice like a bored teenaged barista’s sounds.
Movement to his right.
This will be one of the thing’s mannequins.
It likes the weight of a body, moves around in mannequins.
“You wanted to see me?” Andrew says.
Waking up to see
COME TO THE CAVE, PLEASE!
spelled out in wine corks on his ceiling had been disconcerting.
They had all fallen as soon as he read them.
Not on him, though; that would have been rude.
He has no idea where the thing got them.
I don’t want to go to the cave.
He thought about summoning it to the house, but fears now to give it commands, not knowing how much leash he still has on it.
I’m going to the cave.
“I most certainly did want to see you,” it says.
A female mannequin strides into the circle of light, a feather boa around its neck, its painted-on eyes staring blindly. “This may well be the last time before you die. In fact, I’m quite certain it will be unless you accept my offer. Come and sit down.”
“I prefer to stand.”
“If you insist, of course. But I feel like such a poor host. Won’t you come in?”
“This is far enough, thanks. I like being able to see the entrance.”
The entity now affects a Southern belle’s drawl.
“I have failed to put you at ease. My life is not worth living.”
The mannequin’s wrist goes to its head.
It collapses into a heap.
He hears steps.
Another mannequin comes into view, this one male, wearing only underwear, well endowed in that strangely sexless underwear mannequin way, carrying a chair. It sets the chair down, gestures at it.
Andrew sighs.
Sits.
Now the mannequin steps behind the magus, picks up the chair with him in it, and carries him effortlessly before it.
The light-casting marble follows.
A table comes into view, a cheap folding table.
Mannequins and dummies, male and female, of several varieties and hues, sit around the table, as if in at a meeting. Empty glass and plastic bottles crowd the table, each with exactly one dead bee, wasp, or june bug in it.
The one carrying him sets him down.
Collapses.
Now the one directly across from him, a flesh-colored, featureless crash-test dummy with black-and-yellow pinwheels on either side of its head, jerks to life, leans forward on its elbows, rests its chin on its hands.
An old British man’s voice comes through it.
“May I interest you in a libation?”
“Ichabod, please just tell me what you want.”
“I want to be a good host, sir. Please allow me that honor.”
Now the crash-test dummy slumps on the table as if it fell asleep studying.
Another mannequin, this one male and somewhat Asian-looking, wakes at its chair, produces a bottle and a glass from the darkness at its feet, and sets these on the table. Both slide forward to Andrew. Andrew’s flashlight unpockets itself, turns on, illuminates the bottle’s label.
“Croatian,” the British voice says, “truly robust, sediment on the bottom like the gravel in an angel’s viscera.”
“I’m sure it’s delightful.”
The foil top removes itself as if cut by an invisible knife, and then the cork spins, squeaking, from the bottle’s mouth.
“Ichabod, I really can’t.”
The bottle upends itself, spilling a splash into the wineglass before Andrew. The wineglass moves on the table as if a practiced sommelier were swirling the wine therein.
The glass slides closer.
It smells like sex and ink and stained moonlight; it smells like the afterlife of sainted grapes, the elect of grapes.
“No.”
At this refusal, the insects in their diverse bottles flutter and buzz, one moth too well stuck in some syrupy residue to do more than quiver pathetically.
They stop.
“New world manners,” the British voice says.
The bottle and glass slide to one side.
The Asian mannequin falls.
The crash-test dummy sits upright, points at Andrew.
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Me what?”
“Need.”
“I need you to stop fucking around.”
“Is that a command, Father?”
“No. But this is. Tell me what your purpose was in summoning me to your cave.”
“Me. You need me.”
“Go on.”
“To help you.”
Andrew raises his eyebrows at it.
“With her,” it says.
Andrew narrows his eyes.
“Her. Yes. But who is she?”
“An old friend.”
“How old?”
Now the crash-test dummy slumps.
Another automaton, a female mannequin with a huge underwire bra and eyeglasses held to its head by a nail between the eyes, gets up and approaches an old-style school overhead projector. Clicks it on. The fan inside the projector whirrs. An image lights up the cave’s wall.
A beautiful woman with a mole.
Walking through the airport.
Marina.
Andrew’s heart beats fast.
“Her daughter?”
The machine cuts off.
“She came over under the name Marina Yaganishna. I suppose that name carries some freight for you.”
“She helped me against her mother.”
“She’s not here to help you now.”
“The rusalka killed her half brother. Is that why?”
“You haven’t got time to worry about why.”
Andrew breathes in and out, calming himself.
“Tell me what you want.”
“What would you want in my place?”
Andrew looks around him.
“Insulation.”
All of the mannequins stand up at once.