THEY WALKED THE EVENING STREETS of Abba until nightfall. In addition to allowing Sereda time to observe them, it was a chance for the ladies to actually be in Atlantis, seeing the people and feeling the air on their faces, all under the pretense of trying to find Guerris.
“All I’m saying is why do we get put off the ship?” asked Neon.
“Quiet and pay attention,” said Sereda.
“Should we assume we’re under surveillance?” asked Yvonne.
“Always.”
“What does this Guerris do? He a mindreader? Shape shifter?” asked Neon.
“Artist.”
“Artist,” Neon repeated flatly. She glanced at Yvonne. “Artist.” She faced Sereda. “This is complete bullshit.”
“Guerris has known the Jetstreams for years. You’d fault them for wanting to protect him?”
“No. I, however, don’t appreciate being sent on a candy run to keep me out of the way.”
“You’re an outsider in Atlantis and your ego still gets in the way?” said the angel. “Amazing.”
“I just want to help. They gave us names. How tall are you? Listen, I know how to fight.”
“Do you know how to die?”
That shut her up.
“I thought not,” said Sereda. “It makes a difference.”
Abba was unusually hushed for such a comfortable night. Very few walked the spokes of residential streets that normally were barely different from daylight hours. Atlantideans somehow instinctively knew that there was a very dangerous hunt going on.
Huge discs of light hovered every thirty meters. On very rare occasions one or two of these discs, owing to the Department of Public Works’ carelessness toward retrieval of something so inexpensive and mundane, would malfunction somewhere in Atlantis and drift “unnoticed” through the Blank, winding up in blurry photos and television shows featuring former state troopers. After-hours in most of Atlantis was like walking a huge sports field in the middle of the night, artificial light giving everything beneath it a vaguely otherworldly pall.
Perhaps twenty meters away sat Guerris—entirely oblivious—at a drafting table he’d set beneath a disc, arm whizzing away at a canvas. A small group of curious folks gathered around him, peering intently at the maestro’s efforts.
Sereda headed that way. The onlookers didn’t look up until the three women were in close range, and when they did they immediately made room for the ladies. The onlookers’ clothing was shabby, their comportment slouchy, and they stank. Nothing overpowering, more along the lines of cabbage fresh out of the ground.
Art groupies.
Guerris wasn’t painting anything. His hands made the motions, quick and precise as though fleetingly inspired, and the groupies watched each motion, firing in their minds whatever their private imaginations needed, but there was not a single stroke to the canvas.
Yvonne sniffed the air for evidence of wafting hallucinogens. Picking up none, she shouldered her way in front of the nearest groupie. Perhaps being closer would show her something that at two paces back she had missed.
He had a brush in each hand, flicking, pausing to consider, and flicking some more.
Yvonne stepped back to her compatriots.
“I think he’s retarded,” she whispered to Neon.
Guerris, without looking up, said, “I do speak your language and at night sound travels.” His admirers finally took full notice of the interlopers.
Sereda’s advance parted them. “I’ve never seen the Big Bang Theory at work,” she said. “Art from nothing.”
“Angel!” Guerris dropped the brushes and whirled to her. He smiled happily. “I thought the Blanks were just boorish newcomers.” Guerris stood and offered a hand to Yvonne and Neon. “Guerris of Abba, very pleased.”
“Atlanteans don’t have last names?” said Neon.
“I took a cue from your artist, Prince. Only Guerris, a vocal symbol for who I am. And ‘Atlanteans’ makes you sound like a rube. ‘Tideans’, love.”
“Take us home with you, Guerris,” said Sereda.
“That’s my house right there,” he said, indicating a darkened structure set apart from the sidewalk and road; further set apart from its neighbors by a moat of lazily swimming fish that tended to splash at irregular intervals. “Which you obviously knew.” He bowed to the assembled. “I’m sorry, students.”
His neighborhood favored the solar-dome construction rather than the neo-pyramids traditional in the capital. The interior of his house was a slalom of Feng Shui, all smooth surfaces flowing into curves and open spaces. Of which there weren’t many. Paintings lived everywhere, most of them completed but many caught in a half-life due to Guerris’ hummingbird proclivities.
He led them into an anteroom that looked ready to serve a queen. Immaculate, sumptuous, and full of handsomely displayed local and out-Blank artifacts. A window arced the entire length of the room’s curved wall, facing the street where the groupies broke away uncertainly.
“You draw them intentionally,” said Sereda.
“He wasn’t drawing anything,” said Neon.
Guerris smiled. “During the day I paint what matters. At night I paint anti-matter.”
“You’re serious?” said Yvonne.
“Yes. There’s food just past that arch. Refrigerator looks like a counter top. Where’s Milo?”
“Didn’t make it back.” Sereda caught Guerris’ flash of alarm. “He couldn’t be here.”
“Raffic killed vampires, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“These ladies?”
“Tata,” said Neon.
“For Now,” said Yvonne.
Guerris smiled politely, knowing outworlders could be loopy.
“Neon Temples.”
“Yvonne DeCarlo Paul.” There were paintings on display in the parlor. She asked the question every artist must be asked. “You did all those?”
He nodded, prepared to return his full attention to Sereda. Yvonne pulled him back.
“Some of these are the works of a master,” she said. “How old are you?”
“Guerris is a young man full of life,” said Sereda.
“Some are pretty frightening,” said Yvonne.
“As I said,” said Sereda.
“Ramses is here, isn’t he?” said the artist. “This feels like Ramses. Very covert. You’re protecting me. I don’t think I need to be protected.”
“We know you don’t,” said Sereda, eyes warm as memory.
Yvonne peered outside. “How long will they stand around out there waiting for you?” she asked, wondering how well the groupies could see inside the house. Lighting in the parlor was suitably dim.
“They’ll go home.”
“You were actually serious about that anti-matter?” Neon wanted verified.
“Have you ever drawn using a lightwand?” he asked, eyes dancing.
“Flashlight,” Sereda said for their benefit.
“Yes,” said Guerris. “Same difference. The eye creates where there’s only movement and suggestion.”
“And they’ll stand around and watch you do this?” said Neon.
“It’s an incredible aphrodisiac. The neurons get so fired it’s all you can do to avoid orgies. Another reason why it’s done at night with less traffic. And near home. Atlantis is quite pro-sex.”
“We’ve noticed,” said Yvonne.
Neon surveyed the room again. “You painted these,” she said rhetorically. “I guess I can forgive if you’re crazy.”
“Thank you. Angel, tell me everything that’s happened since you left.”
“I only have bits and pieces.”
“You have these two warriors. They’ll fill in the rest.” He smiled their way and pulled hair from his eyes. “May your first time through the Blank be an uneventful one.”
“Great. You just jinxed us,” groaned Neon.
Which, of course, meant that the attack waited till everyone had fallen asleep for all hell to break loose.
The element of surprise from the blockbuster movie Brought It!, Part Two featured crashing through a window and holding the heroes hostage, two villains against four heroes, using two guns and one grenade.
Elyse and Brian Hoek did just that. They came complete with thermal-goggles, action belts and lethal-looking weapons that they trained on Neon and Yvonne later that night to keep Sereda from kicking their asses. Elyse clearly displayed a thermite grenade ready for arming at a finger flick if either Sereda or Guerris moved another foot forward subsequent to their rushing into Guerris’ guest room. Brian held both guns aimed squarely. Elyse tossed Sereda a small cylinder.
“Inject yourself, hand it to him, and step back,” she said, hoping there was a tinge of menace. Elyse Hoek was a marketing strategist; she had no business doing commando runs in the dead of night! This was Brian’s idea.
Sereda assessed.
“Don’t you dare,” hissed Elyse. “Your man went crazy out there. We’ve had to feed by biting the buttocks of cattle!” Another of Brian’s ideas.
“That’s about as low profile as you can get,” Brian defended.
“Yes it is, Brian!” said Elyse.
Sereda shifted a foot.
“Brian?”
The other stepped near enough to Neon and Yvonne to press the guns’ muzzles directly against their foreheads. “Nobody in this room is fast enough to prevent somebody dying,” he said from beneath his makeshift ski mask. One side of the goggles featured a zoom lens that kept going in and out with his movements, giving him the appearance of one regular eye and one googly eye. This was not, Neon decided, the appropriate moment for such humor.
Sereda injected herself. First tingling, then numbness. She handed the cylinder to Guerris.
“That might be poison,” he said.
“I wouldn’t give you poison,” Sereda said. The rushing numbness had ridden up her arm and was about to crest her shoulder to rush her spine.
Guerris pressed the cylinder to his forearm. Sereda caught him with one good arm just before it went out. She lowered him to the carpeted floor, took a step back, then assumed the Lotus position beside him. Paralysis, well on its way to her toes, had firm hold of her upper body.
Elyse retrieved the cylinder from the floor. She approached Neon and Yvonne, gun drawn. “Is the situation clear, ladies?”
They said nothing.
“Even better,” said Elyse. “You types tend toward speeches.”
“That’s villains,” Neon said under her breath. She caught Elyse’s eye. Elyse gave her the shot. Woman and vampire glared at one another.
Neon dropped.
Yvonne was taller by a few inches than Elyse. Elyse stared her up. “Look at the pretty neck on this one.”
Yvonne rolled her eyes. “Typical villain shit,” she said under her breath as well, which she knew the goggled-lady heard clearly. Elyse jammed the cylinder to her neck. “Thank you,” said Yvonne on her way to the floor.
Brian knelt beside Guerris. He removed wire from a pack around his shoulder and looped it tightly around Guerris’ wrists and feet. The two ends of the wire created an unbreakable self-seal. “What kind of idiot keeps priceless art and doesn’t have an alarm system?” he said, smacking Guerris upside his paralyzed head.
They loaded the bodies into a waiting rover. They were just about to leave when Elyse heard an unfortunate ‘crack.’
She half expected it to be a groupie, but they’d been gone for hours. Instead it was something much more benign: a neighbor.
Brian caught Elyse’s eye. “We don’t have time for this. You’re not even hungry.”
The set of Elyse’s lithe body telegraphed the entire thing. Brian resigned himself to what he knew would be her gritty rejoinder. Just because she’d led the marketing team on Brought It’s three hundred million domestic gross she had to take the theatrical lead.
She narrowed her eyes. The neighbor, a short, pudgy woman, had ran. Elyse took off.
“This has nothing to do with hunger,” she had said just the second before.