“Mr. Wallach is talking about shifting our reality so it no longer matches up to theirs. Like scooting it over half an inch so the cracks are covered, only this shift would make it impossible for new cracks to form.”
“Wow. Is that possible?” Her mention of cracks reminded me of something I’d heard recently, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“For Crazy Wallach? Almost certainly. At the very least, he’ll come up with three new magical technologies out of the research.” Judy ran her fingers through her short black hair. “No more Long War. I can barely imagine it.”
“I don’t want to imagine it.” At Judy’s look of surprise, I added, “I mean, obviously I want the war to be over, but daydreaming about it will make it harder for me to handle the reality that it’s not over yet.”
“That makes sense.” Judy looked beyond me at the plate glass window. “Looks like we have a customer. I’m glad no one was here when Crazy Wallach dropped that little bombshell. He’s going to have enough trouble keeping the secret when people start asking what he’s researching now.”
I smiled pleasantly at the Ambrosite who entered and accepted her augury request. When I entered the oracle, its attention was elsewhere again. “I’m sorry I don’t understand you better,” I said. “You were clearly interested in Mr. Wallach’s augury, but I have no idea why. I hope it wasn’t a message to me that I missed.”
The rest of the day passed uneventfully, with only a few people coming in before closing. One of them confirmed that they’d expected Abernathy’s to be closed until tomorrow, which suggested tomorrow might be as busy as today had not been. When I finally locked the front door at six o’clock, it was with an unexpected sense of relief that nothing awful had happened. The only really exciting thing had been Wallach’s announcement, but since that hadn’t been accompanied by gunfire and explosions, I couldn’t call it excitement.
“You’ll be all right?” I said to Judy anyway. “Alone here?”
“I’m fine. The store is secure, and the neighborhood is safe.” Judy set the computer to hibernate and pushed in the office chair. “I’m looking forward to a quiet night alone.”
“Let me know if anything happens.”
I waited outside in the rear parking lot for Malcolm. The heat of the day lingered, though the parking lot was in shade most of the afternoon. It smelled of hot asphalt and buttered popcorn from the theater next door and the tang of heated metal radiating off the beater car nobody claimed ownership of. I’d never felt frightened of living in the apartment over the store in the whole time I’d lived there, and the only time I’d been in danger had been from my ex-boyfriend, Chet, when he was under the influence of an illusion. Now, though, I wasn’t sure I could be as carefree as Judy—but then, she hadn’t been present for the attack on the store, and didn’t have troubling memories to disturb her calm. And I had faith in Campbell Security as vouched for by Malcolm. She would be fine.
My mind wandered back to Wallach’s announcement. Judy’s example had made sense to me: shift our reality out of sync with the invaders. How that could happen, I couldn’t begin to imagine. As I understood it, our “reality” wasn’t the same as the physical world, so I didn’t think Wallach had moving the universe in mind, but what else was there?
Come to think on it, what else was there, out there in the place where the invaders’ reality met ours? The invaders, I’d been told, had attacked many realities, draining them of their magic and moving on. If we shifted ourselves out of their reach, would that prevent them latching on to some other world, or would they simply move to the next? Unease rose in me again. I wasn’t sure we had a right to condemn some other reality to the invaders’ attack. On the other hand, we had the right to defend ourselves…oh, it was all too confusing, and I didn’t know enough to take a position either way.
Malcolm’s car pulled into the parking lot, and I waved. I’d tell him about Wallach’s plan, and maybe he could help me understand the ramifications. And then maybe my uneasy feeling would go away.
Midmorning of the next day, I was searching for an augury when the oracle’s attention suddenly pressed down on me, painfully this time like being caught in a vise. “What?” I said, more sharply than I’d intended because of the unexpected pain.
They strike, I thought. They fall. No more cracks.
“I don’t understand,” I began.
Then I did.
I dropped the augury request and darted for the exit, though I didn’t know who I could tell. If I was fast enough, maybe the Wardens would be able to save the invaders’ next target.
“Write your request again. Sorry,” I told the waiting Nicollien. “The invaders are attacking,” I said to Judy. “I need to warn someone.”
“Call Lucia—no, call Dave,” Judy said. “Where are they attacking?”
“I don’t know. The oracle said it was happening. Maybe it showed up in the Pattern, but—I have to warn someone!”
I called Dave Henry and got his voicemail. Cursing, I tried Malcolm. “The invaders are attacking again,” I said when he answered. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Take a breath,” Malcolm advised me. “Where are they attacking?”
“The oracle didn’t say. Why would it tell me and not mention the important part?”
“Abernathy’s might be in danger again. There’s no reason the invaders might not make a feint elsewhere and focus their real attack on the store. Did you call Lucia?”
“I tried Dave. He’s not answering.”
“Leave it to me. Don’t let any of your customers leave for now. You’re perfectly safe, but if invaders swarm the store, anyone outside might not be.” Malcolm abruptly disconnected. I put my phone away and turned to my mystified customers.
“I’ve just learned the invaders are trying another attack,” I said. Gasps and muttered profanities swept through the small crowd. “We’re not sure where, but if they attack here, we’re all safe.”
“You think they might attack here?” an elderly woman said.
“I have no idea. I think not, or the oracle’s warning would have been different. But everyone should stay inside for a while, until we find out what happened.”
Movement outside the plate glass window caught my eye, and I pushed past Wardens until I stood next to it. Three familiars were leashed securely to a lamppost just outside. I was used to that, since familiars weren’t allowed inside Abernathy’s, but their presence still made me uncomfortable. Normally they sat, or climbed over each other, behaving like the dogs they were disguised as. Now, however, they strained at their leashes in eerie silence, all of them apparently desperate to get free. They reminded me of dogs in a movie who’ve just heard a dog whistle.
Someone beside me said, “That’s strange.” He was looking at the familiars, too, his brow furrowed in concern. Outside, a couple of young men holding hands walked past, turning to watch the straining familiars. Then one of the creatures, a bright orange-furred beast with six multijointed legs, let out an unearthly howl that shivered down my spine. The young men recoiled and hurried on, faster than before.