Karl Edward Wagner by At First Just Ghostly

Author:At First Just Ghostly [Ghostly, At First Just]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-12-22T11:57:57+00:00

VII. Strange Days Have Found Us

Lennox awoke when his bedside phone began ringing at noon. He was in his hotel room, but he hadn’t the slightest as to how he had arrived there. He had some confused memories of the night before But first, the phone.

It was Carson. “Wake up, you lazy sod. We’re all waiting on you.”

“Where?”

“In the downstairs bar. Me and Jack, Geoffrey Marsh and Kent Allard. Come on, you’re missing your breakfast.”

“Be right down.”

Lennox automatically went through the motions of dressing. The morning after a blackout was nothing new for him. He wished he had time to shower, but settled for splashing cold water over his face and shoulders, toweling vigorously. The towel caught on something on his left ear, tugged painfully. Lennox wiped cold water from his eyes and saw the sunburst amulet dangling from his left ear.

“Get serious,” he told his reflection. Must have bought it off a stall during one of his blackouts. But it was all coming back. Vivid memories of Kane and zombie assassins. No way. Another all-too-real nightmare. Maybe he really should cut down on the booze.

Lennox fingered the silver amulet, but the French hook seemed to be fixed within his earlobe, and it hurt to try to draw it free. No time to fool with it now.

Lennox splashed a little whisky onto his ear to guard against infection, finished dressing, and took the stairway to the downstairs bar. Art Nouveau stained-glass windows, brightened by the midday sun, made each landing a sort of kaleidoscope, and Lennox was winded and dizzy by the time he reached Peter’s Bar.

“Steam into this,” Carson said. “Reckoned you’d fancy a lager.”

Lennox wedged into the table and drained half the pint in a long swallow. “God, that feels good!” He was surprised to notice that his hands were steady. Must have made it an earlier evening than he’d thought. Good job, that. He was aware that they were all trying not to watch him.

“So, where do you guys want to go for lunch?” Jack Martin asked. “Is there someplace near here where we could, like, get a real pizza?”

“Pizza Express in Soho has American-style pizza,” offered Geoffrey Marsh. “How’ve you been, Cody? Enjoying your trip?”

“So far, so good.” Cody shook hands across the table. “Good to see you, Geoffrey. Jack said you were over.”

Marsh was an athletically fit man whose hair was starting to thin and whose brown beard was showing grey. As he was the same age as Lennox and Martin, the two consoled one another that workouts and tennis evidently could not slow the aging process, and that therefore there was no point in their mending their ways. Marsh wrote what he liked to call “quiet horror” under various pseudonyms, several of which sold very well indeed. He, Martin, and Lennox had been friends and colleagues long enough to become regarded as “the Old Guard” of the horror genre.

“Nice earring, Cody,” said Kent Allard. “Are you turning cyberpunk on us?”

“More likely cyberdrunk,” Lennox said, finishing his pint.

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