The Fissure King by Rachel Pollack

Author:Rachel Pollack
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-63023-012-8
Publisher: Resurrection House
Published: 2017-09-11T04:00:00+00:00

The Horne Research Agency was closed for the weekend but its owner opened the office for them. He was dressed casually, an old-fashioned red and black checked flannel shirt, khaki pants, and plain black sneakers. Despite everything, Jack almost smiled at the thought of Papa Click and Whistle jogging in Central Park. Down in the street it was a dull, cloudy day, but Jack had assumed the office would be bright and sunny. Instead, everything looked dull, lifeless, and very old. A day off is a day off, Jack figured.

He said, "Thank you for seeing me. I know the last time we talked—"

Horne waved a fleshy hand. For an instant, Jack thought he'd seen that before, the hand, the gesture. But the moment passed as Horne said, "Forget it, Jack. I made you an offer and you weren't interested. What's past is past." He turned to his daughter. "Now tell me the problem."

She looked at Jack, who nodded, then she told her father what she and Jack had figured out.

Horne sat down on the edge of his desk. "This is serious," he said.

Jesus, Jack wanted to say, you think so, Sun boy? He kept silent.

"As I understand the situation," Horne said, "there are really two problems here." As if running a meeting, he held up his left hand with the first two fingers extended. There were deep indentations at the base of the first finger, like tattoos dug deep into the flesh. He said, "First, obviously, is the Duplicate itself. The Revenant, as you term it. Jack, if there were no other complications, do you think you could successfully repel it?"

"I'm not sure," Jack said. "It's in the dream world, or half in it, and I don't have a lot of experience there. That's why I need your help." Something's wrong, he thought.

"Ah, but now we encounter the other problem. Are you even allowed to overcome it? Doesn't your curse, your Guest, as you call it, require you to do its bidding?"

Jack sucked in a breath. "Yes. That's the other reason I need your help."

Horne's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"You told me once that you knew a way to remove the curse. I know I turned you down, but that—"

Horne slapped his desk, and a gust of wind stopped Jack's voice in his throat. "What?" Horne said. "That was then, this is now?"

El stepped toward him. "Please, Daddy," she said, "he needs our help."

Horne stared at her a moment, frowning. Then he sighed and shook his head. "It was never that simple. If you had joined us, if you had come to work as a Dream Hunter—"

If you'd married my daughter, Jack thought.

"—then over time, gradually, we could have worked you free. But even in the best of conditions it would have been a slow process. No one, neither you nor I, can simply wave a hand and make it go away." As if to demonstrate how hopeless it was, he moved his left hand in the air. To Jack it appeared in slow motion, the tattooed finger like a painting in the air.

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