Harpy High Read online

  HARPY HIGH

  ESTHER FRIESNER

  Prologue

  Saving the world from the dark horrors is never easy. With indigestion, it’s impossible.

  Gorm of the Shining Helm swallowed the last bite of his pastrami special and belched moodily. “By Glyph and Gar-frang’s prodigious eructations!” he swore to anyone fool enough to share the same table with him. “Low, yea, lower than that have I, Gorm of the Shining Helm, fallen when it so chances that I demand my victuals sliced lean, and so it is not done.” He slammed his fist down hard on the table, upsetting his companion’s bottle of Diet Dr. Brown’s cream soda. “By Ordan and Sifwa and all their illegitimate offspring, I will take mine sword in hand and cleave mine negligent host from chops to chine!”

  So saying, Gorm of the Shining Helm rose from his place, on havoc bent. In his good right hand was the fiery Sword of Tagobel, in his left a damning scrap of pastrami fat, and in his heart uncharitable thoughts. These were all directed at the unsuspecting little bald man who stood just beyond the narrow doorway linking the Back Room with the outer world. Muscles rippling, thews bunching and unbunching like well-oiled springs, Gorm of the Shining Helm strode forth, terrible in his wrath.

  Or nearly strode forth. “Sit down, asshole,” said Perseus, grabbing Gorm by the scruff of his flaring cape and giving him a winged sandal where it mattered.

  After he caught his breath, Gorm of the Shining Helm called upon a round dozen of his exotic gods, but his heart was not in.it. The litany of maledictions soon dribbled away to a series of sotto-voce personal remarks concerning the morals of his assailant’s mother. “Who hath died and made him a demigod?” he muttered, slitty brown eyes shooting curare darts at Perseus. “ Tis a free mythos, by Caspid! Verily, I know my rights.”

  “If you knew squat from squalor, moron, you’d realize you can’t leave the Back Room,” Perseus replied. He looked smug about it, or perhaps it was just the effect of owning a classically perfect nose.

  “Why can I not?” Gorm countered. His own nose was nowhere near Perseus’ in perfection. Back Room rumor had it that Gorm had acquired the Shining Helm solely because no other piece of military headgear in his world had a nasal long and wide enough to hide nature’s whimsically excessive bit of olfactory design.

  “ ‘Why can I not?’ ” Perseus turned Gorm’s question into a brat’s whine. To the Back Room at large he declaimed, “He wants to know why he can’t leave the Back Room!”

  From more than two-score throats the merriment bubbled and rasped and clicked and chittered forth, filling the Back Room with a broad spectrum of laughter-as-she-was-spoke across the Participating Worlds. Not all the throats so occupied were human, and a number of them sprouted in committee from a single collarbone.

  When at last the common mirth subsided, Gorm was pelted with answers:

  “Because your presence on the Outside would upset the Legendary Balance!”

  “Because the Guardians would have it so, and we are not to question the Guardians!”

  “Because thou art a soldier in the ranks of heroes, miserable hound, and it behooveth a soldier to ask not!”

  “Because with the death of the culture that spawned you, you lack sufficient anchoring to the actuality matrix underlying the Great Mythos, and you would devolve to a minor folk song as soon as you set one foot out of the Back Room!”

  “Because Perseus will whup your ass if you try!”

  “What’s the matter? You wanna go somewhere you gotta pay for the food? "

  And last, perhaps most conclusively: “You wanna wreck it for the rest of us, helm-head? You screw with the Mythological Continuum and maybe you set off a core archetype meltdown strong enough to launch us spang into Doomsday. Me, when that happens, I got an appointment to have my bowels riven by Lord Jaguar. You think I’m in some kinda rush for that? Siddown and shuddup before / whup your ass.”

  Never a master of the quick riposte, Gorm of the Shining Helm knew when he was outgunned. Obediently he sank back into his place at the table, putting away the fiery Sword of Tagobel, which slid into its sheath with a pathetic little hiss of expiring flame. He threw the scrap of pastrami fat to Zasu and Zisi, his faithful hounds, and watched them slaughter each other for it.

  Gorm shook his head. It didn’t matter whether Zasu ripped out Zisi’s throat or Zisi tore through Zasu’s entrails. Both dogs were in permanent self-resurrection mode. Five seconds after (heir guts stopped steaming in the middle of the floor, they’d be back to normal, tails wagging and tongues lolling idiotically, two of the stupidest legendary beasts ever to slip into a storyteller’s repertoire.

  Dog blood spattered all over the Shining Helm, which did not have an automatic self-clean feature built right in. Gorm sighed. Another afternoon shot over a can of metal polish, and no guarantee that Zisi wouldn’t lift his leg against the Shining Helm while it dried. Heroic immortality never seemed longer than when he had to deal with the mutts. How he yearned for the Great Call to come, the prophesied moment of supreme trial that would fully test the storied valor of Gorm of the Shining Helm!

  Gorm of the Shining Helm had not built his career on second thoughts, but one of them occasionally managed to sandbag him at a lucky moment. This particular second thought dealt him a healthy wallop at the base of the skull and reminded him that if his entire arsenal was the fiery Sword of Tagobel, the Shining Helm, and two dogs with the collective intelligence of muslin, then when the Great Call came and he fought the Mighty and Venomous Serpent-God of Darkness in the upcoming Battle at the End of All Days, he wasn’t exactly looking at a walkover.

  It was a sobering intelligence, even for a hero with little experience of things sober or intelligent. Gorm of the Shining Helm settled himself more comfortably in his chair, apologized to Siegfried (or was it Siegmund?) for having upset his Diet Dr. Brown’s, and picked at the leftover crumbs of his late sandwich while he waited for the next one to appear. Upset the Mythological Continuum, with any and all attendant catastrophes such an upset might entail? Him? Hardly. So far as Gorm of the Shining Helm was concerned, Armageddon would just have to take a number and get in line.

  Unaware of the steely doom that had just missed him, Ben Kipnis hand-sliced another pastrami special for Gorm of the Shining Helm and belched moodily. This would make it six on the cuff—not that the bronze-skinned warrior appeared to be wearing cuffs—and old Gorm looked good for chowing down six more.

  A tendril of stomach acid tickled its way up Ben’s esophagus, filling his mouth with a sour tang. “There’s no justice,” he muttered, addressing the rows of pickle jars lining the back wall. “None. That big yutz wolfs down enough cholesterol to give Godzilla heart failure, and what happens to him? Nothing. But me I take a bite—no, a miserable little pinch of meat; lean, even—and I get the woofs from now till New Year’s.” He hacked a chunk off the pepper-studded lump of warm meat with unnecessary violence and slammed it down hard on the counter.

  The tinny bell over the front door gave a feeble jingle. A gangly kid in a Glenwood High booster jacket came into Fei-delstein’s Kosher Delicatessen, grinning like a zipper.

  “Morning, Mr. Feidelstein,” he said cheerfully.

  Ben Kipnis thought that Sunday Morning Cheerfulness ranked right up there with cardiac problems and cancer as the leading cause of premature death in adults. Unlike the two latter afflictions, SMC could be circumvented by the premature death of its carriers. He fingered the hardwood handle of his pastrami slicer, lost in pleasant fancies.

  “My name is not Feidelstein,” Ben said slowly.

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah. Guess I wasn’t really looking. Sorry.” The kid didn’t look sorry, or even halfway sincere. He was fumbling in the pocket of his jacket for a crumpled sheet of notebook paper. “I’ve got kind
of a big order here, Mr.—uh—” Ben Kipnis was not forthcoming about identifying himself. The kid shrugged and started reading through the list. Ben never blinked. With his wisp-ringed head, receding chin, and mottled jowls he looked like one of those National Geographic pinup iguanas who lolls motionless on a rock, just waiting for the photographer to be fool enough to try touching him. Then . . . snap! And not the shutter, either.

  At last the boy reached the end of his order. “Did you get all that?”

  “Yuh.” Ben went back to slicing pastrami, making no move to begin filling the kid’s order. He was just loading a ilipperful of kraut onto the layered cold cuts when the kid caught wise.

  “Uh . . . I didn’t order that.”

  “No?” Ben didn’t bother making eye contact. Lovingly he balanced the top slice of rye at the pinnacle of his creation and jabbed in twin securing toothpicks.

  The kid grew flustered. He looked all around him, but saw no one else at or near the counter, not a soul seated in the attached dining area, no takeout slip posted near the wall phone. Who had ordered the sandwich over which the deli man labored so lovingly? Was he taking care of his own lunch? So early?

  The kid stared right at the halfway-open door to the Back Room and saw nothing but wall.

  Ben permitted himself one tight, humorless smile, relishing the kid’s bewilderment. Let him wonder! The deli man rationed his expressions with care, as if Providence had given him only so many to use in a lifetime. And don’t come crying to Me for more later if you spend all your smiles in one place! Gorm’s pastrami special was done, but now it was that big bazoo’s turn to cool his heels. Ben enjoyed the thought of keeping Gorm dangling almost as much as he liked messing with this kid’s head. He couldn’t very well carry the sandwich into the Back Room with a witness present, could he? Not without violating the very strict instructions his brother-in-law Sam Feidelstein had left behind, just before he and the missus boarded the plane for Orlando.

  Tough toenails, Gorm. The thought wrung another miserly smile from Ben’s thin lips. You can just wait. Ben Kipnis fancied himself a superb manipulator of more than cold cuts.

  Timothy Alfred Desmond watched as the deli man set the mysterious sandwich aside and filled his order with the unhurried efficiency of a great concertmaster conducting Beethoven. The meat-slicing machine set up a hypnotic continuo that underscored the whole of the Opus for Brass, Woodwinds, and Stuffed Derma. White paper parcels piled up atop the glass showcase with the speed of a well-played pizzicato passage. Plastic tubs crammed with potato salad, cole slaw, and pickles struck more ponderous bass notes as Ben Kipnis built toward his climax. At last a sleek whitefish chub, splendid in smoky golden armor, was unceremoniously yanked by the tail from its nesting place and slapped into a brown paper winding sheet, the crescendo of the Desmond family brunch order. It was all very stirring.

  “Cash or you got an account?”

  * ‘Uh—cash. ” Tim dug a roll of bills out of his jeans pocket and peeled off several twenties. Ben’s eyes got big. His mouth hung open like a Bismarck herring. The kid looked so nervous with all that cash that Ben examined each bill minutely to be sure it was the genuine article. Where did a punk kid like that come by so much mazuma? Ben could guess: Drugs. Where else? But hey, if the little bastard wanted to sell crack and buy corned beef, who was Ben Kipnis to stand in his way? It wasn’t his kid and it wasn’t his store and Sam Fei-delstein didn’t pay him enough to mind anybody’s business but his own.

  Ben rang up the sale and shoved the change at Tim along with two crammed-full brown bags. “Have a nice day.” Funny how close it sounded to Go to Hell and say I sent you.

  With his lone outerworld customer safely gone, Ben Kipnis brought Gorm his postponed pastrami special. As he entered the Back Room, he thought he felt a cool draft blowing across his ankles. That was ridiculous, of course. The shimmering walls of the Back Room were passageways where no wind blew. Any drafts would have to come blowing in, through the Back Room’s only connecting doorway to the outerworld.

  Something small, black, and hairy raced across the black and white linoleum tiles, giggling madly. Ben thought he saw it, but when he turned his head, it was gone. Placing the sandwich platter before Gorm of the Shining Helm, he asked, “Say, did you see anything go zooming out of here just now?”

  Gorm ignored the question in favor of one of his own. “You call this pastrami lean?”

  “Lean enough for what you pay,” Ben Kipnis grumbled.

  “You say something to my pal?” Siegmund (unless he was Siegfried, after all) was the only hero present who could work up a really mean drunk on Diet Dr. Brown’s cream soda. He stood up and flexed his muscles aggressively.

  Ben was unimpressed. “I said did he see something from in here go running out there?” He jerked his thumb toward the open doorway to the Outside. “Something small and ugly.”

  Siegfried (or Siegmund) made a crude personal remark about the contents of Ben’s breeches, which set the whole Back Room to roaring. The deli man made a disgusted sound. Heroes ... all just a bunch of overgrown barrackroom trash. Aloud he said, “Okay, fine, forget I said anything! I’ll be up front if you need me.”

  A second shape—uglier, hairier, and measurably larger than the first—scuttled across the tiles and through the outerworld portal just as Ben left the Back Room. This time he was a whole lot more certain that he’d really seen it. And so? He shrugged. He wasn’t about to chase it; not with his condition. He’d done his part; he’d told those big-deal hero machers in there about it. If they didn’t act, was that Ben Kipnis’ fault? When he went to work for his brother-in-law, had anyone told him he’d have to baby-sit the Balance of the Mythological Continuum between heating up potato knishes?

  Ben returned to his post behind the counter and tidied up. His back was turned to both the Back Room door and the door leading to the street outside Feidelstein’s Kosher Delicatessen. More than once he thought he heard shrill cackling laughter whisking past behind him. More than once he glimpsed the images of successively larger figures reflected in the rows of gigantic pickle jars.

  He ignored them all. Paying attention wasn’t in his job description.

  When a paw the size of a pizza fell heavily on Ben Kipnis’ shoulder and dug in hard with a set of ivory claws, he sat right up and took notice, but by then it was much too late.

  Why I Want to Go to Princeton

  “Timsy, dahling, you look mahvelous!” A gust of expensive perfume, a rush of green sequined silk, a rustle of white mar-ibou plumes, and Teleri of Limerick was back in my arms again. I tried to welcome her to our humble apartment, but an open mouth gathers a payload of loose feathers, especially when your once-humble family banshee has gone Broadway on you with a vengeance.

  Teleri’s initial assault ended with a quick brush of her cheeks to mine—“Kiss-kiss, Timsy dahling!”—and a lightsome spring out of my embrace, the socially Correct Thing having been done. She fanned herself with slim white hands. Master Runyon, her agent-cum-luchorpan, looked on bemused. I wasn’t born yesterday, even if some of my school pals have started a campaign to get me named Most Likely to Buy a Sahara Desert Tanning Parlor Franchise. I could tell that Teleri wasn’t having an attack of heat prostration; she just wanted to make damn sure I noticed that the neckline of her gown gave her about as much upfront coverage as a pair of green sequined suspenders. I plucked some stray maribou feathers from my tongue and tried to think about baseball.

  There was no room for debate: Teleri of Limerick had dropped more than her brogue on her climb up the ladder of show business.

  To think it was less than a year ago she’d gotten her start, too. I guess they’re right, what they say about America. Where else can a modest domestic spirit go from keening over the coming deaths of her assigned kindred to warbling the praises of Ed Kaplan, the Luggage King? (‘ ‘Bet yerself a pot o’ gold, we will not be undersold.”) And that had only been the first step.

  I peeled the last white plume fro
m my mouth, feeling like a henhouse fox, when Mom came up behind me. “Tim! Where are your manners? Why don’t you ask Teleri in?”

  “Uh . . . You wanna come in?” God, I’m suave. All that self-possession and nowhere to go. I’ve often told myself I’m wasted on Glenwood High. After such a gracious invitation, what could the poor dazzled banshee do but say:

  “I’d adore coming in, Timsy, but you’re blocking the doorway.”

  I was, wasn’t I? It’s hard for one brain to hold onto selfcontrolling thoughts of bunts and base hits while managing gross motor skills at the same time. I did a fast backwards shuffle and made my level-best attempt at a bow. “Enter freely and of your own will,” I said.

  Teleri’s eyebrows lifted. “Where did you pick up that line, dahling? It sounds like something straight out of one of those sick-making old horror films. Too tacky for words.”

  “I am begging your pardon!” A hostile snort came from the puny excuse for a chandelier that hangs over our punier excuse for a dining room table (Or should I say dining area table? In our unpretentious little Brooklyn pied a terre, separate rooms for separate functions are at a premium. Hey, I don’t even take the bathroom for granted!).

  Teleri took a pair of hesitant steps over our threshold, the better to eyeball the snappish lighting fixture. “Who is dying and making you film critic, hah?” the chandelier wanted to know, its frosted glass bowl jiggling with so much indignation that crystal pendants tinkled.

  There came a ruffling sound like someone trying to speed-read the whole Sunday New York Times and a raggy dark shadow fluttered from the chandelier to the floor not a yard from where Teleri stood. I jumped back into the living room; knew what was coming.

  Thick gray smoke swirled up from the point of impact. Teleri gave an affected little scream, hand over mouth, the better to show off how long her nails had grown, how perfectly polished to a pearly sheen. She was immediately seized from behind by strong arms, made muscular by years of wrestling shoe leather and swinging a golden hammer. Though shorter than her by a head, Teleri’s agent, Master Runyon, wasn’t about to let anything touch his meal ticket.