The cab had just hummed past Monstro Multi-Products' blindingly bright
basement show windows, behind which a file of dress-display robots
marched in an endless figure eight with considerable realism and oodles
of suede-rubber glamor, when Juno hunched forward and growled to the
driver to stop. She had been silent during most of the ride, as if the
whiskey had gone sour in her, and now when Phil made a move to pay
she impatiently motioned him aside. He hopped out willingly enough,
suddenly eager to see what the Akeley place looked like, as if his
hopes and fears had started rotating again when the wheels of the cab
stopped.
Juno's reference to "the temple" had half led him to expect Greek
columns or an Egyptian portal. Instead he was facing an oblong of
darkness, framed by the sidewalk, show windows some distance to either
side, and the underpinnings of the two upper streets. He crossed the
sidewalk and hesitated, as if he stood on the edge of nothingness. It
was really very black, even for the bottom level. The sodium moon had
set.
Then, as the after effects of the show windows' glare lessened, a house
took shape before him--an old, three story house, looking incredibly as
if it were built of wood, with roofs slanting oddly and lights gleaming
faintly through shuttered bay windows and fanciful dusty fanlights.
Something gritted under his foot and he realized that between him and
the house was a yard of real dirt, if not grass and weeds. This must
have been the ground level of the city some hundred years ago. Now
it was the windows of the third story which peered across the gap at
the top-level street far above Phil's head. The gap was at one point
spanned by a beam. Apparently the house was so ancient and ricketty
that it needed props.
But then a new illusion presented itself. Phil knew that the house
was in the heart of the city, hemmed in by gigantic buildings on
every side. There should have been tiers of lighted windows and, far
overhead, a square of night sky. Instead there was only darkness, as if
the pre-atomic house existed in a private night.
Then headlights of a turning car in the street two levels above swept
across the upper third of the house, and he saw that all around the
house were surfaces painted a dull, non-reflecting black. The flat
black "ceiling" could hardly be a foot above the top of the house's
highest spire.
"Some legal business," Juno explained, coming up beside him. "Jack
wunct told me sumpin about it. Seems the original owners couldn't be
rooted out, but the city seized the air-rights and built over them.
Creepy place, looks as if it were about to rot apart--just right for
those Akeleys." Then, more loudly, "Well, I said I was going to bust
in on them, and I am. C'mon."
Phil followed her across the yard to the ricketty steps leading to the
porch. His hand groping for the rail touched peeling ancient paint.
Halfway up a cat darted past him. For a moment he was swallowing his
heart, then as the cat paused at the top he saw that it was splotched
with some sort of dark and light colors--hardly Lucky. It loped around
a corner of the porch. Following it, Phil and Juno found themselves
facing a six-paneled door lit by a dingy globe, which Phil guessed must
be an ancient tungsten-filament lamp. There was no sign of the cat, or
indication of how it could have vanished, until Phil noticed a tiny and
possibly swinging door cut in the bottom of the big one.
Ignoring a cat-headed knocker, green with verdigris, Juno pounded on
the door in a way that made Phil hunch his shoulders and duck his
head, keeping an apprehensive eye on the ceiling. But the house didn't
collapse.
After a time a peephole opened above the knocker and a watery gray eye
surveyed Juno.
"I want to see that no-good husband of mine," she shouted, but it
didn't seem her usual self-confident roar.
"Now Juno, you're all upset," came the response in a voice Phil
recognized as that of Sacheverell Akeley. "Your aura's all muddy; I can
hardly see you through it."
"Listen here," Juno bellowed, "you let me in or I'll bust your lousy
house down."
Phil thought that, even granting some lack of certainty in Juno, this
was not a threat to be taken lightly, but it didn't faze Sacheverell.
"No, Juno," he said firmly. "I can't let you in when your vibrations
are like that, and when hate hormones are streaming off you. Later
perhaps--then we may even be able to help you achieve inward
tranquility--but not now."
"But look," Juno complained in surprisingly docile tones, "I got a
friend with me that's got business with you." She stepped aside.
"What business?" Sacheverell asked skeptically.