It begins gently, insidiously, so you'd hardly notice. Dylan, for instance, Dylan hardly notices. He's got more on his mind; on his way to a meet, he's focused on making himself go unnoticed. Because it's not a good idea, you know, all of them meeting up at once. Even here in Paris, a continent and an ocean from arrest warrants, it's not a good idea. But it's what you do, isn't it? When a man's evil twin gets out of prison after less than a year – 'technicalities' have been mentioned, so has 'good behavior', though 'hypnotism' has come up more often – it's what you do. You rally round. You buy drinks.
You've got more on your mind and you don't notice it beginning. Soft-soled steps sync up with yours and as long as they stay in sync you don't notice.
That humming on the next street over, parallel with you, you catch little snatches of it where alleys connect the two paths, but it slides over your consciousness, over these more important considerations. Busy keeping his head down, busy keeping an eye on everybody he might pass, busy watching the reflections in wing mirrors and store windows, it slides over Dylan. Well, there's once, one particular phrase, that makes him shudder. Not his favorite tune, see. Bad memories associated with that tune. Fearful, childish, a momentary hollowing of the stomach before he reminds himself, he's a grown-up now. And he's got other things to think about.
But that first shudder sticks. Though he can will the knot out of his gut like any other bout of nerves, the discomfort is with him now. Itchy on the back of his neck, tense between his shoulder blades. Once you hear it, it sticks. Once you suspect there's somebody behind you, you have to look.
Of course, it's ridiculous. Idiotic. A couple of notes, an awful remembrance, he's letting it get to him. Childish. Good thing he insisted on everybody travelling alone to the meet; nobody's here to see their brave and fearless leader not looking so fearless anymore. Darting eyes, looking for a reflection that will show the street behind him, refusing to turn around and just look, because that would be admitting it. His mouth is dry, his palms sweat, but until he has to whip around and see for himself, Dylan doesn't have to admit that he's afraid.
You hear that music everywhere. Movies, cartoons, advertising, you hear it playing in calliope plink-plonk out of wind-up toys. Originally classical, The Entrance Of The Gladiators, but it's not associated with anything like a gladiator anymore. Nothing so brave and noble as a gladiator…
He still remembers it playing, sharp and ragged as the edge of an opened can, eking out of speakers hidden in the folds of big top curtains.
It's not until he stumbles, turns a corner into a civilian, somebody he didn't see or hear or feel coming, could have been anything, that he stops fighting. A mumbled apology to the local and he stops a moment. His back to a cold brick wall and one deep breath, he tells himself, "Enough." Dylan closes his eyes for a second. Bracing himself, that's how he thinks of it, but then he thinks of them, reaching out for him, silent in the dark, their grins glowing beyond their grasping hands, and with a single, strangled bark of fear his eyes flash open again. In the same heartbeat, before his resolve can fade, he leans out around the corner.
And there's nothing. Nobody following him. Not so much as the echo of a footstep, nobody disappearing into an alleyway. Nothing.
Of course there isn't. Stupid of him. Some unknown other hums one little kid's tune and he went off.
Of course there's nothing.
He turns back, rests against the solidity of the wall again. Somehow, the world itself gets more solid. It's as if he'd been dizzy and not noticed that either. Now he's got his feet back again, and a definite sense of the physical world, the weights of objects and distances to them, understanding the timing of echoes. A car prowls by in another street and the swish of tires on tar still wet from the afternoon's rain does not startle him, because he heard it coming. Dylan's appreciation of his surroundings is of a sort useful to both magicians and fugitives; aware of unadulterated, unfiltered, unemotional reality. Aware of how to make all that vibrating space say what he wants it to.
He is as grateful for it now, having lost it for a second, as a monk is for a miracle when his faith has faltered. This time when his eyes close, he lets them stay that way for a second. Giving thanks, and letting the fear drain. Then he straightens up, tugs his collar up, and turns to start on again. Meeting up is dangerous enough without Dylan drawing attention to himself on street corners.
Step by step, he talks himself out of it. One step, two, you're an idiot. Three, four, jumping at shadows. Five steps, and six, if you ever do that again you have to tell everybody all about it.
Seven, eight, nine steps, the mouth of another winding alley yawns dark a few feet ahead of him.
He glances at the window of the store across the street. In the black reflection, smears of ghost white. In the white, eyes, and the eyes are on him, watching him watch, waiting for him to arrive. For one tick of the clock there is poise and painful recognition between the two parties. The tick after that, Dylan is choking on his heart again, breathless. He drops a step back and they, them, those creatures who have hunted him down, bad memories, they drop out of the alley, one over the other, tumbling and stumbling but somehow always on their feet.
They come with glowing grins behind grasping hands, mock-marching one behind the other. The first is small, and singing that damn music right up loud now that they're out in the open. The other follows, accompanying on a kazoo. That second seems to lumber, but the movements are too careful and precise to belong to any movie monster. They practice, you know. They think it's an art, these evil terrors. They think they rehearse like any other performer.
They come on still singing, driving Dylan step-by-step back the way he came. He bites down hard on the urge to turn and run. That's what they want.
To fight the terror, he forces himself to look at them, and to assess. The little one, for instance, might be male or female, it's hard to tell – it wears baggy shorts that fall below the knee, heavy boots, a jacket over a sweater over plaid over an ill-fitting shirt. The bigger one is definitely male, in faded, threadbare jeans and a grubby white long-sleeve. Untraditional. But it's not the costumes that worry him. Those clothes could belong to anybody. It's only in combination with the faces that they become dangerous.
Greasepaint. Black lips on the little one, extended to the cheekbones, and mismatched eyes, blue and yellow ringed around and slashed through. Red diamonds following the arch of one eyebrow. Lantern-like shadows beneath the bigger ones eyes, drawn down the blank white expanse towards the jaw in twin tears.
But they haven't attacked yet. And they don't seem to be armed – their type prefers weapons which are difficult to hide. Slapsticks and rubber chickens are difficult to fit in a concealed pocket. These things are in Dylan's favor. All this pair seem to want to do is sing.
And so, the initial adrenaline, the urge to flee, fading, he forces himself to stop. Forces a look of bland unconcern into his features.
Look unimpressed. Another magician told him that once. If you want to take the power out of anyperformer, look unimpressed. Especially them. They don't exist if you're not impressed.
Terrified, Dylan always assumed, counted as a kind of impressed.
When he stops, they stop. When they stop, he questions his decision to stop at all. Something about the timing is too perfect. It has given them a streetlamp spotlight, so they glow Halloween-orange. At that moment too, they come to the end of their music, and present themselves with open arms and even wider grins.
Do they expect applause? Should he give it to them? There's 'looking unimpressed' and then there's 'wilfully provoking'.
Dylan hesitates too long. They give up, and drop for a moment in parody disappointment, swinging arms, shrugging at each other, pouting.
Then, with the same uncanny, light-switch speed, they are alert and alive again, grinning and bouncing. The little one steps slightly forward and declares, in broad, nasal New Jersey, "Salutations, Mister Man!" Indicating itself, "My name is Quinn, and this is Petey, playing the kazoo very badly and off-key. It's not his fault – you need a tongue to do it properly."
The big one hangs its jaw down. A moment too late, Dylan realizes what he's being shown and pulls away, arm raised to his eyes, "I don't need to see that…"
"Well, okay, but-" And that nimbler of the two, darting creature, like a spider running from repeated slams of a show, is trying to get in front of him, under his shielding arm, into his vision again, "Anyway, like I was saying," and it touches him, he feels the peak of its baseball cap, the cushion of the hood pulled up over it, press under his arm, and jumps back. Because this leaves him staring directly at the little monster, it can continue, "We represent-"
"I know who you represent," Dylan growls. Trying to stand forward, to assert himself, "And the answer's no."
"Hey!"
He will never, not in any telling of this story, however honest he feels, however drunk he may be, admit that he flinched. The fool is five feet high, if that. But it yelled, and here in the moment we will be honest and say that Dylan flinches.
He flinches harder when it storms up – feet turned out, there is ballet and strange art in the simplest of their motions – and jabs a stubby finger into his chest, "I like my introduction! And you skipped it! And you didn't just skip my introduction, you skipped my question! And you answered it not even knowing what it is!" Dylan backs away from the still-stabbing finger and straight into the powerful chest of the larger companion.
These monsters, to a man, have the arms of elite gymnasts. One glance at Petey's and Dylan envisages bear hugs. He skitters sideways, out where he can hold them both at arm's length.
The little one, with its eyes now burning in their multi-coloured pits, says more determinedly, "We – represent –"
"I know who you represent!"
Oh, God, he didn't mean to yell this time. That had nothing to do with asserting himself, everything to do with not wanting to hear it stated out loud, who they represent. He's in trouble this time. They'll kill him this time, for sure.
But instead the little one throws up its hands, only the fingertips showing under its dragging cuffs, and turns to its friend, "You talk to him!"
Petey makes an extravagant show of panic. Creeps forward like a child shoved on stage. He opens his tongueless maw as if words might spontaneously leave him, closes it, opens it again, closes it. Raising his hands, his fingers form strange shapes. Dylan doesn't follow the first time, so he repeats. Letters; the shapes are letters – joined thumbs and tented forefingers – A, one forefinger hanging from the other thumb, S, and, held to his forehead in that grand high tradition of the 1990s, the basic L.
ASL.
"Nah, sorry," Dylan says.
Petey shrugs, grabs Quinn by the arm and shoves it back forward. Grudging, bouncing one foot like a sulking teenager, it groans. Mimics his yelling, "You know who we represent!"
Be nice, Dylan tells himself. Then he ignores the voice in the back of his head which goes on to tell him they'll tear him limb from limb, drag him into the alley, eat the flesh from his bones like fried chicken, except for his face, because they leave that intact, they leave your whole head, but they put a brightly coloured wig on it and paint your face, and that's all anybody ever finds. Ignoring that, wholeheartedly, he says in the nicest and most reasonable voice he has, "I do."
Quinn appreciates the effort. He can see that in how it bobs its head, how it finds some of the ceremony it wanted to present in the first place. This, he realizes now, is just an underling. It's nothing compared to the monsters that send it. It believes it is a messenger, an emissary between great tribes. He should be kinder…
"We would respectfully request," it tries, "on their behalf, that you come and visit them. There is something you need to know, but they have to tell you in person. They wouldn't let Petey and me deliver the message."
A part of Dylan which will forever be six years old screams, It's a trap! And the rest, however grown-up and responsible it may be, however dependable and strong, however his character has crystallized in all those intervening years, shakes his head blindly, speechless. At the very notion of going among these lunatics, walking voluntarily into hell, he turns his back on them, throws up his hood and continues on his way along the street. It's what he always should have done. Walked around them, walked past them, walked on, kept walking, just walked away, away from them, anywhere but them, no, no, he won't go and visit, they can't make him.
"Please?!" the one named Quinn yells after him.
Unimpressed, he tells himself. No reaction. Stoic.
So the yell comes again. "It's about your Horsemen!"
Now he pauses. Less because he's listening than because it's very loud and very public. Different instincts roar up stronger than fear – protective, raging, ready to fight. They last for all of a second when he looks back. They're arguing; Petey holding a finger to his painted lips, begging Quinn to be quiet, and when Quinn stammers back he holds out his hands, together at the wrists, miming handcuffs.
The very mention of police, even silently, and they both jump up straight and stiff, hands up. Dylan turns the corner listening to, "Honest ta Gawd, Offisah, I was home in mah bed!"
He's not running. It's important to Dylan that it be stated, he is not running. He lost time, that's all. They made him late. So he's walking quicker. But he's definitely not running away.