Worlds War One

xxv [Callie]

"You alright?" Callie asked Ji.

He looked like he'd seen...well, something even weirder than a Ghost.

"I'll get through it. That's why they picked us after all, isn't it?"

Callie nodded. They stood along a cobblestone street with gaslight lamps up and down the avenue, buildings lining the lane featuring ancient architecture that was a drastic departure from the Japanese aesthetic on the other side of the bookshop's backdoor. Autumn Loloma paused under one streetlamp, flickering in and out like a candle, studying something farther along the lane that none of the others could see. Princess Saanvi walked directly toward an establishment along the boulevard featuring a sign not written in English or Japanese. Whatever weird Ji was dealing with, it was all over the place.

Lieutenant Robinson and Drill had gone ahead with Saanvi. They didn't seem concerned about the young soldiers catching up to them.

Fox examined the lane where the Misfits had paused. "This should be the same street we used to approach the bookshop in the MRAP. We came in from the west."

The pavement had become cobblestone. Electric lights turned gas lamp. Japanese translated to another language. Asian architecture was instead otherworldly. The day was night. West was not west anymore.

Autumn hadn't gone on ahead with Saanvi and the officers. Callie hadn't realized at first because the civvie had been invisible for a full minute. Autumn flickered back into view and stared at the four Misfits with a haunted gaze. "We're not in Tokyo anymore."

"I thought the bookshop featured a hidden passage to a secret neighborhood inside Tokyo," Callie said. "Like the Batcave hidden behind the grandfather clock."

Autumn shook her head.

"Then what is this place?" asked Quest.

"Neither here nor there," Autumn answered. "It's a place somewhere between."

"Between what?"

"Between everything. Space. Time. Truth and fiction. It fits between the gaps like a secret message in the spaces between words on a page. You ignore the empty places because you expect there's nothing there. But sometimes, there is something."

Callie felt unmoored from reality, like she lived in a dream, and she couldn't wake up. The rules kept changing. Saanvi had said they'd picked the Misfits for their ability to adapt to unlikely circumstances, but how much was toomuch? Did she draw the line at talking cartoon pigs? Or a coven of witches on leave from Hogwarts? Or Elvis on a unicorn parading along the lanes of this Lost City?

There had to be limits. Without limits, everything was okay, and nothing was impossible. Then how did you ever know what was real? Her father's love? The hole in her heart where her mother used to be? Callie's future? What was real if anything could happen?

Callie brought up the rear, following Autumn and the other Misfits into the door that Saanvi and the officers had entered.

Even after the accident when he'd lost his sight and his wife, Callie's father would still sometimes sit for long afternoons in front of the television. The only thing that would ever play was old spaghetti westerns, predictably directed by someone named Sergio. Films like A Fistful of Dollars and The Great Silence played repeatedly. Callie loved some of the titles like Death Rides a Horse and Duck, You Sucker! Her father had said he watched them because he could remember what they looked like before he'd gone blind. He'd told Callie that the haunting scores by Ennio Morricone would evoke such colorful memories—like he could see again for a little while.

Callie thought about some of those westerns as she entered the building behind the other Misfits. Shelves full of liquor bottles lined the back wall of the bar. Tables were set sporadically across a planked floor. Someone played piano in the corner, some ragtime to set the scene. A winding staircase curved up to a second floor that might have been a brothel in one of those old movies. Patrons played cards or talked loudly or sat alone with heads hung low, all of them like extras waiting for Clint Eastwood to recite his lines.

"Drinks for me and my companions."

Instead of the man with no name, Princess Saanvi Laghari ordered. She had a mouthful of a name, but she was a good deal more pretty than a perpetually sneering Eastwood.

The princess sat down at a table, and the others joined her. Everyone besides Saanvi stared at the scene all around them. Callie felt like she was stuck in a movie, only something more science fiction than vintage western. The rest of the patrons sipped beverages more like a cloud than liquid, vaporous orbs set on saucers with handles like a coffee mug. Folks slurped the scoops of the mist like it was foggy tea.

Here and there, servers in opulent garb served hors d'oeuvres in small wooden bowls. The contents floated up like bubbles and flitted about the customer's head like a swarm of nits. The hors d'oeuvres made shapes like tiny donuts with the texture of puffed corn, a dusting of bright orange seasoning on each. In turn, the floating snacks dived into the patron's mouths whenever they were ready for the next bite.

The ambiance was strange—the patrons populating the bar were even more peculiar. Autumn was especially interested in the occasional Ghost flickering in and out of existence, maybe a half dozen of them in all. Callie found it hard to count them as they cycled into view at different intervals, some winking away for long minutes at a time while others pulsed like a heartbeat, back and forth, back and forth. Most of the others appeared Human, but many had blonde hair and wore extravagant suits with top hats, and Callie suspected they were something else.

Callie tried not to stare, but three other patrons looked close to Human but not quite. She tried to decide if their skin was strangely black or deep purple. She couldn't tell if they had small horns or if they'd styled their dark hair to make it appear so. One met her gaze, and Callie was sure the patron had violet eyes, all one color, no difference between iris and pupil, and no white in the eye at all. Callie thought something moved in the shadows. Then she felt it was the shadows themselves that moved.

Callie checked on Drill, next to Lieutenant Robinson, and ignored everything around him. Saanvi placed a tumbler of whiskey in front of Drill, and he knocked it back in one massive gulp. His eyes focused on the empty glass and only the empty glass. Callie wished she could be willfully oblivious.

But then there was the bartender and the servers with ornate uniforms and the piano player making music more foreign than any Ennio Morricone score. These employees were a greenish color, more like the tone of a reptile than any mammal. Their noses were slits, and they had only holes for ears as if they had all suffered grave injuries in a fire. Big white eyes without pupils looked as eerie as those with indigo skin. When a server passed close enough, Callie spotted gills along her neck that opened and closed like a fish in water.

"What are they?" Callie whispered. "What is this place?"

"Ghosts. Magi. Humans. Demons," Saanvi answered. "This is the alien neighborhood of the Lost City. Extra-Terrestrials run the place."