Free Sleeping Late On Judgement Day by Tad Williams Page B

want.”
    â€œIt’s a complete mystery to me why people so often use the words ‘vicious bitch’ to describe you, Alice.”
    She hung up before I’d finished being rude. I hate that.
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    I do like driving, especially when I don’t have to worry about a call from work. I followed the Woodside Expressway up and over the hills toward the Pacific, rising from oak scrub to redwood forest. When the sun got high enough it burned off some of the morning mist. It was not what you call a gorgeous November day, at least by Northern California standards, but it was nice enough. This time of year the golden light we get in October turns a bit brassy, and it’s almost silver by December. Today it was still on the buttery side, but there was a distinct nip of winter in the air, that cold twinge of mortality even an angel can feel, the chill that can make you shiver even in direct sun.
    As I slalomed through the hills, I took inventory.
    Anaita had made some deal with Eligor, and (as best I could tell) they had exchanged Feather and Horn to seal the bargain. Eligor had lost the feather for a while, but now he had it back, thanks to me, Barnum’s favorite angel. (I call myself that because apparently there’s a sucker born every minute even in the afterlife, and I’m the afterliving proof.) The horn, however, the other marker of their bargain, was still hidden.
    And now, to add to the fun, some neo-Nazis and local criminal scum had apparently banded together to find the horn—reasons unknown—as well as work in a few beatings for me when their busy schedules allowed. I had no idea how these guys fit into things, but lots of folk had been interested in the feather when I had pretended I was going to sell it. It was possible some of the bidders at the Big Feather Auction had been fronts for the Black Sun or were connected to them some other way. I hoped Edie’s employer could tell me more about those organizations than just their names, which was why I was driving all the way out to the coast. If I didn’t get anything useful out of this Gustibus, I’d be back to square one again. And I didn’t have anything in square one except empty space.
    As I crested the hills, the fog began to turn into drizzle. I put on the wipers and turned up the CD player, one of the few additions I’d made to the extremely old Japanese car I was driving. Charlie Patton’s blues took me through the rain and back into the light as I reached the shining, wet expanse of Highway 1 on the far side of the mountains, where I headed north.
    The sky was streaked with clouds, although blue was trying to push through. The ocean itself was a steely gray, and there must have been some decent surf because I saw cars parked in several places along the shoulder and people in wetsuits heading down to the shore with boards.
    Edie’s directions said, “Before you get to Half Moon Bay, turn left at the flying horse.” I wished I’d double-checked with her before leaving, because she hadn’t specified whether this marvel was a street, a restaurant, or an actual horse with wings. As I got close to Half Moon Bay, I slowed down a little. Luckily it was only a bit past noon, because the visibility gets really bad later in the afternoon as the sun drops toward the ocean and shines straight into your eyes. I passed a few restaurants and bars with picturesque names, but none of them were anything to do with horses, feathered or otherwise.
    I was just a few miles south of the golf course and thinking seriously about turning around when I passed out of the latest sprinkle of rain. As wipers swept the last drops from my windshield, I saw it. It really was a flying horse—not, I hasten to say, a live one, but one of those old gas station signs, although in this case you couldn’t see anything but the red Pegasus, and not much of that because it was leaning against a