The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

the ground feel like?”
    Benner shrugged. “Fresh air and grassy ground. And the horses looked like horses. The gypsies were all fairly short, but maybe gypsies always are.” He clapped Doyle on the back. “So stop worrying. The charcoal enemas will keep the guests healthy, and I’m not going to let any of them get away. You still want to call the cops?”
    “No.” No indeed, Doyle thought fervently. I want to see Coleridge. “Excuse me,” he said, “I’ve got to get busy on this speech.”
    At twenty after six Doyle decided he had his new speech memorized. He stood up in the little office Darrow had let him use, sighed, and opened the door to the main room.
    A number of well-dressed people were milling around at the far end of the room, separated from him by a dozen or so empty chairs and a big central table. The hundreds of candles in the chandeliers were lit, and the soft, gracious illumination gleamed off the polished panelling and the rows of glasses on the table; faintly on the warm air he caught a smell of bell peppers and grilling steak.
    “Benner,” he called softly, seeing the tall young man lean tiredly against a wall near the table and, in perfect harmony with the way he was dressed, flip open a snuffbox and bring a pinch of brown powder up to his nose.
    Benner looked up. “Damn it, Brendan— hatchoo! —damn it, staff’s supposed to be all dressed by now. Never mind, the guests are in the dressing rooms, you can change in a few minutes.” Benner put away his snuffbox and frowned impatiently at Doyle’s clothes as he walked over. “You’ve got your mobile hook on, at least?”
    “Sure.” Doyle pulled back his shirt sleeve to show him the leather band, drawn tight and secured with a little lock, around his shaven forearm. “Darrow himself put it on an hour ago. Come listen to my speech, will you? You know enough about—”
    “I don’t have time, Brendan, but I’m sure it’s fine. These damn people, each one of them thinks he’s the maharajah of the world.”
    A man hurried up to them, dressed, like Benner, in the early nineteenth century style. “It’s Treff again, chief,” he said quietly. “We finally did get him to strip, but he’s got an Ace bandage on his leg and he won’t take it off, and it’s obvious he’s got something under it.”
    “Hell, I knew one of them would pull this. Rich people! Come along, Doyle, you’ve got to head in this direction anyway.”
    As they strode across the room the imposing figure of Darrow entered through the main door and their paths converged just as a stout, hairy man wearing nothing but an elastic bandage around his thigh stormed out of one of the dressing rooms.
    “Mr. Treff,” said Darrow, raising his thick white eyebrows, and his deep voice undercut and silenced all the others, “you have evidently misunderstood the dress requirements.”
    At this several people laughed, and Treff’s face went from red to dark red. “Darrow, this bandage stays on, understand? It’s my doctor’s orders, and I’m paying you a goddamn million dollars, and no fugitive from a nut hatch is going to—”
    Only because he happened to smile nervously just then at Benner did Doyle see him whip a thin knife out of his sleeve; but everyone saw him when he kicked forward in a graceful full-extension fencer’s lunge and slipped the flat of the blade under the disputed bandage, paused for a theatrical moment, and then flicked it out sideways, cleanly slicing the layers of cloth through from top to bottom.
    A good fistful of heavy, gleaming metallic objects thudded onto the carpet. In a quick glance Doyle recognized among them a Colibri Beam Sensor lighter, a Seiko quartz watch, a tiny notebook, a .25 caliber automatic pistol and at least three one-ounce plates of solid gold.
    “Planning on buying the natives with glass beads, were you?” Darrow said, with a nod of thanks to Benner, who had straightened back up to his position beside Doyle and slipped the