'Well, I'm exhausted anyway,' said Ace bitterly.

'What Ray means is that every imaginable possibility exists, every variation of the universe, all nestling together and even overlapping. Isn't that correct, Ray? Isn't that how you came to be here?'

Ray shook his head dolefully. 'I don't know any more, man. I used to think it was all physics. A matter of where the two dimensions overlap, and the probability of it. But now I'm beginning to think it's magic man, like black magic.'

'Clarke's law,' said Ace. The Doctor gave her an approving look.

'What's that, man?'

'At a certain point science and magic become indistinguishable,' said the Doctor. 'When technology is sufficiently advanced. And you were working on some very advanced technology, weren't you, Ray?'

'I was a particle physicist, working at the biggest, meanest particle accelerator ever built. And I was good, man. I mean, I was one of their top boys.

Until my equations started getting too way-out for them.'

'Because you had discovered the possibility of interdimensional travel.'

'That's right. I was working on risk projection. Like, the possibility of the accelerator finding a rogue particle, man. The kind of particle that might destroy the Earth. . . '

'Like Teller's chain reaction,' said Ace. In her mind, facts were coming together, interlocking puzzle pieces, and she could feel a chill crawling up her spine. She was beginning to understand, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to.

'That's right,' said the Doctor. 'One of the little-known facts about such accelerators is that they might bring into being particles that are. . . highly volatile.'

'Like they could destroy the Earth baby. And maybe blow up the whole universe for an encore. So that was my job, man. To calculate the probabilities.

But it was wacky man. It was way out. What my calculations said. . . They said that the probability of a quantum catastrophe was directly related to the equations that predicted it.'

'What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?' said Ace. The Doctor turned to her and smiled patiently, his eyes full of sadness, and forgiveness and understanding.

'Ray means that any equation that could predict a doomsday particle with total accuracy would be part of the process that brings it into being. It would, if you will, cause it.'

136.'Cause and effect baby, cause and effect. All messed up at a quantum level.

But the bigwigs at the accelerator didn't want to know man.' Ray's face grew troubled. 'But there were other people. People who did did want to know. Lady Silk and Imperial Lee is what they call themselves, though they've got other names. They found out about me and they came to me. They said there was something missing from my calculations. They said what I needed wasn't just physics, mathematics, science. They said I needed magic, man. Their own brand of hoodoo. Magic and desire.' want to know. Lady Silk and Imperial Lee is what they call themselves, though they've got other names. They found out about me and they came to me. They said there was something missing from my calculations. They said what I needed wasn't just physics, mathematics, science. They said I needed magic, man. Their own brand of hoodoo. Magic and desire.'

'Desire?' said the Doctor.

Ray looked like he was going to cry. 'They were using me man. I didn't know it, but they were using me for their own nefarious ends. Because my equations showed what happened when reality broke down at a fundamental level, the level where the infinite number of universes overlap. Silk and Lee thought that they could use my calculations to cross over, to break into another dimension.

And they were right. But they said there was something lacking from my equations. Desire. And they were right about that, too.' Ray looked at Ace and the Doctor. 'Desire was the missing element. They told me if I cared pa.s.sionately enough, if I wanted to cross over badly enough, then I could. We could.'

'And what was it?' said the Doctor. 'What was it that you desired so badly that it enabled you to bridge the gulf between dimensions?'

The sadness left Ray's face for a moment, to be replaced by blazing pa.s.sion.

His eyes shone. 'Well man, you know about the recording ban.'

'The what?' said Ace.

'The American Federation of Musicians' recording ban,' said Ray. 'In the 1940s, the musicians' union wanted more bread. So effectively they went on strike. All professional musicians were forbidden to make recordings. They could perform live, but no recordings could be made.

'And talk about savage ironies, man.' Ray's face was suddenly animated.

'The ban kept Ellington out of the recording studio from July twenty-eighth 1942 to December first 1944. And that was his greatest period, his coolest band! The best jazz music ever made, and it all just vanished into the air. No recordings, baby, gone forever. Lost forever.'

The Doctor nodded. 'That's what you meant by what you said at the Oppenheimers' party. About this music coming so close to not existing at all.'

'That's right, man! Back home, in our world, it doesn't doesn't exist. There weren't any recordings. But here, in this alternate universe, there was no ban. They kept right on recording, all through the golden period. With the greatest band the Duke ever had.' exist. There weren't any recordings. But here, in this alternate universe, there was no ban. They kept right on recording, all through the golden period. With the greatest band the Duke ever had.'

There was a momentary silence in the room. Then Ace spoke, in a voice that began softly but swiftly rose until it was almost a shriek, 'You mean you 137did all this to collect a record collect a record?'

Ray rocked back from her defensively. He picked up his record bag and clutched it to his chest as though it was a child in need of protection.

'A whole bunch of records, man.'

138.

Chapter Eleven.

California Death Cult 'I don't care how many effing records you've managed to collect,' said Ace.

She was spitting out the words with such venom that saliva sprayed from her mouth, but she didn't care. 'You opened a portal between dimensions for that that?

You tampered with the fabric of reality just for that that?'

'Desire, baby.' Ray seemed upset that she didn't understand. 'That was the key. The final piece of the puzzle. My equations only took me so far. Then Silk and Lee got their hooks into me and took me the rest of the way with their hoodoo. And, baby, it worked. I could cross over into a universe that had what I wanted. But they came too, man. Silk and Lee and their crew. They came with me. That was the deal.'

'Or the pact,' said the Doctor coldly. 'You do realise that you've jeopardised this world? That with your twenty-first-century knowledge of physics you are in danger of destabilising the atomic bomb programme?'

'I didn't know it at the time, man. I knew there'd be a price to pay, but I didn't know what it was. I didn't realise what Silk and Lee were up to. They're fanatics, man.'

'And do you know what they're up to now?'

'They don't tell me everything. But I'm not stupid. I know it's not good.'

'That's a considerable understatement,' said the Doctor.

'It certainly is,' said a woman's voice. They all turned to look at the stairwell, where a figure was rising gracefully from the shadows. The woman was elegant and diminutive. She wore a green-and-white checked jacket, tailored to swell at the shoulders and taper sharply at the waist. Under the jacket she wore a top made of a single panel of clinging dark green silk with a circular neck. Her skirt was made of the same silk and under it her legs were bare.

She wore black slippers on her small feet. Seeing her face in photographs had in no way prepared Ace for the reality of the woman's beauty. Her skin was a shade of ivory and her eyes a deep green that matched her clothing. Slen-der sculpted black eyebrows echoed the curves of her high cheekbones. Her exquisite lips were a deep, bright shade of candy red.

Lady Silk came up the stairs and into the room, her slippers whispering on the floor. She walked past Ace and the Doctor, tied in their chairs, as if they 139didn't exist. Ray Morita looked up at her as she came and sat down beside him on the raised semicircle of floor. 'I thought I asked you not to wander off, Ray.' Her voice was a gentle purr. Ray lifted his head to look at her like a cow raising its head to the man in the slaughterhouse who held the hammer. His expression was an odd amalgam of fear and tenderness.

'I heard that there were prisoners, Silk, and I had to see if they were my buddies. So I came up to take a look.'

Lady Silk adjusted her skirt to cover the pale curves of her knees, thereby drawing the attention of anyone who hadn't already noticed her bare, shapely legs. Ace felt a wave of hatred for the woman that seemed strong enough to tear her out of the chair, to rip apart her bonds. But it wasn't. Lady Silk looked up at her with a lazy amused smile, as if she sensed Ace's rage. 'And were they? Your buddies?'

'Yeah, man. They're my friends. So can't we let them go?'

'Sure, Ray. Why didn't you say so?' Lady Silk got to her feet and lifted her skirt high above one perfect thigh. There, strapped to her, was a knife in a sheath. She drew the knife and held it high. In the dimming light of the room its blade looked blue. She went over and stood behind Ace. Ace braced herself, forcing her chin down onto her chest so the woman couldn't get at her jugular.

A low chuckle came from behind her. 'The little woman thinks I'm going to cut her throat.' Ace felt her bonds go tight around her arms, and then suddenly loosen. There was a spilling, thudding sound as the cut length of rope fell to the floor. Lady Silk came around in front of her and kneeled before her as if in supplication. But she was busy with the knife again. The blue blade pa.s.sed smoothly through the ropes that held her ankles to the chair, slicing the fibres apart.

Ace was free. But she found she still couldn't move. She had been tied up in the same position for so long that her body wouldn't function. Lady Silk rose to her feet and went across the room and cut the Doctor free. He didn't seem to have Ace's problem. He sprang to his feet immediately and seized Lady Silk's wrist. 'Ow,' she said. 'That hurts.'

The Doctor said nothing. He took the knife from her and put it in his pocket, then hurried over to Ace, who was beginning to feel the first hot agony of returning circulation. 'Are you all right?'

'I will be in a minute.' She tentatively put a foot forward and tried to apply some of her weight to it. She immediately buckled and had to sit down again.

'Don't try to move just yet.' The Doctor turned to Lady Silk. 'Don't you move either. In fact why don't you just sit down?'

'Certainly.' Lady Silk sank down into the chair and crossed her legs while she unb.u.t.toned her jacket. 'May I smoke?'

140.'No,' said the Doctor. 'This is a smoke-free zone.'

Lady Silk chuckled throatily. 'You know, that's one of the things I love about this world. You can smoke anywhere. Imagine that. Being able to smoke in a restaurant in Los Angeles. h.e.l.l, I can smoke in hospital if I want. I can smoke in the children's ward children's ward of a hospital.' of a hospital.'

'And I'm sure you do,' said Ace. She tottered to her feet as Lady Silk laughed appreciatively. Ace's limbs felt like she'd slept on them, all four of them. They were slabs of dead meat. But sensation was slowly returning to them with a painful pins-and-needles p.r.i.c.kling She took a few steps forwards with the Doctor hovering behind her in case she fell. Ace felt like a convalescent taking her first steps after a long illness.

'What do we do now?' she said.

'Hmm,' said the Doctor. 'Well we're not doing badly. We have retrieved Ray safely, and taken Lady Silk captive.'

'I always wanted to be taken captive,' drawled Lady Silk. 'Pity it couldn't last.' Ace and the Doctor looked at her and she nodded at something behind them. They turned to see the Storrows standing there. The couple had emerged silently from the spiral staircase, moving with impressive stealth, particularly in the case of the large Elina. They were bizarrely dressed in hooded white robes with big, bright red circles in the centre of their chests.

They were both holding Thompson sub-machine-guns.

Lady Silk reached into the pocket of her jacket and took out a pack of cigarettes. 'I think I'll smoke now,' she said.

The Storrows hadn't lied about the bas.e.m.e.nt of the house being a chapel.

It was a single large room with a high ceiling with a ring of electric bulbs glowing in the centre of it. There were also lights set in recessed sconces at intervals in the wall. The ceiling had been painted white as had the top half of the walls. There were rectangular windows set high in the wall, presumably at ground level outside, with milky opaque gla.s.s that prevented anyone seeing out, or in. Ace noticed that several of the windows were open. But they were high up the wall, about ten feet above the ground, too high to allow any easy escape. The lower half of the walls and the floor were uniformly covered with white tiles, except for a circular s.p.a.ce in the centre of the floor that had been decorated in red tiles. This large red spot on a white background echoed the motif of the robes the Storrows were wearing.

'It's like the j.a.panese flag,' said Ace.

'Yes, the post-war j.a.panese flag, oddly enough,' murmured the Doctor. Lady Silk heard what they were saying and smiled.

'That's what Lee said when he saw it. He said it was fate.' She tapped ash off the end of her cigarette, a grey fragment drifting down onto the immaculate 141white-tile floor. 'Imperial Lee is very big on fate.'

As they came further into the room, with the Storrows at their backs, pointing the Tommy guns, Ace noticed something. In the centre of the large red circle there was another circle. An opening in the floor. As she moved closer she saw that it led into a cylindrical opening that descended into the floor to a depth of about eight feet, like a shallow well. But the well was lined with the same red tiles as the broad surrounding circle, which made it hard to see.

'What's the well for?' said Ace.

'Oh, you know,' said Lady Silk, taking a puff on her cigarette. 'You can't have a proper California death-cult chapel without facilities for making sacrifices.'

'Death cult?' said Ace.

'Sacrifices?' said the Doctor.

Silk smiled at the Storrows. 'Sure. Albert and Elina made a modest start in that direction. What was it, Albert? Gophers and chipmunks? The occasional sparrow?'

'c.o.c.kerels,' said Albert Storrow tightly, 'roosters, rams, goats. . . '

'Oh, relax,' said Silk, exhaling smoke. 'I was just trying to get your your goat. goat.

Anyway, the Storrows had made some humble moves in that direction but then we came on the scene and moved the whole thing up a level or two.' She smiled at Ace and the Doctor. 'As you're going to find out.'

Ray, who had been hanging back near the staircase, suddenly spoke. 'Oh, come on Silk, you can't be serious.'

'Serious about what?' said Ace. She was getting worried.

'Human sacrifice,' said the Doctor, making explicit the concept she'd been trying to avoid.

'It's crazy, man,' said Ray, coming into the centre of the room. He stopped at the edge of the red circle, as if afraid to intrude on it. 'It's just superst.i.tion.

Hok.u.m, baby.'

'Hok.u.m, is it?' said Elina Storrow fiercely. 'Just superst.i.tion? Was it just superst.i.tion that we were sacrificing a black ram at the exact moment you appeared in the Well of Transition? Just as we shed its blood.'

'This is where you arrived when you crossed over?' said the Doctor. Lady Silk just nodded and puffed contentedly on her cigarette, listening to the argument that was growing between Ray and Elina.

'That was nothing to do with shedding blood or killing that poor ram, man.

It was all to do with physics. With my equations.'

'And your desire,' said Silk, blowing a lazy smoke-ring.

'Physics and desire. No blood sacrifices, baby.'

'Maybe not at your end,' said Albert Storrow. 'You opened the portal in your dimension in your own fashion, while we opened one here in our way. But 142both had to be opened to allow you to cross through.' Elina nodded as he spoke, her plump pink face serious in her hooded white robe.

'Synchronicity, man. Coincidence. That's all it was.'

'Maybe the synchronicity is part of the recipe. Maybe it's one more essential ingredient.' Silk dropped the stub of her cigarette to the floor and ground it out under the heel of her slipper.

'Please!' said Elina in a harsh voice. 'Don't desecrate the floor of the temple.

Don't leave that lying there.'

'Okey doke,' said Silk. She kicked the b.u.t.t across the tile floor so it skidded across the red circle, reached the lip of the well and disappeared into it.

'She's profaned the Well of Transition!' cried Elina.