The Doorkeepers by Graham Masterton

him.

Eight
    They went back to Ella’s that evening, uninvited, but taking two chilled bottles of California Chardonnay with them. Josh didn’t think that Ella could really help them any, but they needed somebody else to talk to, and she was the only person who would listen. He knew what DS Paul would think about them if they tried to discuss the six doors with her. His old schoolfriend Steve Moriarty had joined the SFPD and was always griping about the “X-Filers” who pestered him after every unexplained disappearance.
    There was the old man whose false teeth had been found in the bottom of the toilet bowl: his wife had immediately assumed that he had been devoured by a giant anaconda that was lurking in the sewer system. Seven months later he was found alive and well and living in Santa Cruz. His wife’s cooking had always made him physically sick, and the very last time, when he had lost his dentures, he had walked out and vowed that he would never go back.
    Other absconders were said by their relatives to have been sucked off their sundecks by the slipstream of passing UFOs; or to have walked through mirrors, to be trapped for ever in back-to-front land. A parallel world from a Mother Goose rhyme sounded just as insane.
    Ella didn’t seem surprised to see them. She was wearing a black headscarf and huge silver hoop earrings. “Come on in,” she said. “I’m just cooking up some
sancoche.”
    Abraxas came running over and threw himself up at Josh’s knees. Ella said, “Down, Abraxas! How many times have I told you, you disobedient mutt!” Abraxas barked and kept on bungee-jumping up and down, so Josh popped his fingers andgave him his famous obedience stare. Abraxas immediately whined and hung his head and went trotting back to his basket under the sink.
    â€œHow do you
do
that?” asked Ella, shaking her head.
    â€œIt’s an unarmed combat technique. Eye-karate, they call it. They teach you how to do it in the US Marine Corps. I guess I’m the only person who thought of trying it out on dogs.”
    â€œYou were in the marines?”
    Josh looked up at the ceiling. “Briefly.”
    â€œHe doesn’t talk about it,” Nancy explained.
    â€œYou don’t mind if I carry on cooking?” asked Ella. She went over to her stove and lifted the lid of a large orange casserole pot. A strong smell of meat and peppers and vegetables wafted into the room. Josh went over and peered at the bubbling brown stew inside.
“Sancoche,”
said Ella. “It’s a traditional Trinidadian dish, with salt pork and beef, thickened up with yam and dasheen and cassava root and sweet potatoes, with coconut cream and hot chili peppers.”
    â€œSmells pretty nourishing.”
    â€œMy grandmother taught me how to cook it. She always used to say that it brought you good luck. Whenever you cook
sancoche,
they can smell it in the spirit world, and it reminds them of the good times they had when they were alive. They gather round close, just to breathe it in.”
    â€œYou’re not expecting anybody to supper, are you?” asked Nancy. “We can always come around tomorrow instead.”
    â€œAs a matter of fact, I was expecting somebody. Here, I kept the cards to show you.”
    â€œThe cards?”
    Ella led them across to her dining table. Arranged on the purple velveteen cloth were twelve greasy, worn-out playing cards, with a thirteenth card in the center. Seven of the cards had been turned over so that their faces were visible. They bore tiny representations of each of the traditional playing cards in the top left-hand corner, and a large colored illustration in the center.
    â€œThese are French fortune-telling cards,
la Sybille,
from Martinique,” said Ella. “Handed down by the women in myfamily from one generation to the next. Whoever uses them gives them a little of her power, so they are very powerful now,