Everville (30 page)

"What's over'?" said Connie.

"Our time. Everville's time. Maybe He paused, frowned. "Maybe humanity's time," he murmured.

There was silence now, even from Nordhoff. Somewhere in the streets outside the cemetery, a dog barked, but even that most familiar of sounds carried no comfort.

At last, Erwin said, "Fletcher knows."

"Knows what?" said Nordhoff.

"What's going on. Maybe he's even the reason for it. Maybe if we could find some way to kill him-"

"It's a thought," said Connie.

"And even if it doesn't save the city," Dickerson said, clearly heartened by this prospect, "we'd have the sport of it."

"For God's sake, we can't even make people hear us," Dolan pointed out,

"how the hell do we kill somebody?"

"He's not somebody," Erwin said. "He's a thing, He's not human."

"You sound very certain of that," Nordhoff said. "Don't take my word for it," Erwin replied. "Come see for yourself."

Tesla had bought her flrst gun in Florida, four years ago, after narrowly escaping assault or worse at the hands of two drunken louts outside a bar in Fort Lauderdale, who'd decided they simply didn't like the look of her. Never again, she'd sworn, would she be without some means of selfdefense. She'd bought a modest little.45, and had even taken a couple of lessons so she'd be able to handle it properly.

It was not the last of the armaments she came by, however. Six months later, during her first trip to Louisiana, she'd found a gun lying in the middle of an empty highway, and despite Raul's warnings that it had surely been discarded for a reason, and she'd be a damn fool to pick it up, she'd done so. It was older and heavier than her purchase, the barrel and butt nicked and scratched, but she liked the heft of it; liked too the sense of mystery that surrounded it.

The third gun had been a gift from a woman called Maria Lourdes Nazareno, whom she'd met on a streetcomer in Mammoth, Arizona. Lourdes, as she'd preferred to be called, had been waiting for Tesla on that corner for several days, or so she'd claimed. She had the sight, she'd said, and had been told in a dream that a woman of power would be passing by. Tesia had protested that she was not the one, but Lourdes had been equally certain she was. She had been waiting with gifts, she said, and would not be content until Tesla had accepted them. One of the gifts had been a clavicle bone, which Lourdes told her belonged to a St. Maxine. Another had been a brass compass-"for the voyage" she'd said. The third had been the gun, which was certainly the prettiest of the three weapons, its handle inlaid with mother of-pearl. It had a secret name, Lourdes had told her, but she did not know what that name was. Tesla would discover it, however, when she needed to call it.

That occasion had not come along. She had traveled for a further two years after her encounter with Lourdes, and had never had need of any of the guns.

Until now.

"Which one do I get?" Phoebe said.

they had returned to the Cobb house from the pizza parlor for one purpose only: to arm themselves.

"Do you know how to use a gun?" Tesla asked her.

"I know how to point my finger," Phoebe said.

"Your finger isn't going to make a hole in somebody,"

Tesia said.

Phoebe picked up Lourdes' gun, and passed it from palm to palm. "It can't be that difficult, when you see the men who do it." She had a point.

"You want that one?" Tesia asked.

"Yeah," she said, smiling.

"We're only going to use them if we really have to."

"If something that looks like a snake and smells like shit comes sniffing around."

"You still don't believe me, do you?"

"Does it matter whether I do or I don't?" Phoebe said.

Tesia thought about this for a moment. "I guess not," she said. "I just want you to be ready for the worst."

"I've been ready for years," Phoebe said.

The Toothaker house was in darkness, but they'd come prepared for that eventuality. Phoebe had a large flashlight, Tesla a slightly smaller one.

"Feet anything?" Tesia asked Raul as she and Phoebe headed down the path.

Not so far.

The smell of excrement still lingered in the air, however, and it grew stronger the closer they got to the front door. The temperature had dropped considerably since they'd left the restaurant almost an hour before, but Tesia felt clammy-hot, as though she was developing a bad bout of flu. Weak at the knees, too.

"What do we do?" Phoebe said once they reached the step. "Just knock?"

"It beats trying to break the door down," Tesia said. She still harbored the hope that this was a wild-goose chase: that the whisper she and Raul had heard outside the diner had been a trick of the wind, and the smell was just a backed-up sewer, as Phoebe had said. She knocked on the door, loudly' they waited. There was no answer. She knocked again, and while she did so asked Raul if he sensed the presence of an occupant. His answer was not the one she wanted.

Yes, he said. I hear somebody.

The beast that had been twitching in Tesia's belly since they'd set out convulsed. She caught hold of Phoebe's arm. "I can't do this," she said.

"It's all right," Phoebe replied. She was reaching for the door handle.

"We've come this far." She turned the handle, and to Tesla's surprise the door opened. A wave of cold, sour air broke over the threshold.

Tesla retreated from the step, tugging on Phoebe's arm, but Phoebe made a little grunt between her teeth and jerked her arm free.

"I want to see," she said.

"We'll see tomorrow," Testa replied. "When it's light."

"Tomorrow might be too late," Phoebe said, without glancing back at Tesia. "I want to see now. Right now." And so saying she stepped into the house. As she did so Tesia heard her murmur, "Where are you?"

Where are you? said Raul.

"Yeah, I heard it too." Somebody's got into her head, Tes.

"Fuck!"

Phoebe had already taken half a dozen strides into the house, and the darkness had almost closed around her.

"Phoebe?" Tesia yelled. "Come out of there."

The other woman didn't falter however. She just kept walking, until Tesla was in danger of losing sight of her completely.

Get in there- Raul said.

"Shut up!"

Or you'll lose her completely.

He was right, of course, and she knew it. She pulled the found.45 out of her belt and stepped inside, following Phoebe down the darkened hallway. If she was quick she could maybe catch hold of her and haul her out into the street before The door slammed behind her. She spun round, the cold air pressing against her face like a stale, damp washcloth. It was a labor to draw breath, and she didn't waste air calling after Phoebe again. Plainly whatever had its hooks in her wasn't going to let go without a fight. Tesla?

"I'm here."

She turned right. There's a door.

She could vaguely make out the door frame, and yes, there was Phoebe stepping through it. Picking up her pace Tesla hurried down the hallway, but she was too late to catch hold of her quarry, who had slipped through the door into the room beyond. There was a little more light there, Tesla was pleased to see; candles perhaps, flickering.

Grateful for this small mercy at least, she followed Phoebe through the door. It was not candlelight illuminating the room, it was the remains of a fire, guttering in the grate. A number of blackened branches littered the hearth. The smell in the air was not woody, however, but meaty; almost appetizing after the sourness at the threshold. Somebody had cooked and eaten here, recently, though she could not yet see who. The room was large, and had been comprehensively trashed, the furniture almost all destroyed, the ornaments and bric-a-brac reduced to fragments underfoot. At the far end, fifteen feet or so from where she stood-and half that from Phoebe, who was standing in the middle of the room, her arms slack at her sidesthe darkness was denser than elsewhere, and busier. She tried to study the place, certain that somebody was standing there, but when she rested her gaze on the spot her eyes flickered violently back and forth, as though they couldn't (or wouldn't) make sense of what they were seeing.

"Fletcher?" she said. "Is that you?"

As she spoke Phoebe glanced round at her. "Leave us alone," she said.

"It's me he wants."

"Is that right?" Tesla said, approaching her gently. There were tremors and tics around Phoebe's mouth and eyes, as though she might well weep or shriek at any moment.

"That's right," she said.

"And is this person who wants you Fletcher?" Tesla said, trying-and once again failing-to fix her eyes on the shadows.

"It doesn't matter what his name is," Phoebe said.

"It matters to me," Tesia replied. "Maybe you can ask him. Would you do that for me?" Phoebe looked back towards the darkness. She seemed to have no difficulty focusing upon it.

"She wants to know who you are," she said.

"Is he Fletcher?" Tesla said.

"Are you-?" Phoebe didn't finish the question, but listened, head slightly cocked.

There was silence, but for the crackle and spit of the fire. Tesia glanced back down at the hearth. There were pools of melted wax or fat around the branches, and in the grate itself a stone or "If that's what you want," Phoebe said to the darkness.

Tesia looked back at her. She was reaching up to unbutton her blouse.

"What are you doing?" Tesla said.

"He wants to see me," Phoebe said simply.

Tesla crossed to her and pulled her hands from her blouse.

"No he doesn't."

"Yes he does," Phoebe said fiercely, her hands going back to her buttons. "He says... he says-"

"What's he saying?"

"He says... we shouldfuckfor the millennium."

Tesla had heard the phrase before. Spoken once, and dreamed a thousand times.

Now, at the sound of it, the floor seemed to pitch beneath her, as if to tip her into the darkness at the other end of the room.

It was five years since she'd first heard the words spoken; five years in which she had many times thanked God their speaker was dead. Her gratitude, it seemed, had been premature.

"Kissoon she murmured, and leaving her lips the syllables took on a life of their own. Kissss-sssoooon. Kiiisssssoonn. Shimmying around her.

She'd met him in countless nightmares-run from him, succumbed to him, been judged, murdered, raped, and eaten by him-but she'd always woken from those ordeals, even the most terrible, with the comfort that one day the memories of him could recede, and she'd be free.

Not so. Oh Lord in Heaven, not so.

Here he was, come again.

She reached down to her belt, pulled out her gun, and pointed it at the darkness.

It isn't Fletcher then-Raul murmured. He sounded close to tears.

"No."

You think it's Kissoon.

"I know it's Kissoon," she said, leveling the gun.

Suppose you're wrong.

"I'm not," she said, and fired, once, twice, three times. The din careened around the room, coming back an instant later, bruisingly loud. But there was no gratifying cry from the darkness; no spillage of blood, no death-rattle.

The only effect the shots seemed to have was upon Phoebe, who began to sob pitifully.

"What am I doing?" she gasped, and reeled away from Tesla's side, as if making for the door.

Testa glanced after her in time to see Phoebe coming back with her arms outstretched. She struck the gun from Tesia's fist with one hand and caught hold of her neck with the other. Tesla's breath was summarily stopped. She reached up to wrench Phoebe's hand away but before she could do so the woman's sobs-which had gone on unabated through the assault-stopped dead. "Go to him," she said, her voice monotonal. "Go to him and tell him you're sorry."

She started to push Tesla back towards the far end of the room, towards the darkness and whatever form of Kissoon it ntained. Tesla kicked and flailed but Phoebe's weight, eled by her possessor's will, was not easily resisted.

"Phoebe! Listen to me!" Tesla yelled. "He's going to kill us both!"

"No-"

"You can fight him, I know what it feels like, having him sitting on your head"-this was no lie. Kissoon had worked this same trick on Tesla in the Loop: pressed on the top of her head to subdue and control her-"but you can fight it, Phoebe, you can fight it."

The face in front of her showed no flicker of comprehension. The tears just continued to fall. Tesia reached down to her belt. The Florida gun was there. If Phoebe wouldn't listen to reason, maybe she'd respond to the business end of a.45.

As she grabbed the butt however, Phoebe let her go. Tesla drew a grateful breath, bending over as she did so, and as her gaze met the floor she saw a dark, serpentine form wiggle into view from behind her. She pulled her second gun from her belt, and was stepping out of the Lix's way to fire when she sensed that the darkness at her side seemed to be unfolding; she heard it shifting, and felt the air around her disturbed by its motion.

She looked down at the ground again. The Lix at her feet had been joined by several of its siblings; piffling little horrors, by comparison with some she'd seen, the biggest eighteen inches long or so, the smallest as fine as hair. But they kept coming, and coming, some of them no longer than a finger, as though one of their nests had been overturned at her feet. None of them seemed much interested in doing her hann. they squirmed off across the debris-strewn floor towards the last of the fire.

The only threat lay in the person of their maker, in whose direction Tesla now turned her gaze. This time, though her eyes remained incapable of fixing upon him, she caught a glimpse. He was sitting on a chair, it seemed, but the chair was hovering three or four feet off the ground. And though she could not look directly at him, he was not so restricted. She felt his gaze. It pricked her neck. It made her rattle.

"It'll pass he said, and with those words any last hope that she'd made a mistake, and that this was not Kissoon, vanished.