Everville (59 page)

"It's going to destroy Everville," she said to Texas.

"Maybe.

"There's no maybe about it," she protested.

"Why should you care?" he said. "You don't love it there, do you?"

"No," Phoebe said. "But I don't want to see it destroyed either."

"You don't have to," Texas said. "You're here with me.

Phoebe pondered this a moment. Plainly she wasn't going to get him to intervene on her behalf. But maybe there was another way. "If I were Maeve-2' she began.

"You're too sane." "But if I were-if I'd founded a city the way she'd founded Everville, not with dreams but with plain hard work@'

"Yes?"

"And somebody protected it for me, kept my city safe-2'

She let the notion trail. There was fifteen seconds of silence, while Liverpool shook and trembled under their feet. Then he said, "Would you love that somebody?"

"Maybe I would," she said.

"Oh my Lord-" he murmured.

"It looks like the lad's giving up on the city," she said. "It's starting to move along the shore."

"My shore," King Texas said. "I'm the rock, remember?" He crossed the mirror to where she stood and laid his mud hand upon her cheek. "Thank you," he said. "You've given me hope." He turned from her, saying,

"Stay here.

"I don't@' "Stay, I said. And watch."

During the voyage to Mem-6 b'Kether Sabbat, Noah Summa Summamentis had spoken of the lad Uroboros's power to induce terror by its very proximity, but until now-when Joe entered the streets of Livetpool-he had seen no evidence of that power. In b'Kether Sabbat the lad's malevolence had been held in thrall to the 'shu, and by the time it had been unleashed Joe was a spirit, and apparently immune to its influence. But the survivors who wandered through the shaking desolation were plainly victims, shrieking and sobbing for relief from the madness overwhelming them. Some had succumbed to it, and sat in the rubble with blank faces. Others were driven to terrible acts of self-harm to stop the horrors, beating their heads against stones, or tearing at their chests to still their hearts.

Powerless to help them, Joe could only wander on, determined to at least be a witness to what the lad perpetrated. Perhaps there was some higher court in which its crimes would be judged. If so, he would testify.

There was a large bonfire burning in the street ahead, its flames brightening the filthy air. Approaching, he saw that it was attended by perhaps twenty people, who were circling it hand in hand, praying aloud.

"You who are divided, be whole in our hearts-"

Surely they were appealing to the 'shu, he thought.

"You who are divided-"

Their prayer apparently went unheard, however. Though the lad had left off its destruction of the city there were remnants of its shadow presence haunting the streets, and one such portion, no more than a dozen feet tall, and resembling a pillar of darkness, was approaching the fire from the far end of the street. One of the group, a young woman with a mouth that resembled a fleshy rose, broke the circle and started to retreat from the fire, shaking her head wildly. The worshipper to her left caught hold of her hand and proceeded to haul her back to the fire.

"Hold on!" he said to her. "It's our only hope!" But the damage had been done. The circle, once broken, ad lost any chann it might have possessed, and now each of the worshippers succumbed to the lad's baleful influence. One of the men pulled out a knife and proceeded to threaten the air in front of him. Another reached into the flames, searing his hand and yelling for some horror or other to keep away from him.

As he did so, he looked up through the fire, and his agonized face suddenly cleared of its confusions. He pulled his hand out of the fire and stared at Joe.

"Look... " he murmured. Joe was as astonished as the man witnessing him. "You see me?" he said.

The man failed to hear him. He was too busy yelling for his fellow worshippers to "Look! Look!"

Another had seen him now; a woman whose face was a mass of bruises, but who at the sight of him broke into an ecstatic smile.

"Look how it shines-" she said.

"It heard," somebody else murmured. "We prayed and it heard."

"What are you seeing?" Joe said to them. But they made no sign of hearing him. they simply watched the place where his spirit stood, and wept and gaped and offered up thanks.

One of their number looked back down the street towards the approaching lad. It was approaching no longer. Either it had been recalled into the body of its nation, or else it had retreated from the force of joy that suddenly surrounded the fire.

The young woman who had first broken the circle now approached Joe. There were tears running down her cheeks, and her body was shaking, but she was fearless in her desire to touch this vision.

"Let me know you," she said as she raised her hand towards Joe. "Be with me forever and ever."

The words, and the need in her eyes, disturbed him. Whatever had happened here, it was nothing he comprehended, much less sought. He was still Joe Flicker. Still and only.

"I can't. he said, though he knew they couldn't hear him, and willed himself away from the place.

It was harder to leave than it'd been to arrive. Their. gazes seemed to slow him, and he had to struggle to free himself from them.

Only when he was fifty yards away down the street, and their desire no longer held a claim over him, did he dare look back. they were in each other's arms, weeping for joy. All except the woman who'd tried to touch him. She was still looking down the street in his direction, and though he was too far from her to see her eyes he felt her gaze upon him, and knew he would not readily be free of it.

"Texas!" Phoebe yelled. "Damn you, can you hear me?"

She had long ago vacated the mirror chamber for the very good reason that it was close to collapse. Now, in a tunnel lined with his faces, she stood and demanded his presence. He didn't come, however. Remembering how much the thought of a woman's blood being spilled here had distressed him, she dug through the rock shards underfoot until she located something sharp, pulled up her sleeve, and without giving herself time to think twice, opened a four-inch cut just above her wrist. Her blood had never looked redder. She squealed with the pain of it, but she let it flow, and flow, sinking back against the wall as her head spun. "What are you doing?"

Almost instantly he rose before her in the form of liquid rock, raging.

"I told you: no blood!"

"So get me out of here," she said, chilly with a sudden sweat "or I'll just keep bleeding."

The shaking was getting worse by the moment. In the walls there was a grinding sound, as though some vast engine was slipping its gears.

"I am the rock," he said.

"So you keep saying."

"If I said you were safe, then safe you were."

The wall behind her shook so violently several of his rejected faces cracked and fell to the ground. "Are you going to take me up, or not?" she said.

"I'll take you," he said, unknitting his feet from the floor of the passage and approaching her. "But you must come with me on my terms."

She looked at him through a throbbing haze. "What... are... your terms?" she said. His face was cruder than she'd previously seen it, she realized, like a mask hewn with a dull axe.

"If I take you," he said, "then it must be here." He opened his arms.

"For your safety, you must be cradled in the rock. Agreed?"

She nodded. It was not such a terrible idea. He was a King, he was a rock, and he had a heart for love, even if it was a fossil. "Agreed," she said, and clamping her hand to her cut arm to stem the flow, let him gather her into his embrace.

Grillo was no expert when it came to babies but he was damn sure the sound coming from the child in Jo-Beth's arms wasn't healthy.

"What's wrong with her?" he said.

"I don't know."

"It sounds like she's choking."

"I think maybe you should stop."

The baby seemed to be having minor convulsions now, and with every bump in the road they were worsening. Grillo slowed down a little, but Jo-Beth wasn't satisfied. "Stop!" she said. "Just for a minute or two,"

He glanced down at little Amy, who was making a pitiful sobbing sound. Reluctantly, he pulled over and brought the car to a halt, "She wants her Daddy," Jo-Beth said.

"He'll catch us up."

"I know," the girl went on. The child's sobs were subsiding now. "Why don't you leave us here?" she said. "He won't come looking for you, as long as he's found us."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I know you did what you thought was right. But it wasn't. Amy knows it and so do I."

"You're talking about Tommy-Ray-" Grillo said softly.

"We have to be together," she said. "Or we'll die. We'll all of us die."

Grillo looked back down at the child in her arms. "I n't know whether you're mixed up, fucked up, or just lain crazy, but I'm not trusting you with Amy any longer." He reached down to take the baby from her. She instantly drew the child tight to her body, but Grillo wasn't about to be denied. He dug his arm down around the bundle and pulled Amy out of her mother's arms.

to his surprise, Jo-Beth didn't attempt to reclaim her. Instead she glanced back down the road.

"He's coming," she said, reaching for the handle of the door.

"Stay inside."

"But he's coming-"

"I said@'

Too late. She had the handle down, and was pushing open the door. He grabbed for her arm, and caught it momentarily, but she slipped him and stumbled out into the road.

"Get back in here!" he yelled.

A gust of wind rocked the car. Then a second, more violent than the first. Jo-Beth was standing in the middle of the road now, turning on her heels, and lightly touching her breasts. Again, the car rocked. This time Grillo knew he couldn't wait for her. If he got out to fetch her, she'd outrun him, and all the time her beloved Death-Boy was getting closer,closer.

He gently laid the child on the passenger seat and was reaching over to pull the door closed when a blast of bitter, dirty air hit him in the face, sending him sprawling across the seat. The back of his skull hit the window hard, but grabbing the wheel he started to haul himself up again, reaching for the baby with his free hand as he did so. The dust was filling the interior, forming fingers to scrabble at his eyes, and reaching down into his throat to choke him.

Blinded, he kept reaching for the child, as the car's rocking became steadily more violent. He found the blanket, and began to pull it towards him, but as he did so the ghosts pushed the car over onto two wheels, where it teetered, its metalwork creaking. He inched the blanket towards him, fearful that at any moment the dusty dead would claim the baby from its folds, while the legion threw its will and wind against the car, plainly determined to overturn it. Perhaps some of his tormentors had been summoned to help, because the fingers tearing at his eyes and throat had retreated. He wiped his face against his shoulder to clear his sight, and opened his eyes only to find that the blanket in his hand was empty. Grabbing the dashboard he hauled himself up towards the open door, determined to get Amy back. The windshield shattered as he climbed, and through the dust he saw the abductors' faces, four or five of them, carved of the dirty air, and leering at his desperation.

"Bastards!" he yelled at them. "Bastards!"

The sound of his voice brought a sob, not from the ghosts but from Amy. They'd not taken her after all; she'd slipped between the front seats, and was lying, as yet unharmed, on the floor behind him.

"It's okay," he said to her, forsaking his handhold to reach for her. As he did so the car's teeterings reached the point of no return, and it was flung over onto its side. Through the din of breaking glass and concertinaed metal he heard the voice of the Death-Boy, roaring, "Stop!"

The order came too late. The car was pushed over onto its roof, which buckled under the impact. The remaining windows blew inwards, the glove-compartment spilled its contents. Tumbling in a hail of trash, Grillo's instincts overtook his conscious thought, and he drew the baby into his arms as he fell. His frail body snapped and tore. He felt something in his belly and chest, like a sudden dyspepsia.

Then the vehicle rocked to a halt, and there was something close to silence. For a moment he thought the child was dead, but it seemed she was simply shocked into silence, because he heard her ragged breathing close to him in the darkness.

He was upside-down, his legs akimbo, and something hot was running down his body from his groin. He smelled it now, sharp and familiar. He was pissing himself. Very gingerly he tried to shift himself, but there was something preventing him doing so. He reached up to his chest and his fingers found a spike of wet metal sticking out of his body a few inches behind his left clavicle. It gave him no pain, though there was little doubt he was skewered from back to front.

"Oh Lord he said to himself, very softly, then bly reached out towards the source of Amy's breathing. motion seemed to take an age. He had time, while he ached and reached, to think of Tesla and hope she would be spared the sight of him like this. She had endured so much and after all her searching and suffering had gained so very little.

His fingers had found Amy's face, and inch by inch he passed his hand over her tiny body. His hand was becoming numb, but as far as he could gather she was not bloodied, which was some comfort. Then, as he once again reached up to her face she took hold of his finger and grasped it.

He was astonished at her strength. Delighted too, for it surely meant she'd not sustained any significant harm. He demanded his body draw a little extra breath, and his muscles obliged him. He drew a sip of air into his seeping lungs, enough for a word or two.

He used it wisely.

"I'm here," he said to Amy, and died so quietly she didn't know he'd gone.

Even before they rounded the corner Tesla heard the ghost's cacophony: a rising wail of complaint. She pulled the bike over, and parked on the curve, just out of sight.