For A Few Souls More (Heaven's Gate Book 3) (16 page)

“Oh Lord,” she sighed, as the boardwalk was suddenly cluttered with vegetables.

“Let me help,” he told her, happy to busy himself with something normal, if only to defer acting upon his orders a little longer.

“You’re a sweetheart,” she told him as he gathered her spilled groceries and placed them back in her bag.

He looked at her. The little hair she possessed was worn long, her body little more than bones wrapped in layers of cotton and wool. She could have been his grandma. Hell, could have been
anybody’s
grandma.

“Are you...” he tried to think of the right word, “normal?”

“What’s normal, kid?” she asked. “I’d have thought you’d lived enough years to know there ain’t no such thing. I’m mortal, if that’s what you’re asking. Too damned mortal if you ask me, I’ve been knocking on Heaven’s door for years, now I’m so damned weak I have to live next to it in order to reach.”

“Sorry,” he said, still carrying her bag. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“No matter,” she told him, “carry my shopping for me and I’ll try and make sure something violent doesn’t eat you for being a bigot.”

He looked around. “Eat me?”

“Just joshing with you, son, now come on, if I stand still too long I’m liable to take root like Branches over there.” She nodded towards the square but he had no idea what she was referring to and decided not to question her.

“How long have you been here?” he asked her.

“Oh, ages,” she replied, “had my son move me out here months back. I wasn’t going to miss this, not for anyone. Had a little place outside for awhile, watched the others roll up as the months went by. Then watched them all roll out again when they decided they didn’t like the look of the place as much as they’d hoped. Course, I’d thought Hodge and I would just come in, take a little look around then go back to Kansas. Didn’t expect to set up a home.”

“Hodge?”

“My son, pay attention, I’m too old to repeat myself.”

“Yes, right, sorry.”

They had moved off the main street and into a road beyond where a row of houses were being claimed. Families from the mortal world and the Dominion of Circles alike were moving in, making changes, setting up homes.

“What’s you name, son?” she asked him. “If your mother didn’t bring you up right enough to offer it, I guess I’ll have to do the honours.”

“McDaid,” he said. “Duggan McDaid. Sorry.”

“So you keep saying, maybe we should just take it as read. Mine’s Elspeth Gorman.”

“Pleased to meet you Mrs Gorman,” he smiled, “and my mother brought me up just fine, I’m just a bit in shock is all.”

“What you doing here Duggan? Fixing to move or just having a nosey?”

“I’m here with the Governor,” he admitted, only thinking afterwards that perhaps he was supposed to keep that secret. “He and Senator Paddock are meeting up with your man here, to discuss what’s going to happen now that... well, you know....”

“Politicians,” Elspeth spat in the dirt, “not got much time for ’em, may as well be honest about that. Still, I suppose it was bound to be. Lots of people circling Wormwood right now looking to gain something.”

They’d arrived at the far end of the street and Elspeth walked up to the front door of a small house. There was a short porch with a balcony above to throw a little shade. Inside there was the sound of hammering. “That’ll be Hodge,” she said, “probably saw us coming and thought he’d better get busy.”

She stepped inside, McDaid following on behind.

“Just put the food down by the stove,” she told him, moving to the stairs. “Hodge, quit your racket and come and meet our guest.” She looked at him. “You drink coffee?”

“Sure. I mean, that would be lovely.”

“Then sit down and I’ll make us all some.”

He took a seat by the window, looking out on the neighbours, a pair of men whose skin was as black as the stove Elspeth was cooking on and covered in fine hairs. One of the men was whipping the other with a carpet beater, an act of ablution rather than anger as the recipient turned around, arms spread wide, the dust rising from his skin as it was beaten.

“That’s Remy and Boo,” said Elspeth, “a good pair of boys, though the smell of their cooking is enough to melt your teeth. Not,” she admitted, “that I have many to call my own these days. Come from a place called the Bough in the Dominion of Circles.”

“Dominion of Circles?”

“I suppose you’d think of it as Hell, though, by all accounts, it ain’t what most people would imagine. There’s two Dominions, the Dominion of Circles and the Dominion of Clouds, though only one of ’em’s got much in the way of people in it. From what I understand Heaven’s kind of sparse.”

“Hi,” came a voice from the stairs and McDaid stood up to shake the newcomer’s hand.

“Name’s Hodge,” the man said, “you help Ma with her shopping?”

“That he did,” Elspeth said, “he’s here with a bunch of politicians but he seems nice enough so don’t throw him out just yet.”

Hodge smiled and scratched at his unshaven cheeks. “You’ll have to forgive her,” he said, “she don’t like mincing her words.”

“Duggan McDaid,” McDaid replied, “and I don’t mind one bit.”

Hodge sat down in another chair, brushing the dust from a pair of tatty looking bib pants. “Been working on the roof,” he explained. “God knows why, probably never even rains here. She say you’re with politicians?”

“I work for the Governor,” he said, “he’s here with Senator Paddock.”

“Governor of where?”

“Nebraska.” McDaid wasn’t sure if it was a trick question. “That’s where we are after all.”

“Not anymore you ain’t,” said Elspeth, “you left Nebraska behind the minute you crossed the town line.”

“Nebraska,” said Hodge. “I thought we were in Texas.”

“You know how it works, you silly ox,” Elspeth told him, “wherever we thought we were, we ain’t. Wormwood appeared all over the place. ’Cept when it didn’t.”

“That’s clear then,” Hodge laughed. He looked at McDaid. “Lots of people came to find Wormwood, and they went to different places but somehow we all found it. Now that it’s actually bolted on to our world I guess it plumped for Nebraska.”

Much of this was going over McDaid’s head, but he’d decided he couldn’t keep asking for explanations. Some if it he’d just have to take on face value.

“So,” said Hodge, “you think the Governor’s going to try and cause trouble?”

McDaid couldn’t find it in himself to give a political answer, these people were being straight with him so he’d be straight right back. “Nobody really believes what’s happened,” he said, “but when they do they’re going to have a hard time accepting it. It’s not every day you suddenly have a new world dumped in the middle of your state. Two new worlds, I suppose. I don’t know what they’re going to do. I guess it won’t be down to them anyway. They’ll report to the President, then the conversations will really begin.”

“The governor... that is
our
governor... worries about war.”

“I suppose it could come to that, but it’s all so ridiculous. On one hand, these people...” McDaid paused, catching a look on Elspeth’s face as she brought him his coffee, “no disrespect intended... but they’ve invaded the United States of America. But they’ve done so in a manner that makes it impossible to withdraw. At least, I assume so? Could this place be lifted up and placed elsewhere?”

“I don’t think so,” Hodge replied, “nobody’s quite sure. It wasn’t supposed to have happened at all. Wormwood was a temporary gateway. Something went wrong...”

“God was shot,” said Elspeth.

Hodge sighed. “I know that’s what they’re saying, momma, but I’m trying to keep this purely factual. Let’s stick to what we actually know, shall we?”

“Someone shot God?” McDaid asked.

“Ahuh,” Elspeth replied, “made Himself mortal and someone took advantage. Bang. That’s why we’re all in this mess, His good hand is now off the reins and who knows where it’ll leave us?”

“The point is,” said Hodge, trying to bring things back on track, “Wormwood became fixed. The temporary gateway stays open. It wasn’t an invasion, it was an accident.”

“Accidental it may have been but the result is the same. In normal circumstances,” he shrugged, “and that seems such a pointless thing to say,
nothing
about this is normal, but the invaders would be asked to withdraw. We assume that can’t happen. So what’s the next step? They’re treated as immigrants? How many are there? Would they all be willing to become citizens of America?”

“And if they’re not willing,” Hodge replied, “you have to realise, there ain’t a damn thing anyone could do about it. You’re looking at a population that far exceeds that of the rest of the world, many of whom have powers mortal men could only dream of. That’s the governor’s fear. If the mortal world tries to pick a fight, the Dominion of Circles will just slap it down. Hard. A lot of these folks are nice enough but folks are folks, you know? Some are good, some are bad. And when you’re bad with sharp teeth and claws that could open an iron stove like it was made of paper... Well, it don’t make for a long fight. He’s determined to find a way that we can all co-exist peaceably.”

“You think he’ll find it?”

Hodge scratched at his face and sipped his coffee. “I don’t think he’s got a chance. I only wish he had.”

6.

B
ILLY STOOD BACK
to let the coach past.

“There they go,” he said to Elisabeth, “the powers that be.”

“Father barely slept for worrying about it,” she said. “He’s never liked responsibility. Leave him alone with his books and his inventions and he’s happy, force him to discuss things with other adults and all he really wants to do is crawl away and hide.”

“Well, I doubt today’s talks are going to mean much anyway. They’ll posture a little bit, then run back to make their reports and recommendations, all of which will be ignored, then we’ll have the President’s men down here.”

“At which point, the posturing will
really
begin.” She took his arm as they made their way towards the barrier. “Still, it could have been worse, we could be in England, then they’d have Cecil to deal with. He’d have taken one look at the place and resigned.”

“Cecil?”

“The Prime Minister.”

“Oh. Him.”

They’d reached the barrier by now. Billy withdrew his pocket watch. “Let’s make sure we’re synchronised.”

She held her own watch next to his, adjusting it slightly so that it matched. “Thirty-seven minutes past eleven,” she said.

“I’ll be back in a minute!” he said, and walked through the barrier.

“Probably not,” Elisabeth replied, “you never are.”

On the other side of the barrier, a few new faces were poking through the ruins left by the abandoned camp. Many of them from the Dominion of Circles.

“What’s this for?” one of them asked, recognising Billy as he drew closer. She was one of the Kirby Clutch, an extended family who seemed to share a group mind. Billy had been struck by the way they rarely spoke to one another, their unnaturally small heads twitching as they sat together, pooling their thoughts. It had been Biter that had explained the way of them.

“There’s hundreds of them,” he’d said, “dotted all over the Dominion. They just gather information. You want to know anything, ask a Kirby, they’ll set you straight.”

She was holding up a pickled pig’s foot, drying out and covered in dust. “Is it an offering?” she asked, “a prize to the fallen God?”

“If it is,” Billy replied, “it ain’t much of one.” Her head twitched, as if trying to translate his words into a meaningful answer. “It’s food,” he told her.

The head twitched again and she placed the pig’s foot in her mouth.

“No!” Billy laughed, “you don’t eat the whole thing, you’ll choke. It’ll taste disgusting anyway, it’s probably rancid from being left in the sun.”

She swallowed and smiled. “We like rancid pig’s feet. Where can we find more?”

He shook his head. “That you’ll have to ask Abernathy.”

A mortal had walked up to them, staring at the Kirby. He was middle-aged, his ginger beard twitching as he scrutinised the woman quite openly.

“You new here?” Billy asked him.

The man turned to look at him. “Come from Alliance,” he said, “see what’s what.”

“That’s great,” said Billy. “What’s the time?”

The man seemed confused by the question. “Time?”

“Yes. The time. What is it?”

The man pulled out his pocket watch. “A quarter of four.”

“Great. And what day is it?”

“What day?”

“Yes. What day is it? Today.”

“Thursday?” The man was utterly bewildered by this line of questioning and was clearly beginning to wonder if Billy were as outlandish as the Kirby.

“The fourteenth?”

The man nodded. As did the Kirby, absorbing all these brilliant facts for the benefit of the Clutch.

“Thanks,” said Billy, “you’ve been very helpful.” He walked back towards the barrier.