Murder of Angels (23 page)

Because the story isn’t complete without the villian.

Or the hero.

And these days he’s forgotten exactly who is who and which is which, if he ever knew, if there’s really any difference. Walter shuts his eyes, because he knows that Archer can handle Theda if she gets into any trouble, because they feel like he’s rubbed them full of sand and cayenne pepper. No sleep since somewhere back in Pennsylvania, and that seems like at least a week ago.

And the dream is right there, waiting for him the way it always is, patient and unchanging, unconcerned about the drugs he takes to stay awake or the insomnia he’s spent more than a decade nurturing. Some part of him, something small and ancient and driven more by simple instinct than intellect, tries to pull back from the slippery edge of consciousness. But it’s too late, and he’s already sliding down and back, across the years and memories, stumbling and lost in those hours or minutes or days after Robin’s peyote ceremony, before Spyder comes down to the basement from the brilliant, burning hills to take him home, to lead him across the Dog’s Bridge and back to the World.

The familiar, smothering aloneness, the severed cord, the broken chain, knowing that Robin and Byron are free, that they’ve slipped away, escaped, and he’s still cowering in the sulfur rubble on the crumbling edge of the Pit. The thing that Spyder called Preacher Man knows he’s still there, knows that he’s all alone now, and it roars so loud the heavens rumble and the Pit rips open wider, devouring more of this place that is no place at all. The powdered-glass ground beneath his feet tilts and is turning, accelerating counterclockwise spiral down and down, and the Pit yawns and belches, grinding its granite teeth.

Preacher Man fills up the entire roiling floor-joist sky, opens his scrawny, hard sermon arms as wide as
that,
and his ebony book has become a blazing red sun bleeding out his voice. Ugly black things cling to his hands and face, biting, burrowing things, and Walter is crawling on his skinned hands and knees now, clambering for a hold, crawling as the earth shivers and goes soft. He remembers his wings, beautiful charcoal wings for a mockingbird boy, and he knows that’s why Preacher Man hates him. Walter tries to stand and spread his wings, but the fire and acid dripping from the clouds have scorched them raw and useless, and Preacher Man laughs and laughs and laughs.

“Come back with me,” Spyder says, her hands tight around his wrists and Preacher Man filling up all creation behind her. “It’s gonna be all right now, Walter,” but the world turns, water going down a drain, down that mouth, and the earth is shaking so violently that he can’t even stand up.

“Help me,” he says, every time, and every time she smiles, soft and secret Spyder smile, nods and puts her arms around him. Preacher Man howls and claws the sagging sky belly, and the sour rain sticks to them like pine sap, turning the ground to tar. “He won’t let me leave, Spyder. He knows what I’ve seen, what I
know
.”

And so she turns around and stares up into the demon’s face, like there’s nothing to fear in those eyes, nothing that can pick her apart, strew her flesh to the winds and singe the bones, and she says, “He’s not part of this. You can’t have him.” The spiderweb tattoos on her arms writhe electric blue, loaded-gun threat, and now Preacher Man has stopped laughing. He retreats a single, vast step, putting the Pit between himself and Spyder.

“Lila,” he roars. “What you’ve done to me, you’ll burn in Hell forever.” Voice of thunder and mountains splitting apart to spill molten bile. “What you’ve done to me, you’ll burn until the end of time.”

The holy blue fire flows from her arms, the crackling static cage that he won’t dare touch, her magic to undo him utterly, and then she’s pulling Walter from the muck, hauling him across the shattered plains. Days and days across the foothills with Preacher Man howling curses like lightning bolts, howling their damnation, but Spyder doesn’t look at him again. She drags Walter over pustulant caleche and stones that shriek like dying rabbits, shields him from the rubbing alcohol wind that whips up dust phantoms and hurls burning tumbleweeds.

“Close your eyes, Walter,” she says again and again, and at the end he does, because the long-legged things are so close, and he knows the climb’s too steep, that he’s too tired to do it, and she’s too exhausted to fight anymore, and their jaws leak the shearing sound of harvest…

…and he wakes hard, like falling on ice, waking to the aching stiffness in his neck and shoulders and someone calling out his name over and over again. He reaches beneath the front seat for the Beretta automatic and is out of the Lincoln and through the front doors of the convenience store before the last terrible dream images have even begun to fade. His feet on black-and-white checkerboard linoleum and the fluorescent lights in his eyes, but his head still filled with red skies and the stink of brimstone.

“Well, it’s about goddamn time,” Archer says, and Walter sees the man behind the counter with the shotgun, and Theda on her knees, and the guy in the Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt backed up against a display of beef jerky, his eyes so wide it’s almost funny. There are other people, but these are the only three who matter, and he aims the 9mm at the clerk.

“Stop pointing that thing at her right
now,
” he growls, and thumbs off the safety.

“Just look at her,” Archer says, and shakes her head. “You gotta search long and hard to find someone that goddamn
stupid
.”

“He called me a freak,” Theda croaks and coughs up another gout of the sticky white mess puddled on the tile in front of her. There are tiny black things wriggling in the vomit, trying to pull themselves free. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. “So…I thought I’d show him,” she says and smiles up at the redneck.

“I
said
not to point the shotgun at the girl, motherfucker,” Walter tells the clerk, his voice as cold and calm as well water, and he takes a step closer to the counter.

“What the
fuck’s
wrong with her?” the clerk asks and turns the gun on Walter, instead. “She got some sort of fuckin’ disease or what?”

“Whatever it is, it ain’t nothing that calls for a goddamn shotgun. You put that piece of shit down, and we’ll be out of here before you can count to three.”

“I can count to three pretty goddamn fast.”

“Put it
down,
man. I know you don’t want to die today, and I think you know it, too.”

“Stupid fucking bitch,” Archer hisses. “I’d shoot her myself if I could.”

The redneck in the Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt mutters something unintelligible, and Theda snaps her teeth at him and laughs.

“She’s puking up fuckin’
spiders,
” the clerk says, and Walter can see the greasy beads of sweat standing out on his forehead and cheeks, sweat soaked straight through the front of his green BP smock, can almost smell the fear coming off him like smoke off a fire. “You tell me what the fuck’s wrong with her.”

“Just put down the shotgun and none of this will be your problem anymore.”

Theda laughs and vomits again.

“She’s fucking disgusting,” Archer whispers. “You know that, little girl? You’re fucking
disgusting
.”

“He called me a freak. I asked him…I asked if he wanted to see…just how freaky it can get—”

“So you showed him.”

“Yeah…I showed him.”

“If I put down my gun you’ll shoot me,” the clerk says and swallows, his eyes darting quickly from Walter to the girl on the floor to the bore of the Beretta, then right back to Walter.

“No, I won’t. I’ve got business to take care of, and if I shoot you there’ll be cops to deal with, and then I won’t be
able
to do my business.”

“Jesus,” the redneck mutters. “Those are black widows. Those are goddamn black widows.”

“Yeah,” Theda coughs. “Aren’t they pretty?”

“Get up off the floor,” Archer tells her. “Get up, and go out to the car.”

“I asked him. He said he wanted to—”

“I
mean
it, Theda. Right this fucking minute.”

“Okay,
I’m
going to count to three,” Walter says. “I’m going to count real slow, and whatever happens after that is entirely up to you.”

“Who the hell are you people?” the redneck whimpers and tries to back away, knocking over the display of beef jerky and a life-sized cardboard cut-out of a grinning stock-car racer brandishing a bottle of Mountain Dew.

“Maybe we’re witches,” Theda snickers. “Maybe we’re monsters. Maybe we’re something
worse
than monsters. Maybe there isn’t even a word for what
we
are.”

“Little girl, there are a whole
lot
of words for what you are,” Archer says.

“Archer, shut the hell up and get her out of here.”

“Mister, if I put down this gun you’re going to shoot me,” the clerk says again. “You’re all crazy, and if I put it down you’ll kill me.” His hands have started to tremble, and the barrel of the shotgun bobs and jerks.

“One,” Walter says calmly, firmly, trying to figure out how everything could possibly have gone to hell so fast. How they could have gotten this close to Birmingham and not a detour or delay, and now he’s about to have to put a bullet in this dumb son of a bitch’s skull because Theda can’t be trusted to piss without turning the morning into a horror show. He takes a deep breath and another step towards the counter. “Two,” he says.

“Jesus, Frank, just put down the fucking shotgun before somebody gets killed,” a man shouts from the back of the store. The redneck in the Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt is busy stomping at one of the black widows that’s managed to free itself of Theda’s stringy vomit and is crawling across the floor towards him.

“Hey, don’t do that!” she yells. “You’ll kill it.”

“Damn straight, I’ll fucking kill it,” the redneck replies and squashes the black widow beneath the sole of his work boot.

“
Three,
” Walter whispers, one word meant for no one but the clerk, one last word of warning and the look in his eyes to say that he isn’t kidding.

“All right,” the clerk says and sets the cocked Winchester down on the countertop, then holds both his hands up like a bank teller in an old Western movie. “There. I fucking put the gun down. Now get out of here, and take that goddamn freak bitch with you.”

“You’re a smart man, Frank,” Walter whispers, so relieved that he wants to vomit, too, wants to get down on his knees next to Theda and barf up the hard, twisting knot that’s settled into his belly. But Archer is already hauling the girl to her feet, and he reaches for his wallet instead, not lowering the Beretta.

The redneck stomps another black widow, and Theda moans and tries to pull free of Archer’s grip. “I hope all your children are born without eyes,” Theda snarls, spittle flying from her lips. “I hope your wife’s titties rot off. I hope you never have another fucking night’s sleep without dreaming about
me
.”

“Don’t be such a damned drama queen,” Archer mutters, dragging her away towards the plate-glass doors. “If you hadn’t put them there, he wouldn’t be killing them, now would he?”

Walter fumbles his wallet open and pulls out a couple of folded bills. “Sorry about the mess. Take this and buy some bug spray and a mop. And you and your buddies here are gonna keep your mouths shut or all those things she just said,” and he nods towards Theda, “that shit ain’t
nothing
compared to what’ll happen to you if I have to come back.” He drops the money, a hundred and a fifty, on the counter, but the clerk just stares at it.

“All you guys gotta do is forget you ever saw us,” Walter says, easing his finger off the pistol’s trigger and reaching for the shotgun. “I hope you don’t mind if I take this—”

“I don’t give two shits what you do,” the clerk replies. “Just take it, and get out of here.”

Walter thinks about asking for the tape from the security camera mounted on the wall behind the counter, then decides not to press his luck. Archer’s probably already seen to that, anyway, and there won’t be anything for the cops but static and wavy lines.

“
Fuck
this,” the redneck says. “They’re fuckin’
everywhere,
” and he stomps another spider.

And Walter turns around, shoving the doors open with his right shoulder, and he follows Archer Day and Theda back out into the bright Alabama morning.

“They live in the deep places,” Spyder says, “but when they die, their bones fill with gas, and the skeletons float to the surface. The fishermen bind the bones together and anchor them to the ocean floor.”

“My God,” Niki whispers, gazing up at the interlocking, jackstraw symmetry of the village ramparts rising from the fog-bound sea. “They must be bigger than whales. They must be bigger than
dinosaurs
.” And she’s surprised by her own wonder, that she can still be amazed at anything after the Dog’s Bridge, after the Palisades, after following the white bird through that other, ruined San Francisco.

“Yes,” Spyder says. “They must.”

Low waves surge and break against the high ramparts, against the pontoon bases of floating wharves and the hulls of the small wooden boats moored there. Hundreds or thousands of lanterns shine from hundreds or thousands of hooks, poles, and posts, flickering sentries against the night. There’s a red buoy bobbing around in the water on Niki’s left, not far from the edge of the walkway.

“There are many villages like this one—hundreds probably—scattered across the Outer Main,” Spyder says. “But I’ve only seen a few of them.”

“Where is everyone? It looks deserted.”

“They’re always wary of travelers approaching from the Palisades. Don’t worry, Niki. It’s not deserted.”

“I
wasn’t
worried,” Niki says.