She shook her head. “No, don’t go—this—you’re going to die doing this.”
“If I strand the Wrangler somewhere, there’s a bus stop not a block away. For tomorrow, I mean. Just you all stay alive.”
“
Don’t
go.”
“I won’t be able to bring any more mantles for a long time, Teresa. So this is the only way I can be useful. Let me do this.”
A sudden, incalculable rage tore through her chest. “You knew this would happen, didn’t you? What did you do when I was asleep Martin? What did you do? I sense mantles all over this train yard.”
He shrugged.
“Don’t fuck with me!”
“I set a few out there when you were at the hospital. One I built was pretty damned strong. It took more than a day. That’s why I couldn’t go back to the room. I had to stay put and work on it. They’re great deterrents, but you know that Cloth can go through them like cotton candy.”
She folded her arms and sat back against the wall. For a moment, silence baked in the stuffy train car. “What were you thinking? Stupid!”
Sighing, he said, “Will those be your last words to me?”
She wanted to say,
Yeah, dumbass, those are the only words you deserve.
Instead: “Yeah just be careful—I’ll kill you if you die.”
He flashed a grin of relief, chuckled. “Wouldn’t want that.”
Each baby had subtle confusion surfacing. She knew how they felt. Martin never acted like this—this didn’t feel spontaneous. This had been planned when she was in the hospital.
She shouldn’t let him go. There was too much at stake. They’d been blessed with escaping earlier, and now he was actually
trying
to get Cloth’s attention. It wasn’t rational. But Christ, there was something in Martin’s eyes she hadn’t seen in a long time. How could she take that away when she’d seen nothing but the opposite since diagnosis? And knowing she’d put that terminal moroseness inside a light-hearted man who had once joked at everything... she couldn’t say no. He was a prisoner, finally skipping out. To throw him back inside would make her happy but destroy him.
Martin jumped out of the train and moved the squeaky door swirling with bright pink graffiti. The light cut away and left her in the mustiness with the babies. About twenty minutes later, after he’d finished setting the mines, the Wrangler started up. She heard the wheels crunch the gravel as he left.
The musical score enthralled Paul’s mind. The blossoms still shifted back and forth, drinking his soul from the roots. He could feel the dead, once fragrant, orange blossoms whither from the stress and he could feel pieces of universe stretching.
The Priestess of Morning sat in the passenger seat. Hands poised over her head, she had been concentrating for some time. He’d kept quiet so as to not disturb her. The silence (with the pipe organs playing on a tiny music box in a mouse-hole) could be savored. It was beyond enjoyable—it
tasted
good. So when the Priestess let out a gasp, Paul accidentally spun the wheel and they went into the breakdown lane. “Shit!”
“I see him!” cried the Priestess. “The Nomad—the man. He’s driving south.”
Paul had to muster some interest. “Just the man? Is the woman there?”
“No—she’s somewhere dark. In a vault or something. I can’t make out where.”
“What about the Hearts?”
“The Hearts aren’t with him. They might be with her—”
“Call
Szerszen
,” said Paul.
She glanced at him and shook her head.
“What?” Something clenched inside Paul, not grief, just searing shock.
Cole was gone?
“I think he killed
Sandeus
Pager too,” she said, “though I’m not sure how.”
A husky chuckle. “And just as Pager got his own.”
“What matters is Cloth—
he’s
the one.” She dialed a number on his cell phone, touching each number with fascination.
“Who’s that?”
“The Japanese envoy said he would be on the Hunt this year. His business card had his telephone number, which I put in my sight.”
Paul felt a twinge of jealousy but it didn’t last through his delirium.
She waited breathlessly before the other end picked up. “No this is the Priestess of Morning. Yes, I don’t have time. I need to let Chaplain Cloth know something of great importance. A Nomad is heading south on Mount Vernon Avenue. He’s arrived outside a tavern named the
Spyglass Saloon
. Tell Cloth at once. I’ll call back if the situation changes. Thank you, fine. Farewell.” She sneered at the phone before figuring out how to turn it off. “Something’s wrong,” she muttered.
“What?”
“The envoy’s voice sounded strange. I think Cloth might have told them to get rid of us.”
Fuck, just when my nerves had begun to settle
. “What does he care?”
“Paul,” she stated matter-of-factly, “between the two of us, we’ve done a great deal of damage.”
He grunted, but not in agreement. Cars sped by and their colors shifted and blended as they went. He shook away the distraction and pressed toward ninety-five miles an hour. Paul’s eyelids dipped. He had to make it without taking another rest, at least before leaving the state. No matter what happened, there was one thing left to be certain about. For good or ill, today or tomorrow, when they got there, his life would be transformed forever.
Martin had to run into the Church eventually. The waiting was killing him though. His adrenaline was up, his gut was sour, he was in bad shape. He’d eyeballed the neon sign for almost twenty minutes now. It said
Spyglass Saloon
and there was an oblong seafaring instrument bent in the neon framing the name. His brain registered this, but he didn’t think about it much.
Put yourself out there and they’ll come... your job is to get them far away. Wait for them.
But the waiting was so atrocious.
If this went on too long he’d have to go back to the train yard. What good would he do? He searched for the cold spot to build a mantle. It was dead there, dried to dust. He wondered if in all his ambition he’d sterilized the part that brought mantles.
Oh well, fuck it.
He didn’t need mantles anymore. He just needed to be seen—and keep his wits. After one beer and some pretzels to settle his stomach, that might give him time to decide where to go, or it might give them time to find him. Either way.
Either way...
He kept the Wrangler unlocked with keys in the ignition.
Inside the bar, laughter burst to the corners. Two men, who might have been brothers, sat elbow-to-elbow with a gangly guy with a mess of dreadlocks spilling down his back. There were a few lone drinkers at round tables, deep in the neon shadow and excluded from the conversation, at least speaking roles anyway. A bristly man moved the claw of a toy machine left to right, hoping to add to the growing pile of stuffed kolas and superheroes at his feet. Two turrets of quarters rested on the deck of the machine. His shirt said in bold red letters,
Fuckin’ A Right!
and there was a bottle of micro-import beer “A” NUMBER ONE pictured underneath.
Martin passed. “Quite a stash of animals there.”
“They’re for my granddaughter.”
Skunky
beer wafted off his breath.
“Good luck with the rest.”
Just off the bar, Martin took at seat at a round table. A young fair-haired woman with bulging gray eyes slinked up. Two braided pigtails swung at hip-level and she had to move one out of the way to slide over a napkin. “How ya doing?”
“Great. I’ll take a dark Heineken.”
“Those are really good, but we don’t have them.” She batted her eyes with a flare that would have suggested cynicism had she something like that left. “Newcastle maybe?”
He went for his island alternate. “Red Stripe?”
“In the bottle?”
“Perfect.”
She went to a small refrigerator under the margarita blender and the
Jagermeister
dispenser. The three
compadres
down the way began shouting again, one barked like a dog, and the man in dreadlocks waved his hand. “You crazy-ass
muthafuckas
, tell ya.”
One of the cherubs stopped hooting. “The fuck? Crazy? What’s that shit?”
Dreads took a dignified sip of something that looked like soda.
The man’s look-alike punched his shoulder. “Shut up
Berty
, you fuck-knuckle! Go put something on the juke.”
Berty
laughed it off, for the sake of laughing it off, and Martin watched as he stumbled off to an MP3 jukebox near the unisex pisser. The other two began an all new conversation, muffled over a Jeff Healey song. Martin couldn’t hear what was said but it didn’t matter. As much of a dive as this place was, it had done the trick. He was ready to go out again and fight. Being around ordinary folks (well...) made everything less real. Plus, the
Redstripe
had begun to work a little magic of its own.
“Any pretzels?” he asked the barmaid.
She shook her Swiss Miss locks. “Cheese popcorn.”
“Bring it on.”
The salt and cheese flavor complimented the beer. Martin really wanted to stay and listen to the slobbery jokes and watch the man in the corner win more stuffed animals. It would have been perfect if Teresa was sitting here next to him, the two person army. It would have been perfect if they could have spent this entire night here, and all the days that lead up to this day, anything to take the edge off their duty.
He smiled and finished his beer. He had to tell her the truth someday about what happened at the hospital. Teresa deserved that much.
What if I never got the chance?
What if the Church had found the train yard already? Fighting the impulse to order another cold one, he tried for eye contact. The barmaid saw him and he raised a pointer finger. She nodded to give her one second while she poured two tumblers of Hennessey over ice.
The door opened. Sunlight hit the dark wooden floor of the saloon in an orange blade. Martin glanced over his shoulder and tried to swallow a knot of popcorn in his throat.
It seemed his waiting was over.
Chaplain Cloth strolled inside as though he’d been in the saloon a thousand times before. He passed the old man at the toy machine. The man didn’t bother looking over, too immersed in fluffy treasure. Cloth pointed a twiggy bone-colored finger. “The giraffe in the back.”
The man grunted but remained focused. Chaplain Cloth’s snowy lips cut in a fierce smile as he walked to Martin’s table.
“I don’t want any company.”
“Sure you do.” Cloth sat down. The table was small, so Martin could smell his mealy breath. Cloth laced his fingers together and dropped his hands on the table. “Let’s just sit and be the old friends we are, have a drink, maybe two, and then you can take me to the Void where you’re hiding them. I know you’ve come here to draw us away from Teresa. She’s ill. You want to protect her. Good for you. You’re a good person Martin.”
The barmaid swaggered over. “Nice face paint—oh and those contact lenses. Hell, are you in a parade or something?”
“Or something,” Cloth answered, not looking at her.
“What will you have?”
“A screwdriver sounds nice.”
Martin tried for a mantle. Empty. He looked to the door, to the possibility of running. Cloth would tear him apart though. The timing had to be right. He had to distract him.
“Stop testing my patience.” Cloth’s orange eye glowed to magma and his black shimmered like boiling tar.
“You took Tony last year,” said Martin. “Do you actually believe we’re going to let you get another?”
Cloth took a long, hard, deranged look at him. The barmaid came back surprisingly soon and put the screwdriver down. The sound of it on the table made Martin jump.
“Thank you, dear.” Cloth twisted the glass up for a casual sip. He smiled. “Not bad.”
“You didn’t answer me.”
“You know your bullshit,” Cloth replied, setting down the drink. “Just jump right into the razor blades and drink the fire.”
“Right.”
“Do you think I care whether the Old Domain gains admission to this world?”
Martin shrugged his sore, heavy shoulders. He couldn’t tell yet if this was working out for the better—if he could lead Cloth off, he might die for it, but he’d also save Teresa and the Hearts.
“That is a scrap humans can fight for. I am the way to balance, where beginnings and endings have no cause.”
“We won’t let you have them,” insisted Martin.
Cloth went on, as though he hadn’t heard. “All this inane tongue flicking. Have you ever thought about what human beings really are?”
“Of course I have.”
“Your ancestors were furry little reptiles that hid underground and cheated their way out of extinction. Do you even
want
to understand what that means? All nestled together, eating stolen eggs from mightier creatures, fucking each other and reproducing incessantly, there in your burrows... Love was conceived to address your constant fear. Even with limited intelligence, you couldn’t imagine returning to the belly of the universe. What a striking legacy of denial! You humans have made the Day of Opening all about your attempts to cope with denial.”