Crossroads (22 page)

Jen nodded again. Kira quietly opened the door and slipped into the backseat, dragging Jen in after and closing the door as quietly as she could, glad when Sheila closed her own door as well and the light went out again. Kira climbed between the seats to sit beside Sheila as she dug nervously through her purse and finally fidgeted her key into the ignition.

"Can we just roll back down the drive?" Kira whispered. "I mean, without starting the car or turning on the lights?"

Sheila  shrugged. "Maybe. There’s a little bit of an incline."

Kira nodded, and Sheila slipped the car into neutral, but nothing happened.

"I’ll have to open the door and try giving it a shove with my foot," said Sheila .

Kira could see a corner of the building across the street, but she spotted no ugly little heads on the roof yet.

"Do it fast," she said.

When Sheila opened the door the light flashed in their faces, and Kira squinted as Sheila  stuck her foot out and grunted with the exertion. The car rolled back a fraction, then stopped. Sheila  sucked in a breath, glancing at Kira. Kira looked back at Jen.

Jen’s face was stretched tight as any balloon on the midway, and she was staring at the back of Sheila ’s neck as though she could read something there just beneath the skin. But Kira knew that Jen probably didn’t even
see
Sheila . She was looking at something that only she could see, reading time and place and the moment and  the Grigs, like some people read newspapers. Kira nodded at Sheila, and Sheila  gave another hard shove with her foot. The car started to roll once more, and she closed the door quietly. The light went out again, and Kira let out a long, slow breath, her attention drawn to the building across the street. Slowly dark shapes came into view, and at the same time she noticed that several of the Grigs had slipped into the middle of the street, where they stood peering at the diner.

Kira’s heart sank. Sheila had her arm thrown over the seat, staring back past Jen as she guided the car down the dark driveway toward the side street, away from the fires and the Grigs. As the tires crunched through gravel at the end of the drive, Sheila twisted the wheel and then hit the brakes, her fingers on the keys. In that same instant she spotted the Grigs standing in front of the diner and froze.

"Those little sonsofbitches," she hissed. "They’re going to burn my diner."

She gave Kira a quick, questioning look, to which Kira could only shrug.

Kira could see the anger swelling in Sheila. Anger could be a good thing. Sometimes it could give you courage when you needed it most. She had used anger to swallow her tears when the Grigs killed her family. She’d ridden a great wave of it that night as Jen dragged her out into the darkness and down the road to safety, and she’d used it since, as well, to shield her from grief, and shame, and guilt.

But she knew that it could get you into trouble, too. Because sometimes what you got out of anger wasn’t courage. It was more like stupidity. Like her stupidity at creating the monster in the boys’ car. And she could see it turning to that in Sheila’s eyes. Sheila  was losing sight of the danger in the heat of her outrage. Any moment, Kira knew, Sheila  was either going to start the car and pull back into the drive or worse, climb out and charge after the Grigs in front of the diner.

"They’ll kill all of us," Kira whispered, hoping the fear in her voice would be enough to snap Sheila out of her anger.

But Sheila  appeared not to have heard. She gripped the wheel with white knuckles, her face hard with fury, and in that instant Kira understood that Sheila was a warrior spirit. She’d read about people like that. Men and women who could get so wrapped up in the moment of battle that they forgot all fear. The Vikings called them Berserkers. Once their fury began to burn there was no turning it off, and she prayed that Sheila had not reached that sparking point yet, because if she had it was all over for all of them.

"They will," she said, louder this time. "They’ll kill us, Sheila. You don’t know what they can do."

"I’ve put my whole life into that diner," said Sheila.

But she heaved a sigh, as though resignation were overwhelming her anger, and Kira knew that was the way of it, and that Sheila’s fire had not reached the point of no return yet, that it was already cooling to ash.

"Yes," said Kira, softly, "but it’s a place. We’re people. You can rebuild it. You can’t rebuild people."

"Are they really that dangerous?" asked Sheila, still staring at the Grigs in the street, still refusing to turn the key and
get them out of here.

"More dangerous than you know," said Kira, desperately. "Please, Sheila. We have to go."

Even as she spoke several of the Grigs turned in their direction, as though seeing the car for the first time, and Kira’s heart skipped a beat because she knew they were fast, a lot faster than they looked. Way faster than Sheila could imagine.

Sheila twisted the key, but the car failed to start, the engine whining but not making the powerful thrumming that Kira was hoping for. All the Grigs on the ground spun as one as Sheila  pumped the pedal and kept the starter engaged. Finally the motor kicked over, and Sheila  reached down to jerk the shift lever into drive. But before she could stomp the throttle the Grigs were on the move.

"Shit," said Sheila as the tires shrieked on the asphalt.

Kira’s eyes were glued to the mob of fat little black lightning bolts zigging down the street toward them. The car picked up speed toward the cross street ahead, but the closest of the Grigs was already directly behind them and gaining.

"Nothing can run that fast," said Sheila, glancing from the windshield to her rearview and back.

"Don’t stop!" Kira warned her, as the stop sign approached.

"Who’s stopping?" shouted Sheila, whipping around the corner on two screeching tires.

She gunned the accelerator, and the car shot forward, but not before Kira heard an ominous thump behind her. A Grig was climbing over the trunk toward the rear window. Jen, spotted it too, and Kira watched in fascination as Jen and the Grig locked in a staring contest.

The Grig’s face was wide, flat, dark and ugly, with bulbous eyes and gnashing teeth too big even for it’s giant mouth. Its long black talons seemed to be attached to the car only by the paint, but Kira knew it could lash out and break through the rear window any second.

"Hit the brakes!" she screamed, and thankfully Sheila responded instantly, skidding the car sideways down the street.

The Grig flew off, rolling across the asphalt like a big, misshapen bowling ball.

Sheila  floored the car again, straightened it out, and roared past the Grig before it could leap to its feet. Kira stared at it through the back window as it stood in the middle of the road, glaring at them until they crested a hill and it disappeared from her sight. She leaned back into the seat, her heart pounding in her chest and sweat dripping down her nose. When she glanced at Sheila, Kira saw real fear in her face for the first time, and she was sorrier than she could possibly be that she’d dragged Sheila  into her world.

Chapter 30

"So there’s no way I’m gonna fucking get rid of you?" said Silky, handing Clem a refilled glass of amber liquor. "Sorry. I’m out of beer and ice."

"A man your age should be happy he can even drink liquor."

Silky gave him a sad smile. "You have no idea know how old I am."

"I’d bet I could get it within five years."

"No," said Silky, shaking his head. "You couldn’t. And how would you prove it, anyway?"

Clem shrugged. "With a birth certificate. How else?"

This time Silky laughed. "Like I ever had one of those."

His face turned serious again, and Clem wondered if he’d stepped over some other boundary he hadn’t known existed. There’d been a time when they had joked a lot. But that time seemed to be forever past.

"I’m sorry," said Clem, taking another sip of the liquor. "Seems like whatever I say these days pisses you off."

"I got a lot of things in my history you don’t know about," said Silky, quietly, and Clem could see that he wasn’t offended.

"Like what," Clem prodded, peering through the rim of his glass.

Silky squinted, taking the dare, running it through the gears behind his wrinkled old forehead. Finally he set his own empty glass down on the scarred oak table beside his chair and dragged himself slowly to his feet. But without a shiver or a wobble. Neither age nor whiskey yet had the power to knock Silky to his knees.

"I told you I had friends in the carney," said Silky.

Clem shrugged.

"Want to see how they ended up with their own shows?" asked Silky.

"Okay," said Clem, wondering where the hell this was leading.

"Wait right there," said Silky, disappearing down the hall.

When he returned he was scraping a large steamer trunk along the worn pine floor. He dumped it at Clem’s feet.

"Ladies and gentleman," he said, waving his arthritic hands in the air, wriggling his fingers so that Clem wondered if he might not, in fact, whip a deck of cards out of them, as he continued his spiel, "step right up! See wonders such as you have never seen in your lives. You will be thrilled. You will be chilled. This is not your everyday anomaly. What you are about to witness is the only one of its kind in the entire world, perhaps the entire universe. For the measly price of one thin quarter, one sliver of silver, only two lousy bits, you will see what makes the world go round, the root of all evil, the
filthy lucre.
"

Clem smirked as Silky finished up his patter.

"Behold!" said Silky, as he jerked open the tarnished brass latches and flipped back the lid.

The lamplight glowed on stacks of neatly wrapped green bills. C notes. More money than Clem had ever seen in his life. He lifted one wad, realizing it was ten thousand dollars and that there were uncounted others just like it beneath. He tossed the pack back onto the pile and leaned way back in his chair, squinting at the trunk, and then up into Silky’s smirking face.

"What do you think?" asked Silky.

Clem shook his head, his eyes drawn back to trunk again. "Where in the world did you get all that?"  

"Not much to it, really," said Silky, quietly. "If you know the right people."

Clem stared into his face. "What the hell does that mean? I’ve never seen that much money in one place in my entire life."

He doffed the last of the whiskey, holding out his glass for Silky to refill it. When Silky stopped pouring Clem clinked the glass against the bottle for more.

"Disconcerting, isn’t it?" said Silky, nodding toward the trunk.

"You keep all that here, in your house?"

"Who’s going to steal it?"

"Right."

Clem took a long pull of whiskey, relishing the burn this time. Glancing at the trunk once more, he took another swallow.

"Would you please close that?"

Silky did as he asked, but did not drag the trunk away. Instead he refilled his own glass and took a seat again, resting an elbow haphazardly on the lid, and for some reason that made Clem nervous. He didn’t know what he expected to happen. Armed men to burst through the doors and windows and kill them for the loot, maybe? But he knew instinctively that Silky hadn’t suddenly gotten afraid that someone was coming for his money because Clem knew in his heart that the thing that he’d sensed onboard the
Mary O
didn’t give a hoot about greenbacks.

"What else have you got in this shack?" he asked, finding it simply impossible not to stare at the trunk.

"Not all that much. Mementos mostly."

Clem shook his head, nodding at the trunk. "What kind of memento is that?"

"It really doesn’t matter much. It just reminds me of why I’m here. Why I do what I do," said Silky.

"Doesn’t matter much," muttered Clem in disbelief. "How much is in there?"

Silky frowned. "I think there’s something like eighteen million in this one."

Clem choked. "
This
one? You mean there’s another?"

"There’s two more. One’s bigger. But over the years I took about five million out of that one to give to the others for expenses."

"The carneys, you mean."  

Silky nodded. "After they got situated most of them got tired of working for other people. They wanted their own shows."

"Why not just retire on the money? There was enough there for a lot of people."

Silky shook his head, smiling. "The Originals were all used to doing what they do. They enjoy interacting with people. The carnival is pretty much the only place they could do that and be accepted."

"And what is it that they do?"

Silky shrugged. "You aren’t going to believe me, so why ask?"

"I’m still interested in your answer."

"To see if maybe I’m crazier than you thought."

"I don’t think you could be," said Clem, finding that he could chuckle a little. At least some of the shock was wearing off. The liquor helped, and reason seemed to be returning. But he knew Silky could change all that in an instant simply by reaching out and jerking back the trunk lid again. "Shandan gave you the money?"

Silky nodded.

"Where in the dickens did he get it?"

"He made it."

Clem’s jaw dropped. But of course that was the only possible answer. Where else could you get trunkloads of big bills? From a counterfeiter, of course.

"It isn’t what you think," said Silky.

"How not?"

"They aren’t counterfeit."

"You just said he made it."

Silky shook his head. "Not like that. He simply held out his hand, and he
made
it. He created it out of thin air, along with the trunks to hold it. Like this," and he snapped his fingers.      Clem shook his head. "In all the years I’ve known you, Silky, I never took you to be so gullible."

His words didn’t seem to slice as deep as he’d intended. He wanted to cut through the moment, to rip open some path the two of them could take back to a reality he could trust. But Silky wasn’t coming with him, and without him Clem didn’t seem to be able to make his way, either.