At Tesla's side the girl in white murmured a long oh, as though she had new comprehension of what was happening here, and like two members of an audience, one prompted by the other into recognition of some wit or iron
, Tesla saw a connection here she had not vaguely suspected. A breath of something like to pleasure caressed her nape, seeing this bud on the story tree, ready to burst.
"What next?" the little girl said.
A little part of Tesla simply wanted to stand back and see. But she couldn't. Never had; never would.
"Howie... " she said, "come away@'
"N-n-no-not without m-m-my wife," Howie said.
"You did good," Tommy-Ray said, "watching over 'em for me, but you're out of the picture now. They're coming with me."
Howie dropped his gun in the dirt, and raised his hands. "Look at m-m-me, Jo-Beth," he said. "I'm n-n-not going to m-m-make you do anything you d-d-don't want to-but baby, it's me-it's H-H-Howie-"
Jo-Beth said nothing. She simply looked down at the baby, as if deaf to Howie's appeals. He tried again, or began to, but he'd got no further than her name when Grillo put his foot down and drove directly towards Jo-Beth. Howie flung himself aside, going down hard, as the car skewed around, kicking up a fan of dirt. The Death-Boy let out a yell to his legion, but before they could come to order Grillo had brought the car to a halt and hauled Jo-Beth and Amy into the vehicle. Tommy-Ray made a move towards it, arms outstretched, and might have somehow checked Gfillo's escape had Howie not risen from the dirt and flung himself at the Death-Boy. His fingers went to Tommy-Ray's perfect face, and gouged at his eyes.
Grillo, meanwhile, was backing the vehicle up, yelling to Tesla, "Get in! Get in!"
She waved him on. "Go!" she hollered. "Quickly!"
She caught a glimpse of his face through the insect-spattered windshield: There was exhilaration in his eyes. He offered her a tight, grim smile, then he swung the car round and drove off. Howie, meanwhile, had done some superficial damage to Tommy-Ray, gouging several furrows down the side of his face and neck. There was no blood. There was instead a brightness beneath the flesh, like the phosphorescence with which he'd lit his lanterns. And it was to the thicket where those lanterns hung that Tommy-Ray now headed, casually pushing Howie to the ground as he did so.
Howie started to get to his feet again, plainly intending to assault the Death-Boy afresh, but Tesla held him back. "You can't kill him," she said. "He'll just end up killing you.
On the fringe of the thicket, Tommy-Ray turned back.
"That's it. You tell him." He looked at Howie. "I don't want to HI you," he said. "In,fact, I swore to Jo-Beth I wouldn't, and I don't break my word." Again, to Tesla, "Make him understand. She's nev@rfming back to him. Not tonight. Not ever. I've got her now, "d t, hat's where she wants to be."
With that he stepped into the thicket, whistling for the cloud of ghosts to come to him. they came, gushing across the lot, and entering the thicket to conceal the Death-Boy from view.
"He's going to go after her," Howie said.
"Of course."
"So we have to get to her first."
"That's the theory," Tesia said, already heading for her bike. Howie stumbled after her.
As she crossed the lot the girl in white called to her. "What's next, Tesla? What's next?"
"God knows," Tesla said.
"No we don't," said the girl's idiot companion, which much entertained all three.
"We like you, Tesla," the girl in white said.
"Then stay out of my way," Tesla said, climbing onto the bike. Howie hopped on behind.
As she turned the key in the ignition there was another gust of wind, and the Death-Boy's legion rose up out of the thicket, taking the lanterns and the man who'd lit them away in its billows. Tesla caught a glimpse of Tommy-Ray as the cloud passed by. He seemed not to be walking, but to be home up by the cloud, and carried. As for his face, it was already healing, the wounds closing to conceal the brightness that blazed behind.
"He's going to get to her first," Howie said, sounding close to tears.
"Hold on," Tesla told him. "It's not over yet,"
FOUR
"Forgive me Everville-"
"That's what he wrote?"
"That's what he wrote." "The hypocrite," they were walking, Erwin and Coker Ammiano, along Poppy Lane. it was a little before nine o'clock in the evening, and to judge by the noise from every bar and restaurant along the lane, festivities were in full swing.
,,They forget so easily," Erwin said. "Just this afternoon@' "I know what happened," Ammiano replied. "I felt it.",,We're like smoke," Erwin said, remembering Dolan's first lessons in ghosthood.
"We're not even that. At least smoke can make people weep. We can do nothing."
"That's not so," Erwin told him. "You'll see when we find this woman Tesia. She can hear me. At least she could once. She's quite a woman, believe me. The way she acts, it's like she couldn't give a damn whether she lived or died."
"Then she's a fool.
"No, I mean, she's brave. When she was at my house, I told you, about Kissoon@' "I remember, Erwin," Coker said politely. "I never saw anything braver.",,You're talking like you're in love, my friend."
"Nonsense."
"I believe you're quite enamored. Don't be embarrassed."
"I'm... I'm not."
"You're blushing."
Erwin put his palms to his cheeks. "It's so absurd," he said.
"What is?"
"That I have no blood in my body@on't even have a body-yet I blush."
"I've had a lot of time to try and puzzle that out," Coker Ammiano said.
"And did you come to any conclusions?" "A few.
"Tell me."
"We invented ourselves, Erwin. Our energies belong to some great oneness-I don't care to give it a name or I'd be trying to invent that too-and we've used them, these energies, in the recreation of Erwin Toothaker and Coker Ammiano. Now those men are dead, and much of that power has returned to its source. But we hold on to a bit of it, just to keep our fictions alive a little longer. And we clothe ourselves in what's familiar, and we fill our pockets with things to comfort us. But it can't go on forever. Sooner or later"he shrugged-"we'll be done."
"Not me," said Erwin. "I saw what happened to Dolan and Nordhoff and-"
"What things look like from the outside and what they are on the inside can be very different, Erwin. Perhaps all that was happening at the crossroads was that Dolan was going back where he came from."
"Into your oneness?"
"It, s not mine, Erwin." He paused, musing on this. Then he said, "No, I take that back. I think it is mine. And you know why?"
"No. But I think you're about to enlighten me."
"Because once I'm there, I'm everywhere." I-le smiled, well pleased by this. "And the oneness is mine as much as it is anybody else's."
"So why haven't you just given in to it?" Erwin wanted to know. "I wish I had an answer to that. I think sometimes it must be some evil in me."
"Evil?" pp
"As in something done in error. Against what's good.
Erwin interrupted him in mid-flow. "That man!" he said, pointing across the street.
"I see him."
"He was with Tesla. His name's D'Amour."
"He's in quite a hurry."
"I wonder if he knows where she is."
"There's only one way to find out."
"Follow him?"
"Precisely."
D'Amour had put in a call to New York before he left the Cobb house. Norma had been pleased to hear from him.
"I had a visitor yesterday," she said, sounding more unnerved than Harry could ever remember her sounding before. "She just came in through the window, and sat down in front of me."
"Who the hell was it?"
"She said her name was Lazy Susan. At least at first. Then it changed its mind, and God knows probably its sex as well, and started calling itself the Hammermite-"
"Then Peter the Nomad?"
"It got round to him after a while," Norma said. "So is this thing what it claims it is?"
"Yes.
"It killed 14ess?"
"He was one of many. What did it want?"
"What do these things ever want? It crowed a bit. It did a dump on the floor. And it asked to be reminded to you@' "How exactly?"
Norma sighed. "Well... it started talking about how the Devil was coming, how we'd all be crucified for what we'd done. It harpe I d on that quite a bit. Gave me a brief history of crucifixion, which I could have done without. Then it said: 'Tell DAmour-"'
"Let me guess. 'I am you and you are love-"' He didn't bother to finish.
"That's it," Norma said.
"Then what?" "Nothing. It told me I had very lovely eyes, and it was sure they were all the prettier because they were useless. Then it left. I still can't get rid of the smell of its shit."
"I'm sorry, Norma."
"It's okay. I got some air-freshener-"
"No. I mean the whole damn thing."
"I tell you what, Harry. It made me think."
"About-?" "About our conversation on the roof, for one."
"I've thought a lot about that myself"
"I'm not saying I was completely wrong. The world does change, and it keeps changing, and I don't think it's going anywhere soon. But this thing, this Lazy Susan... The words fell away for a moment. All Norma could find to say was: "Horrible." Harry said nothing. "I know what you're thinking," Norma said. "You're thinking, why doesn't the old cow make up her mind?"
"No I wasn't."
"Truth is, I don't know anymore."
"Don't let it get you crazy."
"Oh it's too late for that," Norma said, the laughter coming back into her voice. "What is it with these demons anyhow? Why are they so damn excremental?"
"'Cause that's what they want the world to be, Norma."
"Shit." "Shit."
They'd talked on for a while, but it had been little more than chatter. Only at the end, when Harry said he had to be going, did Norma say,
"Where?"
"Up the mountain," he told her. "to see what the Devil looks like, face to face."
Now, an hour after that conversation, he was climbing, the trees so dense he was almost blind as Norma, and after all the pursuits and losses of recent times-Dusseldorfs death, the massacre of the Zyem Carasophia, the events in the Badlands, and the murder of Maria Nazareno-it was a relief that things were coming to an end.
He thought of the portrait Ted had made-DAmour in Wyckoff Street, with that black snake crushed under a hero's heel. How simple that seemed. How blissfully simple. The demon writhes. The demon withers. The demon is gone.
It had never been that way, except in stories, and despite what the child at the crossroads had said (leaves on the story tree), Harry had no expectation of a happy ending.
Despite his hectoring and cajoling, only four members of the band had turned up at Larry Glodoski's house: Bill Waits, Steve Alstead, Denny Gips, and Chas Reidlinger. Larry broke out the scotch, and laid out his interpretation of events.
"What we've got here is some kind of mind manipulation," he said. "Maybe chemical, maybe something put in the water-"
"Least it's not in the scotch," Bill said. "This is serious," Larry said. "We've got a catastrophe on our hands, gentlemen."
"What did everyone see?" Gips asked the room.
"Women," said Alstead.
"And light," Reidlinger added.
"That's what they wanted us to see," Larry said.
"Who's they?" Waits wondered. "I mean, we got over the Red Menace, we got over UFOS. So what the hell is it? Don't get me wrong, Larry, I'm not saying you're crazy,,cause I saw some shit too. I'd just like to know what we're up against."
"We're not going to find out sitting here," Alstead replied. "We have to go look for ourselves."
"And what are we going to defend ourselves with?" Waits wanted to know.
"Trumpets and drumsticks?"
At this uncture, Bosley Cowhick appeared at Giodoski's front door, wanting to be included in the ranks. He'd heard about the gathering from his sister, who was a close friend of Alstead's wife Rebecca. None of the five were at ease with Bosley's brand of glassy-eyed fervor, but with their ranks so woefully thin it was impossible to say no. And to be fair, Bosley did his best to restrain his apocalyptic talk, limiting it to a few remarks about how they were all in danger of losing the town to forces, terrible forces, and he was willing to die in its defense.
Which remark brought them back to the business of the guns. It was not a difficult problem to solve. Gips's brotherin-law up on Coleman Street had been fixated on what he called "killing sticks" since he'd first got his tongue around the words, and when the six-man posse turned up on his doorstep a little before ten, practically requisitioning the damn things, he was pathetically happy to oblige. Giodoski felt it only polite to invite the brother-in-law along on the venture. The man declined. He was sick, he said, and would only slow things down. But if they needed more guns, they knew where to come.
Then it was off to Han-tfick's Bar (this at Bill Waits's suggestion) to toast the venture with a scotch. Reidlinger was against it. Couldn't they just get on with doing whatever they were going to do (there was still debate as to what that might be), then they could all go home and steep? He was outvoted. The posse headed down to Hanifick's, and even Bosley was talked into a shot of brandy.
"People just don't care," Bosley remarked, staring around the bar. It was about as full as the fire department would allow, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.
"Thing is, Bosley," Bill Waits said, "nobody's quite sure what they saw. I bet if you asked people what happened this afternoon, they'd all say something different."
"That's the way the Devil works, Mr. Waits," Bosley replied, without a trace of self-importance. "He wants us to argue among ourselves. And while we're arguing, he gets on with his work."
"And what work would that be?" Bill said. "Exactly?" "@ve it alone, Bill," Chas said. "Let's just get out there and-