"Somebody calling."
"The Pastor?"
She shook her head, realizing that the voice she'd heard (was hearing still) was not outside the house or the room but in her head.
"The Jaff," she said.
Parched by protestations, Pastor John went to the sink, picked up a tumbler, ran the tap-water until it chilled, filled the glass and drank. It was almost ten. Time to bring this visit to an end, with or without seeing the daughter. He'd had enough talk of the darkness in humanity's soul to last a week. Pouring away the dregs of his water, he looked up and caught sight of his reflection in the glass. As his gaze lingered in self-appraisal and approval, something in the night outside moved. He put the tumbler in the sink. It rolled back and forth on its rim.
"Pastor?"
Joyce McGuire had appeared behind him.
"It's all right," he said, not certain which of them he hoped to soothe. The woman had got to him with her halfwitted fantasies. He returned his gaze to the window.
"I thought I saw somebody in your yard," he said. "But there's nothing—"
There! There! A pale, blurred bulk, moving towards the house.
"No it's not," he said.
"Not what?"
"Not all right," he replied, taking a step back from the sink. "It's not all right at all."
"He's come back," Joyce said.
The last reply in all the world he wanted to give was yes, so he kept his peace, just stepping back from the window another foot, another two feet, shaking his head in denial. It saw his defiance. He saw it see. Eager to undo his hope it came out of the shadows suddenly, and made its presence plain.
"Lord God Almighty," he said. "What is this?"
Behind him he heard the McGuire woman start to pray. Nothing manufactured (who could write a prayer in anticipation of this?) but an outpouring of entreaties.
"Jesus help us! Lord, help us! Keep us from Satan! Keep us from the unrighteous!"
"Listen!" Jo-Beth said. "It's Momma."
"I hear."
"Something's wrong!"
As she crossed the room Howie overtook her, putting his back to the door.
"She's only praying."
"Never like that."
"Kiss me."
"Howie?"
"If she's praying, she's occupied. If she's occupied she can wait. I can't. I don't have any prayers, Jo-Beth. I've only got you." This flow of words astonished him, even as they came. "Kiss me, Jo-Beth."
As she leaned to do so a window downstairs shattered, and Momma's guest unleashed a yell that had Jo-Beth pushing Howie aside, hauling open the door.
"Momma!" she yelled. "Momma!"
Sometimes a man was wrong. Born into ignorance, it was inevitable. But to perish for that ignorance, and brutally, seemed so unfair. Nursing his bloodied face, and half a dozen such complaints, Pastor John crawled across the kitchen to take refuge as far from the broken window—and what had broken it—as his trembling limbs could carry him. How was it possible he'd come to such desperate straits as this? His life was not entirely blameless, but his sins were far from large, and he'd paid his dues to the Lord. He'd visited the Fatherless and Widows in their affliction, the way the Gospels instructed, he'd done his level best to keep himself unspotted from the world. And still the demons came. He heard them, though he had his eyes closed. Their myriad legs were making a din as they clambered over the sink and the dishes piled beside it. He heard their wet bodies flopping on to the tiles as their tide overflowed on to the floor, and their passage across the kitchen, urged on by the figure he'd glimpsed outside (The Jaff! The Jaff!), who'd been wearing them from head to toe, like a beekeeper too much in love with his swarm.
The McGuire woman had ceased her prayers. Perhaps she was dead; their first victim. And perhaps that would be-enough for them, and they'd pass him over. That was a prayer worth finding words for. Please Lord, he muttered, trying to make himself as small as possible. Please Lord, make them blind to me, deaf to me, and only you hear my supplications and keep me in your forgiving eye. World without End—
His requests were interrupted by a violent beating on the back door, and, rising above it, the voice of Tommy-Ray, the prodigal.
"Momma? Can you hear me? Momma? Let me in, will you? Let me in, and I swear I'll stop them coming. I swear I will. Only let me in."
Pastor John heard a sob from the McGuire woman by way of response, which became, without warning, a howl. Alive she was; and in a fury.
"How dare you!" she shrieked. "How dare you!"
Such was her din, he opened his eyes. The flow of demons from the window had stopped. That is, it had stopped advancing, though there was still motion across the pale stream. Antennae weaving, limbs readying themselves for new instructions, eyes bristling on stalks. There was nothing among them that resembled anything he knew; and yet he knew them. He didn't dare ask himself how, or from where.
"Open the door, Momma," Tommy-Ray said again. "I have to see Jo-Beth."
"Leave us alone."
"I have to see her and you're not going to stop me," Tommy-Ray raged. His demand was followed by the sound of splintering wood as he kicked at the door. Both the bolts and the lock were unseated. There was a moment's hiatus. Then he gently pushed the door open. His eyes had a vile sheen about them; a sheen Pastor John had seen in the eyes of people about to die. Some interior light informed them. He'd taken it as beatific until now. He couldn't make that error again. Tommy-Ray's glance flitted first to his mother, who was standing at the kitchen door, barring it, then to her guest.
"Company, Momma?" he said.
Pastor John shook.
"You've got a hold on her," Tommy-Ray said to him. "She listens to you. Tell her to give me Jo-Beth, will you? Make it easier on all of us."
The Pastor looked round at Joyce McGuire:
"Do it," he said, plainly. "Do it or we're all dead."
"See, Momma?" came Tommy-Ray's response. "Advice from the holy man. He knows when he's beat. Call her down, Momma, or I'm going to get mad, and when I get mad so do Poppa's friends. Call her!"
"No need."
Tommy-Ray grinned at the sound of his sister's voice, the combination of gleaming eyes and ravishing smile chilling enough to teach ice a trick or two.
"There you are," he said.
She was standing in the doorway, behind her mother.
"Are you ready to leave?" he asked her politely, for all the world like a boy inviting his girl out on a first date.
"You have to promise to leave Momma alone," Jo-Beth said.
"I will," Tommy-Ray replied, his tone that of a man wronged by accusation. "I don't want to hurt Momma. You know that."
"If you leave her alone . . . I'll come with you."
Halfway down the stairs Howie heard Jo-Beth striking this bargain, and mouthed a silent no. He couldn't see what horrors Tommy-Ray had brought with him but he could hear them, like the sound his head heard in nightmares: phlegm-sounds, panting-sounds. He didn't give his imagination room enough to put pictures to the text; he'd see the truth for himself all too soon. Instead he took another step down the stairs, turning his wits to the problem of stopping Tommy-Ray in the theft of his sister. His concentration was such he failed to interpret the sounds emerging from the kitchen. By the time he'd reached the bottom stair he'd got himself a plan, however. It was simple enough. To cause as much chaos as he possibly could, and hope that under its cover Jo-Beth and her mother could escape to safety. If in running wild he managed to deliver Tommy-Ray a blow, that would be the cherry on the cake; a satisfying cherry.
That thought and intention in mind he took a deep breath, and rounded the corner.
Jo-Beth was not there. Nor was Tommy-Ray; or the horrors he'd come here with. The door was open to the night, and slumped in front of it, face to the threshold, was Momma, her arms outstretched as though her last conscious act had been to reach out after her children. Howie went to her, across tiles that were gummy beneath his bare feet.
"Is s
he dead?" a gravel voice enquired. Howie turned. Pastor John had wedged himself between the wall and the refrigerator, as far from sight as he could get his overfed ass.
"No, she's not," Howie said, gently turning Mrs. McGuire over. "Much thanks to you."
"What could I do?"
"You tell me. I thought you had tricks of the trade." He moved towards the door.
"Don't go after them, boy," the Pastor said, "stay here with me."
"They took Jo-Beth."
"The way I hear it she was halfway theirs anyhow. The Devil's children, her and Tommy-Ray."
Do you think I'm the Devil? Howie had asked her, half an hour ago. Now it was she damned to hell; and from the mouth of her own minister, no less. Did that mean they were both tainted then? Or was it not a question of sin and innocence; darkness and light? Did they somehow stand between the extremes, in a place reserved for lovers?
These thoughts came and went in a flash, but they were sufficient to fuel his motion through the door to meet whatever lay in the night outside.
"Kill 'em all!" he heard the God-fearer yell after him. "There's not a clean soul among them! Kill 'em all!"
The sentiment enraged Howie, but he could think of no adequate riposte. In lieu of wit he yelled:
"Fuck you," back through the door, and headed out in search of Jo-Beth.
____________ ii ____________
There was sufficient light spilling from the kitchen for him to grasp the general geography of the yard. He could see a bank of trees bordering its perimeter, and an unkempt lawn between the trees and where he stood. As inside, so out here: there was no sign of brother, sister or the force that had set its sights on both. Knowing that he had no hope of surprising the enemy, given that he was stepping out of a well-lit interior with a hollered curse on his lips, he advanced calling Jo-Beth's name at the top of his voice in the hope that she might find breath to answer. There was no reply forthcoming. Just a chorus of barking dogs, roused by his shouts. Go ahead and bark, he thought. Get your masters moving. This was no time for them to be sitting watching game shows. There was another show out here in the night. Mysteries were walking; the earth was opening, spitting out wonders. It was a Great and Secret Show and it was playing tonight on the streets of Palomo Grove.
The same wind that carried the sound of the dogs moved the trees. Their sibilance distracted Howie from the sound of the army until he was a little way from the house. Then he heard the chorus of mutterings and duckings behind him. He turned on his heel. The wall around the door through which he'd just stepped was a solid mass of living creatures. The roof, which sloped from two stories to one above the kitchen, was similarly occupied. Larger forms roamed there, shambling back and forth across the slates, muttering in their throats. They were too high to catch the light; just silhouettes against a sky which showed no stars. Neither Jo-Beth nor Tommy-Ray were among them. There was not a single outline in that clan that approximated the human.
Howie was on the point of turning away from the sight when he heard Tommy-Ray's voice behind him.
"Bet you never saw nothing like that, Katz," he said.
"You know I never did," said Howie, the politeness of his reply shaped by the knife point he felt pricking the small of his back.
"Why don't you turn round, real slow," said Tommy-Ray. "The Jaff wants a word with you."
"More than one," came a second voice.
It was low—scarcely louder than the wind in the trees— but every syllable was exquisitely, musically shaped.
"My son here thinks we should kill you, Katz. He says he can smell his sister on you. God knows I'm not sure brothers should know what their sisters smell like in the first place, but I suppose I'm old-fashioned. This is too late in the millennium to be fretting about incest. Doubtless you have a view on that."
Howie had turned, and could see the Jaff standing several yards behind Tommy-Ray. After all that Fletcher had said about the man, he'd expected a warlord. But there was nothing massively impressive about his father's enemy. He had the appearance of a patrician run part way to dereliction. An undisciplined beard grown over strong, persuasive features; the stance of someone barely concealing great weariness. Clinging to his chest was one of the terata; a wiry, skinned thing more distressing by far than the Jaff himself.
"You were saying, Katz?"
"I wasn't saying anything."
"About how woefully unnatural Tommy-Ray's passion for his sister is. Or are you of the opinion that we're all unnatural? You. Me. Them. I'd suppose we'd all of us have gone to the flames in Salem. Anyhow . . . he's very keen to do you mischief. Talks about castration a good deal."
Upon cue Tommy-Ray dropped his knife blade a few inches, from Howie's belly to his groin.
"Tell him," said the Jaff. "About how you'd like to cut him up."
Tommy-Ray grinned. "Let me just do it," he said.
"See?" said the Jaff. "It's taking all my parental skills to hold him in check. So here's what I'm going to do, Katz. I'm going to let you have a head start. I'm going to set you free and see if Fletcher's stock is the equal of my own. You never knew your father before the Nuncio. Better hope he was a runner, eh?" Tommy-Ray's grin became a laugh; the knife point turned against the weave of Howie's jeans. "And just to keep you entertained—"
At this, Tommy-Ray took hold of Howie and spun him round, hauling his captive's T-shirt from his jeans and slitting it from hem to neck, exposing Howie's back. There was a moment's delay while the night air cooled his sweaty skin. Then something touched his back. Tommy-Ray's fingers, licked and wet, spreading to right and left of Howie's spine, following the line of his ribs. Howie shuddered, and arched his back to avoid the contact. As he did so the touches multiplied 'til there were too many to be fingers; a dozen or more on each side, gripping the muscle so hard his skin broke.
Howie glanced over his shoulder, in time to see a white, many-jointed limb, pencil-thin and barbed, pressing its point into his flesh. He cried out, and wrenched himself round, his revulsion outweighing his fear of Tommy-Ray's knife. The Jaff was watching him. His arms were empty. The thing that he'd been nursing was now on Howie's back. He felt its cold abdomen against his vertebrae; its mouthparts sucked at his nape.
"Get it off me!" he said to the Jaff. "Get it the fuck off me!"
Tommy-Ray applauded the sight of Howie, spinning around like a dog with a flea on its tail.
"Go, man, go!" he whooped.
"I wouldn't try that if I were you," the Jaff said.
Before Howie could wonder why, he got his answer. The creature bit down hard on his neck. He yelled out, falling to his knees. The expression of pain brought a chorus of clicks and mutters from the roof and kitchen wall. Agonized, Howie turned back towards the Jaff. The patrician had let his face slip; the fetus-headed thing behind was vast and gleaming. He had only an instant to glimpse it before the sound of Jo-Beth's sobs took his gaze to the trees, where she was in Tommy-Ray's grip. That glimpse too (her wet eyes, her open mouth) was horribly brief. Then the ache at his neck made him close his eyes, and when he opened them again she, and Tommy, and their unborn father were gone.
He got to his feet. There was a wave of motion going through the Jaff's army. Those lowest on the wall were dropping to the ground, followed by those higher up, the process ascending at such a rate the battalions were soon three or four deep on the lawn. Some struggled free of the crush and began towards Howie by whatever means of propulsion they possessed. The larger creatures were skipping down the roof to join the pursuit. With what little lead the Jaff had offered eroded with every second he delayed, Howie ran pell-mell for the open street.
Fletcher felt the boy's terror and revulsion all too clearly, but he labored to put it from his mind. Howie had rejected his father to go in search of the Jaff's wretched offspring, blinded no doubt by mere appearance. If he was suffering the consequence of such willfulness then that was his burden, and let him carry it alone. If he survived, perhaps he'd be the wiser. If not, then his l
ife, whose purpose he'd flown in the face of the moment he'd turned his back on his creator, would end in as wretched a fashion as Fletcher's, and there'd be justice in that.
Hard thoughts, but Fletcher did his best to keep them in focus, summoning up the image of his son's reflection every time he felt the boy's pain. It was not enough, however. Try as he might to expunge Howie's terrors, they demanded a hearing, and he had no choice, at the last, but to let them in. In a sense they completed this night of despair, and had to be embraced. He and his child were interlocking pieces in a pattern of defeat and failure.
He called to the boy:
Howardhowardhowardhow—
the same call he'd put out after first rising from the rock.
Howardhowardhowardhow—
He sent the message out rhythmically, like a cliff-top beacon. Hoping that his son was not too weak to hear, he turned his attention back to the end-game. With the Jaff's victory looming, he had one final gambit available to him, a hand he didn't want to tempt himself with, knowing how strong his desire for transformation was. It had been a torment to him all these years, being morally bound to stay on this level of being in the hope of defeating the evil he'd helped create, when an hour didn't pass without his thoughts turning to escape. He wanted so much to be free of this world and its nonsenses; to unhitch himself from this anatomy and aspire, as Schiller had said of all art, to the condition of music. Could it be that the time was now ripe to give in to that instinct, and in the last moments of his life as Fletcher hope to snatch a fragment of victory from near inevitable defeat? If so, he had to plan well, both the method of self-dispatch and its arena. There could be no repeat performance for the tribe who occupied Palomo Grove. If he, their rejected shaman, died unnoticed then more than a few hundred souls would be forfeit.
He had tried not to think too hard of the consequences of the Jaff's triumph, knowing that the sense of responsibility might well overwhelm him. But now, as the final confrontation approached, he'd bullied himself into facing it. If the Jaff secured the Art, and through it gained free access to Quiddity, what would it mean?