The Great And Secret Show Part 29

"What?"

"You heard me! Its head. Just take hold!"

She glanced at the man, then at the beast, then at Howie. Three beats. On the fourth she took hold of the beast. Its mouthparts were fixed on Howie's neck, but it loosed them long enough to chew on her hand. In that moment the gasoline man pulled. Body and beast separated.

"Let go!" the man yelled.

She needed no persuasion, pulling her hands free despite the sacrifice of flesh to its maw. Howie's father threw it backwards, into the market, where it struck a pyramid of cans, and was buried.

Tesla studied her hand. The palm was punctured in the center. She was not the only one interested in the wound.

"You have a journey to undertake," the man said.

"What is this, palm-reading?"

"I wanted the boy to go for me, but I see now...you came instead."

"Hey, I've done all I can do, guy," Tesla said.

"My name's Fletcher, and I beg you, don't desert me now. This wound reminds me of the first cut the Nuncio gave me-" He showed her his palm, which did indeed bear a scar, for all the world as though someone had driven a nail through it. "I have a great deal to tell you. Howie resisted my telling him. You won't. I know you won't. You're part of the story. You were born to be here, now, with me."

"I don't understand any of this."

"a.n.a.lyze tomorrow. Do, now. Help me. We have very little time."

"I want to warn you," Grillo said as he drove Hotchkiss down towards the Mall, "what we saw coming out of the ground was just the beginning. There's creatures in the Grove tonight like nothing I ever saw before."

He slowed as two citizens crossed the path of the car, heading on foot to the source of the summons. They weren't alone. There were others, converging on the Mall as though heading to a Carnival.

"Tell them to go back," Grillo said, leaning out of his side of the car and yelling a warning. Neither his calls nor those of Hotchkiss were attended to. "If they see what I've seen," Grillo said, "there's going to be such panic."

"Might do them some good," Hotchkiss said, bitterly. "All those years they thought I was crazy, because I closed the caves. Because I talked about Carolyn's death as murder-"

"I don't follow."

"My daughter, Carolyn..."

"What about her?"

"Another time, Grillo. When you've got time for tears."

They'd reached the Mall's parking lot. Maybe thirty or forty Grovers were already gathered there, some wandering around examining the damage that had been visited on several of the stores, others simply standing and listening to the alarms as if to celestial music. Grillo and Hotchkiss got out of the car, and started across the lot towards the supermarket.

"I smell gasoline," Grillo said.

Hotchkiss concurred. "We should get these people out of here," he said. Raising his voice and his gun he instigated some primitive crowd control. His attempts drew the attention of a small, bald man.

"Hotchkiss, are you in charge?"

"Not if you want to be, Marvin."

"Where's Spilmont? There should be somebody in authority. My windows have all been smashed."

"I'm sure the police are on their way," Hotchkiss said.

"Pure vandalism," Marvin went on. "Kids up from L.A., joy-riding."

"I don't think so," said Grillo, The smell of gasoline was making his head spin.

"And who the h.e.l.l are you?" Marvin demanded, his shouts shrill.

Before Grillo could respond somebody else joined the hollering match.

"There's somebody in there!"

Grillo looked towards the market. His stinging eyes verified the claim. There were indeed figures moving in the murk of the store. He began to walk through the shards towards the window, as one of the figures came clear.

"Tesla?"

She heard him; looked up; shouted.

"Stay away, Grillo!"

"What's going on?"

"Just stay away."

He ignored her advice, climbing in through the hole in the shattered pane. The boy she'd gone to save lay face down and naked to the waist on the tiles. Behind him, a man Grillo knew and didn't know. That is, a face to which he could put no name, but a presence which he instinctively recognized. It took him moments only to work from where. This was one of the escapees from the fissure.

"Hotchkiss," he yelled. "Get in here!"

"Enough's enough," Tesla said. "Don't bring anyone near us."

"Us?" said Grillo. "Since when was it us?"

"His name's Fletcher," Tesla said, as if in reply to the first question in Grillo's head. "The boy is Howard Katz." To the third question: "They're father and son." And the fourth? "It's all going to blow, Grillo. And I'm going to stay till it does."

Hotchkiss was at Grillo's side. "Holy s.h.i.t," he breathed.

"The caves, right?"

"Right."

"Can we take the boy?" Grillo said.

Tesla nodded. "But be quick," she said. "Or it's over for us all." Her gaze had left Grillo's face and was directed out to the lot, or to the night beyond it. Somebody was expected at this party. The other wraith, surely.

Grillo and Hotchkiss took hold of the boy, and hauled him to his feet.

"Wait." Fletcher approached the trio, the smell of gasoline intensifying with his proximity. There was more than fumes off the man, however. Something akin to a mild electric shock pa.s.sed through Grillo as the man reached to his son, and contact was made through all three systems. His mind momentarily soared, all bodily frailty forgotten, into a s.p.a.ce where dreams hung like midnight stars. It was gone all too suddenly, almost brutally, as Fletcher dropped his hand from his son's face. Grillo looked towards Hotchkiss. By the expression on his face he too had shared the brief splendor. His eyes had filled with tears.

"What's going to happen?" Grillo said, looking back at Tesla.

"Fletcher is leaving."

"Why? Where?"

"Nowhere and everywhere," Tesla said.

"How do you know?"

"Because I told her," came Fletcher's response. "Quiddity must be preserved."

He looked at Grillo and the faintest murmur of a smile was on his face.

"Take my son, gentlemen," he said. "Keep him out of the line of fire."

"What?"

"Just go, Grillo," Tesla said. "Whatever happens from here on it's the way he wants it to be."

They took Howie out through the window as instructed, Hotchkiss stepping ahead to receive the boy's body, which was as limp as a fresh cadaver. As Grillo relinquished the boy's weight he heard Tesla speak behind him.

She simply said: "The Jaff!"

The other escapee, Fletcher's enemy, was standing at the perimeter of the parking lot. The crowd, which had swelled to five or six times its earlier size, had parted, without being overtly requested to do so, leaving a corridor between the enemies. The Jaff had not come alone. Behind him were two Californian perfects Grillo could not name. Hotchkiss could.

"Jo-Beth and Tommy-Ray," he said.

At the name of one, or both, Howie raised his head.

"Where?" he murmured, but his eyes found them before there was time for a reply. "Let me go," he said, struggling to push Hotchkiss off. "They'll kill her if we don't stop them. Don't you see, they'll kill her."

"There's more than your girlfriend at stake," Tesla said, leaving Grillo once again wondering how she'd got to know so much so quickly. Her source, Fletcher, now stepped out of the market, and walked past them all-Tesla, Grillo, Howie and Hotchkiss-to stand at the other end of the human corridor to the Jaff.

It was the Jaff who spoke first: "What is all this about?" he demanded. "Your antics have woken half the town."

"The half you haven't poisoned," Fletcher returned.

"Now don't talk yourself into the grave. Beg a little. Tell me you'll give your b.a.l.l.s if I let you live."

"That was never much to me."

"Your b.a.l.l.s?"

"Living."

"You had ambition," the Jaff said, starting to walk towards Fletcher very slowly. "Don't deny it."

"Not like yours."

"True. I had scope."

"You must not have the Art."

The Jaff raised his hand and rubbed thumb and forefinger together, as though preparing to count money.

"Too late. I feel it in my fingers already," he said.

"All right," Fletcher replied. "If you want me to beg, I'll beg. Quiddity must be preserved. I beg you not to touch it."

"You don't get it, do you?" the Jaff said. He had come to a halt some distance from Fletcher. Now the youth came, bringing his sister.

"My flesh," the Jaff said, indicating his children, "will do anything for me. Isn't that right, Tommy-Ray?"

The boy grinned.

"Anything."

Intent on the exchange between the two men, Tesla had not noticed Howie slipping free of Hotchkiss until he turned to her and whispered: "Gun."

She'd brought the weapon out of the market with her. Reluctantly she pa.s.sed it into Howie's wounded hand.

"He's going to kill her," Howie murmured.

"That's his daughter," Tesla whispered in reply.

"You think he cares?"

Looking back, she saw the boy's point. Whatever changes Fletcher's Great Work (the Nuncio, he'd called it) had wrought in the Jaff they'd taken the man over the brink of sanity. Though she'd had all too short a time drinking down the visions Fletcher had shared with her, and had only a tenuous grasp of the complexities of the Art, Quiddity, Cosm and Metacosm, she knew enough to be sure that such power in this ent.i.ty's hands would be power for immeasurable evil.

"You lost, Fletcher," the Jaff said. "You and your child don't have what it takes to be...modern." He smiled. "These two, on the other hand, are at the cutting edge. Everything is experiment. Right?"

Tommy-Ray had his hand on Jo-Beth's shoulder; now it moved down to her breast. Somebody in the crowd began to speak out at this, but was hushed as the Jaff looked in their direction. Jo-Beth pulled away from her brother, but Tommy-Ray was not about to relinquish her. He pulled her back towards him, inclining his head towards hers.

A shot stopped the kiss, the bullet plowing the asphalt at Tommy-Ray's feet.

"Let go of her," Howie said. His voice was not strong, but it carried.

Tommy-Ray did as he was instructed, looking at Howie with mild puzzlement on his face. He slid his knife from his back pocket. The imminence of bloodshed was not lost on the crowd. Some backed away, especially those with children. Most stayed.

Behind Fletcher, Grillo leaned over and whispered to Hotchkiss.

"Could you take him out from here?"

"The kid?"

"No. The Jaff."