Zod Wallop (28 page)

“Allan!” she cried out. “Allan!”

Her head ached. She pressed her palms to her eyes, exhaled slowly. She began to walk down the beach with no sense of purpose. She walked for perhaps an hour, with no sense of her son, no prompting from the Ecknazine. She watched her silver feet tread the sand. One foot in front of the other.

She heard the sound of an engine overhead and looked up and squinted at the lights that were descending.

The helicopter came down on the beach, tilting to this side then that as though manipulated by an inept puppeteer.

Gabriel brushed her hair back and waited.

A tall man jumped out of the cockpit and ran to her.

“Gabriel,” he shouted. “I thought that was you. Fancy finding you here.”

It was Peake.

“Where is my son?” she asked him.

He grinned wolfishly. “Not one for small talk, are you? Well, come along. He’s nearby. Can’t you feel it? I can smell it, you know.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Smell what?”

“Why, Grimfast, of course. We’re almost there.”

He helped her climb in the helicopter. One of the men had to stay on the ground to make a place for her.

”H
EY!
T
HAT’S
H
ER,
“ Karl Bahden said, pointing toward the beach.

“What? I thought we were looking for someone in a wheelchair?”

“Yeah, we were. But I’m telling you, that’s her. I recognize the face, and that ratty hair.”

“So what have we got here, a miracle?”

“I don’t know. We got strange stuff, if you haven’t noticed.”

Butts peered out the windshield. “Our boy Allan is driving on. He ain’t stopping.”

“He’s got other fish to fry.” Karl had seen the faked photo. It was convincing; any lovesick fool would have swallowed it.

Karl pulled the car over to the side of the road, the tires grinding in the sand, and turned the ignition off. He got out, reached in the back and pulled the rifle out.

“You gonna kill her?”

“Nah. This ain’t that kind of a gun. I’m just not gonna chase her down the beach. This line of work, you eat too many fries and burgers on the run. I got a high cholesterol. I can’t overexert myself or I’ll be studying the ceiling in some cardiac ward.”

Emily walked along the tide. Strange little birds raced in and out of the retreating water, ducking down to suck some morsel from the sand, racing away from incoming waves, their little legs a frenzy of motion. Her gaudy shoes—another peasant fashion?—left odd, rippled footprints behind her in the wet sand. Lord Arbus nuzzled in her arms, hugging her tightly. He did not care for the roar of the surf.

Emily was confused. Had not Blodkin promised her this boon for all the years of frozen darkness, the yearning that turned to cold rage? Where then were his servants?

She saw two men coming toward her on the beach, and she sensed, instantly, that they meant her harm. They were thralls of the Gorelord or Lord Draining. No matter. If they meant to hinder her, she would teach them manners.

Against his protests, she lowered Arbus to the sand.

She turned and faced the men, now fifty feet from her. “Come no farther,” she said. “If you go on your way, no harm will come to you.”

The taller of the two men, pale-haired and grinning, raised something to his shoulder and shouted, “Glad to hear that!”

Emily felt a hard, cold slap against her thigh. She looked down and saw a small, feathered bolt sticking through the rough fabric of her leggings. A heaviness entered her limbs, as though the Cold One himself had embraced her.

What enchantment is this
? she wondered. She fell to her knees. No. Her time was now. She could not be Returned. This was an outrage. Blodkin would not tolerate it.

She rocked forward, toppling. She did not feel the slap of the sand against her face or the warm tide soaking her clothing, did not hear Arbus’s screams as he fled.

Karl fired a shot at the monkey—just for the hell of it. He missed, and the monkey ran screaming over the dunes toward the road.

“Come on,” Butts said. “Let’s get the girl up in the car. I hear a chopper. I don’t want the cops shining a searchlight in my eyes, not right about now.”

Karl nodded. The sound of the helicopter was growing louder. They ran to the girl. Together they lifted her and scrambled up the sandy dunes. Karl opened the back door of the sedan, and Butts hauled her in. He climbed out past her and shut the door.

“Let’s go,” Karl said.

Neither of them noticed the small, dark monkey that leapt to the meager ledge of bumper and managed, incredibly, to stay there, hugging a taillight, as the car accelerated in a whiplash scream.

“Where we taking her?” Butts asked.

“Blaine’s got a room for her. I got to say, Peake is behind on this one. He isn’t showing me much. Blaine’s been thinking all along, getting his ducks in a row.”

“Where’s this room?”

“Just down the block.” Karl pointed to the hotel directly in front of them. “The classy but economical St. Petersburg Arms.”

“How we gonna get her in without someone noticing she’s conked out?”

Karl laughed. “Hell, half the people in this city are conked out. You think that’s gonna raise an eyebrow? If this hotel’s lobby doesn’t have wheelchairs, than Detroit doesn’t have automobiles. We wrap her up in a coat, she’ll look like grandma-goes-on-a-trip. Trust me.”

Rene was alone and discouraged. Maybe she shouldn’t have jumped out of the car and run off like that. Her daddy always said, “It’s your impulses that won’t let you go,” and he was right; she’d never been one to think things through.

Still, Rene thought, they weren’t doing any good, driving in circles, and the sound of that old guy’s voice, stuffy and pleased with himself—she’d had to bolt.

She let her legs go, flopping down on her butt,
bang
, like that, and glared at the headlights on the road above her.

Allan gone. Emily gone—up and ran off; Emily who you wouldn’t have figured to have an impulse in her, not in a hundred million years—and Rene alone, the way it always shook down.

Maybe alone wasn’t so bad for some people; they didn’t need drugs or booze to forget being alone. Maybe they even liked being alone, cozy with all their private thoughts, amazed and delighted, fat and sassy.

Alone was being smashed and scattered and not even forgotten because what was there to remember?

Rene watched the headlights slow and stop on the road above her. The twin orbs died and the light inside the car came on as the door was opened and that wink of the light was all she needed because she was skilled in seeing him whole in a glance and then remembering at leisure.

“Allan!” she shouted, jumping on tiptoe. “Allan.”

Her man ran toward her, like one of those corny-assed commercials, long, passionate strides because he had to get to his woman—so they could go have a beer or something—but this wasn’t corny because it really was Allan and she wondered why she had never told him she loved him. Well, that was over now.

“Bitch!” Allan screamed, and he hit her. Her eyes widened just before his fist connected with her stomach. She bent over but did not fall, wobbling on bent legs, head down and holding up a hand as though to say, “Just a second. Be right with you.”

Then she turned and ran. Allan hadn’t been expecting that, but it was fine with him. He watched her run for a couple of beats and then screamed and raced after her.

She ran through the tide, arms crazy, water flaring in her footfalls.

He caught her and hurled her to the sand. “Run into the ocean!” he shouted. “All right, you can have your ocean.”

He grabbed her foot when she tried to kick him and flipped her and dragged her, belly down, into the water. She turned over, opened her mouth to scream, and he grabbed her shoulders and pushed her under the night-dark water. He watched her drown, as though it were a dream. Her hair fanned gracefully behind her head. She was frowning, a pinch of flesh between her perfect brows, but her expression was one of pale irritation more than pain. Her thin white blouse lost all its color revealing her perfect breasts, the pale flesh of her shoulders, the red and yellow rainbow.

The rainbow tattoo. “Because it’s my name,” she had said. “Gold. Rene Gold. You know, the pot of
gold
at the end of the rainbow.”

Allan stumbled backward and Rene, hands foaming the water as she yelled herself upright, fell forward, and clawed her way up the beach. She rolled over on her back and coughed.

Allan crawled to her. “Oh God, Jesus.”

Rene launched herself at him, clawed his face, bit his ear, would have scratched his eyes out but realized, then, that he would have let her. He had gone limp. She rolled onto her back. “What the fuck is the matter with you?”

“I thought you were untrue to me,” he said.

She rolled on her side to look at him. “Untrue? Where do you get off? We aren’t even dating, you asshole.”

Allan produced the photograph.

They both stared at it for a long time. Finally, Rene said, “You are a total moron. First of all, Harry’s not my type; I mean, he’s like a dentist or something, and second, that’s not my body. Forget the missing tattoo, that body is just plain different. And third, how come this Harry has twice as much hair? Don’t even try to figure that out. I’ll tell you. This is no doubt a picture of him and his ex, taken way back in the good old days, and they stuck my head on his old lady. They probably said, ‘Nobody’s stupid enough to fall for this, but what’s the harm in trying?’”

“Can they do that?” Allan felt a hole inside him bigger than the sky. He had hurt, almost killed, his beloved because he was a jealous fool, an angry, vicious monster.

“Can they do that?” Rene sighed. She flopped on her back again. “Fucker almost kills me and he wants to know, ‘Can they do that?’ Shit. You moron,” she sighed. “I love you. Don’t you know anything?”

“What?”

“I was going to tell you I love you.”

Allan didn’t know what to say to that. He lay silent. Finally, Rene spoke again. “Look, it’s Arbus.”

The monkey scampered up to Rene, clutched her hand and tugged.

“I think he wants us to come with him.”

Jeanne sat on the edge of the bed. She picked up the phone and tried Harry’s room again. Still no answer. She was right to come here, every energized cell said as much. But to what purpose?

Impatient, crazy for something to happen, Jeanne picked up the television remote and punched the power button. A cartoon was in progress, some poorly animated crap with a laugh track. She punched through the channels: a documentary on endangered owls, an infomercial, a Charlie Chan movie, people in small torpedolike cars (racing apparently), a jeans commercial, a sitcom about a nursing home—and there was Amy.

Her daughter’s face was pressed close to the screen, and when the electric crackle ushered her in, her eyes widened and she backed away from the screen. “Mommy!” she shouted.

Jeanne stood up, dropping the remote.

“Amy?”

Her daughter leaned forward again. She pressed her hands and face against the glass and spoke. “Don’t let Daddy change it back!” she said. “Doooooon’t…” Her mouth was a round howl, and her small fists began to thump the glass and the television began to rock on its stand.

“Honey,” Jeanne said. “It will be all right. I’ll tell—”

The television fell forward, yanking its cord from the wall socket with an urgent pock and white sparks.

Jeanne ran to the television, turned it upright. The tube had not shattered. She fumbled for the cord. “Amy, Amy, Amy!” she was saying. There were tears in her eyes and her hands were shaking as she pushed the plug back into the socket.

“Please.”

No picture. She saw the round
O
of moisture where Amy’s lips had pressed against the inside of the glass.

She stood up, found the door, and stumbled into the hall. She heard her name called and, looking up, she saw Harry running toward her.

”T
HIS
I
S
R
EALLY
splendid,” Gloria Gill said.

The hotel suite had been transformed into a laboratory. The arrangement, being temporary and established in mere hours, was not perfect. One had to be careful not to trip over the tangle of electrical cords or to step on the hoses bringing water from the bathroom, and there was a certain incongruity to all this porcelain and stainless steel amid the hotel’s dowdy armchairs and faded rugs. Surely the St. Petersburg Arms had never seen a coffee table like the one that now resided in the center of the room and which could be used for serving drinks and snacks but was more commonly employed in the dissecting of cadavers.

Andrew Blaine smiled indulgently as Gloria, dressed in black tights and skirt and blouse, skipped to the gurney and spoke to the girl. “All this for you.”

Emily Engel made no response. She lay, strapped firmly on her back, her eyes closed. A faint trickle of saliva leaked from her mouth.