Monk said, “Let me call you right back.”
He hung up, ran for his car, got in and tried Rain’s number. It rang but it didn’t even go to voice mail. That was weird. He tried again and got the same nothing of a response. It frightened him. Monk started the car but then turned it off. He had no idea where he wanted to go. Rain and her army vet friend were out looking for the Fire Zone. Monk had never been closer than Boundary Street, but he really doubted he could find them.
What to do? He knew the nicknames of Rain’s friends, but not who they were or where they lived. Then he realized that he had a lead and restarted his car. Joplin. He redialed Dr. Corbiel, and she answered right away.
“I can’t get in touch with Rain. Something’s wrong,” he said. The rain was the heaviest it had been in days, which was saying a lot. Walls of it seemed to march down the street. Monk started the engine again, but then he sat there, uncertain where to go. “What about the graffiti I saw and the messages Rain got? The ‘They are coming’ stuff.”
“That might refer to Doctor Nine and his Shadow People being ready to take physical form. Remember, Monk, essential vampires don’t have ordinary bodies. Not usually, anyway. But under the right circumstances, they can manifest one. It takes an enormous amount of power to do it, though. They would have to consume mass quantities of their special food. Wait, wait,” she said, “there was something you said. Something Rain told you about when she had her baby. Hold on.” Monk heard her tapping at her keys, probably doing a word search. “Here it is. It was about the monk she met in Central Park. The monk said that her baby was special. That he wasn’t the flame but he would strike the match.”
Monk started driving, heading toward Rain’s neighborhood. “What about it?”
“I heard that before. Let me think. It was a while back, something I read or a lecture I … wait! Shit!” Corbiel cried, suddenly very excited, “Rain named her son Dylan? That’s what she told you?”
“Right. She kept the name a secret until accidentally saying it out loud to Doctor Nine. Cat was out of the bag, which is why she told me. What about it?”
“Well … that’s classic, isn’t it?”
“What is? Make a little goddamn sense.”
“Dylan means ‘ray of hope.’”
“And my name’s Gerald, which means ‘rule of the spear.’ So what? A name’s a name.”
“Not to the spiritual community it’s not. Since the middle 1980s, there’s been a lot of talk and, God, a ton of books published about a new ascended master coming into the world to bring positive change.”
“You’re losing me here. The fuck’s that got to do with essential vampires and some kid a junkie gave up for adoption?”
“There have been a lot of people looking for this new master. Not just in America but all over the world. He is supposed to start a movement away from the polarizing cynicism that’s torn everyone apart.”
“Like a new Jesus?”
“He’s supposed to be a spiritual being, not a religious figure. There’s a difference. Hold on, I have something here on it, from a book published in 2000. I’m quoting a foreword written by the Dalai Lama: ‘Hope is coming to this world. Believe it. It will not be a vague conceptual thing but actual hope, embodied in the physical, with a voice that will be heard across all political lines. He will speak and be heard. He is not the flame, because the flame lives in all of us, though it has burned low or, in the case of so many young people these days, has not yet been kindled. When he comes he will not be the flame itself. He will come in simplicity, in humility, and with quiet ways that will not call attention to himself. But he will be the match that starts a great and holy fire. It will burn brightly in the dark times that we all know are coming. Many will not know his name because he won’t be the face of the movement. He will be its spark. He is coming, my friends. Those who have eyes, let them watch very carefully. Those who have ears, let them listen for a whisper. He is coming, and he will raise a match to the kindling of our hope.’”
Monk stared out the window at the heaviest downpour he had ever seen in his life, and he had endured monsoons. “Yeah, that’s interesting as all hell. So?”
“If you believe in this sort of thing, Monk, then this is a big deal. I mean, let’s face it, the world has been spinning in some bad directions. Religious extremism, political polarization, governments being turned inside out, wars, and global financial meltdowns. The last election doesn’t even seem real, and the people making decisions over our lives clearly don’t care.”
“Okay, sure, Jonatha,” said Monk dubiously, “but that’s the kind of thing that makes people crazy. Protestors, hate crimes—that’s all pretty intense emotion.”
“Sure, but not everyone’s out yelling in the streets. Fewer than half the population voted in the last election. A lot of people didn’t come out to vote because they simply didn’t think it would have done any good. They’ve lost faith in the system, and that’s another pathway to hopelessness. And a lot of those who did vote and lost feel that they’re simply screwed. They feel run over by events and do not feel that they have any control. Believing that creates a moral and social lassitude that’s—”
“Hopelessness, yeah, I got it. Christ almighty … is this what Doctor Nine’s all about?”
“If what your friend told you is true, then yes.”
“Jeee-zus.”
“The universe is not naturally chaotic, Monk, and it’s not naturally benign. It seeks a balance of those two forces. Individual entities fight to throw things out of balance because it serves their desires and their hungers. With the world tipping toward despair, there’s a certain logic to the universal forces, call them the ‘powers that be’ if you want, to attempt to restore balance. Throughout history, ascended masters have appeared when the scales have tipped too far toward negativity, just as—one could argue—the universe chucks out a Hitler or Napoleon when things become too benign. If that’s the case, if any of this is true, then this child, this Dylan, is crucial. Without him, the balance could tip radically toward chaos. Toward destruction.”
A homeless man, screaming and dressed in plastic trash bags, staggered in front of Monk’s parked car. He turned, pounded on the hood of the Jeep, and yelled, “They are coming!”
Then he shambled away into the storm.
Monk sat there, staring after him.
“Monk,” continued Corbiel, unaware of this, “for the last couple of decades, writers, channelers, prophets, visionaries, and other notable people in the various global spiritual communities have been talking about the coming of the bringer of hope. They have names for him. Asha in Hindi, Xīwàng in Chinese, Espérer in French—”
“So what?”
“You want to take a guess what the name is in English? Begins with a D.”
Lightning shattered the sky and painted the world in stark blacks and whites.
“Fuck me,” said Monk. “Look, Jonatha, this is pretty goddamn esoteric.”
“Really? Ghosts hire you to solve their murders, and you wear their faces on your skin.”
Monk said nothing. He was trying not to believe in this, but his heart was racing out of control.
“Monk,” said Corbiel with fresh urgency in her voice, “if Doctor Nine is an essential vampire and if he has figured a way to destroy the hope in Dylan, then he is going to break out of the shadow world and into ours. I don’t know if I believe in hell, but I think that would qualify as hell on earth.”
“What can I do?” he said weakly.
“Find Rain Thomas. Protect her, because I think she’s in mortal danger. I’m not joking. And, if you can, help her find her son. Get him away from Doctor Nine, or help his mother do that. Protect them both from Doctor Nine.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
Rain expected to wake up dead. Or something like that. In hell or purgatory or limbo, and with a padlock on the door to paradise.
She woke up with a scream that pulled her out of the darkness and into the white-
hot now. She thrashed and smacked at things before she could see them, trying to knock away bits of broken metal, windshield glass, jagged pieces of the Red Rocket. Her flailed hands cut through empty air, and the motion overbalanced her, and suddenly Rain was falling. She cried out, expecting the fall to go on forever, once more down into the bottomless dark where she had fallen twice before.
Instead, she crunched against concrete and cool grass.
Rain opened her eyes. She was in a park.
The park. The clock tower rose above her, but Caster Bootey was nowhere in sight. His ladder was there, and his toolbox, but not the wizened old repairman.
She heard it then. The ticking sound.
Less like a clock and more like a time bomb from a James Bond movie. Tick-tick-tick. The minute and hour hands seemed frozen at four minutes to midnight. Only the second hand, which had not even been on the clock before, moved, counting off seconds in a jerky, awkward, painful way, as if it had to chop through heavy resistance to advance toward its goal. She lay there and watched it go all the way past six, to nine, and then to twelve, but the minute hand did not follow in the perpetual dance. It remained at four minutes till.
Sitting up took effort; it was like jacking up a truck. Every part of her body hurt. Her bones, her skin, but when she looked, when she touched the places that hurt worst, there was no trace of damage. Nothing visible.
Time seemed broken, and Rain wondered if that was a good thing. What would happen when the minute hand finally moved? What was going to happen when time caught up to itself? Was she dead on the other side of that minute? Were those the wounds that killed her?
She looked around, but the Red Rocket was nowhere in sight. Nor was Sticks.
Oh, God, she thought. Sticks!
The truck had hit his side of the car. She could clearly—horribly—remember the flat steel bumper crushing the car inward, splintering and exploding the windows, shoving the engine off its mounts, buckling the door, compressing the space around Sticks into nothing.
“Sticks?” she called, posing it as a question, hoping that he, too, was safe on this side of midnight. Or noon. Or whatever hour it was. Rain couldn’t remember if it was day or night. It was always night here in the Fire Zone.
She used the bench to pull herself up, but standing was too much, so she plunked down on the seat, winded, weak. The park seemed different, and with a gasp of alarm, Rain realized that there was no sound. No Music. There were no colored lights or fireflies dancing in the air. Turning, she looked down the street to see if the red hand still flashed outside of Torquemada’s.
It did. That motion of color, of bright red light and utter darkness, was the only motion in the world. That and the tick-tick-tick of the clock. She looked down and saw that the glasses still hung around her neck. There were cracks in both lenses now.
Rain took a breath and then lifted them and put them on.
Suddenly, all the colors of the Fire Zone were back, more intense than ever, and Rain stared with slack-jawed amazement. Lights burned in every corner of the broad street that bordered the park; they glowed from every wrought iron post, glimmered atop tall buildings, and flashed in the very air around her. On the glittering sides of the buildings, neon tubing and LED lights twisted and retwisted before her eyes, forming works and acts and thoughts and images faster than Rain’s mind could absorb them. Straight lines of iridescence shot upward along the sides of buildings to the rooftops, raced along balconies, and then plunged insanely downward to the streets again, dragging her goggling gaze with them, dizzying her with the rush of color and speed. There was no looking away—the lights were everywhere, bursting like fireworks in her brain, even detonating beautifully behind the veil of closed eyes.
And then the Music spilled out into the madhouse streets, washing the avenue and drenching everything with sweet sounds. Footsteps clicked along in time to every drumbeat, hands clapped with the resonant bass notes, fingers popped with guitar riffs, and voices were raised in song to match the powerful voice of the Music itself. The Music rose above the street, taking elements from every individual song and blending them with the countertempo of thousands of beating hearts; it stirred them, seasoning them with magic, and brewed one single song, one ultimate and unique song. It became othertone—the ultimate state of sound, the purest aspect of the Music itself, hovering a tone above perfection.
Rain didn’t even realize she had risen from the bench and was swaying to the beat, slapping her thighs in time to the drums; completely lost in the inrush of things her senses could barely accept and only partially contain. She was not sure if she was awake or even alive. One small part of her mind that was not totally caught up in the moment wondered if she was dead on the street, curled with Sticks in a tomb of gleaming red metal, and all of this was a dead woman’s dream.
It was okay, though. If being dead meant that she was allowed to be here, then dying was a small price to pay.
Maybe Noah was here somewhere. The thought made her heart race. Was that it? Had sweet Noah somehow done all of this to save her from the burning house that had been her life? Was he here in the Fire Zone, waiting for her all this time?
Another thought followed that one, and it almost stopped her heart.
Was Dylan here, too?
Tick-tick-tick, said the clock, trying to reach midnight.
You’re so close, whispered a voice. Caster, maybe. Or Dylan. Or possibly her own voice. You know almost enough now to make sense of it, Rain.
“You’re not making sense,” she said aloud, her voice strident and jarring.
The repairman’s words came back to her as clearly as if he stood beside her. As long as you think this is a mystery, then it’ll be a mystery. As long as you think this is a war, then it’s a war. As long as you think that you’re helpless, then you’ll be helpless. That’s how it’s always worked.
Rage suddenly surged upward from her gut, past the trembling heart, and out into the night. “No more fucking riddles!” she screamed. “Just fucking tell me what’s happening!”
Instantly, the Music warped into a discordant screeching, the laughter of the dancers became the bray of donkeys. All the colors were stained, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the glare. Pain flared in her head, and she reached up to take off the glasses.
Did not, though.
Through the fractured lenses, she saw a figure step out from behind a tree not twenty feet away. The sight of him yanked on the leash of time and jerked it to a juddering stop.
It was a boy around thirteen years old. He was dressed in cheap Salvation Army thrift store clothes. Seedy, dirty, badly mended, stained, and ragged. His hands were dirty, too, and his face. He was so thin. Malnourished to the point of starvation, with the belly swell that happens when gas is released as the starving begins to feed on itself. His nails were bitten to the quick, and his hair hung unwashed and lank across his face.
“Dylan?” she breathed, and it came out as a question.
The tree behind which the boy had been hiding seemed to ripple, but not with wind. When Rain peered at it, she realized that it was not heavy with leaves. It was completely covered with dark birds. Small and large, standing on every branch, every twig. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Nightbirds. His birds.
“Dylan?” she asked again,
Dylan it was, but not the beautiful boy she had imagined all these years. Not even the feral child she had seen running in the glimpses she’d gotten. This boy was wild, ugly, unhealthy in every way that mattered, and sickness shone in his dark, wary, calculating eyes. When he smiled at her, she saw yellow teeth and receding gums and a hunger that was so deep, so bottomless that it transcended a need for food. He was hungry for something else. Ravenous.
“Mommy,” he said slowly, tasting the word. Enjoying it. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
“Dylan?” whispered Rain.
The boy moved toward her, walking with dangerous delicacy, the way a jun
gle cat does. “Mommy,” murmured the boy. “I’ve been looking for you for so long. Why did you leave me? Why did you let them take me away?”
“Dylan, I … I’m so sorry. I made a mistake. I was stupid, and I should never have let them take you.” Her heart wanted her to run forward, to embrace her son, even if he had become the thing that stood beneath the tree filled with nightbirds, the thing that smiled. Her body backed another step away.
“You gave me away, Mommy,” said Dylan. His smile never wavered, but there was hatred and hurt in his dark eyes. “You couldn’t wait to do it.”
“No…”
“What did I ever do that was so bad that you had to throw me away like I was trash? I was a baby. I didn’t even have a chance to disappoint you, and bang. Gone.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and the tears began to fall.
“We could have been together all this time,” he said. There was a plaintive need in his voice that was at odds with the rapacious grin. “We could have played together.”
A vagary of wind brought a snatch of the Music into the park. As it blew past Rain, it was lovely, elegant, complex, wonderful; but as it wafted toward Dylan, it changed, became cheap and obvious and vulgar. He raised his head and sniffed at it like a dog, then he gave her a sly look.
“We could have danced together, Mommy.” He leaned on that word, giving it so many layers of meaning, good and bad. His voice was wholesome, innocent; his smile was infinitely vile.
The boy took another step forward.
Rain took two steps back. “Don’t!”
He stopped. One of the nightbirds fluttered down and landed on his shoulder. Something thick and red dripped from its beak and spattered on the front of the boy’s shirt. Rain took several quick backward steps.
“You’re not my son,” she said, trying to shout but managing only a frightened whisper. “You’re not my little Dylan.”
The boy bent forward and snapped at the air between them. “Not yet, but I will be. Oh, yes, Mommy dearest, I will be.”