Don’t even think it, Raul said.
Wisdom, no doubt. But oh, she was sorely tempted to try.
Let’s get out while we can, Raul was saying. Tesla? Are you listening to me?
“Yes . . . ” she replied reluctantly. There would never be another opportunity like this, she knew. But Raul’s defensive instincts were right. Get out now, and live to fight another day.
There was one last piece of theatrics before she departed, however. She went down on her trembling haunches, and whistled lightly, as if to invisible dogs. She waited a moment, then smiled to welcome her spirits back, and rose again.
“Consider this—” Kissoon said as she turned to go.
“What?”
“That we’re not after all so far apart. You want revelation. So do I. You want to shake your species up. So do I. You want power—you already have a little, but a little’s never enough—and so do I. We’ve taken different paths, but are we not coming to the same spot?”
“No.”
“I think we are. Maybe it’s too much for you to admit right now, but you’ll see the sense in it. And when you do—”
“I won’t.”
“When you do I want you to know there’s a place for you in my heart”—did he turn this phrase deliberately, she wondered, tempting her gaze back towards the spiral at his core?—“and I think a place for me in yours.”
Say nothing, Raul murmured.
“I want to tell him to fuck off.”
I know you do, but leave him guessing.
Biting back a retort, she headed for the door, her legs strong enough not to betray her.
“Let me say something snide,” Tesla implored.
Don’t even look at him, Raul replied.
She took his advice. Without word or glance she opened the door a little wider and slipped out into the cooler air of the hallway.
Phoebe was sitting on the step, her head in her hands. Tesla went to her, comforted her and persuaded her to her feet. Then they hobbled away up the path and down the street, under trees that were sighing in sweet breezes from the mountain.
THIRTEEN
I
Perhaps a mile out from the shore, The Fanacapan was caught by a second current, this one of no little ferocity, which threw the vessel around like a plaything before speeding it on its way. The scale of the waves rapidly increased, much to Joe’s distress, lifting the boat up twenty, thirty feet one moment, giving them a precarious perch from which to see the awesome vista ahead, then dropping it like a stone into a trough so deep and dark it seemed with every descent this would be their last, and the foaming waves would bury them. Not so. Each time they rose again, though every board in the vessel creaked, and the decks were awash from bow to stern.
It was impossible to speak under these conditions. All Joe could do was cling to the frame of the wheelhouse door, and pray. It was a long time since he’d begun a sentence with Our Father, but the words came back readily enough, and their familiarity was comforting. Perhaps, he thought, there was even a remote chance that the words were being heard. That notion—which would have seemed naïve the day before—did not seem so idiotic now. He’d crossed a threshold into another state of being; a state that was just like another room in a house the size of the cosmos: literally, a step away. If there was one such door to be entered, why not many? And why should one not be a door that led into Heaven?
All his adult life, he’d asked why. Why God? Why meaning? Why love? Now he realized his error. The question was not why; it was why not?
For the first time since childhood, since hearing his grandmother tell Bible stories like reminiscences, he dared to believe; and for all the darkness of the troughs and terrible turmoils that lay ahead, for all the fact that he was soaked to the skin and sickened to his stomach, he was strangely happy with his lot.
If I had Phoebe beside me now, he thought, I’d be lacking nothing.
* * *
II
Tesla refused to answer any of Phoebe’s questions until she’d stood under a hot shower for a quarter of an hour, and scrubbed every inch of her body from scalp to feet, sniffing water up her nose and snorting it out to clean the last of the shit from her nostrils and using half a tube of toothpaste and a full bottle of mouthwash to scour her mouth and throat.
That done, she stood in front of the mirror and surveyed her body from as many angles as anatomy allowed. She’d looked better, no doubt of that. There was scarcely six square inches of flesh unmarked by the yellow stain of an old bruise, or the livid purples and reds of a new one, but in its strange way the sight pleased her.
“You’ve lived some,” she told her reflection. “I like that.”
Let’s be sure we live a little longer, Raul counseled.
“Any bright ideas?”
We need help, that’s for sure. And don’t start with me about Lucien. He’d be no use right now. We need somebody who can help us defend ourselves. And I’m not talking about guns.
“You’re talking about magic.”
Right.
“There’s only D’Amour that I know of,” Tesla said. “And Grillo thinks he’s dead.”
Maybe Grillo didn’t look hard enough.
“Where the hell do you suggest we start?”
He worked with a psychic, remember?
“Vaguely.”
Her name was Norma Paine.
“How’d you remember that?”
What else have I got to do with my time?
She found Phoebe in the kitchen, standing beside the dishwasher in a litter of twitching roaches with a can of Raid in her hand.
“Damn things,” Phoebe said, brushing a couple that had expired on the countertop onto the floor. “They breed where it’s warm. I open the machine sometimes and they’re swarming everywhere.”
“Looks like you pretty much finished them off,” Tesla said.
“Nah. They’ll be back. You feeling better?”
“Much. What about you?”
“I took some aspirin. My head feels like it’s ready to burst. But I’m okay. I made some peppermint tea. You want some?”
“I’d prefer something stronger. Got a brandy?”
Phoebe picked up her cup and led the way through to the living room. It was chaotic: magazines everywhere and brimming ashtrays. The whole room stank of stale cigarettes.
“Morton,” Phoebe remarked, as if that explained everything. Then, while she went through the array of liquor bottles on the dresser, told Tesla, “I don’t really remember what happened in Erwin’s house.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I remember going down the hallway with you. Then the next thing I remember was waking up on the step. Did you find Fletcher?”
“No.”
“I’ve only got bourbon. We had some brandy from last Christmas, but—”
“Bourbon’s fine.”
“But the house wasn’t empty, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t empty.”
“Who was in there?”
“A man called Kissoon.”
“Was he a friend of Fletcher’s?” Phoebe asked. She’d poured an ample measure of bourbon, and now passed the glass to Tesla. She took a stinging mouthful before answering.
“Kissoon doesn’t have friends,” she said.
“That’s sad.”
“Believe me, he doesn’t deserve them.” The bourbon took an almost instant toll on her brain functions. She could practically feel its influence through her cortex, slowing her systems down. It was a pleasant sensation.
“Is the clock on the TV right?” she asked Phoebe. It read three-oh-five.
“Near enough.”
“We’d better get some sleep,” she said, her words faintly slurred.
“This man Kissoon—” Phoebe said.
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“No. I want to know now,” she said. “He’s not going to come after us, is he?”
“What the hell put that idea in your head?”
> “The state of you when you came out of there,” Phoebe said. “He messed you up. I thought maybe—”
“He wasn’t done?”
“Right.”
“No. I think we can sleep easy. He’s got bigger fish to fry than me. But tomorrow morning, I think you should get the hell out of here.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a malicious sonofabitch, and if things don’t go the way he wants them to he’ll trash this city from one end to the other.”
“He could do that?”
“Very possibly.”
“I can’t leave,” Phoebe said.
“Because of Joe?” Phoebe nodded. “He’s not coming back any time soon,” Tesla said. “You’ve got to look after yourself for a while.”
“But what if he does come back and I’m gone?”
“Then he’ll go looking for you, and he’ll find you.”
“You believe that? Really?” Phoebe said, studying Tesla’s face. “If we’re meant to be together, then we will be?”
Tesla avoided her gaze for a few moments, but at last she had no choice but to meet Phoebe’s eyes. When she did, she couldn’t find it in her heart to lie.
“No,” she said. “I don’t believe that. I wish I did, but I don’t.”
There was little to say after that. Phoebe retired to her bed, and left Tesla to make herself comfortable on the sofa. It was ill-sprung and smelled of Morton’s cigarettes, but these were minor details given how exhausted she was. She laid down her head, and was just wondering whether the bourbon in her head would keep her awake, when she stopped wondering, and slept.
Upstairs, in the double bed that seemed larger tonight than it had the night before, Phoebe wrapped herself up in her arms, and tried to put Tesla’s words out of her head. But they wouldn’t go. They stalked the hopes she’d worked so hard to keep alive the last forty-eight hours, sniffing their weakness, ready to pounce and devour them the moment Phoebe looked the other way.
“Oh God, Joe,” she said, suddenly sobbing, “Joe, Joe, Joe, where are you?”
* * *
III
Just as Joe was beginning to think the swell would never die down and the continued violence of its motion would shake The Fanacapan apart at the timbers, the towering waves began to diminish, and after a time the current delivered them into a region of much calmer waters.
Noah ordered the volunteers to check on the condition of the vessel’s boards (it had fared better than Joe had expected; it was taking in water in one place only, and that no more than a trickle), then the torches were lit at stern and bow, and everyone took time to rest and catch their breaths. The volunteers all sat together at the stern, heads bowed.
“Are they praying?” Joe asked Noah.
“Not exactly.”
“I’d like to thank them for what they did back there,” Joe said.
“I wouldn’t bother.”
“No, I want to,” Joe said, leaving Noah’s side.
Noah caught hold of Joe’s arm. “Please leave them be,” he said.
Joe pulled himself free. “What’s the big problem?” he said, and strode down the deck towards the half-dozen. None of them looked up at his approach.
“I just wanted to thank you—” Joe began, but he stopped as a dozen little details of their condition became apparent. Several of them had been hurt in the storm—gashed arms and flanks, bruised faces—but none of them were nursing their wounds. They bled freely onto the soaked deck, shuddering occasionally.
Unnerved now, Joe went down on his haunches beside them. This was the first opportunity he’d had to study their physiognomy closely. None of them looked entirely human. Each had some detail of skin or eye or skull that suggested they had come of mixed marriages: the blood of Homo sapiens mingled with that of creatures who either lived beside Quiddity or below it.
He looked from face to face. None of them showed the slightest sign of pain or even discomfort.
“You should get those cuts covered up,” he said.
He got no response. They weren’t deaf, he knew that. They’d heard Noah’s instructions, even over the roar of surf. But they showed no sign of even knowing that Joe was beside them, much less understanding his words.
Then, a voice from behind him.
“I had no choice.”
Joe looked back over his shoulder. Noah was standing a couple of yards down the deck from him.
“What did you do to them?”
“I simply put them in my service,” Noah said.
“How?”
“I worked what I think you call a conjuration upon them.”
“Magic?”
“Don’t look so disdainful. It plainly works. We needed their service, and I had no other way of getting it.”
“Would you have done the same thing to me, if I hadn’t agreed to bring you here?”
“I didn’t have the strength back there. And even if I had, you’d have resisted me better than they did.”
“They’ve hurt themselves.”
“So I see.”
“Can’t you wake them up? Get them to tend to themselves?”
“What for?”
“Because otherwise they’re going to be scarred for life.”
“Their lives are over, Joe.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you: They’re in my service. Permanently. We’ll use them to get us home, and then,” he shrugged “they’ll have no further purpose.”
“So—what?”
“They’ll lie down and die.”
“Oh my God.”
“I told you: I had no choice. How else were we going to get off the shore?”
“You’re killing them.”
“They don’t feel anything. They don’t even remember who they are.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Joe said. “Look at me, Noah. I don’t like this slave shit. Wake them up!”
“It’s too late.”
“Try, damn you!” Joe yelled, his fingers itching to wipe the sham of pity off Noah’s face.
The man knew it. He retreated down the boards a few yards. “We’ve done well together so far,” he said to Joe. “Let’s not fight now and spoil our fellowship.”
“Fellowship?” Joe said. “I didn’t notice any fellowship. You wanted something from me. I wanted something from you. Simple as that.”
“Very well,” Noah said. “I tell you what,” he said, “I’ll do what I can to reverse the conjuration—”
“Good.”
“I don’t believe they’ll thank us for it, but I suppose you think freedom’s preferable to their present state, even if it brings agony with it. Am I right?”
“Of course.”
“And if I liberate them, we’ll assume the bargain between us over.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“That wasn’t what we agreed.”
“But it’s what I’m offering now,” Noah calmly replied. “They can be free or you can have power. One or the other, but not both.”
“You sonofabitch.”
“Which is it to be, Joe?” Noah replied. “You seem very certain in your righteousness so I suppose it’s an easy decision. You want to liberate the slaves, yes?” He watched and waited. “Yes, Joe?”
After several seconds of deliberation Joe shook his head. “No.”
“But they’re bound to my will, Joe. They’re sitting there bleeding, bound to my will. You can’t want that, can you?” He waited a beat. “Or can you?”
Joe looked back at the creatures sitting on the deck, his mind a maze. There’d been a clear path ahead of him moments before, but Noah had confounded it. And why? For the pleasure of seeing him squirm.
“I came here because you promised me something,” Joe said.
“So I did.”
“And I’m not going to have you talk me out of it.”
“You talked yourself out of it, Joe.”
“I didn’t agree to
anything.”
“Do I take it then that the slaves will remain in thrall?”
“For now,” Joe said. “Maybe I’ll set them free myself, when I get what I’m due.”
“A noble ambition,” Noah replied. “Let’s hope they survive that long.” He wandered over to the starboard side. “Meanwhile,” he said, “I have work for them to do.” He glanced at Joe, as if expecting some objection. Getting none, he gave a little smile and went back to the stern of the vessel to make his instructions known.
Cursing under his breath, Joe looked over the side to see what the problem was, and found the water clogged in every direction with sinuous weed of some kind. Its fronds were the palest of yellows, and here and there it was knotted up into bundles, the smallest like footballs, the largest twenty times that size. Plainly the weed was slowing the vessel’s progress, but the slaves were already at the bow, clambering over the sides and lowering themselves into the water to solve the problem. Digging their way through the floating thicket they started to hack at the weed, two with machetes, the others with pieces of broken timber. Watching them labor, making no sound of complaint, Joe could not help the shameful thought that perhaps it was better they felt nothing. The task before them was substantial—the weed field stretched at least two hundred yards ahead of the vessel—and would surely exhaust their wounded limbs. But at least the waters beyond the field looked calm and clear. Once the boat reached them the slaves would be able to rest. He might even try bargaining with Noah afresh, and get him to release the weakest of them from bondage, so they could tend themselves.
Meanwhile, he retired to the wheelhouse, stripping off his damp shirt and hanging it on the door before sitting down to ponder his situation. The air had grown balmier of late, and despite his recent agitation, he felt a kind of languor creep upon him. He let his head drop against the back of the cabin seat, and closed his eyes . . .
In her lonely bed in Everville, Phoebe had finally drifted to sleep on a pillow damp with her tears, and had begun to dream. Of Joe, of course. At least of his presence if not his flesh and blood. She drifted in a misty place, knowing he was not that far from her, but unable to see him. She tried to call to him, but her voice was smothered by the mist. She tried again, and again, and her efforts were rewarded after a time. The syllable seemed to divide the mist as it went from her, seeking him out in this pale nowhere.