Harry arranged the signs as Tesla had described, pondering as he did what purpose they’d served Kissoon. Was this a game he’d played? Metaphysical solitaire, to keep himself occupied while he planned his plans? Or was it something less frivolous? A way of predicting (or even influencing) the processes the deck described?
He was in the midst of turning these questions over when the telephone rang. It was Norma.
“Turn on the news,” she said. He did so. Images of a fire-gutted building emerged along with a commentary from an on-site reporter. Several corpses had been discovered in the basement of the building, he said. Though the count was as yet unconfirmed, he personally had seen twenty-one victims removed from the building. There was no sign of any survivors, nor much hope now of finding any.
“Is that where I think it is?” Norma said.
“That’s the place,” Harry said. “Have they said anything about the state of the bodies?”
“Just that most of them are burned beyond recognition. They were exiles, I assume.”
“Yes.”
“Noticeably so?”
“Very.”
“That’s going to raise a few questions,” Norma remarked dryly.
“They’ll file it away and pretend it never happened,” Harry said. He’d seen the process at work countless times. Rational men dealing with the apparently irrational by turning blind eyes.
“There was something else, Norma. Or rather somebody.”
“Who?”
“Kissoon.”
“Impossible.”
“I swear.”
“You saw him? In the flesh?”
“Actually in somebody else’s flesh,” Harry replied, “but I’m pretty sure it was him.”
“He was leading the Order?”
“No. He was the one slaughtering them,” Harry said. “They had a door open to Quiddity. A neirica, one of them called it.”
“It means passageway,” Norma said. “A passageway to sacred wisdom.”
“Well, he closed it,” Harry replied.
There was a silence while Norma chewed this over. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “They opened the neirica; he murdered them and left through it—”
“No.”
“I thought you said—”
“I said he closed it. He didn’t leave. He’s still here in New York.”
“You’ve found him?”
“No. But I will.”
THREE
I
Harry returned to Morningside Heights later that day, and watched the house for seventy-two hours, in the hope of catching Kissoon. He had no particular plan as to how he would deal with him if he did, but took some comfort in the fact that he had the cards and the map. Both, he suspected, were of some value to Kissoon. Enough to have him stay his hand if killing Harry meant he’d never be able to find out where they were hidden. At least, that was the calculation.
As it turned out, both wait and calculation were wasted. After three days of almost constant surveillance, without so much as a glimpse of Kissoon, Harry went back into the house. The Lix at the bottom of the stairs was little more than a crusty stain on the boards. As for Kissoon’s bedroom, it had been ransacked, presumably by its sometime occupant searching for the cards. He would not come back, Harry guessed. He’d done his work here. He was off on the road somewhere.
The next day Harry left for North Dakota, and the pursuit that would occupy the next seven weeks of his life began. The only person he informed was Norma and, despite her questions, he refused to furnish her with details for fear Kissoon had an agent among the dead listening in. The only other person he was tempted to tell was Grillo, but he decided against it. He’d never been certain of Grillo’s agenda, or in truth of his allegiances. If Harry shared any part of what he knew in the hope of tracking Kissoon through the Reef, he risked the information finding its way back through the system to the enemy. Better to disappear silently, presumed incapacitated or dead.
Harry spent eleven days in North Dakota, first in Jamestown, then in Napoleon and Wishek, where by chance he picked up a trail that led him west, into the Badlands. There, during a spell of brutally hot weather at the end of July, he came within a day, perhaps two, of Kissoon, who had moved on, leaving another massacre behind. This time, there was no fire to conceal the bizarre nature of the corpses, and after a short time all reports of the incident were suppressed. But Harry had garnered enough information to be certain Kissoon had done here what he’d done in New York: located and destroyed a group of exiles from Quiddity. Whether they too had been in the process of opening a door back into the Metacosm he could not discover, but he assumed so. Why else would Kissoon go to the trouble of slaughtering them?
The assumption begged a question that had been itching at the base of his skull since he’d left New York. Why, after being exiled in the Cosm for so many years, were these people now gaining access to Quiddity? Had they discovered some conjuration previously unknown to them, which opened doors where there had only been solid walls? Or were those walls becoming thinner for some reason, the divide between this world and the Metacosm growing frail?
The heat did nothing for his equilibrium. Lingering in Wishek, hoping to discover where Kissoon had headed next, his fears grew gross in the swelter, and bred hallucinations. Twice in two days he thought he saw Kissoon out walking, and pursued him around corners only to find the streets empty. And at dusk, watching the solid world succumb to doubt, he seemed to see the shadows shift, as though darkness was the weakest place in the Cosm’s wall, and there the cracks were beginning to show.
He looked for some comfort in the people around him, the tough, uncomplicated men and women who had chosen this joyless corner of the planet to call home. Surely there was some reserve of hard-won truth in them that would help him keep the delirium at arm’s distance. He couldn’t ask for evidence of it outright, of course (they already viewed his presence with suspicion enough), but he made a point of listening to their exchanges, hoping to find some plain wisdom there that could be used against the insanities he felt creeping upon him. But there was no solace in his study. They were as sad and cruel and lost as any people he’d encountered. By day they made their dull rounds with sullen faces, their feelings locked out of sight. By night, the men got drunk (and sometimes violent) while the women stayed home, watching the same chat shows and cop shows that softened wits from coast to coast.
He was glad to go, finally, into Minnesota, where he’d read of an incident of cult murder outside Duluth, and hoped to discover Kissoon’s hand at work. He was disappointed. The day after his arrival, the cultists—two brothers and their shared mistress, all three in severely psychotic states—were arrested and admitted to the slaughter.
With the trail growing colder by the hour, he contemplated traveling down into Nebraska and hooking up with Grillo in Omaha. It was not his preference—the man’s contempt still rankled—but he increasingly suspected he had no choice. He put off calling Grillo for a day. Then, finally, dulling his irritation with half a bottle of scotch, he made the call, only to discover that Grillo wasn’t home. He declined to leave a message, fearful as ever that the wrong ears would be attending to it. Instead, he finished off the other half bottle, and went to bed drunker than he’d been in many a year.
And he dreamed; dreamed he was back in Wyckoff Street, up in that foul room with the demon that had slaughtered Father Hess, its flesh like embers in a gusty wind, dimming and brightening in the murky air.
It had called itself by many names during the long hours of their confrontation: the Hammermite, Peter the Nomad, Lazy Susan. But towards the end, either out of fatigue or boredom, it gave up all its personas but one.
“I am D’Amour,” it had said, over and over. “I am you and you are love and that’s what makes the world go round.”
It must have repeated this nonsense two hundred, three hundred times, always finding some fresh way to deliver it—as wisdom from the pulpit, as an invitation to
intercourse, as a skipping song—until it had imprinted the words on Harry’s mind so forcibly he knew they’d be circling his skull forever.
He woke strangely calmed by the dream. It was as though his subconscious was making a connection his conscious mind could not, pointing him back to that terrible time as a source of wisdom.
His head thumping, he drove in search of a twenty-four hour coffee shop, and finding one out on the highway, sat there until dawn, puzzling over the words. It was not the first time he’d done so, of course. Far sweeter memories had died in his cortex, gone forever into whatever oblivion happiness is consigned, but the demon’s words had never left his head.
I am you, it had proclaimed. Well, that was plain enough. What infernal seducer had not tried confounding its victim with the thought that this was all a game with mirrors?
And you are love, it had murmured. That didn’t seem to demand much exegesis either. His name was D’Amour, after all.
And that’s what makes the world go round, it had gasped. A cliché, of course, rendered virtually meaningless by repetition. It offered nothing by way of insight.
And yet, there was meaning here; he was certain of it. The words had been designed as a trap, baited with a sliver of significance. He had simply never understood what that significance was. Nor did pondering it over half a dozen cups of coffee, and—as dawn came up—Canadian bacon and three eggs over easy, give him the answer. He would just have to move on, and trust that fate would bring him to Kissoon.
Fortified, he returned to his motel, and again consulted the map he had taken from the hovel in Morningside Heights.
There were several other sites his quarry had deemed worthy of marking, though none of them had been as significant to him as New York or Jamestown. One was in Florida, one in Oregon, two in Arizona; plus another six or seven. Where was he to begin?
He decided on Arizona, for no better reason than he’d loved a woman once who’d been born and bred in Phoenix.
* * *
II
The trip took him five days, and brought him at last to Mammoth, Arizona, and a street corner where a woman with a voice like water over rock called him by his name. She was tiny, her skin like brown paper that had been used and screwed up a dozen times, eyes so deeply set he was never quite certain if they were on him at all.
“I’m Maria Lourdes Nazareno,” she told him. “I’ve been waiting for you sixteen days.”
“I didn’t realize I was expected,” Harry replied.
“Always,” the woman said. “How is Tesla, by the way?”
“You know Tesla?”
“I met her on this same corner, three years ago.”
“Popular place,” Harry remarked, “is there something special about it?”
“Yes,” the woman replied, with a little laugh. “Me. How is she?”
“As crazy as ever, last time we spoke,” Harry said.
“And you? Are you crazy too?”
“Very possibly.”
The response seemed to please the woman. She lifted her head, and for the first time Harry saw her eyes. Her irises were flecked with gold.
“I gave Tesla a gun,” the woman went on. “Does she still have it?” Harry didn’t reply. “D’Amour?”
“Are you what I think you are?” Harry murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“You know damn well.”
Again, the smile. “It was the eyes that gave it away, yes? Tesla didn’t notice. But then I think she was high that day.”
“Are there many of you?”
“A very few,” Maria replied, “and the greater part of all of us is Sapas Humana. But there’s a tiny piece”—she put thumb and forefinger a quarter of an inch apart to demonstrate how little—“a tiny piece of me which Quiddity calls to. It makes me wise.”
“How?”
“It lets me see you and Tesla coming.”
“Is that all you see?”
“Why? Do you have something in mind?”
“Yes I do.”
“What?”
“Kissoon.”
The woman visibly shuddered. “So he’s your business.”
“Is he here?”
“No.”
“Has he been here?”
“No. Why? Do you expect him?”
“I’m afraid so.”
The woman looked distressed. “We thought we were safe here,” she said. “We haven’t tried to open a neirica. We don’t have the power. So we thought he wouldn’t notice us.”
“I’m afraid he knows you’re here.”
“I must go. I must warn everyone.” She took hold of Harry’s hand, her palms clammy. “Thank you for this. I will find some way to repay you.”
“There’s no need.”
“Oh, but there is,” she said, and before Harry could protest further she’d gone, off across the street and out of sight.
He stayed in Mammoth overnight, though he was pretty certain that the Nazareno woman was telling the truth, and Kissoon was not in the vicinity. Weary after so many weeks of travel, he retired to bed early, only to be woken a little after one by a rapping on his door.
“Who is it?” he mumbled as he searched for the light.
The answer was not a name but an address. “One-two-one, Spiro Street,” said a low sibilant voice.
“Maria?” he said, picking up his gun and crossing to the door. But by the time he had it open the speaker had disappeared from the hallway.
He dressed, and went down to the lobby, got the whereabouts of Spiro Street from the night manager, and headed out. The street he sought was on the very edge of town, many of its houses in such an advanced state of disrepair he was amazed to see signs of occupancy: rusty vehicles in the driveways, bags of trash heaped on the hard dirt where they’d once had lawns. One-two-one was in a better state than some, but was still a dispiriting sight. Comforted by the weight of his gun, Harry stepped up to the front door. It stood a couple of inches ajar.
“Maria?” he said. The silence was so deep he had no need to raise his voice.
There was no reply. Calling again, he pushed the door open, and it swung wide. There was a fat white candle—set on a dinner plate surrounded by beads—on the threadbare rug. Squatting in front of it, with her eyes downcast, was Maria.
“It’s me,” he said to her. “It’s Harry. What do you want?”
“Nothing, now,” said a voice behind him. He went for his gun, but before his fist had closed on it there was a cold palm gripping the back of his skull. “No,” the voice said simply.
He showed his weaponless hands.
“I got a message—” Harry said.
Another voice now; this the message carrier. “She wanted to see you,” he said.
“Fine. I’m here.”
“Except you’re too damn late,” the first man said. “He found her already.”
Harry’s stomach turned. He looked hard at Maria. There was no sign of life.
“Oh Jesus.”
“Such easy profanity,” said the message carrier. “Maria said you were a holy man, but I don’t think you are.”
The palm tightened against the back of Harry’s head, and for one sickening moment he thought he heard his skull creak. Then his tormentor spoke, very softly: “I am you, and you are love—”
“Stop that,” Harry growled.
“I’m just reading your thoughts, D’Amour,” the man replied. “Trying to find out whether you’re our enemy or our friend.”
“I’m neither.”
“You’re a death-bringer, you know that? First New York—”
“I’m looking for Kissoon.”
“We know,” came the reply. “She told us. That’s why she sent her spirit out, to find him. So you could be a hero, and bring him down. That’s what you dream of, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes—”
“Pitiful.”
“After all the harm he’s done your people I’d have thought you’d be happy to help me.”
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“Maria died to help you,” came the reply. “Her life is our contribution to the cause. She was our mother, D’Amour.”
“Oh—I’m sorry. Believe me, I didn’t want this.”
“She knew what you wanted better than you did,” the message carrier replied. “So she went out and found him for you. He came after her and sucked out her soul, but she found him.”
“Did she have time to tell you where he is?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“So eager,” the skull holder said, leaning close to Harry’s ear.
“He killed your mother, for Christ’s sake,” Harry said. “Don’t you want him dead?”
“What we want is irrelevant,” the other son replied, “we learned that a long time ago.”
“Then let me want it for you,” Harry said. “Let me find some way to kill the sonofabitch.”
“Such a murderous heart,” the man at his ear murmured. “Where are your metaphysics now?”
“What metaphysics?”
“I am you, and you are love—”
“That’s not me,” Harry said.
“Who is it, then?”
“If I knew that—”
“If you knew that?”
“Maybe I wouldn’t be here, ready to do your dirty work.”
There was a lengthy silence. Then the message carrier said: “Whatever happens after this—”
“Yes?”
“Whether you kill him or he kills you—”
“Let me guess. Don’t come back.”
“Right.”
“You’ve got a deal.”
Another silence. The candle in front of Maria flickered.
“Kissoon’s in Oregon,” the message carrier said. “A town called Everville.”
“You’re sure?” There was no reply. “I guess you are.” The hand didn’t move from the back of Harry’s head, though there was no further response from either of the sons. “Have we got some further business?” Harry asked.