Everville

  TWO

  I don’t like this,” Telsa said.

  She wasn’t speaking of the climb—though it had steadily become steeper, and now left her gasping between every other word—but of the mist that had been little more than shreds when they’d begun their ascent and was now a thick, white blanket.

  “I’m not turning back,” Phoebe said hurriedly.

  “I didn’t say we should,” Tesla replied. “I was just saying—”

  Yes. What are you saying? Raul murmured.

  “That there’s something weird about it.”

  “It’s just mist,” Phoebe said.

  “I don’t think so. And just for the record, neither does Raul.”

  Phoebe came to a halt, as much to catch her breath as to continue the debate. “We’ve got guns,” she said.

  “That didn’t do us much good at Toothaker’s place,” Tesla reminded her.

  “You think there’s something hiding in there?” Phoebe said, studying the black wall that was now no more than three hundred yards from them.

  “I’d bet my Harley on it.”

  Phoebe let out a shuddering sigh. “Maybe you should go back,” she said. “I don’t want anything to happen to you on my account.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Tesla said.

  “Good,” said Phoebe. “So if we get parted in there—”

  “Which is very possible—”

  “We don’t go looking for each other?”

  “We just go on.”

  “Right.”

  “All the way to Quiddity.”

  “All the way to Joe.”

  Lord, but it was clammy cold in the mist. Within sixty seconds of entering it, both Tesla and Phoebe were shuddering from head to foot.

  “Watch where you walk,” Tesla warned Phoebe.

  “Why?”

  “Look there,” she said, pointing to a six-inch wide crack in the ground. “And there. And there.”

  The fissures were everywhere, and recent. She was not all that surprised. The opening of a door between one reality and another was a violation of the physical by the metaphysical; a cataclysm that was bound to take its toll on matter that lacked mind. It had been the same at Buddy Vance’s house as here: the solid world had cracked and melted and fallen apart when the door had opened in its midst. The difference however, and it was notable, was how quiet and still it was here. Even the mist hung almost motionless. Vance’s house, by contrast, had been a maelstrom.

  She could only assume that whoever had opened this door was both an expert in the procedure and a creature of great self-discipline; unlike the Jaff, who had been a mere novice, and utterly incapable of controlling the forces he had claimed as his own.

  Kissoon? Raul suggested.

  It was not at first thought an unlikely choice. She did not expect to meet a more powerful entity than Kissoon in the living world.

  “But if he can open a door between here and the Cosm,” Tesla thought, “that means he has the Art.”

  That would follow.

  “In which case, why is he still playing in the shit down in Toothaker’s house?”

  Good question.

  “He’s got something to do with this—I don’t doubt that—but I don’t think he could open a door on his own.”

  Maybe he had help, Raul said.

  “You’re talking to the monkey, aren’t you?” Phoebe said.

  “I think we should keep our voices down.”

  “You are though, aren’t you?”

  “Am I moving my lips?” Tesla said.

  “Yep.”

  “I never coul-d-” She stopped: talking, and in her tracks. She grabbed Phoebe’s arm.

  “What?” Phoebe said.

  “Listen.”

  Anyone for carpentry lessons? Raul remarked. Somebody higher up the mountainside was hammering. The sound was muted by the mist, so it was difficult to know how far off the handyman was, but the din laid to rest what little hope Tesla had entertained of finding the door unguarded. She reached into her jacket and took out Lourdes. “We’re going to go very slowly,” she whispered to Phoebe. “And keep your eyes peeled.”

  She led the way now, up the fissured slope, the hammering of her heart competing with that of the handyman. There were other sounds she heard, just audible between the blows. Somebody sobbing. Somebody else singing, the words incomprehensible.

  “What the hell is going on up there?” Tesla murmured. There were lopped branches strewn on the ground, and a litter of twigs stripped from other branches, presumably those judged useful by the hammerer. Was he building a little house up there, or an altar, perhaps?

  The mist ahead of them shifted, and for a moment Tesla caught a glimpse of somebody moving across her field of vision. It was too brief for her to quite grasp what she was seeing, but it seemed to be a child, its head too unwieldy for its emaciated body. It left a trail of laughter where it ran (at least she thought it was laughter; she couldn’t even be certain of that), and the sound seemed to draw patterns in the mist, like ripples left by darting fish. It was a strange phenomenon, but in its way rather beguiling.

  She looked round at Phoebe, who was wearing a tiny smile.

  “There are children up here,” she murmured.

  “It looks that way.”

  She’d no sooner spoken than the child reappeared, capering and laughing as before. It was a girl, Tesla saw. Despite her almost infantile body, she had budding breasts, which were ruddier than the rest of her pale body, and a yard-long ponytail that sprouted from the middle of her otherwise shaved skull.

  Nimble though she was, her foot caught in one of the cracks as she ran by, and she fell forward, her laughter ceasing.

  Phoebe let out a little gasp of concern. Despite the hammerings and the sobs, the child heard her. She looked round, and her eyes, which were black and shiny, like polished stones, were briefly laid upon the two women. Then the child was on her feet and away, racing off up the slope.

  “So much for secrecy,” Tesla remarked. She could hear the child’s shrill voice, raising the alarm. “Let’s get out of their way,” she said, catching hold of Phoebe’s arm and hauling her off across the slope. The traumatized ground made speed virtually impossible, but they covered fifty stumbling yards before halting and listening again.

  The hammering had stopped, and so had the singing. Only the sobbing went on.

  That’s not grief, Raul said.

  “No?”

  It’s pain. It’s somebody in terrible pain.

  Tesla shuddered, and looked straight at Phoebe. “Listen to me—” she whispered.

  “You want to go back.”

  “Don’t you?”

  Phoebe’s face was pale and wet. “Yes,” she breathed. “Part of me does.” She looked over her shoulder, though there was nothing to see but mist. “But not as much . . . ” she hesitated, full of little tremors, “not as much as I want to be with Joe.”

  “If you keep saying that,” Tesla said, “I’m going to start believing it.”

  A burst of nervous laughter escaped Phoebe, but turned into tears the next moment. “If we get out of this alive,” she said, doing her best to stifle her sobs, “I’ll owe you so much.”

  “You’ll owe me an invitation to the wedding is all you’ll owe me,” Tesla said. Phoebe put her arms around Tesla, and hugged her.

  “We’re not there yet,” Tesla said.

  “I know, I know,” Phoebe replied. She stood back from Tesla, sniffed hard, and wiped the tears from under her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I’m ready.”

  “Good.” Tesla looked back towards the spot where they’d been seen. There was neither sound nor sign of motion. It was not much comfort, given how hard it was to judge distance under these circumstances, but at least there was no horde of Lix or children bearing down upon them. “Let’s climb,” she said, and led the way up the slope again. It was impossible to judge their precise direction, of course, but as long as the ground continued to rise ah
ead of them, they knew they were still on their way to the summit.

  After a few paces they had further evidence that they were headed in the right direction. The moaning sound was becoming louder with every yard they covered, and it was soon joined by the voice of the singer. She faltered at first, as though trying to pick up the threads of whatever piece she’d left off singing. Then she apparently despaired of doing so, and began another song: this more melancholy than the first. A lament, perhaps; or a lullaby for a dying child. Whatever it was, it made Tesla feel positively queasy, and she found herself wishing a nest of Lix would appear from the cracked ground, so she’d have something upon which to pin her trepidation. Anything rather than the sobs, and the song, and the image of the skipping child with its lifeless eyes.

  And then, as the song came round for another dirging verse, the mist unveiled a horror even her most troubled imaginings had not conjured.

  There, twenty yards up the slope, was the hammerer’s handiwork. He hadn’t built a house. He hadn’t built an altar. He’d felled three trees, and stripped them, and dragged them up the slope to fashion crosses, ten, twelve feet high. Then somebody—perhaps the hammerer, perhaps his masters—had crucified three people upon them.

  Tesla could not see much of the victims. She and Phoebe were approaching the site from behind the crosses. But she could see the hammerer. He was a small, broad fellow, his head wide and flat, with eyes like the laughing child’s eyes, and he was gathering up his tools in the shadow of the crosses with the casual manner of someone who had just fixed a table leg. A little way beyond him, lounging in a chair, was the singer. She had her gaze turned up towards the crucified, her lament still maundering on.

  Neither individual had seen Tesla and Phoebe. As the women watched, appalled, the hammerer finished collecting up his tools and went on his jaunty way, disappearing into the mist beyond the crosses without so much as a backwards glance. The singer threw back her head, almost languorously, and halted her song to draw on a thin cigarette.

  “Why would anybody do something like this?” Phoebe said, her voice trembling.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Tesla replied, pulling her gun from her jacket. “We’re going to do something about it.”

  Like what? said Raul.

  “Like getting those poor fuckers down,” Tesla said aloud.

  “Us?” said Phoebe.

  “Yes, us.”

  Tesla, listen to me, Raul said. This is horrible, I know. But it’s too late to help them—

  “What’s he saying?” Phoebe asked.

  “He hasn’t finished.”

  It was a damn fool thing to do in the first place, coming up here. But we’ve got this far.

  “So what? Turn a blind eye?”

  Yes! Absolutely!

  “Christ . . . ”

  I know, Raul said. This is a terrible thing and I wish we weren’t here to see it. But let’s find the door and get Phoebe through it. Then we can both get the fuck out of here.

  “You know what?” Phoebe said, nodding towards the singer. “She might know where the door is. I think we should ask her.” She pointed to Tesla’s gun. “With that.”

  “Good deal.”

  Just don’t look at the crosses, okay? Raul said, as they started up the slope.

  The singer had finally given up her lament and was simply slumped in her chair, eyes still closed, smoking her dope. The only sound was the sobbing of one of the crucified, and even that had dwindled as they advanced, until it was barely audible.

  “Just look at the ground,” Tesla told Phoebe. “It’s no use breaking our hearts.”

  Eyes downcast, they continued to climb. Tesla was horribly tempted to look up at the victims, but she resisted. Raul was right. There was nothing they could do.

  Up ahead, the singer was talking to herself in her blissed-out state.

  “Hey, Laguna . . . ? You hear me? I got them, I got right there. Right there. White they are. So white. You wouldn’t believe how—”

  Tesla put the gun to the woman’s temple. The stream of consciousness stopped abruptly, and the woman’s eyes flickered open. She was by no means a beauty: her skin was leathery, her eyes tiny and surrounded with coarse bristles, her mouth—which was similarly ringed—was twice the width of any human mouth, her teeth tiny, pointed—perhaps sharpened—and innumerable. Despite her drugged condition, she plainly understood her jeopardy.

  “I’ll sing some more,” she said.

  “Don’t bother,” Tesla replied. “Just point us to the door.”

  “You’re not one of the Blessedm’n’s company?”

  “No.”

  “Are you Sapas Humana?” she said.

  “No. I’m just the lady with the gun,” Tesla said.

  “You are, aren’t you?” the singer replied, her gaze going back and forth between the two women. “You’re Sapas Humana! Oh, this is wonderful.”

  “Are you listening to me?” Tesla said.

  “Yes. You want the door. It’s there.” Without looking round she pointed off into the mist.

  “How far?”

  “A little way. But why would you want to leave? There’s nothing on the other side but more of this mist and a filthy sea. Here’s where the wonders are, in the Helter Incendo. Among Humana, like you.”

  “Wonders?” said Phoebe.

  “Oh yes, oh yes,” the woman enthused, ignoring the gun that was still pointed at her head. “We’ve lived a shadow-life in the Ephemeris, dreaming of being here, where things are pure and real.”

  My God, is she in for a disappointment, Raul remarked.

  But there was more here than a misinformed tourist. “Isn’t the Iad coming through this door?” Tesla asked her.

  She smiled. “Oh yes,” she said, almost dreamily.

  “So why are you hanging around?”

  “We’re waiting to greet them.”

  “Then you’ll never see the wonders of the Helter Incendo, will you?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the Iad’s coming to destroy it.”

  The woman laughed. Threw back her head and laughed. “Who told you that?” she said.

  Tesla didn’t answer though she had no difficulty remembering. The first person she’d heard that from had been Kissoon. Not perhaps the most reliable of sources. But then hadn’t she had the theory supported on several occasions since? It was D’Amour’s belief, for certain. According to him the Iad was the Enemy of Mankind, the Devil by another name. And hadn’t Grillo told her of men and women across the continent who listed on the Reef the weapons they’d use to defend themselves if, or rather when, the holocaust occurred?

  Still the woman laughed. “The Iad’s coming here for the same reason that I came,” she said. “They want to live among miracles.”

  “There aren’t any,” Phoebe piped up. “Not here.”

  The singer grew serious. “Perhaps you’ve lived with them for so long,” she said, “you don’t see them.”

  Ask her about the crucifixions, Raul prompted.

  “Damn right,” Tesla thought. “What about them?” she said, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder.

  “The Blessedm’n wanted that. They’re spies, he said; enemies of peace.”

  “Why kill them that way?” Phoebe said. “It’s so horrible.”

  The singer looked genuinely confounded. “The Blessedm’n said it was best for them.”

  “Best for them?” Tesla said, appalled. “That?”

  “Don’t you have it in one of your holy books? A god dies that way—”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And he’s reunited with his father, or his mother.”

  “Father,” said Phoebe.

  “Forgive my ignorance. I’ve no memory for stories. Songs; that’s a different matter. I hear a song once, and I’ve got it for life. But a joke, or a piece of a gossip, or even a god-tale”—she snapped her fingers—“forgotten!”

  Suppose she’s telling the truth, Raul muttered.

&
nbsp; “About crucifixions?”

  About the Iad. Maybe we’ve had the whole thing wrong from the beginning.

  “And they’re just coming to see the sights?” Tesla replied. “I don’t think so. Remember the Loop?” She brought her one and only glimpse of the Iad to mind now, in all its vastness and foulness. Even now, after five years, the memory made her queasy. Perhaps the Iad was not the Enemy of Mankind, the Evil One itself, but nor had it seemed to have love and peace on its collective mind.

  “Will you join with me?” the singer was saying.

  “Doing what?” Tesla said.

  “She asked if she could smoke,” Phoebe said. “Didn’t you hear her?”

  “I was thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “About how fucking confused I am.”

  The singer was stroking the tip of her reefer with a match flame. Whatever she was smoking, it wasn’t hashish. The smoke was almost sickly sweet, like cinnamon and sugar. She inhaled deeply.

  “Again,” Tesla said. “Inhale again.” The woman looked mystified, but obeyed. “And again,” Tesla said, nudging the gun against the woman’s head for emphasis. The woman duly inhaled two more lungfuls. “That’s it,” Tesla said, as a soporific smile spread over the woman’s face, and her eyelids began to flutter closed. “One more for luck.”

  The woman raised the reefer to her lips and inhaled a final time. Halfway through doing so the drug claimed her consciousness. Her hand dropped to her side, the cigarette falling from her fingers. Tesla picked it up, nipped off the burning weed, and pocketed the rest.

  “You never know,” she said to Phoebe. “Let’s get going.”

  Only now, as they started off the slope again, did Tesla realize that the sound of sobbing had completely ceased. The last of the spies—crucified as an indulgence of their faith—had died. There was no harm now in looking.

  Don’t—Raul warned her, but it was too late. She was already turning, already seeing.

  Kate Farrell was hanging on the middle cross, her belly bared and lacerated. On her left hand they’d nailed Edward. On her right—