The horsing around of two black women in the back of the crowd suddenly turned to screaming, and the others tried to separate them.
“Now,” Proctor insisted. “She’s at the church, alone! We’ve got to go now! Break up, and we’ll meet on the steps and batter down the door with our lust!”
As the unruly group began to move forward the captain fell in beside the white-haired man. “Do you think you can keep them all together?”
Proctor looked up at the black face. “I know I can’t. Some will slip off by accident, some by design. Oh, these demons will haunt the good folk throughout this town—” He paused to yell instructions: “You go down by way of the docks. You three move off to the Hill. We don’t want to attract attention.” He turned back to the captain. “But enough will be there to ornament the debacle handsomely, Captain. And I have you, you black devil! I have you! I’ll squeeze the juices from your black fruit into that sphinx’ monstrous hole yet—oh, she’ll be able to take you, Captain! You’ll defile the equalized altars of day and night, and this world will come tumbling around us! We have hours till midnight, and your fires are mounting again. I can tell the way your eyes flash in the moon.” And the captain’s long, low laughter cut the shrill cries of the scattering figures who disappeared off through the streets.
“You high, nigger?”
“Oh, man, I’m so high! You high?”
“Flyin’, boy. That stuff is fine!”
Jomo, Sambo and Jeb lurched and bumbled through the dock’s junk.
“Man, I got to take a wicked piss.”
“We gonna have to get up there with Proctor soon.”
“Well, this black snake of mine is gonna get pretty riled if I don’t let him spit. Nigger, I’m gonna pee on your foot—”
“Shit—”
“Hey, look at that sleepy white man curled down there. Ain’t he a-snorin’ away, on his back, with his mouth open.”
“You ain’t gonna—”
“If there’s one thing that makes me happier than a white boy drinkin’ my piss, it’s a white man.”
They gathered below the dock.
“You two grab him when he starts to fight.”
“There—”
“We got him for you—”
“In the face—”
Robby swallowed wet and bitter, came up gagging and blind to be struck down by feet and hard hands. They were laughing.
“Hold him there—yeah, keep his head back. Look at him take that stuff right down!”
“He don’t look like he likes that at all—!”
“You better swallow, boy, or you gonna drown in nigger piss!”
Fingers in his mouth—one hand over his nose, one pulling down over his chin—kept his teeth apart.
“Stick it right on in. Right on down.”
Robby got one hand loose and struck at the canvas covered legs. Iron behind the cloth. He thought he was falling, slapped the ground to balance. A bare foot pinned his hand, bruising it.
“Hey, look at this cocksucker—”
He couldn’t get breath.
“You better swallow, or you gonna die—”
He couldn’t swallow for gagging. His tongue blunted on the flesh that flooded him. One of them wiped his hands over his face—so hard it hurt—and he could see: a big buckle and splattered cloth, very near. Then the ridged black belly, small head far away. But grinning. The nigger swung his hand—still grinning—and Robby’s ear clanged with the smack. One eye went blazing blind. But jarred into him. He got one gasp without taking in water.
The knuckles came back the other way. With the pain, urine flushed his eyes. He reeled under their hands and his hand was still clamped on the ground.
He swallowed.
When they dropped him he went down clutching at their ankles. His face rolled over a foot. As he knuckled his eyes, toes struck his cheek. He curled on his side. Glancing up, he saw a fist slide up a dick. “Motherfucker—” the fisherman drawled, puckered his lips to a prune. He kicked again. Robby gaped with pain.
The fisherman spat.
Robby swallowed out of surprise: froth, and thicker than froth. He rolled his head aside, while their laughter unraveled.
“Come on, nigger! This is the third white face you been in tonight.”
“We better get on back to Proctor, before he gets where he’s goin’.”
“Did me good to see him drink it down!”
“Shit, you’d a’ thought that son of a bitch didn’t like it none, hey?”
“He sure gonna feel funny in a little while when that stuff hits!”
They laughed, and the laughter moved up the bank.
Robby scrubbed his palm on his mouth. He got to his knees. His jaw hurt. He pulled his wet shirt from his chest, let it flop back. He pulled the thigh of his pants out with his fingertips. He stood, frowning. His left foot was awash in his shoe.
He walked up the bank from under the dock. He slipped once, and barked a curse. His voice died quivering. He gained the concrete, looked along the boats; looked down at himself. Looked across the street. One corner of his mouth kept twitching. He lurched across the street, ducked into the alley as two men appeared from behind a further boat. He turned to watch them in the moon’s light.
“You know, Father, probably, like I said, he got out of town as soon as he ran away from the girl.” That was an immense, shirtless creature, shaven skull, mat-chested, whose boots thumped the wharf boards and whose voice sounded like a rasp doing something to rock. And he was swinging a rifle against his hip.
“But, Sheriff, we can’t take any chance! We just can’t allow a beast like that to roam our streets, attacking women. If you had seen what that monster had done to the poor, poor child.” That was the priest! “If you had seen!”
“You just point him out to me, and I’ll blow his fuckin’ head off—excuse me, Father. But I’m just saying I don’t think it’s very likely you will.”
“If he isn’t down here by the docks, Sheriff, I think we can probably assume you’re right. They’ll catch him in one of the towns along the coast here. I just hope they get him before he kills some other innocent creature.”
Horror struck through Robby like long crystals forming. He pulled back against the wall as they passed the alley entrance. And almost gagged again.
“When we work our way down to the end of the docks, then I’m afraid you’ll have to turn me loose. I promised I’d do some work for Proctor before the night was up. He needs me.”
They passed beyond his vision.
Robby ran down the narrow street. His shirt was a cold tongue lapping his chest. His pant leg went flap, flap. He tried to run close to the wall. Small streets kept emptying him onto bigger ones. He would turn off them again, ducking down behind wooden fences—
Two, ahead of him in workmen’s greens: white and black; he recognized them in the lamp light, and froze. They were laughing, and the white one was elbowing the black one over some stupendous joke. They stopped, looked around.
Robby wasn’t breathing, sure that they had seen him, not knowing why he should fear if they did, but fearing it more than anything.
Then there was an unfamiliar voice.
A figure vaulted over the fence. Robby ground his flank on the wall.
“Where the hell you two guys been? I’ve been huntin’ all over.”
“Tearin’ up a little cunt down in front of St. Mark’s,” Nig said.
“Redheaded whore. Shit, she had some mouth-fillin’ pussy,” Dove said.
A black-haired man, a leather jacket open on a naked chest. And a chain around his neck with a black swastika, silver rimmed: “Bull said he thought it was you two. Look, you better come with me.”
“What for, Nazi?”
“Whyn’t you come with us, Nazi? We still out huntin’.”
“Proctor needs you.”
“Oh.” Then, “Maybe we better go.”
The three hurried away.
Robby felt the bonds with wh
ich he gripped what he knew as real begin to loosen. “Bull,” and he had remembered their description of the lawman. They were searching for him: And the man with the gun who searched for him thought him innocent! He thrilled with unresolvable terror. Turning left, turning right, he ran the labyrinthine alleys, turning again, and turning, now recognizing houses he had passed before, now passing strange porches, fences, windows.
At the cafe, he ducked into the alley, keeping near the wall. Something caught his ankle. He staggered. As he turned to see, it jerked him again; he fell, scraping his palms on brick.
A hand, from between the bars, had grasped his leg, was hauling him back. He grabbed the window edge to push himself away. A second hand came out and caught his wrist.
He kicked, jerked, with his throat constricted so that the sound trying to push out was a gurgle.
“Let me . . . let me out,” rasped from the window. “They forgot to let me out! Proctor needs me!”
He kicked his leg free, tore scabby fingers from his wrist; then he was running. Slapped at a wall to keep from banging into it, and ran again.
The small street dumped him out on the square. He came up short, thirty feet before the dark stones. There was no wind. Shadowed carvings took his eyes upward to the steeple, to lose his vision on crazed, moon-lined clouds, uncurling. There was no wind at all in the street.
Something moved on the church steps.
He looked.
Uncurling, the black shape rose to its feet; barked.
The dog cantered down the steps, paused at the bottom, barked again.
Robby ran.
The paws clicked after him; whatever was solid in him melted and flowed, lost edges and became terror. On a strange street, he turned, grabbed the side of a doorway to keep from falling.
It stood on the corner. Its eye was red glass. Its tongue was foamy meat, shaking over barbs.
The tail whipped the night.
He closed his eyes, shook his head. Looked back. It still stared. Then it took three steps.
His stomach and thighs jerked him to a crouch. His palms stung.
The dog (it is a big dog) trotted into the street. It closed its mouth for a swallow he could hear. The tongue shook out again, shook, shook.
He thought about walking away, just turning and—
The dog barked, sagged back to spring, rushed forward.
He fell in the doorway, rolled over and clambered up the gritty steps.
There was another door at the top. He dove through; curled up and rolled.
Claws scrabbled on the steps.
His teeth were clenched too tight to scream. Shoulder, arm and hip were bruised. He waited and didn’t breathe. He realized he was waiting. And realized there was only silence to wait through.
Opened his eyes.
Beams ran the ceiling. Shadows pulsed on the white plaster between.
He turned his head.
A dragon of tarnished bronze writhed about the candle stub that guttered and flapped its light through the room.
A tiny screeching over metal:
He jerked around to stare at the bird cage. It wasn’t a bird inside.
All his muscles contracted. The back of his hand dragged more grit.
Claws ticked the floor.
He jerked up.
The dog waited.
His body shrank from the beast. The only thing his mind could touch were new facets of fear.
It is a big dog.
On the wall the carcass of a horse fell apart.
Crouching in the livid cage, he, distorted, pawed between her legs. She, grotesque, flopped his gross cock from thigh to thigh. It stayed limp. Flames sputtered about the protecting ribs. Skull and fore-hooves pawed and wagged before the infernal sea where six feet dangled.
The dog sprang.
Robby screamed. Nothing hit.
The black cock and balls rolled off its brass plate, slipped from the table, and flopped to the floor.
Where it fell, blood inched the wood. He snatched his hand away. Jerked again because teeth clicked.
Dog breath lanced his ear. He fell on his belly and began to cry. His cheek slipped on puddled blood.
The dog barked.
As he flailed out, the light went insane. Three candles fell from the window sill. He pulled back, expecting the floor to fire.
Two went out.
He got to his feet. The blood patch burned, flames half an inch above the bright surface as though it were kerosene. He looked at his right hand, which was in pain. Two drops of hot wax dulled on his skin.
The creature in the cage scraped its claws on the bars. He slapped at the puddle. Fire splashed. The whole floor was pocked with amethysts.
His hand stung.
He scraped at the spots, to pry up the wax scales with his thumb nail.
His hand fell off.
His wrist spurted fire. He whirled, waving fire. Fire hit the cage bars. The creature inside shrieked. The bars sagged, dribbled away. The thing leaped, clawing and shrieking, on pale green wings. It walked across the floor on its hind legs, foreclaws scraping at the ceiling beams. Its wings masked out the door behind it. The forelegs thumped down.
The dog ran to grovel between them.
It yawned hugely on flame-colored gums, reared again. Clawed toes splayed in ashes. Amethysts glittered between its talons. The wings made a wind that tugged his hair. The candles about the room roared.
And the tarnished dragon was crawling from around the mash of wax to the table’s edge.
The floor was cluttered with emeralds and cut spinel besides.
On knees and one hand, he crawled the points. Then his hand mashed something soft. He reared back from the crushed flesh. The dog had gotten to its feet again, chin and underbelly flickering in the floor’s litter.
The little dragon leapt to the dog’s back and clung. The great beast that had stepped from the broken cage went “Ahhhhh—” and the heat hit his chin, whirled inside his eye sockets.
The dog was barking. Its second head—beaked and feathered—cawed. The tongue of the third—flat and scaled—slithered and whipped on the bony gum.
The little dragon had slipped to the floor. It hissed and beat translucent wings.
The woman in the carcass was battling to get free. The ribs closed and opened, closed and opened as she crawled in the livid offal. Her arms glistened to the elbows. Her hair fell forward like yarn. She fell; sprawled on the floor; crawled forward dragging coiled horse gut.
His severed hand scuttled through flame toward the three-headed dog that barked at her. The fingers reached up, fell, reached again and grasped at the chimera’s scrotum. The dripping wrist cleared the floor, hauled itself along the sheathed cock. Thumb and forefinger worked the black bristles till the shaft bulged at its half length. The tip rubied the pursed hose of over-flesh. The working fingers massaged the sheath back. The inner shaft, wet, thrust from the husk. Raw in the firelight, it sagged from the hairless belly. The grasping hand thumbed the husk over the bulge.
Niger barked again and sprang at the crawling woman. She stopped shaking her hair. Nervous forepaws scraped her flanks. The dog head yipped. Hawk and snake head made their softest sounds.
Bunched haunches hunched. And hunched. The fingers guided the slick stick between her hams: flexed the wet tip in the hairy sheath; fed the mucus-filmed meat into the meat of her. Her thighs wobbled.
He stared at his delinquent appendage prodding the bestial juncture. He kept trying to breathe. And breath kept snagging on words for which there was no syntax. With his good hand he reached for her hair. It was dry and crisp. He pulled it back.
“Kiss me . . .” she whispered from bad teeth. Her lips shook with the hound’s rhythm. Blind sockets dribbled ocher down her nose.
Snake, dog, and bird breath were rank.
She seized his lower lip in her loose, brown mouth. And she was pulling at his maimed arm, holding it to her stomach, hauling him closer. Her dugs swung against his bicep.
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A tickling at the stump became pain. He tore his mouth from her (blood bubbled inside his lips and drooled his chin) to see she had a penis, the blotched color of a new bruise, jutting from her hair. She jabbed his wound, laid it along the bone. With the dog on her back, she humped his glowing stub, He jerked away.
She howled and reared, almost unmounting the beast on her. Blood from her clotted cock drooled her thigh.
He rolled on floor, cuddling his aching wrist, eyes tight. He lay on his back. His breath made multiple S sounds between clamped teeth.
There was a delicate pressure about his thigh, then tiny, needling pains in his groin. He opened his eyes.
His pants were below his knees. Perched on his thigh, the little dragon nuzzled and nipped at the base of his cock. And the waving shadows of the great dragon’s wing fell on him. He snatched his hand to his face to block his eyes.
He had no hand.
Scales swung above him. Ruby insects worried her flanks. Scales broke away at the wrinkled haunch. The bare flesh reddened toward the dribbling eruption below her tail. He rolled out of the way of a hinder talon that scratched through the coals.
The little beast clawed to keep its footing.
The great worm twisted her head toward him, blinked one fist-sized eye, waddling, tail beating sparks from the cinders over the floor.
He sat up: she squatted, mushing her hole, like a hack in bad fruit, on his face. He thrust out his tongue through blind moments while insects chattered at his ears. But she lumbered on, leaving him reeling, nauseated by fumes of acetone. His face and eyes were filmed with her juice.
He tried to wipe it away, and his hand balked, slipped, stuck again against the silt that gummed his lids. The points of light about the burning floor were haloed and gauzed prisms. And the beast, glimmering in opal veils, heaved aside piles of smoke.
The black captain waited. In the embers, the rime on his feet glowed. The chain about his left ankle was bright black: a crescent of sweaty skin below one knee, and the underlength of his veined erections (its shadow slanted up his chest) gleamed: so did the bottoms of his lips; and his nostril rims; and the brass at his ear; and the roofs of his eyes.