Bramble turned back to Eldridge. "Well then, you’re way ahead of us." Did Eldridge know—really know? Maybe he’d spill it. "What’s it for?"
"Don’t play stupid with me. You know exactly what this is." He thrust it closer. "And so did I the instant I touched it. I found it in a creek bed where I used to fish. When I discovered it was only a fraction as large as it looked—no bigger than an aspirin, really—I knew. It’s unnatural. It breaks the laws of God’s nature, and that can mean only one thing: It comes from Hell."
Bramble could think of other things it could mean, but the wild light in Eldridge’s good eye convinced him to keep them to himself.
"But what’s it supposed to do?"
Eldridge cooled as quickly as he’d flared. "In the wrong hands—your hands—it will bring Satan’s realm—your realm—to this world! But it was delivered into my hands to safeguard from Satan and his minions. I will not fail in that responsibility."
Bramble stifled a groan. This guy’s gears were missing a lot of teeth. And he had a gun.
"We don’t know anything about Satan, mister. We were just looking for some small stuff we could take off with and hock. I assure you, sir, we wouldn’t want anything from Hell."
George chimed in. "No way. We’re not interested in Hell."
"Of course you are! Look at you! You’re from Hell!" He pointed to the tips of George’s arms, writhing where they protruded from the coils that bound him. "You! You’re demonic! Some sort of sea demon!" He swung on Bramble. "And you! You’re not even human! That skin, those hands—don’t try to tell me they were designed in Heaven!"
"We’re as human as you," George said. "It’s just that our genes—"
"You are Hellspawn sent here to steal back this object that your master lost!"
"Hellspawn?" George said, sounding pissed. "I’m from Missouri, for Christsake!"
"Don’t you dare take His name in vain! I’ll show you! By all that’s holy, I’ll show you! I’m going to send you back to the Hell you came from!"
He rushed out of the room and returned a few seconds later waving a sword—one of those Japanese models with the long curved blade. He twirled it around like he thought he was Bruce Lee or something.
Kind of laughable until Bramble looked in his eye. What he saw there drove a fist into his bladder.
He’s going to kill us.
"This blade was forged by a heathen, but it has been cleansed by holy fire. Now it’s fit to do God’s work."
George wailed, "You can’t be serious!"
"I’m sending the two of you back where you came from. I can’t risk my house by using the traditional cleansing fire, so I’ll have to settle for second best. Don’t worry. I’m not cruel. I’m told decapitation is painless."
Bramble felt his branchlets spasm into tiny frightened fists.
Eldridge’s good eyebrow rose as he focused on them.
"What are those? Hands? Little extra hands. How disgusting. How nauseating."
"Don’t cut them off!" George said. "Whatever you do, don’t cut them off!"
Bramble stared at him. What the hell—?
"Silence!" Eldridge shouted. "You’re hardly in a position to make requests or demands."
"But he can’t live without them!"
What?
Eldridge stepped closer. "Is that so?" He smiled. "I think I’m going to like this. Doing the Lord’s work while whittling a thieving demon into a more human shape. Blessed be His name."
With that he flicked his wrists and the katana dipped. Bramble watched in horror as it sliced through the root of one of his shoulder branchlets. It wasn’t the pain, because there was very little of that. It was the act itself, the madness of it, the inhumanity—
He heard George scream, "No!" in what sounded like genuine horror.
But Bramble had told him—
Ah. Now he saw it. George wanted him to use the branchlets for something—to untie them, most likely.
Good thinking, Georgie.
Bramble had a better idea. But to implement it he needed lots of branchlets on the loose.
So he cried out in pain and said, "No! Please, no! I’ll die!"
No mercy in Eldridge’s eye as he smiled and said, "That’s the whole idea, demon."
And so the old man began a systematic trimming of the branchlets while Bramble faked agony. The blood leaking from the stumplets was not enough to matter.
He willed the branchlets to conserve their energy by lying still, while he pretended to grow progressively weaker.
Finally, when Eldridge had worked through two dozen or so, Bramble slumped forward, feigning unconsciousness.
"You’ve killed him!" he heard George cry.
"Not quite. I can see him breathing. But we’re almost there. And then it will be your turn. I think it only fitting that I send you home to your master without those demonic appendages. What do you think?"
George wailed, "No, please! Bramble, do something."
Yeah. He’d had enough of this. Time to move—or at least set the branchlets into motion.
He commanded half of them to sprint the short distance to Eldridge’s legs—over his shoes, under his coverall cuffs, and up his legs.
Eldridge cried out and jitterbugged away. Must have felt as if he had a herd of tarantulas crawling up his legs. He dropped the sword and began slapping at the lumps beneath the fabric. Bramble felt the blows but they weren’t painful and even less effective. He stifled his revulsion at the shared contact with Eldridge’s hairless shins and calves, and his even more disgusting thighs.
When all dozen branchlets were in place, he made them stop where they were and set down roots.
This time Eldridge cried out in pain as well as terror.
Bramble straightened and watched the man’s panicked eye, his agonized face.
"You removed them from me, Mister Eldridge, now they’ve got to find a new home. You cut them off from one blood supply, now they must find another."
He glanced at George and saw him staring in horror and wonder. Bramble caught his eye and winked.
"They’ll soon bleed you dry, Mister Eldridge."
He guided the second wave up the outside of Eldridge’s coveralls—the backside where he couldn’t see or feel them.
When they fastened to the back of his neck and throat, Eldridge screamed even louder. He clawed at them, leaving oozing wounds where he tore some free. He tossed them across the room, but no matter—they came scuttling back to climb his clothing again.
"If you cut off these ropes here," Bramble said, "maybe I can help you out."
"Oh, I’ll cut something off you, all right," Eldridge shouted as he knelt and retrieved the katana. "Your head! That’ll stop them!"
Bramble didn’t know how Eldridge had guessed that, but he was right. Without him to control them, the branchlets would drop off and die.
As Eldridge reared up and raised the katana over his head, Bramble began to wriggle away, kicking with his feet and sliding his butt along the floor, but it was hopeless.
Then he spotted one of the branchlets on Eldridge’s right shoulder. He leaped it onto the crazy old man’s good eye and had it set down roots in its pupil.
Eldridge screeched and dropped the katana as he clutched at his eye. His trembling fingers fluttered over the branchlet as if unsure what to do. After a few seconds of hesitation, he grabbed it and yanked.
His scream was awful to hear. Yes, he had pulled the branchlet free, but his eye had come with it. Blood gushed from the empty socket as he dropped to his knees and jammed his hands over it. The branchlet ran in circles, leaving a bloody spiral as it dragged the eyeball and a trailing remnant of optic nerve around the floor.
As Bramble recalled the other branchlets to put them to work on the knots, he heard George retching.
"No!" Eldridge screamed, reaching a bloody hand into one of his pockets. "You won’t win! You’ll never win!"
He pulled out the Piece and shoved it into his mouth. Bramble saw his th
roat work as he swallowed.
11
"Better call Oz," Bramble said. "Tell him we have a situation."
George couldn’t take his eyes off the old man lying on the floor, curled into a fetal position as he moaned and cupped his empty eye socket.
The branchlets had freed Bramble who had in turn untied George.
"‘Situation’? Is that what you call this? This is no ‘situation,’ this is a horror show! We’re fucked!"
"Easy, Georgie," Bramble said.
How could he be easy when he’d just been tied up and threatened with amputation and beheading? His tentacles wouldn’t stop quivering.
"What’re we going to do? When the cops—"
"We didn’t ask for this mess."
"Yeah, but we caused it. If we’d stayed back with the show none of this would have ever happened."
"But it did. I’m gonna call Oz. Drop it in his lap. Let him figure it out."
Wondering how Bramble could stay so cool, George watched him pull out the cell phone Oz had given them—in case of trouble, he’d said.
God, if I’d only known.
Bramble hit a number on the speed dial, then handed it to George. When Oz answered he gave him a quick rundown of all that had happened. Oz listened in silence until the end.
"He swallowed the Piece?"
That’s it? George thought. That’s your only comment?
"Yeah. But what do we do with him? Bring him in and wait till it comes out the other end?"
Oz laughed. "No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll send Mister Tarantello. He’ll take care of things. This is the last Piece. We can leave nothing to chance."
George wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. Did Oz use Tarantello like Mr. Wolfe in Pulp Fiction?
"But—"
"Tie up Mister Eldridge and leave everything else as is. This wasn’t how I’d hoped the evening would go, but I suppose we have to take what we’re offered. The important thing is that the Piece will soon be reunited with its brethren."
"To do what?" George couldn’t help asking. "The old man said if it fell into the wrong hands it could be used to bring Satan’s realm to this world. He’s crazy, right?"
"Did he mean Hell on Earth? Well, from a certain perspective . . ."
"Yeah?" George said into the lengthening pause. "Go on."
"Never mind. Tie him up and leave. I’ll be waiting here." Oz laughed again. "Hell on Earth . . . I like that."
And then he hung up.
12
Oz waited in his trailer, sitting and drumming his fingers. He glanced at the clock: well after midnight. Where was Tarantello?
And then the door opened and a dapper figure stepped through, carrying a black leather sample case.
"What took you so long?"
Tarantello grinned. "I guess I was having too much fun."
"You have the Piece?"
"Of course."
Oz closed his eyes. At last . . . at last he had all of them. He prayed the books were right: That at a certain time, in a certain place, the Device could do what they promised.
Tarantello had his case open. He held up a cobalt golf ball.
"Here is what you seek, I believe."
Oz took it and cradled it in his palm as his brain tried to reconcile how the Piece looked with how it felt.
Tarantello held up an onyx box. "Here is his contribution to the Fuel supply. And last, and possibly least, a little lagniappe, courtesy of Mister Eldridge."
He handed Oz a jar containing a milky eyeball floating in clear liquid.
"Unusual," Oz said. "Thank you."
"You’re quite welcome. I already have something similar in my collection, but this . . . this." He held up another, somewhat larger container. "Here is something truly unique."
The jar contained another eyeball, but with one of Bramble’s branchlets attached to its cornea.
Tarantello fairly glowed with pride. "No one else has one of these."
Oz gazed at the Piece in his hand. "And no one else has one of these. Now all we need do is wait for the right moment." He glanced at the calendar where he had September 21 circled. "And that’s not far away. Not far at all."
Cape May County, NJ
1
"I don't know what my uncle is thinking these days," Ginger said.
She stood outside George's trailer and stared at the darkened main top looming under the overcast night sky. The circus seemed to be crumbling around her. Even that artist, Caniglia, had blown the show. They were due in Towson, Maryland tomorrow. Why wasn't anyone striking the canvas?
"I mean, why have we been playing all these one-horse dates in Jersey anyway?"
"Your Uncle Joe hasn't done much more than smoke his pipe since June," George said. "He won't listen to Shuman and Nolan anymore. It's Oz. He's in charge and he's just been killing time until tonight."
"How do you know?"
"It's all in the book."
That book. That damn book. George spent every free waking moment buried in it. Their sex life had dropped to zilch.
"Okay, what's so special about tonight besides being the last day of summer and the day before your birthday? For which, by the way, I’ve planned something very special. The surprise of your life."
She could barely wait.
He didn't seem to hear. "It's the equinox."
"So?"
"So a lot of weird stuff happens during the equinox. The weirdest thing the world has ever seen could happen during this one."
George seemed bothered by the strangest things lately. He'd made such a big deal about Oz trading in his car and a couple of the trucks for a number of off-road vehicles.
"I'm going to take a look around, see what’s going on," George said.
She didn't want to pout but her lower lip seemed to push out on its own. "I thought you were going to stay with me tonight. You'll be twenty-three at midnight and—"
"I'll only be a few minutes."
He gave her a quick kiss and walked off. Thoroughly frustrated, Ginger watched him disappear into the darkness, then went inside. Hard to believe how attached she'd become to George. Just a little over three months ago, after Carlo got hurt, she'd been sickened by the thought of touching him, now she couldn't imagine living without him. She had to snap him out of this.
Because she had a birthday surprise for him.
And the best way she could think of to surprise him was to get naked. Quickly she stripped off her clothes, wishing she were in her own trailer where she could put on something sexy and wait for him. But she was in George's, so buck-naked would have to do. She was just stepping out of her panties when she heard the door open behind her. She whirled.
"Surpri—!"
The word died in her throat. It was Oz.
He towered over her, looking like a scientist staring down at a bug. Ginger turned to run but he caught her arm and roughly pulled her around. She tried to cover herself with her free arm.
"Where is he?" The voice boomed through the room. "Where's my book?"
"Not here!" Her voice sounded so tiny after Oz's. "Let me go!"
"You'll tell me or so help me—!"
He reached for his waist. For a blood-freezing second Ginger thought he was going to unbuckle his belt and visions of being raped by Oz sliced through her mind. But his hand stopped above his belt, at his lowest shirt button. As he undid it he pulled her closer and shoved her hand—her arm—into the gap. There was no skin there, just a warm, moist empty space that—
Something hard clamped onto her arm just below the elbow.
She screamed and tried to pull free but she was trapped. How? How? She screamed louder and struggled harder as something soft and coarse and very wet squirmed against her forearm, layering it with thick fluid. She retched and looked up at Oz.
Oz said nothing. His eyes were steely, his smile a hard, thin line as he pulled his shirt open, sending the buttons flying in all directions. Fearfully, Ginger lowered her gaze to see what had trapped h
er arm. She screamed again as the room swam around her.
A mouth. Oh, God, a mouth!
There, in Oz's belly, along his waistline, a huge lipless mouth. Thick, heavy, yellow teeth the size of cigarette packs had clamped down on her arm. The huge tongue within licked her hand again, then spit her out.
Ginger tumbled back and sprawled on the thin carpet, only dimly aware of her nakedness. Part of her could think of nothing but wiping the smelly saliva off her arm, while the rest of her would not allow her eyes to turn away from the hideous deformities of Oz's torso.
For the huge mouth was only part of the horror. Above it, just below the breastbone . . . a vague lump that resembled a nose. And above that sat two egg-size eyes—white as eggs, too. So white they could only be blind, but they moved and fixed their blank stare on her.
"No further need for pretense," said the belly mouth in Oz's voice while the normal mouth in the head hung slack and immobile.
Ginger realized that Oz must have spoken through the belly mouth all along, with the head mouth merely lip-synching the words. He stepped closer, towering over her. She tried to crawl away but had nowhere to go.
"I'm not going to hurt you. That would be gratuitous—especially at this juncture. I simply want the book. I noticed it was missing tonight and could think of only one person who might have taken it. Give it to me. Now!"
The deafening volume of the last word shattered her nerve. Sobbing, unable to speak, she pointed a trembling finger to the bottom drawer of the bureau to her right. Oz went to it and retrieved the old book. Then he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and tossed it at her.
"Give that to George. Tell him to meet the rest of us at the bald spot if he wants to witness the remaking of the world."
Then he turned and was gone.
2
George wrapped his arms around Ginger. Her clothes were back on but he felt her shiver and shudder as she told him what had happened.
"But he didn't hurt you? He didn't . . ."
George could barely bring himself to think about it, let alone say it.