by Eoin Colfer
Franco wasn’t laughing.
“Get off the bike,” he said, rain and drool spilling in strings off his chin.
The drooling should have given Rissole a hint that something wasn’t right here. But he was too busy being the tough guy.
“What did you say, Franco?”
The thing that looked like his next-door neighbor growled—yes, actually growled, at him.
“My name is not Franco, and I said get off the bike.”
Rissole sighed. He’d given him a chance. Been nice and everything. What choice did he have except to dish out a few punches?
“Now, listen to me Kelly . . .” he began, flicking down the stand with his boot. That was all he said, except for “Aaaeerrgghhh.” Which is not really a word. But the reason that he screamed “Aaaeerrgghhh” was that Franco had bitten him savagely on the wrist.
Rissole collapsed on the tarmac, gibbering. He’d been in a hundred barroom brawls, but this! This was different. Animal.
“Calm down, Franco,” he stuttered, holding his injured forearm close to his chest. “What’s the problem?”
Belch squatted down. He could smell fear. It was nice.
“No problem,” he grunted. “I need your bike.”
Rissole opened his mouth to object. Then he noticed a trickle of blood rolling from the corner of Franco’s lips.
“Okay. Take it. Take it.”
Belch nodded. Pleased with the consternation he was causing. “There’s something else,” he said.
“Yes. What? Anything. Anything.”
Belch rubbed the sleeve of Rissole’s biker jacket.
“Your clothes. Take them off.”
Flit, the tunnel mite, was up for probation. He was feeling very insecure at the moment, sitting in front of the great Saint Peter wearing nothing but a cheesy grin and a sooty old loincloth.
“Sooo,” mused Peter, calling up Flit’s file on his monitor. “Tell me you’ve changed.”
Flit’s head bobbed enthusiastically. “Flit changed. Much changed. Different I entirely.”
Peter sighed. “I’m not feeling it, Flit. Make me believe it.” There were those who said, very quietly, that Saint Peter spent far too much time with his monitor tuned to terrestrial talk shows, and was beginning to fancy himself an amateur sociologist.
“Flit worky hard. All the time. Worky worky worky. Never stop to suck stones like Crank and other mites.”
“I see. And are you sorry, Flit? Do you regret your crimes?”
Flit squeezed an aquamarine tear from the corner of his eye. “Oh yes. Sorry in every bone. Cry all time. When not worky worky worky. Poor poor people. How could Flit take their money? Bad Flit, bad!”
Flit slapped himself on the wrist to demonstrate his remorse. Not too hard.
“Hmm,” said Peter doubtfully. “I suppose you have filled your baskets. But before I grant you access to everlasting bliss, there’s just one question.” He leaned forward until they were nose-to-nose. “And remember, you cannot lie. Instant disqualification.”
The tunnel mite’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Flit remember. No lie.”
Peter settled back. “Good. If you arrived at the gates, and they were unguarded, would you sneak in?”
Flit wrung his bony fingers. He couldn’t lie. Peter would smell it in every pore of his blue body.
“Yes,” he cried in anguish. “Flit would. Sneak right in. Tiptoe tip. True, true, true. Bad but true.”
Peter’s face was stony. A poker face.
“Hmm,” he said reaching for the limbo button. “I don’t know. It’s just so close. Okay, so you told the truth, but the truth was bad. If only you’d ever done something to help somebody. Something selfless.”
Flit racked his addled brain. How could he have helped somebody since his last interview? He’d been in the tunnel. And nobody ever stopped long enough to be helped. Flit sucked in a sharp breath. Nobody except . . .
“Sainty gateman,” he blurted. “No press button, pull lever. Flit help. Flit help girl.”
Something in the tunnel mite’s tone stayed Peter’s hand.
“Flit help what girl?”
The coupé sped west, crunching the cross-country miles. Outside the streamlined bodywork, nature mixed some turmoil in the skies. Stirring up rain in the bellies of clouds, and throwing lightning bolts across their underbellies. Real melodramatic stuff.
The car’s occupants weren’t saying much. The end was coming, one way or the other. They both knew it. It was just a question of which one of them would go through the tunnel first. And when that person came to the fork, would it be up, or down . . . ?
Lowrie’s heart was on its last few beats. He could feel the organ shutting down, every spurt of blood a struggle. The pills were no good anymore. Every breath could be his last. It felt worse now, somehow. Now that he had rediscovered himself. There was more to lose.
Meg felt as if she should be somewhere else. Somewhere blue. The tunnel’s heartbeat was pumping through her veins. She had only hours left. Maybe minutes.
They had to drive clear across Ireland to reach the Cliffs of Moher. But as any American will tell you, they spit further’n that. But in spite of geography, the journey seemed a long one. Especially with the regrets of two souls swirling around the cab like depressed fog.
Finally, three hours and countless picture-postcard towns later, they made it. The Cliffs of Moher. Closed. Or so the sign said.
“Closed?” scoffed Meg. “How can you close a cliff?”
Lowrie pointed to the chain across the parking lot entrance. “Just like that.”
It made sense, really. The drizzle had thickened to full-blown rain, and a treacherous wind was rocking the car on its axles. Blustery clouds were threatening lightning. Positive and negative charges gearing up for the big grounding.
“Hmm,” mumbled Lowrie.
A sudden gust of wind could catch hold of a person on those cliffs and whip them into the abyss. Not to mention the fact that you’d be a virtual lightning rod standing tip up on that plateau.
Meg read the emotions swirling above his head. “You’re right,” she said. “We should give up.”
Lowrie opened the door with his shoulder. “There’ll be no more giving up. Not today.”
And he was gone into the storm.
Saint Peter was trying not to think about it. Concentrate on something else, he told himself. Your desk, or those exotic birds, or the splendor of the tunnel. Or one of the other things he’d been staring at for the last two thousand years.
It was forbidden, strictly forbidden, to get involved. Oh, but it would be sweet to snatch a soul from under Bub’s fangs. Sure, his demonic counterpart made noises about being replaced, but he would weather the storm. And if the girl deserved an interview at the Pearlies, then that’s what she should receive.
But there was no point even thinking about it. Interference was out of the question. Every single time spirits got involved, things went horribly astray. Angels and mortals. Oil and water. They don’t mix.
It’d be different if Beelzebub had sent in a Soul Man. Then he’d just be evening up the odds. Everyone deserved an equal shot at redemption. Even the Man Himself agreed with that. Every sparrow on the branch, and so on.
So, Peter persuaded himself, Beelzebub, being a demon, had most likely sent someone back to retrieve the Irish girl’s soul. In that case, it was his angelic duty to send someone for a peek down the tunnel. Just to see what was going on.
A flimsy argument, true. But Peter was a tad bored after two thousand years on that marble chair.
The Cliffs of Moher were an awesome sight, even for someone who’d traveled the length of the tunnel. They loomed above the ocean. Vast sheets of gray rock, arranged in a ragged horseshoe over the roughest patch of coastline in Ireland. It was easy to imagine that the cliffs were the bite pattern of some gigantic prehistoric sea monster.
The wind tugged at Lowrie’s blazer and prodded at the bend in his weak knee. Ra
in found its way into his eyes, obscuring his vision and blurring the cliff’s edge.
“Come on!” he shouted above the crash of the waves. “Before I lose my nerve!”
Ahead, in the distance, a round tower sat perched on the cliff apex. The perfect vantage point.
“It has to be up there, I suppose?”
Lowrie nodded. “Verse twenty-two. The very top.”
Meg scowled, slipping into Lowrie’s head for the last time. It was hard. Very hard. Like climbing through a wall of slick mud.
“Are you there?” asked Lowrie.
An ominous question. He should be able to feel her immediately. Her youth and vitality. But now her strength was barely greater than his.
Meg flexed the old man’s fingers. “Yes. I’m here. Just about. Don’t go away, though. It’ll take two of us to climb this hill.”
They turned into the wind and put Lowrie’s weight into it. Of course, Lowrie, being an old bachelor, weighed about as much as a sack of feathers and would be more use as a hang glider than a paperweight. You could almost hear the wind snickering.
But they kept going, squatting low to the ground at first, then on hands and knees. Meg opened Lowrie’s mouth to complain, but a gust of wind saw its chance and sent a swirling tendril of compressed air down his gullet, with a few leaves mixed in for good measure. Meg kept the mouth shut after that.
Franco’s body was just a husk at this stage. Belch was sucking his juices as fast as his neuro cortex could absorb them.
“Good stuff,” he dribbled, orange gunge slathered over his ecto chops.
“You might consider pacing yourself,” commented Elph, effortlessly floating abreast of the Goldwing. “Save some essence for the assault. There will be some mayhem to be created when we reach the target zone.”
“Maybe I should turn you off. Save some energy.”
Elph laughed. “Turn me off! And leave you in charge of the mission! That would be akin to asking a baboon to program the video recorder.”
That was probably an insult, but Belch didn’t waste time thinking about it. He didn’t have the energy. Franco’s fluids were running out fast. They were coming in spurts now, rather than a steady flow. He felt like a kid chasing the last drop of cola with a straw. This was going to be a real nail-biter of a finish.
Meg looked up to check their progress. “I don’t believe it, she groaned. “We’re farther away!”
She knew it wasn’t true, that it only felt like that, but she couldn’t help being disheartened all the same. The rain was pummeling them now. Drops the size of bull’s-eyes lashed onto Lowrie’s bare scalp. His heart was hopping like a jackhammer in a hole, and his limbs were weakening from irregular blood supply. Meg poured her strength into him. Every ounce she had. But it wasn’t going to be enough. It was just too far.
“Come on, Lowrie!” she shouted. “Do it here! For God’s sake. This isn’t important. Not like Sissy. Just spit and go home.”
Deep inside his own mind Lowrie considered it. He was killing what was left of this girl, and for what? The memory of a lullaby? She was right. He was a stupid old man.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it here.”
“At last. You’ve switched on your brain.”
She turned Lowrie’s back to the wind and leaned against the safety fence. It was at least four feet on the other side to the cliff’s edge. She’d have to go over.
“Remember,” Lowrie advised her. “You might be able to fly. But I can’t. Not yet.”
“Don’t tempt me,” grunted Meg, straddling the fence. Keeping one hand on the top rail, she edged toward the drop. The boom of the waves traveled up the sheer wall to pour over them like a physical force. It was awesome, terrifying.
Meg sniffed mightily, summoning a big ball of spit. “Ere wee oo,” she mumbled around the liquid, and let fly. Right onto Lowrie’s $300 shoes. Why didn’t anything ever go right the first time?
“Well?” growled Belch. “You see anything?”
“Quiet!” snapped the hologram. “I’m scanning.”
The bike was idling beside the visitors’ center. Elph was having problem with the electricity buildup in the atmosphere. It was scrambling his radar. He switched to ultraviolet.
“Up there!” he buzzed triumphantly. “On the ridge.”
Belch’s canine night vision picked them out immediately. Right out on the cliff edge.
“Too easy,” he grinned, gunning the bike straight through the safety chain.
Funny how you never can spit when you need to. Funny—unless you’re hanging over the edge of a five-hundred-foot drop into bone-crushing breakers.
Meg gargled energetically, conjuring images of all those foul cigars Lowrie smoked. Surely they had deposited some good-consistency phlegm in the lining of his throat. Nothing. Dry as a desert bone. Every spare drop of liquid had gone through the pores for perspiration.
“I don’t believe it!” she shouted into the gale.
In sympathy, nature threw a lightning bolt across their bows. It struck in the clay, showering them with sods. Meg ducked low to avoid the missiles, and beneath the crook of Lowrie’s arm she caught sight of Franco. On a motorbike. Coming straight for her.
“Oh . . .” she began, and that was as far as she got. Which was just as well.
Belch had just turned sixteen when he blew himself up. Sixteen. Old enough for a motorbike license. That had been his plan. Break into McCall’s. Sell his stuff. Buy a bike. Cruise around the neighborhood with Rissole. Cool.
Luckily for Meg this plan had never materialized. Because if Belch had been an expert instead of a novice he would never have tried to ramp the fence. He would have simply bulled straight through it. That being the case, everyone involved in this little supernatural drama would have been dragged screaming, or howling, over the cliffs.
However, seeing as this was only Belch’s third time on a motorcycle, he thought it would be extremely impressive to pull the front wheel over the top of the fence and drag the rest of the bike after it. No way, José, as Evel Knievel might have quipped. You need a ramp for that sort of stunt. And Belch didn’t have a ramp.
The bike entangled itself in the chain link, roaring like a trapped animal. Franco’s abused body sailed over the top rail straight onto Lowrie’s chest. The foursome skidded across the rain-slickened muck to the very brink of the cliff.
Meg and Belch only had eyes for each other. Not in the usual romantic sense.
“It’s all over, Finn!” growled the canine hybrid. “You’re coming with me!”
Meg grimaced as Franco’s fingers grabbed at Lowrie’s face. With that face so close to hers, it was like being alive again.
“Get off!” she sobbed. “Leave me alone!”
“Get off!” mimicked Belch. “Leave me alone! You’re a sad case.”
Lowrie’s heart was speeding up like cards on bicycle spokes. His breath was fading. Spots danced before his eyes. There was pain now too. Pain that felt red.
“Go!” Meg panted. Lowrie couldn’t even answer. “Go now. I’ll hold him!”
“What?”
“Go and spit over the edge. Then we win!”
Inside his own skull, Lowrie nodded. Meg was right. The only way to dispatch these two was to complete the list.
Meg peeled herself away, taking a tight grip on Franco’s throat. There were no more tears now. Just determination. Not for herself, for her partner.
“We can still split up,” she grunted, putting every atom of strength into choking her nemesis. “You can’t, can you? That means Lowrie just has to crawl to the edge and we’ve won. And you know what that means, don’t you?”
Belch’s eyes widened. This couldn’t be happening. He searched feverishly for a drop of juice in Franco’s skull. But there was nothing. Sucked dry. He writhed and struggled frantically. But he had no energy left. He was just a ghost in a shell.
Lowrie crawled through the muck. The pain had spread to his legs, and he couldn’t stand up. His heartbe
at merged with the roar of the ocean. Something else was beating too. It was coming closer. It sounded blue. Just a few more feet. Then he could die happy.
Elph watched it all helplessly. There was nothing he could do. That cretin was throwing it all away, and he could only hover helplessly. The hologram had no physical powers . . . except visibility.
There was only one chance for the dark side. One hope, and it had to work. Elph buzzed to where Lowrie lay and adjusted his digital spectrometer. All it would take was one click and he would appear in the human wavelength. Elph extended all appendages, set his face to grimace, and flicked the switch.
Lowrie looked up. A small creature was floating before him. It was malignant, he was certain. Sinister gadgets were sprouting from his frame, and a green beam emanated from one eye. Lowrie’s heart cranked up a notch. It was one notch too many. Shutdown!
They were linked, somehow. Because Meg felt Lowrie go. “No!” she screamed, her remaining essence already fading. Belch was leaving too, but he was going with a smile on his face. “See you soon,” he laughed. “Really soon.”
The tunnel opened above their heads, poking through the clouds like a straw in a giant cola. It sucked them up like a vacuum.
Meg stretched out to her partner; she called to him, but he couldn’t hear her. His body was in the final stages of shutting down. Only the brain was alive, and not for very long.
Elph buzzed past her. “Nice working with you,” he commented. “Maybe we can play for the same team once I ditch the moron.”
Meg didn’t even hear the words. She could only watch her tears fall on the only man who had ever cared for her. It was over, all over. And she had failed. Again.
Flit was crouched on the tunnel rim, as per his instructions. It sounded simple enough. One favor for Peter and he was in. No one must ever know. That was the condition.
He saw the whole thing. The cliff and the storm, and then that thing with the motorbike. Very exciting. This is what it must be like to have a television.
Then their essence ran out and the tunnel had them. Belch floated by, a line of drool hanging from his grinning lips.
“Nice day,” said Flit pleasantly.
“Arf,” responded Belch uncertainly.
