A figure moved into the archway, coat tinkling. He was tall, whatever he was, and the coat moved less and less as he came to a standstill, as though getting comfortable around his scarecrow frame. From within the coat Suni caught flashes of silver light.
He looked as though he belonged here, in this mortuary.
The figure was looking at Kristian’s card. Beside him, the Nabber wrung its rubbery hands and hopped impatiently from foot to foot, eager to have its prize back but unwilling to snatch it from the gloved hand of the being that held it.
“Pretty,” the figure said in a voice like dry leaves, distant thunder. He walked into the room, boots sounding solid on the ground. Beneath his wide-brimmed hat he didn’t look out of place among the dead at all.
“You’re Suni.”
Suni nodded.
The man turned to Walter. “You’re back.”
“Keeping an eye out.”
The man turned his attention back to Suni. “We don’t get many visitors,” he said. “In fact, we don’t get any.” He glanced meaningfully at Walter.
“I’m the doctor,” the man continued. Beneath the hat his head looked hairless, save for a few wisps that might have been red once upon a time. He looked over his shoulder to the four card players and moved for a closer examination. “Nice,” he said to Walter. “Always liked these. Your premise was flawed, though.”
Walter shook his head. “So they just play cards. The fear comes from the expectation they’ll do something.”
“Still don’t like it. Won’t work. Except as a setup, maybe, for something else.” He walked back over to Suni. “But back to you…”
Suni’s eyes locked wide. He didn’t move. He didn’t want to die. He was too young for this. He hadn’t been anywhere. He hadn’t done anything yet!
Walter took a step toward the doctor.
The doctor handed Suni the card. “I think this is yours.” Suni blinked. He looked at the card. Hesitantly, he took it. The Nabber meeped and hopped from foot to foot like it was going to explode. The doctor turned and pointed out of the cavern. “Get.”
Despondently, dragging its arms behind it, the little blue thing turned and shuffled out. It stopped, glancing hopefully back one last time. The doctor pointed again and the little thing moped away.
“Suni’s not your concern,” Walter said. “I brought him here…”
“Black bugs blood,” the doctor said.
Suni blinked again. “P…pardon?”
“Black. Bugs. Blood,” the doctor repeated.
“Henry…,” Walter persisted.
“I want you,” said the doctor. “To say ‘black bugs blood’ ten times. Fast.”
Suni blanked. “Y…you wuh-want me to ss-suh-say…bbb…buh-buh-black buh-buh-buh…”
“Yes.”
“And thh…thh…then I guh-guh-get to guh-guh-go hhh…hhh…hhh…home, wuh-wuh-wuh-with my card?”
“Yup.”
Suni looked at Walter and found him biting his lip. “This is his realm, Suni. I can’t contradict him. Not here.” He looked Suni in the eye. “I told you not to chase that thing.”
“I ccc-can’t do it!” Suni cried. “I cccuh-cuh-can’t.”
“Then you stay here,” said the doctor. “And you don’t go home. Except in your parents’ dreams, where all you’ll be able to do is scream or whine. After that I’ll turn you into something else.” The doctor leaned forward, hands on his knees. Inside his coat was a glittering array of tools and instruments unlike any Suni had ever seen. “It ain’t that bad,” the doctor reasoned. “I could give you wings…”
“I ddd…ddd…ddd…I ddd…ddd…duh-duh-duh …don’t want wings!” Suni cried out, unable to take his eyes off the scalpels and things. “I want to go home!”
“Then say it, ten times fast…,” the doctor said. “And home you’ll go.” He stood back once more.
Suni licked his lips. He didn’t want to be here forever, even with wings. He thought of all the things he’d miss if he were to never go back. He’d even miss school, and goofing around with Kristian…
Something occurred to him then. He thought about it, really thought about it, and wondered if it was such a good idea. Finally he knew he had nothing to lose by trying.
“Suni…,” the doctor said, impatiently.
Suni nodded, and said “S-So let me get this stuh-stuh-straight…”
“Mmhmm…,” the doctor said, patiently.
“You want me to ssss-ssss-say”—Suni said the words slowly and deliberately so as not to trip over them—“black…bugs…blood…ten times. Fast.”
The doctor nodded. “That’s right.”
“And then you’ll let me go?”
“Uh-huh.”
“With my stuff?”
“Yup.”
“And Kuh-Kristian’s ccc-card?”
“All yours.”
“Okay.” Suni licked his lips. And he began, pronouncing the words slowly once more. “Black…”
“Hey,” the doctor interrupted.
“…bugs…”
“Kid…,” he said patiently. “That’s not…”
“…blood…”
“…fast enough.”
“Ten times fast,” Suni finished.
The doctor’s thin face dropped. “Kid, do you have any idea how many times I’ve had people pull that one on me?”
Suni’s stomach sank.
“You really think I didn’t see that coming?”
“Bbb-buh-buh-but…,” Suni stammered. “I duh-duh-did it. You www-wanted me ttt-to say it ttt-tuh-ten times fast and I did. You guh-guh-gotta let me go.”
The doctor shook his head. “I make the rules and you know what I meant. I’m no demon bound by exactitude. I’m real, and you just lost.” The doctor opened his coat, tools tinkling in anticipation of use. “Sorry, kid.”
Suni grunted as Walter pushed past him, screaming, “Leave him alone!”
Suni was scared, but he was still quick enough to take the chance when it presented itself. He bolted through the archway for all he was worth.
The doctor’s voice rasped deeply. “When are you gonna learn?”
But that didn’t stop the little boy yelling, “Run, Suni! Just keep running!”
“And what’ll that do?” the doctor inquired.
Suni found himself in a room of black glass that seemed to go on forever. His throat burned with each ragged breath, his heart thumping. The space was like the central area of a great train station, filled with people milling about.
But none of them seemed aware of anyone else.
Some were talking, some were looking around, others were walking like they had somewhere to go. There was a man in a top hat who laughed all the time, and a tan-skinned girl who stood on the spot turning circles with her arms outstretched. But most of them looked like any number of people Suni had seen walking down the street or through a shopping mall. An old lady smelling of breath mints and lavender air freshener wandered past muttering, “Horrie? I left you a minute ago…where did you go?” There was a man who Suni thought might have been an American Indian, in a fur coat, who just mumbled and nodded his head rhythmically while looking at the ground. There was a man in rags with matted hair who looked to the sky, screaming, “I love everything!”
A few minutes ago Suni had watched a Nabber lead a black man in by the hand. He didn’t seem aware of the Nabber; he didn’t even look like he was seeing the same place Suni did. When the Nabber let him go, the man had wandered off across the room and disappeared into the crowd.
“I think this is what happens when people lose their minds.”
It was Walter. The blond boy was standing beside him, watching the crowd mill around them.
Suni swallowed. “I…I kinda thought the Nabbers just took regular stuff. Wuh-watches and things.”
Walter shrugged. “The doctor created them to go out and find something very specific. Something he needs. I guess he didn’t expect them to get interpretive.” Suni was
n’t sure what interpretive meant, but he was pretty sure whatever the doctor wanted wasn’t in his bedroom. None of this made sense. “What is it he wuh-wants?”
“A tool,” Walter said. “An instrument. Like the ones in his coat.”
“A tool? What kind of tool?”
“The last and most important one. Something that lets you reach inside people’s heads and find out what makes them tick. To see what defines fear for them. And take it out, if he wants. You can reshape who people are by selective removal of their influences.”
“For what?”
“Recruitment. You can change things about a person with a tool like that. For the last hundred years he’s recruited people naturally suited to being remade, having their lives rewritten in exchange for a little pleasure or power. A lot of them can’t take it. A lot of them tire of it after a while. But with this instrument, he can just make them naturally suited to it. Make them want it. Make them endure.” Walter looked right at Suni then. “He’s also planning for retirement. He wants someone strong enough to replace him—”
“Me?”
Walter burst out laughing, a high shrill sound, like an excited puppy. “No…God, no. I’ve got a sister. Her name is Hope. She’d be the same age as you now. Actually, you go to school with her.” Walter stuffed his hands into his pockets, somewhat guiltily, Suni thought. “Remember what I said, about me getting you out of here in exchange for a favor?”
Suni blinked. “Uh…”
“It’s very important.”
“What…what do you want me to do?”
Walter scrutinized Suni for a moment, and then asked, “Did you have a monster when you were young?”
“A…?”
“Something that made you afraid of the dark. Something that scared you more than anything else?”
The way Walter was looking at him made Suni think of…“The Devil,” he said. “I watched a documentary on Nostradamus, all the things he’d predicted, and it said the end of the world was only a few years away. The Devil was supposed to appear and the world would burn, there’d be fields of bones…and what with all these countries with nuclear bombs…”
“Did you ever actually see the Devil?”
Suni thought that was a strange question. “No,” he said. “No one sees the Devil.”
“Depends who you talk to,” Walter said, then broke his eyes from Suni’s. “I exist to protect Hope because she needs protecting.”
Suni thought about that. “Then why are you here?”
“Because before I existed to protect Hope, I existed to protect Walter.”
This was getting confusing. “I thought…”
“I am Walter,” Walter said. “But I’m also something much older. When I was Walter’s monster the doctor tricked Wally into discharging me. If the person I exist to protect sends me away, what becomes of me? I disappear. Become someone else’s monster maybe. But in my last moments Walter came to me, frightened, and wanted me back. He was never getting home again, so I did the one thing left to me. I made him part of me, kept him safe inside. Kind of messed up the doctor’s plans. I wasn’t the boy he’d hoped to train anymore.”
Suni realized Walter had never had the chance to tell any of this to anyone. It was waterfalling out of him.
“He’d been looking for a replacement for about a hundred years. He’d had a few candidates but in the end he always discarded them for one reason or another. Too simple, too smart, not enough spine, too much willingness to inflict pain, too many scruples, not enough, not enough imagination, some lacked foresight, some didn’t have a knack for anticipating the effects of certain courses of action or surgery…See, his problem is, as much as he hates what he does he’s not willing to pass it on to someone who’ll abuse the station. I mean, if the ability to create, craft, fashion, make real was just handed to anyone, it could be Hell on Earth overnight. Then maybe your Nostradamus fears might not have been groundless.”
Suni was trying to keep up, but it wasn’t easy. “So…so he makes…?”
“Everything the doctor does is a recruiting drive for a higher power. A higher power racing to match the forces the other two factions have been accruing since Samael fell. It’s a selection process. If the doctor offers and they accept, that’s another soldier for the Angel, while the qualities they display in the course of their falling govern the position they’ll hold.”
“Angel…?”
“Look, we don’t have much time and I need to know you’ll do this for me. Hope’s ten years old. At that age it’s very hard for me to make myself known to her. I’ve got maybe a year left before she realizes that talking to something like me is completely impossible and shuts me out altogether.
“What I want is for you to remember everything that happened here. I want you to remember that this is all real. I want you to remember me. If you do that, then I can protect her through you.”
“How?”
“You can act on my behalf. I can affect her world through you.”
“I duh-didn’t get here by accident, did I?”
Walter shook his head. “I…kind of nudged a Nabber out through your closet. The rest took care of itself. The way you chose to confront the Nabber that took your card shows you’ve got the strength for this. Picking the right person is one of the few valuable things I ever learned from Henry.”
“I ddd…duh-don’t have anything to do with this. Why not just bring her here instead of muh-muh-me? I’ve never spoken to your sister, I hardly even know who she is!”
“I can’t bring her here because this is where Henry is, and I want to keep her as far from him as possible. If she comes here I’m powerless to protect, just as I was powerless to help you back there. And I can’t just appear to her as myself because I’m her monster…”
“But I thought…?”
“By my very nature I’m the one thing she’s most afraid of. She thinks Walter is a breathing corpse in the next room. It would be very difficult to get her to listen to anything I had to say. I can appear to her as something neutral if I cloud myself from her, stop her asking too many questions, but it hurts and it’s getting harder. I’m running out of time. I won her trust, and now she’s fading from me.”
“So…”
“So be her friend. And if I need to help her, I’ll tell you what to do. You cover her in the real world and I’ll take care of Henry. Just so long as you remember that this has all been real.”
Suni licked his lips. Looked around. Figured talking was a good way to stay calm. “He always go after kids?”
Walter just looked at him, like he was wondering if Suni had heard anything he’d just said. Then: “Yes. Securing a candidate while they’re still physically young and impressionable is the preferred method. Physically older people are more set in their ways, harder to mold. Childhood is the spawning ground for the fears of adult life. Good fodder, very valuable, lots of potential.”
“Oh,” Suni said. “So does that mean I’m going home?”
“I can get you out of here. Give me the card.”
“Wuh-what do you need that for?”
“Do you want to get out of here or not?”
Suni handed it over. If he never made it back it wouldn’t matter if he had the card or not.
Walter put it in the pocket of his white buttondown shirt. “Now we have to find the Nabber that took it.”
“How do we do that?”
“It’ll come to us. It’s obsessed with the card now.”
“So we jjjjuh-just wait?”
Walter nodded.
“And what if he turns up?”
“He’ll turn up anyway.”
From what Suni could tell there didn’t seem to be an end to the black cavern he was in. He couldn’t see the ceiling and the wall at his back stretched forever. The place was vast.
Walter was talking to pass the time, though Suni wasn’t really listening anymore. He was thinking more about home, and wondering if maybe it lay at the far end of this seem
ingly endless room.
The ceaseless murmuring of the crowd was beginning to get to Suni. “So, you’re fourteen?”
“Most of me is fourteen and a half.” Walter’s voice became almost singsong, as though he’d told himself this over and over again as the years slipped away. “A large part of me is older than Christ, or Ra. Part of me watched the Aztecs build tzompantli walls from the skulls of the enemy dead. Some of me doesn’t have an age. Sometimes I remember the faces of people who were very close to me, yet I can’t remember ever meeting. Side effect of the merging between Wally and his monster, I guess. I can remember when I disowned myself, made myself weak. I can remember how it hurt hearing and watching myself say those words to me. Go away. I looked so lost, then.” A long breath escaped his little body, as though he no longer had the strength or desire to contain it. “I had no idea what was going on.”
That makes two of us, thought Suni. In fact, Walter was beginning to sound a lot like the lost people walking around the room.
“I’ll do everything I can to get you out of here, Suni,” Walter said. “But it’s very important that the Nabber that took this card doesn’t get it. We’ll need to trade it to get you out.”
Suni swallowed. “So does that mmmmmuh-muh-mean I don’t get it back?”
“Would you rather stay here?”
Suni didn’t answer.
“I didn’t think so.”
Kristian was going to kill him. “What makes you think you’re going to be able to keep that guy away from me, anyway?”
Something like a smile, but not quite, touched Walter’s lips. “It’s what I do,” he said.
“How’s this gonna work?”
Someone behind Suni was sobbing. He didn’t want to turn around to find out who it was.
“You’re about to find out.”
Suni first saw them as a distant movement of heads—of people in the crowd being pushed aside. And it was getting closer, like the wake of a shark, a widening V of moving heads and bodies, and then they were there: the doctor came first, like invisible clouds breathed out from his footsteps, parting the crowd, dark eyes intent on both boys. Behind him, the paddling Nabber.
The Music of Razors Page 17
