'No, I can't, Mrs Hudek,' he said. 'Not really. Whatever "this" is.'
'I don't have much time,' Paul said. 'And you people need to be back home soon, ready. Showtime is about to start.'
'Ready for what?' Lee said.
Paul shook his head. 'Not you. Your folks. They're returning home from a spree over on Rodeo. Got hung up in traffic' He winked at Brad. 'You know how that can be.'
'Why have they been shopping? Why traffic?'
'Because that's how they won't have seen the news or know the slightest thing about it until they get to their street and see the cop cars waiting outside.'
'Know about what?'
Paul leaned over to the desk and turned one of the televisions on. Flicked through channels until he got the 24/7 news.
Lee and Brad watched the screen. It showed the exterior of a building they knew so well it took an oddly long time to recognize it—though they'd been there only that very morning. It was a large commercial structure, designed for viewing from the inside.
'Is that Belle Isle?' Lee said. 'It kind of looks like…'
The channel had put together a rotating segment which they could cut in and out of as fresh information arose. The story it presented was compact. An hour and a half previously a small bomb had gone off on the second floor of the Belle Isle mall. Firefighters had got the blaze under control easily. The destruction had been limited to the Serious About Sport store and those either side of it, with collateral injury to a few people walking past, who had been caught in the shower of shattered glass. There were no fatalities—the sales clerks and three customers were being treated for minor blast injuries and the effects of inhaled smoke.
The news anchor cut in to detail how scene investigators were beginning to understand what had happened. They believed the incendiary device had been planted in the store that morning, hidden in a canvas shoulder bag. Footage from security cameras in the store had provided them with a suspect. They were double-checking identity before releasing a name to the public.
A still picture came up on screen. Grey, blurry, shot from above and to the front. A young man covertly hanging a bag up on a rack, taking care to make sure it was well hidden—not realizing his position put him in clear view of two cameras.
It was Lee John Hudek. And just like that, he was different. He wasn't just Lee any more. He'd become something bigger.
'But the bag was full of drugs,' Lee said.
Paul turned the television off. 'Of course. The one behind it wasn't. The one we put there, rather more carefully, the night before. They're going to be at your house soon, Lee, if they aren't already. They'll find Brad's car outside and start to think he was in on it too. Sooner rather than later they will get around to searching the Metzger house, which means they'll find Pete Voss's cell phone thrown in bushes down the end of the yard.'
'But, the cops have been told…'
'Actually, we didn't get around to that.'
Brad stared at him. Every cell in his body felt cold. 'What are you doing? Why…I don't understand.'
'This is kind of hard on you, Bradley,' Ryan Hudek said, quietly. 'We know that. But sacrifices have to be made.'
'But…you're his family. You let this happen? You're always going to be the parents of the guy who did that.'
Mrs Hudek smiled. 'Oh, I think you'll find society's to blame. And videogames, and carbohydrates and the Bush family and Bin Laden and doubtless poor old Charlton Heston too. Not us. Never us. Only those who know will give us our due.'
'Who do you mean, "us"?' Brad asked, but nobody answered.
'You know what?' Lee said. He hadn't spoken in quite a while. 'Brad is not the only person who has no clue what is going on.'
'All that matters is this,' Paul said. 'Your old life is over. It's no loss. You were going nowhere. Your Spring Break "plan" was the most naive piece of nonsense I have ever heard. We can take you somewhere useful instead.'
Lee looked at the floor. 'We did meet before, didn't we? When? When was it?'
'Long time ago. But you had to see there's nowhere else to go. In the process you've demonstrated you're our kind of man.'
'For what?'
'You and I are going on a trip. I'll explain on the way.'
'Excuse me,' Brad said. 'Where do I fit into all this?'
Paul looked at him. 'You don't.'
He raised the gun smoothly and shot Brad in the centre of the forehead.
Brad stumbled backward and slowly slewed to the ground. For a moment he almost looked like he was trying to stand back up, but then he slumped on his side. His legs bucked, slowly, pulling him around in a lazy circle, leaving a trail of bubbled red.
His mind was a burst of colours and lights and memory, place and time crashing together and compacting eternity to a rotating point. He felt lucid and warm and as if everything was going to be okay, perhaps even better than that. He was very close to understanding it had all been some unwelcome fantasy. He heard a voice, echoing. It was familiar. He tried to open his mouth to say something, probably her name, or just, 'Hey'.
Paul shot him again, and the body was still.
There was quiet for a moment, as the echo died too.
'Wow,' Lee said, quietly.
Neither of his parents seemed phased by this, though both had made Kool-Aid for Brad since before he was old enough to hold his own glass. Lee looked down at his friend's remains. He supposed he was maybe in shock or something, but he was surprised by how little he felt. Brad always had been kind of weak. Mentally weak. At school he had been physically stronger and probably a little smarter too, had he but realized it. Certainly better looking. And yet Brad just coasted. He'd had no idea there were places to go, big things to do. Would he have had the strength of purpose to grab a gun when attacked? Lee didn't think so. Though actually, he had tried to kill Lee that afternoon. So, like, fuck him.
'It's better this way,' Paul said. 'His life was going to hell soon anyhow.'
Lee nodded. 'Whatever,' he said.
He pushed his hands back through his hair. He actually felt okay. The last few days had been murky, confused by all the difficulties and the strain of trying to glimpse a clear road ahead. Everything seemed simpler now. There was only one door.
'So what happens now?' he said.
'We've waited a long time for this,' his mom said. 'The Day of Angels. And you're going to be a part of it.'
She reached out, as she had after the policemen had left their house, and touched his face. Her eyes were clear.
'You're going to make us so proud.'
Part 3
The One
The commonest and gravest error of modernity
Lies in believing that antiquity is dead.
—Clarke Ashton Smith
The Black Book of Clarke Ashton Smith
Chapter 26
Finally Jim tried to eat. He parked outside the Renee's again. He checked the alleyway around the back. There was no sign of the child, of course. She had not been there in the first place. He ordered a Hearty-Ho breakfast and sat at the table nearest the window and stared at his food when it arrived. It looked too much like the picture on the menu, and it smelled foul. He got about five, six mouthfuls of it down and then had to stand up hurriedly, walk stiffly out into the john, and throw up.
Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he went back into the restaurant and sat down. He didn't consider trying to eat any more. Just the smell was enough to make him have to turn his head away. Nobody else seemed to have a problem. A couple of truckers and local early birds were slinging it down like there was no tomorrow. Jim was so hungry it was making it hard for him to think straight. It was partly this and partly the fact that James had never been that good at joined-up thinking. That was what Jim was for. James was mainly still seventeen and did what he wanted too much of the time. Whenever Jim looked at something now he found it hard to remember whether it qualified as food or not. He couldn't eat this crap, for sure. He needed something, but it wasn't this.
Jim knew what James was thinking of. He'd been thinking of it for two days. It wouldn't have to be much. Just enough to settle his stomach. And if you've slipped this far then why not…
No. Absolutely not.
He drank his coffee and paid and left.
•••
The vehicle was in motion again.
Nina was ready for it this time. The first time the vehicle had moved she had been lying in her twisted position, half-asleep. Perhaps sleep was not the correct word: it was more like a condition of standby, a dulling twilight fear that was better than being fully awake. She'd dimly heard a door opening, noted again the sound's metallic timbre, and heard an engine being turned over. Before she'd had time to process this the vehicle was suddenly moving. She'd been thrown onto the floor into a cramped space, banging her head on the way down. She'd cried out because one of her legs was twisted so that it felt like the knee might pop, but she was still gagged and almost none of the sound made it out of her head. All she had been able to do was wait it out, trying to push away the pain, while she gradually managed to shift her weight so it didn't hurt so astonishingly any more. When he eventually stopped driving he must have noticed what had happened. He came in the back and shoved her onto the bed, table, whatever it was. He was not gentle. It was as if she was a thing. Her knee continued to ache for some time. Worse was a semi-permanent feeling of nausea, caused by unexpected movement while she couldn't see: either that or the vehicle was leaking a lot of gasoline fumes. She thought she might vomit, but she did not. She just lay there. She lay and lay and lay. She felt too sick to play her game, which was remembering all the things Ward had put in the stupid salad that time back in Sheffer, imagining eating more of it this time, eating it all right up, making him happy. So instead she imagined sitting and talking with him at the lake outside the cabin that had been theirs, until she realized it would never happen again and that made her too sad to play any more.
This time she had readied herself when she heard him get back in the van. It was a van, she now believed, the sound of its engine very much like an old VW camper. She let the forward motion of the vehicle slide her backward, and then braced for the gentle slide back. She got it right. Always been a quick study.
The van was in motion for some time. Maybe twenty minutes. Then it stopped. The engine was turned off. The front door opened, and then shut. Was he going off somewhere again?
No. There came the metallic sliding sound of the side door opening. She caught a quick breath of air that smelled very fresh, and heard the sound of birds. He had driven to somewhere out of town. Why? Was it going to happen now?
Was this it?
Then the van shifted as he climbed inside, and shut the sliding door again.
He was close to her. She felt her whole body tense. What would he do first? Where would he do it?
'Don't be scared.'
Okay, Nina thought. I'll not be scared. Funny how that sentence works about the same as saying 'I'm not drunk'.
She made what sounds she could with her mouth, hoping her meaning would be clear.
'No, I'm not going to let you see or talk,' he said. 'Sooner or later you'll say the wrong thing. I've made mistakes already. The hotel did not go right and I know Forward-Thinking Boy's going to make me pay. But…look, just lay there. Be quiet. It's all going to be okay.'
Nina doubted that. She doubted it very seriously. He was not talking to her. He was talking to himself. The thing about reassuring yourself about your own intentions is that you're very forgiving when it all turns out to have been a lie.
But she kept quiet, and she listened when, after a while, he began to talk. He started slowly, as someone who'd had no audience in a long, long time: no audience except himself.
•••
He had a teacher in high school who said something that evidently stuck. This guy was trying to make a point this one time (later James could never remember what it had been, only that it was a warm afternoon and no one was listening very hard), and he got off on a tangent and said something about how the same difference could represent different types of difference. Though this didn't sound promising—or even intelligible—the words meandered into James's consciousness, and he wound up hearing what the guy asked next.
'Example. What's the difference between two and three?'
There was silence for a while, the fug broken only by the noise of a blowsy fly at the window which ran the side of the classroom.
Someone, a girl, probably, eventually offered the answer 'one'.
'Correct,' the teacher said, nodding briskly. 'Their values differ by one unit, and that's about all there is to say about the matter. But now tell me: what's the difference between one and two?'
And someone, likely the same girl and after a similar interval, said the difference was 'one', again. The teacher nodded once more, but with that jaunty half-smile which said he had something up his sleeve he believed was going to make you think he was cool as all hell, your very own Mr Chips, whereas in fact it just increased your vague desire that he have a coronary, right here, right now.
'Also true,' he said. 'But let's think about that. The difference between two and three just says you've got more of something. Three dollars in your pocket, better than two. Three assignments overdue instead of two—that's worse.' Nobody laughed. One of the girls maybe smiled. Girls are kind. They pretend to be, anyhow. 'It's a unitary difference, and it's a little better, or slightly worse, depending what you're counting. No biggie. Right?'
There was no response. The teacher glanced wearily out the window for a moment, as if counting the years to his retirement and finding them too many. But he ploughed on.
'The step between one and two is bigger news. It's the difference between one and many, between unique and commonplace. If someone says there's two gods, and another guy—or girl, of course—argues that there's three, or five, everyone will remain calm. Polytheists are basically on the same side. But a monotheist runs into a polytheist, it's time to take cover. One true god versus a handful of weird-ass heathen idols? These people have a fundamental disagreement. Fur is going to fly. You're sleeping with one guy, or you're sleeping with two. These differences matter, okay? You see what I'm saying?'
Nobody did, at least not sufficiently to vocalize. The fly was still buzzing. It stopped for a while, then started again, in that way they do.
'But then we come to something way more crucial,' the teacher said. 'The difference between zero and one. And again—don't worry, Karla, I'll do the math this time, it's why I get paid the big bucks—superficially we're looking at a difference of one. You've got zero, you add a single unit, so then you've got one. Right?'
James was looking at him now. What the guy was saying was beginning to creep into his head, almost as if James was actually listening. This was a novel experience. It felt compellingly odd.
'But actually,' the teacher said, holding a finger up, 'it isn't one at all. We say it is, for mathematical convenience, but it really isn't, and that's because we're out of the world of sums now and into what the philosophers call "ontology". You're not talking about numbers any longer, about quantity: you're talking about quality — you are saying something about the nature of the world.'
'What?' someone said. 'Saying what?'
'Could be lots of things. Example. The difference between having one kid or twins is not such a big deal…'
'You think?' said one of the girls, indignantly.
'Not in the way I mean,' the teacher said, hurriedly. 'One or two is a matter of degree, and of course it makes a huge difference with costs, and practical considerations, strollers, and stuff…but: pregnant versus not-pregnant, that's the real life-changer. It's the difference between being a woman and being a mother. When zero changes to one, that's where the universe flips and life changes. See?'
'Okay,' the girl mumbled, either mollified or falling back asleep.
He pressed the point. 'You get what we're at here, people? The bott
om line. There is a god, there is no god. Existence versus non-existence. Life or death.'
'True or false,' some guy said, quietly.
'Right, James,' the teacher crowed, delighted, and only then did James realize the speaker had been himself. 'Thank you—and here was me thinking you were in a coma. Zero, one. On, off. True, false. Something's never happened, then the world is one way; but if it has happened, it's another. The step between none and one takes creation and changes it forever.'
James stared back at him, understanding.
And then the bell for end of class went, and everybody split.
•••
The man was silent for a little while then, as if considering the memory. Something about the way he had spoken made Nina think he had not revisited it in quite some time.
'Everyone remembers their first,' he said, eventually. 'Which was Karla. Don't get the idea that I don't like women. I do. Just not very many of them. I get on fine with the ones I like. I had a wife, I had a…I had a wife. It's just it's only once in a great while that a woman does something for me. She has to be very special. It used to bother me that other guys would be looking at a waitress or something and saying how hot she was and I could see her face was okay and she had good tits or ass or whatever they thought was so great about her, but that would be it. It would be like someone offering you a sandwich and you think 'Yes, that bread's nice and fresh, little crusty at the edges, and the fillings look good and are piled high and there's a grind of pepper just to round it off. That's a fine sandwich you've got there. But…I don't want one. It's not that I don't like sandwiches. I do. I just…don't want it.' It's like that. And then you see one you really do want. That you have to have. One with wings. And it always ends up going wrong.'
He breathed out heavily. 'I'm hungry,' he said. 'I'm trying very, very hard. It wouldn't even hurt you, but it would be bad for me to start.'
Blood of Angels Page 26
