The Music of the Machine (The Book of Terwilliger 2)

by Michael Stiles

  Jonathan was tugging on his arm. “Ed, it’s time to go. The people can see us now.” Ed looked around and realized he was right: the smoking man and the young couple were looking in their direction. None of them seemed alarmed, but they appeared curious. He let Mason lead him away from Driscoll’s body, away from the streetlights.

  “We have to leave the body,” said Mason. “Meet me by your big tree tomorrow at midnight.” Then he walked away into the night.

  Ed turned back to look one last time at Driscoll. It would bother him later, once the adrenaline was gone. He knew there would be crushing guilt when he allowed himself to think about it. For now, though, all he could do was look at the dark shape of the corpse on the ground. “Good night, Ken,” he whispered. Then he turned and walked away.

  36

  A Pillar of Filth

  Dawn was arriving when Ed got back to the Watergate. He peeled off his false mustache and sideburns, threw them in a metal wastebasket, and tried to set fire to them. They didn’t burn. He dumped them into the toilet and pressed the lever to flush them away. It took three flushes to get them to go down. Then he went to the bed to rest. After closing his eyes for a minute, he got up again and began pacing the room as he took stock of his situation.

  Three people were dead. The DC Metropolitan Police would already be collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses at both of the sites. Ed’s fingerprints were all over Wilson’s townhouse. Three police officers had seen his face there, and although he had been disguised and it was quite dark, he was quite well-versed on the methods the police would use track down a killer.

  His decision was not a difficult one. He had his suitcase packed in five minutes and was in the back of a taxi ten minutes after that.

  Danny had written his number and address on the back of a wrinkled old business card, and his handwriting was not easy to decipher. Ed and the cab driver worked out the address together. They drove in silence as the sun came up, and the cab dropped him off in a quiet neighborhood in the northwest quadrant of the city. He found the building he was looking for, hesitated with his finger over the button, and then rang the buzzer. A dog started barking somewhere in the building. It took three buzzes before a light came on in the apartment upstairs. A second window lit up a moment later, then a third. It seemed he had woken up the whole building. There were heavy footsteps inside, and the door was opened by a black man in a pink bathrobe who squinted blearily at Ed and said, “You know what time it is?”

  Ed did indeed know what time it was, but he assumed the question was a rhetorical one. “Sorry.” He swallowed hard. “I’m looking for Danny―”

  “Ain’t no Danny here.”

  Whoops. “Is there someone named Hank?”

  The man in the bathrobe yawned and nodded. “Mulberry? You got the wrong house, bro. Hank Mulberry lives next door.”

  Ed apologized a few more times until the man shut the door on him. Then he went to the next building and tried again. When this door opened, it was Danny who opened it. He took a look at Ed’s suitcase, and at the look on Ed’s face, and said, “You look like you’re in trouble.”

  “I am,” said Ed.

  “Is the trouble going to come here looking for you?”

  Ed glanced up and down the street. “I don’t think so.”

  Danny opened the door wider and let him in. “Keep quiet,” he told Ed. “The walls here are paper-thin.” He led the way upstairs to a door that led to a tiny but clean studio apartment.

  Coffee was the first order of business. Ed didn’t say much until he was partway through his second cup. The caffeine made him all trembly, but he needed to stay awake. Once he started talking, he found it impossible to stop until he had told the whole story—not just what had happened since the meeting with Danny and Kissinger, but everything that had happened since Danny had left to enlist in the Army. By the time he finished, the first rays of the sun were shining in through the window.

  “I wish I’d been there to help,” said Danny. “Maybe I could have…” He trailed off into silence, realizing it would not do Ed any good to talk that way.

  “It’s better that you weren’t,” Ed said. “Nobody’s safe around me.”

  “But Urizen is gone. Right?” Danny sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. He was still wearing striped pajamas, and his hair was all messed up. “We can tell everybody Cruller was the bad guy all along. He can’t do any more harm.”

  Ed sighed and gazed into his coffee cup. He could see his own face reflected there, looking worn out and tired. “Jonathan wanted to take Cruller captive, so we could find a way to contain him.” He sipped his coffee, which had gone cold. “Who knows what Nathaniel will do with him?”

  “Kill him, probably.”

  “He’s too smart to do that.” Ed put his cup down and noticed that his hand was shaking. “I have to find Nathaniel. I have to…” He ran his hand through his hair as he forced himself to bring the thought to clarity in his mind. “I want to kill him.”

  “Why, Ed? He’s just a crazy man. I know he hurt you―”

  “He didn’t just hurt me. He destroyed me. Everything I had before Eleanor died—everything I was—is gone. He took my whole life away when he killed her.”

  “And then you killed him back. You got your revenge.”

  “No!” Ed stood up, intending to walk around, but the apartment was too small to do very much walking. “It wasn’t enough. I need to finish him.”

  Danny was watching him with concern. “That’s not healthy, Ed. You’re obsessed.” Seeing the look in Ed’s eyes, he changed the subject. “Where’s Sarah?”

  “I don’t know.” Ed thought about the last time he’d spoken to Sarah. She had said something very similar that day, hadn’t she? “Everybody tells me I’m obsessed with Nathaniel. No one understands what he put me through.”

  “Did you break up with her?”

  “She broke up with me. She couldn’t handle my… my obsession. But it’s better this way. She’ll be safe as long as she’s not close to me.”

  “What about Rayfield?” Danny pressed. “And Joy? Perla? Do you still talk to them?”

  “Not in a little while.” How long had it been since he’d spoken with any of the others? Ed couldn’t remember anymore. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  Danny nudged Ed’s empty chair with his foot. “Take a load off, Ed. You look jumpy.”

  “I’m not jumpy,” he said, but he did sit back down.

  “So who do you still talk to? Do you have any friends left?” Danny seemed to regret his words as soon as he said them, but there was no taking them back.

  “I talk to people. I have friends.” He had Mason. And Driscoll… no, Driscoll was dead. “I just don’t want to put people I care about in danger. Can’t you understand that?”

  “You’re not helping anybody this way.”

  “And you’re not listening to me.” Ed paused. Something was wrong. It was subtle enough that he hadn’t noticed it at first, but now it was becoming clear. “What’s that smell?”

  “Just coffee, Ed. Maybe I need to take the trash out.”

  “No. It smells like burning. It smells like…” Then he saw it: a tiny thread of smoke curling upward from the side of Danny’s head. He took a step back, bumping into something behind him. “That can’t be right,” he whispered. “You’re not one of them.”

  Danny looked thoroughly confused—but many of the people Ed had met in Washington were very good at play-acting. “One of who?”

  The trickle of smoke increased, and several more smoky tendrils became visible around Danny’s head. His hair was full of it. The whole apartment reeked of it. How had Ed missed that? “One of them. The smoke…” Ed began to cough. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Danny had a certain look about him when he was trying to read someone’s mind. “Ed, something’s wrong with you. I’ve never seen you like this. You need to talk to somebody.”

  “Are you reading my mind righ
t now?”

  Danny looked steadily into Ed’s eyes and said, “Yes.”

  “Stop it!”

  “I’m trying to find out what’s wrong with you. If you’d just let me―”

  “Knock it off!” Ed bellowed, tripping over his chair as he tried to get to his feet. He was too frightened to turn his back on Danny, so he felt his way along the wall until he found the doorway out of the kitchen. The smoke was almost too thick for him to see anything. “Stay away from me,” he said with a shaky voice.

  Danny stood up. It was pouring out of his eyes and nose now. The black cloud surrounded his head and made it hard to see his face. “Ed, you’re not thinking straight. You need sleep. No more coffee. Just get a little rest and you’ll feel better.”

  “I feel fine!” Ed said. He knew he was shouting and didn’t care.

  The blackness was devouring Danny’s head. His skull opened up on one side, and black flames shot out of the dark void where his brain should have been. Somehow he was still standing and talking, even as the darkness was consuming him. Ed turned to run, tripped over his suitcase, and crawled toward the door. All the while, he could hear Danny calling him, trying to say things that would calm him down. But Ed saw no reason to be calm. He reached the door, used the doorknob to pull himself to his feet, ran out into the hallway and down the stairs. His suitcase was still up there; Danny could have it… if that thing he had seen could even be called Danny anymore. As Ed ran out of the building, choking on the smoke, he looked back and saw that the whole building was nearly filled with it.

  People were up and about by this time, kids going to school and adults on their way to work. They watched Ed as he ran and stumbled down the street. He had no idea where he was going; all he knew was that he had to get away.

  * * *

  The old woman smiled when she saw him on her doorstep. “Walter!” she said. “Are you all right? You look like death warmed over.”

  Ed stepped inside, glancing up and down the street as he did so. “What day is it, Mrs. Witherspoon?” He felt like he’d been awake for days.

  Emma Witherspoon consulted a calendar on the wall. “Thursday. Today is Thursday. Let me tell Charles you’re here. He’ll be so excited you came by. Chaaarles!”

  She went upstairs to look for her husband while Ed collapsed into an armchair. He closed his eyes for a moment to rest. When he opened them again, he found himself covered by a heavy wool blanket. He was roasting under it.

  “Good afternoon,” said Charles Witherspoon. He was sitting on the sofa, looking considerably better than when Ed had last seen him. Ed watched carefully for any sign of the black infection oozing out of his head, but there was none. “I thought you might just sleep all day.”

  Ed blinked some of the bleariness out of his eyes and stretched, setting the heavy blanket to one side. He was drenched in sweat. “How long have I been here?” He frowned. “How did I get here?” The previous night was not quite clear in his memory, although bits and pieces started coming back as he thought about it.

  Emma came in from another room. “Oh, he’s awake! Welcome back to the living, Walter. How is Kenny doing?”

  Driscoll. Ed groaned as the memory came back to him. “He’s…” It was hard to say the words. “Agent Driscoll is dead.”

  Both of the Witherspoons gasped in horror, and Mrs. Witherspoon sank down onto the couch next to her husband. “He was so young. Was it an accident?”

  “It was him, wasn’t it?” said Charles. “It was Nosgrove.”

  Ed nodded.

  “That son of a bitch is pure evil.”

  “Charles!”

  “It’s true, Emma. I didn’t see it until too late. There were so many things I would have done differently if I’d just understood. I did so many terrible…” He trailed off, lost in his thoughts.

  “Nosgrove is gone,” said Ed. “For now.”

  The relief was clear on Charles Witherspoon’s face. “That’s wonderful.” He took his wife’s hand. “If I could do it all over, take back the things I did for him…” He sighed.

  “It’s over now,” said Ed.

  * * *

  There were two empty bedrooms upstairs that had once belonged to the Witherspoons’ two sons. The rooms both looked as if they had been left untouched when the boys moved out and went to college, although there was not a speck of dust to be seen. Emma let Ed choose which room he wanted to sleep in; he chose the smaller of the two. He had left everything behind, so there was nothing to unpack.

  The Witherspoons went to bed at ten. Having slept most of the day, Ed didn’t feel tired at all. He turned on the television and watched the news, but it didn’t hold his attention. It was then that he remembered Mason’s last words to him, just after it had all happened: Meet me by your big tree tomorrow at midnight.

  He checked the clock on the wall. It was only a quarter past eleven. Still some time left, if Mason still intended to meet him. He hoped Jonathan was all right.

  Ed rummaged through a linen closet for a towel, then took a long, hot shower. He felt filthy to the core, as though some of Nosgrove’s evil had seeped into him. Showering didn’t seem to help. After half an hour, he gave up and turned off the water. It seemed counterproductive to put the same dirty clothes back on, but they were all he had.

  The mirror was fogged with steam from the shower. He used his towel to clear a small area so he could look at his face. It seemed like he had aged years just in the last few months. There were new lines in the corners of his eyes that he hadn’t seen before, and a couple of gray hairs were visible among the dark ones. Not even thirty yet, but he looked several years older than that.

  He saw it as he was examining those gray hairs and trying to decide whether to pull them out. A minuscule thread of smoke, almost too thin to see, leaked out of his hair just above his right ear. He stared at it until it had dissipated.

  It had to be his imagination. He couldn’t be infected. He had hardly spent any time around Cruller. Ed watched his reflection for a long time, and then he saw it again. It came from his left temple this time, oozing out of his head and curling into the air until it disappeared. It was followed by a larger puff of black smoke from his right ear. That one was too big to attribute to imagination.

  He sat down on the edge of the tub, clutching his head in his hands. “Oh, God,” he muttered. “The smoke. Oh, God.”

  At midnight he found Mason waiting by the big tree. The smell he had noticed earlier, here in his woods, was stronger now. It was the smell of the black smoke. He looked up at the sky, dark with clouds, and shivered.

  “Glad to see you’re still with us, Ed,” said Mason. “It’s a terrible shame about Ken, but there was nothing more we could do. What’s the matter?”

  “Don’t you see it?” Ed scrubbed at his hair with both hands, releasing a cloud of the noxious vapor.

  Mason stared at him without comprehending.

  “The smoke! Can’t you see it?”

  “I don’t see anything. Are you sure?”

  The smell of it was overpowering. Ed felt like he was about to retch. “I couldn’t be more sure,” he said in a shaky voice. He noticed that Mason had backed slowly away from him, keeping a safe distance. But was there any such thing as a safe distance here, inside Ed’s mind? Could Jonathan be infected just from being here?

  “I had hoped this wouldn’t happen,” said Jonathan. He seemed angry. “From the beginning, I told you to stay away from Nosgrove, for fear of this possibility.”

  “Fine,” Ed snapped. “You told me so. What do I do now?”

  Mason began to walk away. Ed walked with him, noticing all the while that Jonathan never came within fifteen feet of him. They left the tree and went up toward the grassy hilltop where the two black holes lay. When Ed saw those holes, he stopped and stared in horror.

  Black smoke was pouring out of the ground. Some of it rose up into the gray sky like a pillar of filth, disappearing into the clouds, or perhaps becoming part of them. Some of
it oozed across the ground like an oil slick, killing the grass and flowers as it went. “It’s here,” he whispered. “This is the source.”

  “The holes to your deep subconscious,” said Mason. “That makes a kind of sense, doesn’t it? The infection runs deep. Careful, now.”

  Ed had walked up to the edge of the larger hole and was staring down into its depths. The smoke made his eyes sting and burned his lungs. “What’s down there?” he said.

  “How should I know?” Jonathan said. “Your innermost self is down there. The part of you that no one knows about, not even you. And now, apparently, the smoke is down there, too.”

  “What happens if I go in? Can I get it out of me? Stop it at the source?”

  Mason grimaced. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe you can find the source and cut it out of yourself. And maybe you never come back out again. I’ve never heard of anyone trying such a thing.”

  “What happens to me if I never come back?”

  “What will happen to your body, or your soul? If you get stuck down there, your body might live for a while. Doctors would call it a coma. Eventually your body would die, and the soul can’t survive long without a body.”

  “But if I don’t try…”

  “Then it will consume you. The same as it did to your pal Leonard, and all those other corrupted men with him. You’ll turn into one of them. You will still look like yourself, but there won’t be any you left.”

  Ed stood there a long time, looking down into the darkness.

  “I’m going to go,” said Mason. “This is a decision you need to make on your own. I can’t go in there with you. Just know that if you don’t do it…”

  He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t need to; Ed caught the meaning just fine. If he didn’t find a way to get the infection out of his mind, Mason would not let him live. “I understand,” he said softly.