She stood in the road, arms folded loosely across her chest, the fire above and behind her, reaching through the smoke, dragging the clouds down.
The horse waited behind her.
“Good-bye,” she said grimly. “Good-bye, Mr. Chisholm.”
* * * *
He turned away and kept on walking.
* * * *
6
1
T
odd was exhausted, angry, frustrated.
Scared to death.
The Balanov house was nothing more than two walls and the foundation now, the roof collapsed, pools of fire eating at the front yard. Even the chimney had collapsed. The explosion had blown out most of the windows of the nearest houses, as well as the school and shops on the other side of the road. Although volunteers were still busily pouring water on the houses adjacent to the ruined building, he didn’t have much hope. Put a fire pocket out here and another one pops up there.
Propane tank, someone had guessed, but it didn’t matter; the destruction was nearly complete.
It didn’t matter, either, to those he had helped down to the clinic—burns, a broken arm, an unconscious woman whose leg had been fractured. Mel was doing the best he could, but Todd didn’t think his best, this time, would be good enough.
It would have been easier to call outside for help, but the explosion had knocked the telephone lines down, and no one’s cellular phones seemed to work.
“Jesus Christ, find Tessa, will you?” was the last thing Farber had said before shoving him out the clinic door.
A second explosion, not as bad as the first, froze him on the sidewalk. He didn’t even look. Another tank, a car, what did it matter, the whole place was going up and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
He tried to run down to Hickory Street, but his head hurt too much, and he had to slow to a walk. Everything moved, everything shifted, and before he reached the corner, he dropped to his knees and threw up.
The voice of the fire above and behind him; the rain on his head and neck, soaking through his shirt, making the pavement slick when he stood, scrubbed his face hard, and started off again.
He didn’t think anymore about Casey. He had seen the reverend walking away not all that long ago, heading back for his house. Not running; walking. Not looking back. A blur of white soon swallowed by the dark.
Rage had urged him to chase after the man and drag his sorry ass back, but there had been, at the time, more important things to take care of, like the injured and the fire, and now he had to find Tessa.
He saw a light on the second floor. The bedroom.
He frowned, hurried to the steps, and started calling her name even before he was inside.
No one answered.
Using the banister as a pulley, he hauled himself up to the second floor, rounded the hall corner, and stumbled into the room.
“Tessa?”
A small lamp, milk white with pale flowers, burned on the nightstand. Tessa wasn’t here, but he saw Bobby on the bed, curled up, face to the wall.
“Bobby, for God’s sake, get up,” he said, putting one knee on the mattress, one hand on her shoulder to roll her over. “Bobby, come on, don’t you know what’s going on?”
She didn’t move, and he tugged, grunted angrily, and tugged again until he had her on her back.
At first he didn’t know what he was looking at, didn’t-recognize what had been smeared on the wall, what had turned her T-shirt into a wrinkled dark sponge.
When he did, he shoved away from the bed, arms batting the air to drive the image away. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he screamed, a harsh strangled noise that followed him as he staggered into the hall and down the stairs, a noise that turned into Tessa’s name when he pushed into the kitchen, into the dining room, into the living room, and out into the street. Trying to breath, trying to rid his nostrils of the stench of all that blood.
“Todd!”
He turned, swaying drunkenly, and saw her, was about to ask what had happened, who had done it, when he also saw a woman standing behind her and to one side. One hand gripped Tessa’s shoulder, the other held a knife up for him to see.
“Hello, gringo,” the woman said.
Todd took a step toward them.
“Todd, please,” Tessa begged. Her legs trembled, her hands were clasped hard across her stomach. “Todd?”
He took another step.
The woman said, “It isn’t going to do you any good, you know. You can’t be the hero.” And she laughed without a sound.
He took another step, could almost reach Tessa. His head ached, burns on the backs of his hands and on his face flared. The night filled with fire and distant shouts and a horn, but he only heard Tessa whisper his name over and over while her eyes rolled like a frightened horse’s.
He stopped, ignoring the sweat and the rain that dripped into his eyes. “Mel needs you,” he said to Tessa as calmly as he could. “There’s people hurt at the clinic.”
Tessa tilted her head as if she hadn’t understood.
“Dimitri’s dead,” he said flatly, “Petyr’s gone, and some folks have been hurt.” He gestured sharply. “Go.”
She hesitated, glanced at the hand on her shoulder, then wrenched free and ran, snatching at and missing his arm as she passed.
He wouldn’t move. He watched the woman and the blade and the faint flicker of firelight at the corners of his vision.
He waited while she checked him over, seeing the grime, the bandage, probably figuring he would be easy, too easy, making up her mind if she was going to bother or not.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, shoulders slumping, trying to stay on his feet.
“Lupé,” she said.
He gestured with a palm. “That’s not what I meant.”
“No kidding. And who cares?”
She stepped forward without warning, and her arm swept around, the blade intended to slash across his throat, but she was surprised when he grabbed her wrist with his right hand, stepped in and wrenched the arm up while, at the same time, he kicked her leg from under her.
Her head smacked against the blacktop, her fingers opened, and he snatched the knife away. Stared at her blinking away the confusion. Leaned in and thrust the blade into her stomach. As she gasped and nearly sat up, he jerked the blade upward, released it, and stepped aside.
“Oh ... Jesus!” she said, doubling over, rolling onto her back, her side. “Jesus!” Rolling onto her knees, her forehead against the street.
Todd wiped his face with a sleeve.
Lupé coughed, choked, and rose unsteadily to rest on. her heels. “Oh ... God!”
The knife was in her hand.
“Don’t run,” she said, rocking forward now, and back, trying to get to her feet. “Don’t run.”
Then she smiled.
* * * *
2
Stan wandered down a side street, ignoring the chaos, following a little old lady dressed in summer white. He thought she looked like some kind of ghost. But she didn’t float like ghosts were supposed to; she took quick little steps, like she was in a hurry, but her shoes hurt too much.
Don’t know about this, he worried as he lengthened his stride; don’t know about this; she’s so old, where’s the fun, where’s the game?
She turned then, and squinted through the rain at him. “Reed Turner, is that you?”
“No, ma’am,” he said politely. “Just me. Just Stan.”
“And who is Stan?”
She sounded like a librarian, the kind who sneered at him every time he walked into one of their dusty old buildings, the kind who liked to talk like schoolteachers and scare him half to death.
He didn’t like them very much.
“I asked you a question, young man. I’m getting soaked out here.”
She made him angry.
She humphed and walked away, quick little steps, dismissing him like he was nobody. With quick little steps.
Very angry.
/>
He caught her in three strides, grabbed her arm, and spun her around so hard she fell against him, gasping in terror, clutching her silly-looking purse to her silly flat chest.
“Go away!”
“Not yet,” he said, and raised a fist, widened his large eyes, and grinned when she cringed, too weak to break his grip.
“Hey!”
He looked over the old lady’s head, and couldn’t believe it. Hurrying down the street toward them was a guy in some kind of army outfit, the kind they wore when they were in the jungle and stuff, but he couldn’t remember the name.
“Let her go, punk, before I kick your ass.”
“Mr. Bowes,” the old lady called, her voice shaky and high, “he’s hurting me.”
William Bowes unslung the rifle he had over his shoulder. “Oh really?”
He was about ten yards away when Stan switched his grip from the old lady’s arm to her hair and tossed her to one side, not bothering to look when he heard her hit the street.
“Oh, that does it,” the army guy said. “You’re mine, now, you punk. You’re all mine.”
Stan didn’t mind.
This would be more fun.
And when the army man used the butt of his rifle against Stan’s head, and Stan managed to stay on his feet, with a grin, he knew he was right—this really was going to be more fun than the little old lady.
* * * *
3
Nate found the little girl standing in front of the grade school, across the street from the fire. Glitters of broken glass lay around her, and chunks of steaming wood and blackened stone. Her hair was matted to her head by the rain, and she had a thumb stuck in her mouth.
He had been on the fire hose with Micah Lambert, Reed’s father, and some other men, but when the pressure decreased as the need did, he had been ordered to check around the school and the nearby houses and shops, to see if anyone needed help, or wanted to help. Until he spotted the kid, he hadn’t seen anyone who didn’t already have something to do. Most of it, by now, was working on the house three doors up from the Balanovs’. A van had exploded in the driveway, so violently that it had bounced halfway across the lawn, the concussion shattering more windows, and splashing burning gasoline onto the attached garage. Despite the rain, the fire had spread swiftly, but it didn’t look to him as if the house would be lost.
He almost passed the kid by. What he wanted to do was find Rina. The last he had seen of her, she had been supporting a woman while they made their way down the street, at the same time swiping at embers that landed in her hair.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Hey, kid, you all right?”
She turned large dark eyes on him, and around her thumb said, “I’m Anita Smith. Who are you?”
“Nate.” He knelt in front of her, searching for obvious signs of injury. Aside from a tear in her coveralls, though, and some smudges across her face, he couldn’t see anything wrong. “Where’s your mom?”
The little girl pointed downhill, and closed her eyes against a sudden shudder.
He didn’t blame her. After all that heat, this rain felt like ice, and the air was filled with the stench of burning wood and rubber, burning gasoline and things he didn’t want to know.
He stroked her arm, and coughed, tasting ash and spitting apologetically to one side. “Your mom got hurt, huh?”
She nodded.
“She’s at the clinic with Doc?”
She nodded.
“Where’s your daddy? Is he home?”
She shook her head, not taking her gaze from his face.
“All right, no sweat.” He rose, and reached out a hand. “Why don’t we go down to Doc’s and see your mom? I’ll bet he’s got some candy and stuff. You want to see?”
She shook her head.
“Aw, hey, come on.” He gave her his best smile. “It’s not far, you know that.”
He waggled his hand, an order for her to take it, but she backed away, popping the thumb from her mouth, ducking her hands behind her back.
“Hey, look, kid—”
“Anita.”
It was hard not to raise his voice: “Yeah. Anita. Well, look, Anita, we’ve got a lot of people hurt here, right?, so I can’t waste time. We gotta go. Now.” Then he groaned when he saw her ready to cry. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell, all right? But—”
She pointed across the street and pouted. “The fire’s almost gone.”
He looked, saw flames writhing up the front door, poking at the ground-floor windows, curling through the glassless windows of the van, and wondered what she was talking about. A few people had connected garden hoses to fight the new blaze, and he could hear Harve Turner’s voice shouting orders no one listened to.
He saw Rina.
“Hey!” he called, and waved one arm in a semaphore that nearly wrenched his shoulder. “Hey, Rina!”
She spotted him, waved back, and started to run.
A giggle made him turn around.
The kid’s left hand was out, palm up, and in the palm he saw a single red flame.
His mouth opened in disbelief, he took a step toward her to put the fire out, and froze when her other hand came out from behind her back.
At first he thought it was a firecracker.
Anita touched fuse to flame, closed her hand, tossed the stick over her shoulder into the school.
“Fire,” she said, smiling sweetly.
Like the second just before a canoe tips over in the deepest part of the river, like the second just before a face twitches and temper explodes.
Like the second between the lightning and the thunder.
“Rina!” Nate yelled, desperately spinning around. “Rina, run!”
* * * *
4
“I’m waiting,” Escobar sang from the entrance to Mackey’s. “Come on, you old fart, I’m waiting!”
* * * *
5
Reed didn’t know if he was simply numb or had somehow been turned into some kind of a zombie. All he knew was that he could barely feel a thing anymore, inside or out; all he knew was that somewhere between the first explosion and the first dying, he had decided it wasn’t crazy to believe in black magic.
It wasn’t crazy to believe in someone called The Horseman.
System shutdown, that’s what it was. What he saw, what he heard ... he couldn’t take it any longer unless he pretended it was happening to someone else. Like watching a movie or a TV show.
It began when he lifted Dimmy from Cora’s arms and stared at the church and couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.
It began when he carried Dimmy across the street and down the block, Cora and Sonya following meekly, holding hands. Doc Farber was in the clinic doorway. When he saw who was in Reed’s arms, he slumped heavily against the jamb, said, “Oh my God, no, oh no, not this.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Reed had said helplessly. “I don’t know where—’’
Doc crooked a finger. “It’s all right. Follow me.” And led him along a narrow brick path around the side of the building. At the back was a large shed with a roof of corrugated sheet iron. Inside there was nothing but stored cots and cartons, a low pile of blankets on a shelf. He opened one of the cots, and Reed laid Dimmy down.
“I’m sorry,” the doc told him, flapping open a thin blanket. “I... it’s the best I can do for now. His mother’s inside. I can’t let her...”
Reed waited until Dimmy’s face had been covered, then walked away. Some distant part of him noted that the rain had begun to fall a little heavier, that mist still swirled and rose from the gutters and drains, that the fires on the Crest had subsided and the clouds seemed to pull away from the dancing light, higher, blacker.
But when he went back to the church, he didn’t know exactly why, he saw only the image of Reverend Chisholm’s back, moving down the street after Reed had first arrived with Lambert, ignoring them all, slipping into the dark one step at a time.
He had no idea
how long ago that had been.
He had no idea now where Cora had taken Sonya, where Nate and Rina had gone to. He supposed he ought to go up there and help the others. Old Micah was probably teasing a heart attack—Reverend Chisholm had run away—and his old man was probably still too drunk to hold a hose—Reverend Chisholm had run away—and he had just watched Todd stagger around into Hickory Street and that son of a bitch Chisholm had turned his back on them all, just when they needed him. If not his words, then his arms and his hands and that voice of his.
Symphony - [Millennium Quartet 01] Page 31
