by Sienna Skyy
“Smug Macul! I shall see you fail yet!”
“I’m afraid that would require competence, Macul brother.”
Kolt raged, thundering at Enervata with impotent fury. He dislodged a boulder from the wall of the Dead Gouge and hurtled it through Enervata’s being and into the molten pool beyond, where it splashed into roiling waves that geysered toward the crust. He flung himself at the wall again, all the more comedic in Enervata’s eyes, for Kolt’s anemically formed front claws seemed ridiculously puny in contrast to his massive bulk and squatting haunches. But his power lay not in the physical strength of his narrow wrists, nor even that tent of a body, but in the momentous energy of his Macul core. He sheared off an even greater expanse of rock and sent it bobsledding into the flames. The entire Gouge shuddered with injury.
Enervata grinned. A site, this.
Enervata’s mirthful expression seemed to strike another bolt of fury within Kolt and his head rolled with echoing roars. With one final demonstration of tantrum, Kolt slammed into the broadest side of the Gouge. Not at a boulder, nor at a fissured wall. He balled his energy into a single assault of rage at the densest, most solid stratus of rock. Raking thunder tore through the Gouge and Enervata watched as the entire African tectonic plate slid backward under Kolt’s fury, drifting entire inches on the molten lake.
Enervata laughed heartily, clapping his hands and offering a “Bravo!” even as he began to fade to another plane. Clearly, his business with Kolt in the Dead Gouge was over. He would direct Hedon and Isolde to be especially wary of other Pravus, and reiterate that Bruce must remain alive in order for the seduction to realize its full power.
But first, perhaps he would disperse to the surface above the Gouge, above the Dead Sea.
Were Gloria of a different state of mind, he would relish sharing this spectacle with her. Kolt’s shift of the African plate would translate as an earthquake above, and probably even cause a great wave to tear through the Dead Sea. A farm or two might be wiped out; possibly even a village. It was certainly worth a look.
26
LOUISIANA
BRUCE’S THOUGHTS TURNED GRIM as Forte and Shannon explained what happened onstage at the bar. It was a terrible idea to have let the group disperse like that and he wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Bruce steered them out of the modest bed-and-breakfast and they hastily made their way over crooked sidewalks toward Jackson Square.
Shannon was visibly shaken. “I knew something was wrong, I just couldn’t figure out what was happening. Then when I did, I didn’t know what to do about it.”
Forte rubbed her arm as they strode. “There was nothing you could do, babe. We got waylaid.”
Bruce’s sights fixed on the Renaissance peaks of St. Louis Cathedral and he led the others in that general direction until they came upon Jackson Square. Artists straggled along the sidewalk, their mounted paintings resting against the black wrought iron fence that framed the perimeter. The occasional tourist sat to have his likeness illustrated for a take-home keepsake.
A steaming fog had settled over the city. Bruce frowned, scanning for Emily and Bedelia. Lights dotted the square, casting round halos that sparkled in the shrouded mist. About forty feet away, a statue of Andrew Jackson on horseback reared up from the center of the square.
“We gotta find Bedelia and Em,” Bruce said grimly.
The others looked at him and he could see the dread in their eyes.
“Should we split up?” Jamie said.
Bruce’s reply came almost as a bark. “No! Stay together. From now on we need to all stay together.”
Shannon hugged herself. They scanned the faces of the passersby.
Bruce felt a lump forming in his throat. Emily, that courageous little girl, was also achingly vulnerable. If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself. After Forte and Shannon’s disturbing recounting of the face-off, Bruce’s imagination reeled with the possibilities of any number of terrifying fates that might have awaited Bedelia and Emily.
“There!” Jamie pointed. “That little girl in the chair. Is that Emily?”
They trotted in the direction that Jamie was pointing. It was Emily. And even closer stood Bedelia, who smiled and waved as they approached.
“Hi, kids. Emily wanted to have her fortune told so we—”
Bruce broke in. “We need to get moving again. Now.” He arced his head toward the little girl. “Emily!”
Emily looked up from her seat, where a tall, lanky man sat bent over her hand. She said something to the man and looked back down at her palm.
“Is something wrong?” Bedelia asked.
Jamie folded her hand over Bedelia’s wrist. “We’ve had a scare. Charles and Shannon got caught in some sort of trap.”
“Emily!” Bruce shouted again.
Emily raised her finger and nodded. “Just a minute!”
Jamie sighed. “Well at least we’re all safe. Should we load the van?”
Bruce nodded. “I think so. What does your gut tell you?”
“I don’t think there’s much else for us here in New Orleans.”
Finally, Emily bounded up to them with the lanky fortune-teller in tow. He gawked at them with long-drooped eyes and thick hackled brows.
“This is Ichabod Sparks,” Emily said. “He just told my fortune and he’s absolutely-resolutely brilliant!”
Ichabod Sparks found himself squared in five sets of suspicious eyes and the subsequent five mouths stretched in what almost passed for smiles.
“He’s supposed to come with us,” Emily added.
Now Ichabod took his turn at the dubious spread. “Willful little thing, isn’t she?”
“Not everybody can just up and jump in the van with us, Em,” Bruce said.
Emily gestured for Bruce to lean down and she put a hand to his ear, speaking with a hoarse murmur. “You don’t understand. He told me everything. Everything. The park, the bugs in the chili dogs, everything. He knows, Bruce. Knows it all.”
Bruce looked at Ichabod suspiciously. For some reason, a thousand-year-old Macul who abducted women was easy to believe. Exploding chili dogs was easy to believe. But a fortune-teller who could actually tell fortunes? Ludicrous!
Ichabod sighed, an expression that began at the top of his head and wavered down the length of his spine. He spoke slowly and with fully expressed consonants, pronouncing every letter, even at the end of a word. “Truthfully, I wouldn’t even be taking a moment here, folks, but the reading was good and powerful.”
His voice grew quiet and a faraway look set in his eyes. “It still gives a chill to think about it, all that I saw. You folks are in big trouble, all of you. And you must leave right now.”
“We were just about to do exactly that,” Bruce said, nodding.
“And Ichabod’s one of us,” Emily added. “He’s coming, too.”
Ichabod’s smile traveled no farther than his two front teeth. “I would be arguing that point till the cows come home about now. It is not exactly convenient for me to come along. But I must say, that was in the reading as well.”
Jamie glanced toward Bruce and Bruce could see the doubt in her eyes.
“Can you excuse us for a minute?” he said to Ichabod.
“Of course.”
Bruce and Jamie huddled while the others chatted with the fortune-teller.
“What’s your take?” Bruce said.
Jamie lifted her shoulders. “Beats me. He definitely seems to have a connection with what we’re about.”
“Yeah. Hard for me to buy it. He seems a little creepy, kind of like Boris Karloff in The Body Snatcher.”
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers?”
“No, the 1945—never mind. I just don’t know who to trust.”
“I know.” They stared at their feet, hands in pockets.
“Well,” Bruce finally said. “He certainly does know about our situation. I guess it’s a good thing we have a van. It seems that picking up people along the w
ay is part of the process.”
Jamie nodded. They stepped back over to the group.
Bruce stuck out his hand to Ichabod. “Welcome aboard.”
Ichabod shook it. “Thanks. I have this feeling I may be of help on the coast.”
Jamie’s eyes shot up. “The coast?”
“Yes, the west coast. The reading pointed to California as the next destination.”
NEW YORK
“You bring me excellent news, Isolde. Despite Hedon’s failure with the musician.”
Hedon licked his lips. “I’ve punished him a good sight, haven’t I? The musician lad’s always pulled through for us before, master. It’s just that the Forte fellow has something in him that goes beyond even his ability. He should’ve crumbled. But you could actually see the things that went through his head up there onstage and you could see him adapt. Stiff-necked little shit, he is.”
Isolde’s eyes drifted with boredom. “Talent matters, but more so does will. The music world requires both skills.”
Enervata turned to her. “True, Isolde. No matter now. But I wish to reiterate the importance of keeping Bruce alive. I have recently met with Kolt in the Dead Gouge, and it appears that many Maculs are aware of our efforts. Let us guide them safely to the west coast and keep them there to chase their tails.”
Isolde nodded.
Enervata watched her face and stepped toward her. She did his bidding and pointed Bruce and his company astray to the opposite coast. And yet ever and anon this suspicion of Isolde arose. Something had changed in her. He didn’t like it.
She stiffened when his advance came so close as to become invasive. He could see the clench of her talon. He put a claw to her waist and slipped the other around her wrist, raising her arm, and smelled her. Searching for a scent of treachery.
She turned her lips so that her musical whisper danced at his ear. “Scent alone seems such a waste. Care, my lord, to have a taste?”
Enervata lowered her hand, surprised, then laughed with a fullthroated bellow. “Poor dear Isolde. Deprived from the lack of canteshrike orgies, are you? Well, know that you may lord over them to serve as your sex slaves if you so wish. Mere days remain now. Perhaps even tomorrow Gloria will succumb to me and you’ll have your reign of the wild-lands.”
Isolde’s eyes narrowed and that suspicion came leaping back to him.
She turned away and, with that gesture, Enervata felt he could not wait to spill her perfidious blood.
27
TEXAS
FROM THE REARVIEW MIRROR, Ichabod Sparks cocked his head and blinked a long, drawn eye. “You seem a little tired. Would you like me to drive awhile?”
“Nah, I’m used to it,” Bruce said.
“Very well.” Ichabod nodded. “After all, you hardly know me. It’s good you’re being prudent.”
“It’s not that,” Bruce said, though when he thought about it, Ichabod was right. Bruce was reluctant to hand over the steering wheel to the newest member of the quest. He was about to offer up some explanation as to why he preferred to drive, but instead let it pass. His mind was just too bleary to be judicious. Better to shut up than insult.
“I’ve never seen such fixation from the powers of darkness,” Ichabod said, his long eyes peering from under splayed brows. “I have seen many things. Troubling things. But this is an unusual case indeed.”
Bruce flicked his own eyes, sandy and bloodshot though they were, at the mirror. “What kinds of things do you usually see?”
“I see much of what exists in people’s lives, beyond that which lies within their visible periphery. An illness. A secret admirer. A treacherous friend.”
“Wow, that’s quite a gift.”
“I must confess this sight brings with it a degree of anxiety.”
Bruce’s sleep-fogged mind fixated on the way Ichabod pronounced every vowel and consonant so that the last word sounded like anks-eyeuh-tea. The rest of what Ichabod said rolled by in waves.
“. . . did not ask to see such things. I feel compelled to speak the truth even if people do not wish to hear it. Oftentimes, people hold me responsible for the things I tell them.”
Bruce chuckled, straining his eyes toward the road. “Shoot the messenger, eh?”
“Precisely. And I do feel compelled to warn those who never even seek my services in the first place. If I see something lurking, I feel it is my duty to advise. If I say nothing, it becomes a burden for me. And then there are others who are lost and would benefit greatly even from the thinnest illuminations but have no money to pay a fortune-teller.”
Bruce eyed Jamie in the seat next to him, wondering if she’d be ready to take the wheel soon. But like the others, she slept deeply. Even Emily was gonzo. They’d been driving too hard for too long and the human body could only manage so much. He struggled to maintain his focus.
Fortunately, Ichabod’s deliberate, galumphing prattle helped to keep him alert.
“. . . In such cases I cannot in good conscience accept a fee. So often, I find that to charge for my services is to undermine them. A fortune-teller’s burden extends almost to a vow of poverty.”
Bruce was about to offer a grunt of understanding, but the effort of making a sound in his throat proved too much. Instead, he only nodded. His head went up and then it went down . . .
And Ichabod continued. “I am a small man, a humble man. Being poor I have had to do much that I did not want to do.”
. . . and Bruce’s head continued down and landed in a soft pillow of darkness. A luscious warm hedonistic darkness. A wrong darkness.
He jerked his head back up again. The van swerved into another lane. He slammed on the brakes and gasped, steering to the shoulder and coming to a complete stop. Fortunately, there had been few other cars on the road.
Ichabod watched him from beneath those brows with a crowlike stare. None of the others had stirred despite the sudden movement in the van, and the only sign of change was a few hiccups among the soft snores. Their exhaustion seemed that thorough. Bruce could sympathize.
“Perhaps it is time to stop and rest,” Ichabod said.
He was right. Bruce couldn’t keep it up.
But Bruce shook his head. “Time’s running out. We’ve got to keep going.”
He turned and regarded Ichabod, the van idling in rhythmic cycles along the side of the road. “Maybe I ought to take you up on your offer to drive after all.”
Ichabod shrugged. “I certainly don’t mind. Are you sure you feel comfortable with that?”
Bruce sighed. Ideally, he wouldn’t be taking any chances, ever. But to continue driving now was to wreck the van for sure. And to stop was to risk losing Gloria forever.
“Have at it, my friend.”
Bruce unclasped his seat belt and hopped out, as did Ichabod. Bruce settled into the decadence of the backseat, and somewhere from the sienna haze of the distant horizon, he heard an inquisitive keening. He closed his eyes.
“Hear that?” he said, because he was still reluctant to give in to sleep altogether.
It felt unfair to lay the entire burden of staying awake on Ichabod, even though he hadn’t been suffering ongoing sleep deprivation like Bruce and the rest. The guy was all right. Bruce realized he was feeling a sense of completeness in the van. Like they’d assembled a collection of personalities that comprised the corners of a complex jigsaw puzzle and now all that remained was to fill in the center. Perhaps that was where Ichabod and California figured in.
He tried to talk to him or at least to prompt Ichabod to talk.
“That sound. Some animal out there. That’s exactly the kind of sound I’d expect to hear on the Texas plains,” Bruce said.
“Yes, coyotes,” Ichabod agreed. “I’ve heard a few tales of coyotes.”
Bruce managed just enough alertness to prod Ichabod along, and the fortune-teller indulged him with a monologue about coyotes and twisting rivers. But despite his efforts to stay awake, Bruce’s mind disengaged and settled into visions of the Califo
rnia coastline that awaited them. The coyote cries along the plain melted to sea lions barking in the waves; waves that crashed upon the Four Pillars of Humanity.
And atop the pillars, a lone siren.
A lady in white, with amber eyes and plumage that ran the length of her torso to her tapered, crooked leg. She chanted her siren song to a distant seaworthy van, beckoning the pilot upon the rocks, a musical voice that rose barely above a whisper.
“Take them to their final end. Of metal and fire, no hope to mend.”
Then Ichabod’s voice, faraway and echoing from somewhere that seemed never actually to pass his lips: “The instructions were to keep the leader alive.”
“Your orders have changed and you shall obey. Lest you wish to befall the same fate as they.”
“There’s no need of that. I was hoping for the chance for a little sport.”
The seaworthy van accelerated in the direction of the pillars, charging with the glory of the ocean’s waves while the siren spread wide her wings to embrace the onslaught.
She’s mesmerizing. A beautiful, terrible thing, the canteshrike.
And Bruce’s mind tumbled under a hemp chain of sleep-deprived diurnal cycles. He fell hard into dreamland where a dragon loomed on the eastern horizon, waiting hungrily in case the van should change its course. And to the north, a giant cloud, a cumulonimbus of bubble bath formed along the broad stretch of sea. And in its lightning flashes, Bruce saw himself going with Gloria to a formal dinner for the President of the United States.
The siren laughed, a canteshrike’s delight. The seaworthy van bore down toward her waiting embrace, toward the pillars. Waves exploded with anticipation. The vessel tore through the ocean with such g-force speed that Bruce’s muscles tensed to a sweat.
And he sat up.
And the van was tearing down the highway at a crazy speed. An impossible speed.
Bruce gripped the seat. “Ichabod!” The nauseating velocity continued. Obviously, the van was running at its max. “Ichabod! Hey!”
Bruce unclasped his seat belt and climbed to the front of the van, nudging Shannon and Forte as he did. But they seemed completely lost in their own dreamlands. He gave Jamie a good shake at the front seat. Her eyes fluttered and then slid shut again.
