by Phil Tucker
Maribel stared at Isobel in silence, and then turned her gaze to the phooka, who was unable to restrain a smile. Maribel regarded it with equal coldness, and then looked back to her friend.
“No, Isobel. You don’t understand. I need to do this. I need that blade so that I can punish Kubu. Make it pay for what it has done to me. To Sophia.”
“Maribel, it won’t work like that, you don’t understand—,”
“No, you don’t understand,” said Maribel, taking a step forward. “This is not about right or wrong. Not in the way you understand. This is about blood. The blood of my daughter. This is about death. The death of my daughter. About revenge. I will make Kubu pay. Some things cannot be forgiven, forgotten. If I need to collect this sword to destroy it, then that is what I will do.”
Isobel’s face had turned pale. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. People passing them by averted their faces, not wanting to stare. “I can’t let you do this.”
“I’m sorry, Isobel,” said Maribel. She didn’t feel anger, just pity. How could she expect Isobel to understand? “You can’t stop me. I’m going.” She took a step forward, and then froze.
Isobel was staring at her strangely, shivering where she stood. “No,” she said again, quietly, but with grim determination. “You’ve awoken more than just pity in me. You don’t even realize it, but—I care for you. I won’t let you destroy yourself. Not after seeing Jen. You don’t understand. I’ll do anything to keep you safe. If I have to, I’ll hold you here. I can, you know. I’ve never felt so much power. Something about you… the way I feel about you, makes me stronger than I’ve ever been.”
Isobel took a step forward, and somehow, impossibly, Maribel remained frozen, unable to move. “Being with you has made me feel things I never thought I would feel again. More than pity, or power. Love. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand?” Tears were glimmering in her eyes again. “Maribel, I love you. I can take care of you, make you better, if you’ll just let me.”
“Let me go,” said Maribel, and her words were cold stones dropped into a deep, desolate well. The city seemed to be stilling about them. Traffic, the sounds and cries, the sirens and music. As if something were holding its breath. “Let me go, Isobel.”
“No,” said Isobel. “I won’t let you. Even if it means you’ll hate me forever. Even if it breaks my heart.” She reached forward, and ran the back of her hand down Maribel’s cheek, the touch tremulous, gentle. “I won’t.”
And Maribel realized that she had no choice. Whatever Isobel was doing, she had no power to stop her. She was helpless. Rage arose within her, fierce and denying, but she remained frozen, paralyzed, unable to even blink.
Isobel’s eyes flared open with shock. A ridged horn thrust itself with terrible force and violence through her stomach, punching through layers of muscle and intestine and skin with sickening ease. Two feet worth of ridged horn, and then Isobel was rising off her feet, hands reaching down to encircle the base of the horn where it emerged from her center. Blood welling up, soaking her front. Up she went, and then Maribel saw the phooka straightening behind her.
With impossible strength and fluidity the phooka stood straight, raising Isobel above its head, impaled on its left horn. Isobel didn’t scream, but spasmed and kicked her legs, gargling and choking. Blood rained down on the phooka, fell across its muzzle, spattered and splashed over its shoulders. Reaching up, the phooka took hold of Isobel’s left arm and leg, and began to pull.
Only then did Isobel begin to scream. With brute force the phooka began pulling her sideways off its horn, tearing her in half. Muscle sheared, tore. Blood fountained into the air, a lifeblood geyser, the sound filling Maribel’s ears, the tearing, wet sound of muscle ripping, bone snapping. Isobel’s scream cut short, and then her body fell to the pavement with a wet thud. She shivered, once, twice, lay still.
Maribel raised her eyes and met the pale, milky orbs of the phooka. It was drenched in blood, its beard soaked and clotted, blood running down in rivulets over its shoulders and chest.
“I swore that I would open the ways to your desires,” it said, voice calm, low, loving. “I swore that I would let nothing bar your path. I keep my word.”
Maribel shook her head, mute denial, reached up to touch her face, the warm stickiness where thick drops had splattered across it. Took a step forward, looked down at Isobel. One eye was half closed, the other staring to the left. I love you, she had said. Blood, blood everywhere, spilling slowly across the sidewalk. Screams now, coming from all around, screams and bellows of panic, fear, horror. Maribel raised her eyes, met that of the phooka’s once more. It smiled, that sardonic smile, and she realized that it had no true conception of what it had done, of Isobel as anything other than an obstacle, a thing to be removed. Had she thought herself above it, beyond it, greater now than its petty concerns and desires?
She laughed, the sound hollow, broken, and circled Isobel’s mutilated body. The phooka circled, keeping Isobel between them. Its saturnine smile never left its muzzle. Maribel backed away, step by step, and then, before the horror could overwhelm her, she locked onto the one thing that yet remained certain, and turned and ran, not looking back, not wishing to see what would become of her friend, turned and ran with her eyes closed around the corner.
Chapter 14
Darkness, warm and velvety, the kind found in the back of old closets behind dusty coats when the doors are pulled closed. So many different ways to move through the world, thought Maya. Upside down wells, through distorted closets, through trees…Moving slowly, hands extended before her, feet shuffling through twigs and leaf mulch, she moved into the heart of the tree. And though it was great, a vast trunk, there was no way it could be this deep; she should have pressed her hands against its far side, but no; still she shuffled forward, blind and alone.
Then: a wall of vines, of brittle leaves, thick and fibrous. Pushing against it, Maya decided she could slip through with a little effort. She wedged herself in sideways, stuck a leg out, her shoulder, and then wrested out her head. Paused, surprised, but was pushed from behind by an impatient hand, and so stumbled out into the miniature playground, rounded on all sides by looming buildings.
Guillaume was awaiting her, perched atop a seesaw, his weight insufficient to cause it to drop. Maya, brushing dead leaves from her hair, drifted forward, stopped. A small courtyard, with room enough for a set of swings, a slide, and two seesaws. A chain link fence with an open gate leading out to the street, smooth gray walls rising up on the other three sides. A bench across from her, a heavy set Japanese man frozen, hot dog held before his mouth. He stared at her through his thick, old fashioned glasses, unable to believe what he had just witnessed.
“Fuck it’s cold,” said Kevin, shouldering out after her. He rubbed his hands together vigorously, and then up down his arms. “Any chance we could get a drink before looking for this Asterion?”
Guillaume leapt neatly down from the seesaw and brushed past them both. “Come,” was all he said, his voice abrupt, commanding. Like a trail of smoke he led them out through the gate, leaving the forlorn little courtyard behind.
Night, banished by the lights and furor of Manhattan. Buses yet trawled their way down the avenues, endless cadmium yellow cabs blared their horns and swerved like dog fighting pilots from World War I. Heavily coated pedestrians rushed along the pavement, ducked into bars and restaurants, processed themselves through revolving doors that led into glittering lobbies.
Kevin leaned his head back and looked up at a great banking building. Many of the windows were still lit, despite the hour. “Man, I hate Manhattan,” he said. “Place gives me the creeps. It’s like the Terminator.”
“The Terminator?” asked Maya, stepping up next to him. “It’s a killing machine?”
“Yeah, kind of. It’s a machine all right, hidden beneath a layer of cosmetic flesh and hair. You think it’s human, you think it’s a good place to be, for a laugh or whatever, but it’s not. Cold metal and
laser eyes, it’ll chew you up and grind you down.”
Maya laughed, and then saw that Kevin was serious. “Huh,” she managed. “Guess you’ve had some bad experiences here.”
“Some,” he said, and gave her a piercing look, “I guess you have too.” Then he shrugged and turned to the fox. “Okay, so how do we find the entrance to this House? We have an address?”
“No,” said Guillaume, “Nothing so prosaic. There is no set door, no window through which to creep, at least, not in the literal sense in which you mean. The doors to this House are endless, and can be found anywhere. The only way to enter is to become attuned to it, to become the key. And then you’ll find the first door before you, and the city left behind.”
“You know, I think I understand about less than half of everything you say,” said Kevin. “And that’s very impressive. I bet you could talk your way out of anything. In fact. Could you talk to this girl for me? She’s got me in a corner, and—,”
Maya elbowed Kevin in the ribs, shoving him aside. He stumbled, laughed, turned the stumble into a bow which he sketched for two very surprised old ladies with epic sized hats.
“Come,” said Guillaume again, and began to move. Maya tried to keep up, to walk alongside him, but he had a terrible facility for weaving through foot traffic as if it were not there. She was forced to dart and dodge around people, weaving and moving forward in bursts just to keep up. At one point she stepped off the pavement altogether and jogged alongside the shoulder of the road, till she caught up and slipped back in. Under scaffolding and around corners, across broad avenues and down side streets.
Slowly, she started to notice things. Common elements that dictated his changes in direction. A left at a flower shop, the great bouquets of roses seeming to exhale carnal health into the air, rich and fleshy in their bundles. A tight circle around the bronze statue of a man with a great dog at his heels, so vividly cast it seemed almost alive, and then up the avenue. Left at a corner where a wreath hung from the wall, candles set before it on the ground, a photograph of a young Latino stuck below, his hair combed, smartly dressed, eyes staring blindly out at the world. A sudden burst of speed as a horse drawn carriage pulled past them, and then a slow meander before a pub from whose doors came the sound of a live fiddle, laughter, voices raised and pipe smoke.
It all formed a tenuous thread, improbable connections that Guillaume seemed able to divine. Around them, about them, were other things. Things that caused Kevin to pick up his pace and stay close, eyes darting from side to side. A creature, squat and toad like, skin black and purple and tinted with green, kept pace with them for two blocks, crawling across building walls, leaping from one cornice to the other. A sense of being watched from a dark block, invisible eyes tracking their passage. A flurry of moths that streamed and spun above their heads, dripping black slime from their wings, causing Maya and Kevin to run forward, arms lifted over their heads.
But more. It was like moving through honey, the air thick, inimical, poisonous. Looks directed their way were sullen, grudging, rich with dislike. Laughter was raucous, the blare of horns more malicious, the endless flow of traffic seeming to press against them, elbows and shoulders catching them as they sought to move through it. As if a tide was turning against them, a general sense of opprobrium and resentment. Eyes followed them, faces closed, shut, glowering. Their presence causing resentment.
Maya tried to block it out. She’d faced resentment before, discrimination, for being young, being a girl, but not as much as she had expected, here in New York City. But this was more than a question of skin or sex; this was a resentment of her very being, in some profound and personal way she couldn’t understand. Kevin was feeling it too; looking over at him she saw that he was walking with his chin ducked, his shoulders hunched, as if into a strong headwind.
They were curling into a spiral. Guillaume, moving quickly, took a left turn at the following street, and then paused, turning to look back at them. “The trail is weak,” he said, his voice breathless. “I’m having trouble picking up the scent. But we’re close, I think.” He looked up into Maya’s eyes, searching them. “Close.”
Maya nodded. She felt frightened, almost cowed, and this realization caused something to straighten within her. Reaching up, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and twisted a rubber band off her wrist to tie it back. Tucked some strands behind her ears, and pushed her shoulders back.
“Slow down,” she said to Guillaume, who was turning to continue. “Walk. Never run.” Anger burned in her, but something more; a dignity she had learned from her mother, as they walked hand in hand down the streets. A dignity that she had observed each morning as a child when her father would rise to dress and comb his hair and put on his tie, meticulous and precise though nobody expected him to wear a suit. A worn suit, threadbare, but one he wore with pride. Ignoring snubs, snide remarks, insults. Rising, as he always said, above it.
Guillaume stared at her, and then nodded. Turned, and sauntered forward. Kevin grinned at her, and then ran ahead. Sprinted past the fox, slipping through the crowd, and then, before she could cry out, darted into a liquor store to his left. By the time she had reached the store’s front door, he emerged, a paper bag in his hand. He raised it, drank a good four gulps, and then wiped his lips on the back of his hand, letting out a sigh of relief.
“Liquid courage,” he said, falling in step with her. “Never fails. Want some?”
“I don’t like alcohol,” she said stiffly. He snorted, shoved her shoulder as if she’d told a good joke. Paused, stared at her.
“For reals?” he asked, “You really don’t drink?”
“Well, not often,” she said, remembering Paula and the Blue Note, so many lifetimes ago. Kevin laughed, and held out the bottle out to her. Shaking her head, she shoved his arm away. He only laughed again.
Guillaume paused, uncertain. Hesitated, turned left. Something within her reacted, and she stopped. “No,” she said. Her voice rang with new authority. “Not that way. This way.”
Turning right, she crossed the street, running quickly before the onslaught of yellow cabs and luxury cars that were racing their way, unleashed by the green light a block away. Gained the far side, paused, trying to figure out from which direction that feeling had come. Something had called to her, tugged her in this direction. Moving forward, she saw boarded up windows along the brick wall to her right, a whole row of them, nailed closed and abandoned. But before one of them, a flower box. Held in place by thick, corrugated iron bands, rusted past crimson almost to black, peeling curlicues of paint. And in the flowerbox, a profusion of growth, green stems unleashing a palette of demonic reds, viridian greens, azures and swirls of sunlit yellows. Tulips, she thought, but no, something more, like the essence of them, thick as if painted fresh on a Van Gogh painting. She imagined squeezing one in her fist, causing thick and vibrant paint to ooze out between the cracks of her hand.
“Look at that,” said Kevin, stepping up next to her. He didn’t have anything to add. They stood shoulder by shoulder, staring at the impossible flowers. They were so vividly colored, so bright and vivacious that they jarred with the night air, the penumbral gloom. Throbbed and breathed, alive in a way no plant could be.
“We’re close,” breathed Guillaume, as if afraid of frightening away that which they were proximal to by speaking too loudly. “We’re very close.”
“Close to me,” grunted a voice, broad and deep and stupidly happy. Maya and Kevin looked up, away from the flowers, and saw Tommy Rawhead walking toward them, razor in hand.
“Oh give me a fuckin’ break,” said Kevin. “You serious?”
Maya grabbed Kevin by the arm. There were no owls this time. She didn’t want to run. Enough with running. She had no idea what they would do, but this time, they would not flee. Tommy approached, walking past an alley mouth toward them, a strand of drool hanging from his lower lip. Delight and pleasure were in his eyes, and he kept making sudden little darts with his step, tryi
ng to spook them into running.
“Ok,” said Kevin. “I’m going to fuck his shit up. Give me something to hit him with.”
A vast club arced down from the darkness above. Great and heavy, wickedly knotted. It hit Tommy directly across the shoulders and the back of his neck. Came down with such unearthly strength and savagery that Tommy was dead before it could crush past his shoulders and clavicles, bury itself deep into his ribcage, send him slamming down to his knees.
Everything seemed to slow down, stop. The club lifted back up, raising Tommy momentarily as he stuck to it, to its spikes. Then gravity claimed its own, and pulled the dead man down, sucking him free so that he fell bonelessly to the pavement.
“Run,” whispered Guillaume.
Something stepped out of the alley, shoulders so broad they brushed both walls of the second floor. A man—no, a giant—his ponderous form draped in chains, each link as large as Maya’s hand. Four times taller than Kevin whose head but barely cleared the giant’s knees. Its great feet were wrapped in oiled rags, a massive, torn shirt, belted at the waist, served as an overlarge tunic, reaching in tatters down its thighs. A belt of chains, from which severed heads hung, the severed heads of men, men whose faces were yet animated, their mouths moving, screaming silently, their eyes pleading with Maya.
That was when she realized this was no rescue. That this was no figure come to save them from Rawhead. That it was possible for things to get much, much worse. Lumbering out into the street, ignored by traffic and the people striding by, the giant loomed over them. Its head, so high above, was a halo of thick, unkempt hair, its beard falling down to is belt, growing high up its cheeks, its brows overlarge, hiding the dark eyes in shadow. Hideous, mute, it raised the club to its shoulder, one handed.
“Jack in Irons,” whispered Guillaume, “Run.” And then he was gone, a flash of his white tipped tail, and the club came down where he had stood, so fast it blurred, and the pavement buckled, shattered into a crater where he had been. So fast, Maya realized, that she would have had no chance to jump aside. Would simply have died.
