by Tanith Lee
She leaned forward and her black hair tented them in. She kissed his throat. He slipped his hands about her ribs. At once she was dizzy and weak, her yearning blossoming into the thorns and roses of desire.
"I wish I'd always been with you," she said.
"You always were."
"Don't lie—"
"You were with me," he said, "in black places and bright."
"Where are we now?"
"Between two devils," he said.
He was hard against her. "Please—" she said.
Malach lifted her, drew her down onto his body, filling her.
He held her inexorably, moving her body, helpless, toward the abyss.
She stared at him. She wanted to die for him. She wanted death at his hands. Death that burned—
Ruth wrapped her arms about herself and arched her back, her throat, becoming a white icon on a veil of black hair. Her scream was silent and for a moment all her body flushed as if in the light of flames, as if her blood snowed through her crystal, like the light in the window.
CHAPTER 41
SOMETHING WAS WRONG.
Everything was. And that bloody noise, waking him.
Nobbi tried to sit up, but he was sitting up. He was in the cold Jag and a cold glare came in, except where the figure impeded it, banging on the window.
It was a traffic warden in the irritant wasp uniform, a woman though, with a sad pinched face.
Nobbi rolled down the window.
"I'm afraid you can't park here, sir."
"Can't I?"
"No, sir."
"Restricted zone? Didn't see no notice."
"I'm sorry, sir."
Something warned him now, not to argue or question.
"Just got tired, needed a kip."
"That's all right, sir. But if you could move on now."
"Right you are," said Nobbi. He smiled at her. "Dull old day."
"Yes, it is," she said.
She stepped back and stood on the pavement milita-ristically, under the big dripping trees, as he started up the cold reluctant car, and drove off busily downhill.
The terrible thing was, he had overslept, cramped there in the car. It was nearly nine-thirty, and he had not called Star, as he had promised. (Had he promised?) God knew what she would think. He would have to call her tonight. He could never remember the library number. Look it up, maybe, if he could find a box with directories in it.
There was a posh cafe open in among the shops down the hill.
Nobbi went in and had a breakfast of strange herbal green scrambled egg and crumbly French roll-things. The coffee was a cup of froth.
He had left the Jag in a side street among a lot of other cars, all probably there for the day.
He went back to it, and sat in it.
He had to think what to do.
Then again, he had to be honest. He was a bit scared.
For one, he had gone against Mr. Glass, so he would have to be very cautious, not antagonize or cause bother.
But there again, if they were a dodgy crowd, he had to get her away.
As he was sitting in the Jag, smoking one of his cigars with the window half-down, the ice-cream van went by. It played to him the tune of his war, "The Thieving Magpie."
He sat very still, and the cigar burned out.
It took a long time for the van to go around, even though surely nobody bought anything from it in the chilly day. When its noise had faded, Nobbi threw the dead cigar from the window.
There were the dogs too, those big white hounds the bloke with the white hair had had. They could take your arm off, or your throat out.
Nobbi sat listening, to see if he could hear "The Thieving Magpie" again. But the van was too far off, or not playing.
Slowly, he opened the car door, got out, and locked up the Jag.
He wished again he had phoned Star. But somehow now it seemed too late for that.
Walking uphill from the shops made Nobbi a little breathless, and by the time he had come onto the road again, under the sweep of the common, his cough had started.
He waited below the house for it to ease up.
What a pile. Christ, it was like an old Hammer horror movie.
He went up the slope in stages.
There were trees, and a path. Above, the backdrop of woods seemed thick with old rains.
When he was fairly near, he stopped, and looked again.
Welcome to the Bates Motel. He could just imagine some mummified mother propped at an upper window, some guy with an axe or knife. But they were rock musicians, they merely liked old houses. Probably out of their skulls on heroin.
He did not want to think about that.
Nobbi got himself all the way to the door and knocked.
When no one came, he began to get angry after all. It warmed him up, and he knocked again, violently.
Then the door opened, and there was an oldish, thin geezer in dusty looking old-fashioned clothes. Black, black eyes.
A butler? Yes, they would have something like that.
"May I help you?" A flat soft voice.
"Yeah, you can help me," said Nobbi. "I'm Mr. Ives, and my daughter's staying here. Tracy Ives. So I'd like to see her. Okay with you?"
The oldish fellow looked at Nobbi, as if through cob-webs of time. He did not say anything. He was not tall or burly.
"I'll come in then, shall I?" said Nobbi.
The man stood aside.
And Nobbi strutted, muscles tensed and round head alert, into the Bates Motel.
CHAPTER 42
CONNOR WAS SPONGING OVER THE shovelhead. Viv sat by to encourage, shaking herself when the drips hit her.
Down by the tents, Tina was darning Pig's tiger-patterned socks, and Whisper, Rose, and Cardiff were in a game of Dead Man's Poker. Red stayed in her tent.
The fire burned cheerily. Plenty of fallen branches to make it go, and no police to kick it out.
Above, the house loomed in the rain-pent morning.
The butler man had brought them breakfast, ham and eggs—actual grilled ham, and eggs poached in a sauce—coffee and tea. And then another guy came out to exercise two fantastic bloody great wolfhounds—Viv squeaked, and Connor held her back, in case, but the guy said, "It will be all right." So then Connor let Viv go, and the two enormous dogs played with her, really nicely, and then ran off down the slope into the oaks.
Connor wondered if he would see Miranda again, but she must have come back some other way, yesterday. Not a trace.
Camillo had come down before noon.
He sat on one of the packs, between Connor and the fire. Viv had gone up to him and he tickled her idly, but he looked old and fragile, the way Connor remembered from that first time, on the beach.
Best leave Camillo alone.
Viv did so, too, all of them.
But there was a girl who had followed Camillo down. It seemed she was called Lou. She sat at his feet, on a piece of canvas. Short skirt, lots of hair, no brains.
Connor worked on a bad place near the forward wheel. Then he stood back. Water now. He picked up the bucket. The butler guy—Michael?—had shown him the outdoor tap.
Connor sluiced the Shovelhead and a gleam arose.
"My beauty," Connor said. Viv thumped her tail. "You too, you harlot."
Lou did not look at Viv. She had ignored Viv. Lou was stupid.
Red emerged from her tent.
Jesus.
She was wearing black rubber. Leggings showing every contour, down into her low black boots. And under her jacket, a rubber vest. Everything she had, and she had everything, was there to see, behind this film of glaucous darkness. And the red hair loose, back over one ear, with an earclip of a silver snake. She turned, and "saw" Camillo.
"How's your horse?" she called. She was glib, light as a feather.
Camillo looked at her.
"It bites."
"They all do," said Red. "The trick is to give them an apple, first."
"And a serpent in your ear," s
aid Camillo. He was looking better.
"Serpent bites horse," said Red.
Camillo giggled. Red raised her long red eyebrows. They really were, and her lashes were like long shavings of new bronze.
Viv barked, and Red threw her a kiss. "Amour jadis de moi," said Red, "ah, vous dis-je."
Someone spat, up on the slope. A rip of sound.
They all of them, arrested, looked up.
It was Whitey—Malach. The one Miranda had got mixed up over. Camillo's son? She had said Father.
He was a beauty, Malach. Like a priest-warrior out of time. He wore black, and his psyche was like an old red wine, nearly black, too. Sediment, and fire.
"Hail, Imperator," said Red.
Malach glanced at her, and away. He looked at Camillo.
He said something, Malach, in another tongue. It sounded Germanic, but possibly it was not.
Red gave a tiny gasp, then pulled herself together.
Camillo glared up. "English," said Camillo. "That's the rule. The talk of the time and the place."
"You want them to hear?" said Malach. "Your soldiers'?"
Connor put down the sponge.
"Get off his back," he said to Malach.
Then Malach looked at him.
Connor felt the breakfast curdle in his gut. Jesus, Jesus—make him stop—Connor held up both his hands. "It's between you," he said.
"Yes, it's between us."
Connor stepped back. He was sorry for Camillo. But against that, there was no way to—no, there was no way.
Camillo sat doggedly in the camp. Lou had drawn away from him.
"Say what you want. Don't care."
"You will care. You are mischievous. Aren't you?"
"Too old," said Camillo.
"Excrementum," Malach said.
"I remember," Camillo said, "the snow and the horse running. And the town on fire. I remember my mother in the sleigh."
"Listen to me," Malach said. "You have your battalion here. But don't follow me. Don't follow her."
"Wicked stepmother," said Camillo.
"She goes back before your birth," said Malach, "back into the dark. Ruth."
Camillo scowled like a naughty boy wanting to spit too, but he did not. Malach had spat. That was enough.
"Past is good," said Camillo.
"The past is a chain," said Malach. "Break it. Take your historical whore with the bloody hair, and cut her throat on some wedding night of the mind. Slough her. Slough the dead."
Red's eyes were wide. She drew her jacket across her breasts and held it there.
Cardiff stood up.
"You watch your mouth."
Malach turned. He moved like quicksilver. Against the fire. There was a kind of doubled light. Cardiff was on his back.
Lou screamed. She would.
Then Camillo had Malach's arm, and Malach swung about again and slapped Camillo across the face. It was the back of the left hand, with the tarnished rings. A crimson stroke appeared on Camillo's cheek, his old man's skin.
"Laat me met rust."
Camillo shook his head. A jewel of blood flew away like a tear.
Viv hid behind Connor. He made himself extra big, to shield her.
Red said firmly, her voice shaking, "Can't you end this?"
"Yes," said Malach. "He can. You, Camillo. Take your soldaat, and go. Or stay. But nowhere near to her."
"We ran," said Camillo, "in the snow. Men, not wolves."
Tina was pulling a face as if she were going to cry, and Pig put his arm round her. Cardiff lay where he had fallen, frowning. Rose and Whisper chewed cards. Lou had sidled off toward the trees.
The fire crackled.
It might have been any rainy slope of the world, long ago and far away.
Connor heard the soundless step of giants on the earth.
Where the stairs divided into two, there was a window with a sort of medieval band playing peculiar instruments on a pink sky. The other windows had rose-haired women with harps. Musical windows—that made a kind of sense.
Under the stairs was a big white room with highlights of gold.
Nobody seemed to be there.
Nobbi stood on the floor, looking around at the windows and the pillars. The butler bloke had left him there and gone somewhere. Trusting. Or else every inch of the place was wired up.
As he waited, Nobbi heard a large dog bark, down in the levels of the house.
Not so good.
The sun came out, and the hall glimmered into rose colors, but then the sun vanished, and it was an area of shadow.
The anger was building up again. The way he had been left here, as if he did not count for anything, as if it did not count what he did, being helpless.
Nobbi bristled and his brown face reddened.
He let out a shout.
"Hey! Hey!"
He broke off because a man was coming down the stairs. He was old, older than the butler bloke, dressed in some stagy suit like something from a black-and-white film. His hair was gray. He wore rings.
"All right," said Nobbi, loudly. "Which one are you?"
The man halted on the stairs and gazed at him.
"I am Eric. And you, I believe, are here for your daughter."
"Dead right, squire. Got it in one." Nobbi was shouting again. His loud red voice filled the hall. "Where the fuck is she?"
"Michael is looking for her now. With Miranda, perhaps."
"Miranda? And where's he, the feller she come with? Yeah I know about it."
"Camillo is outside."
"Camillo?" Nobbi laughed. His fists were clenched. "Great names you go in for. Well, I want this Camillo. I'd like a bleeding chat with him."
Something in Nobbi, which strangely had the voice of Star, was trying to tell him to calm down. But it had all gone on too long. And he was afraid. Afraid of the two enormous dogs being let out on him, and of a gang of thugs being summoned up. Afraid of this bloody old weirdo, who might be anything.
Afraid of what he would see, when Tracy came.
There was a feel to this house. Nobbi could not have said what it was. It was like eyes watching from the walls and shapes behind the pillars. Bloody crazy stuff, but pressing in.
Just then two more men appeared from a side passage. It was the first one, the butler, and a bigger taller gink with black hair. They pulled up about ten feet away from Nobbi.
The one called Eric said, "It's in order, Kei. This man wants to see his daughter."
"Yes, Mr. Eric."
All right. Two of them at his left and the old actor type on the stairs. No dogs. All right.
Then two women came along one side of the stairs.
Nobbi saw them. They were old. Done up in mothy, silky dresses, faces pale as paper, with long dark hair. Two old women… who were also young.
He realized that one of them, the smaller one, was Tray.
Something battered Nobbi in the side. It was his heart.
There had been all sorts of trouble in the past, the people she got in with. But always she had come out to him, maybe scared, maybe defiant or weepy, but always Tray. Shining and lovely. Not like this.
"What they done to her?" Nobbi said. Then he bawled, "What they done to you, love? Come here. Come here quick. I'm here. What is it, love?"
And Tray, vampire pale in her tresses of coal, Tray all one with the shadows and the hidden eyes, shrank back against the other young old woman. And in a little voice he heard her say the precious name she had had only for the Old Girl: "Nan-Nan?"
"She don't know me," said Nobbi. Did she? His heart did not think so and it attacked him with huge blows. "What have you done to her? Eh? What you done to my daughter?" And he lurched up the stairs toward Tray, or toward Eric.
Without a sound, the two waiting men were on him. They had him and they held him. Christ, they were strong. Nobbi roared.
On the slope, Malach turned his head.
Connor had heard something, too. Some sort of engine or even music in the
house, revved up loud.
Camillo giggled.
And Malach looked back at him.
High up, Ruth had also heard.
She moved slowly about, in a wave of hair.
Her dress was dark green, the mantle of a wood at dusk.
She listened.
Malach was in her body still, and in her brain. Malach was her teacher.
Now she knew what Scarabae meant.
She turned again, and paced across this room, pale and scarcely decorated, fashioned for him.
On the wall, the stone knife. She touched it.
And from down in the house, a kind of rumbling came, like an earthquake at the foundations. And then a man's voice again, like the roar of a bull.
Common sense, not the murmuring of Star, made Nobbi stop fighting.
He forced himself to relax in the grasp of the two men, the old one and the young one, both so vital.
"All right. All right."
The man on the stairs said, "You can let him go."
And they did. They released him.
Nobbi was shaking.
In the house of fear—
He had done everything he should not have done.
He looked up at Tray again. She seemed frightened now. She seemed like Tray.
Of course. It was only her hair, the makeup, the dress.
And if they had got her on to something, well, he would get her the best treatment. She would be okay.
But he must keep cool.
"Sorry," said Nobbi. "Het up. Didn't mean to come on so strong."
"She's your daughter," said Eric. He glanced back, and said, "Miranda, she must come down."
And then another figure came on to the other side of the stairs.
Something… Something dark.
No. Only the girl. The one he had seen before. The film-star girl.
She poised, above them all, looking down at him.
She wore a green dress and a green belt knuckled with silver.
"Didn't mean to cause no bother," said Nobbi. He was trying to be jovial.
The faces were all set, still. And Tray's face was set, but with a kind of human embarrassment now.
Only that other face, the highest one, was odd.
Yes, that girl was on drugs. Her eyes were blank and black as quags. Pools of paint. Nothing in them.
She started down the stairs.
"I've come a long way," said Nobbi. "I worry. You got to understand."