Abarat: Absolute Midnight a-3

by Clive Barker

  “Good,” Mater Motley murmured. “Very good.”

  There was a noise from within the pyramid now, as the system of counterweights that operated the doors was set in motion. The lock was turning, but so was an entire portion of the door surrounding the lock. And the motion was spreading, forms turning within forms, until the entire triangular door was moving, the design dividing, opening onto the darkness within.

  A rank smell came to greet the Old Mother and Maratien, fouler by far than that of excrement or rot, though the worst of both was contained within it. Maratien put her hand up to her face, disgusted by the stench. Mater Motley was indifferent to it.

  “How I have waited . . .” she breathed.

  The triangular door was completely open now, and from inside, carried on that foul air, was the voices of the sacbrood: clicking, hissing, ticking; its volume steadily rising as news spread from hive to hive that the Hour of Hours had come. Mater Motley reached into the folds of her skirts again, and brought out her slim, black wand. Then quietly instructing Maratien to follow her and stay close, she entered the Pyramid. The only illumination within was the moonlight that had entered with them. It did nothing to define the mysteries of the interior.

  “Be ready,” Mater Motley said to Maratien.

  Then she lifted the wand above her head and its tip suddenly blazed. It was a tiny source, but it threw off tens, then hundreds, then thousands of beads that flew in all directions, each as bright or brighter than its creator, and each trailing a filament of light that did not diminish, but hung in the air like the threads of a luciferian spider. And as this web of brightness spread, it began to unknit the darkness, and offer Maratien and her guardian a glimpse of what the Pyramid contained. The Old Mother had not remotely prepared the girl for what she now saw.

  The sacbrood were everywhere, each its own invention. Were they vast insects, or winged reptiles, or an unholy marriage of both? Some had limbs numbered in the hundreds, and eyes in clusters, like bright black eggs, and bodies that coiled upon themselves like nested snakes. Some were swarming with parasitic creatures whose bodies were in turn leeched upon by bloated mites; some hung in loops from the heights of the Pyramid, their translucent bodies containing jellied spawn; and others skittered over the floor, moving with such speed they left only an impression of their barbed bodies.

  But none of these details distracted Mater Motley from the business she had here.

  “I know that many of you here have waited years for this Hour,” she said, using that voice that, though it was barely conversational in volume, was somehow heard everywhere. “The waiting is over. Rise, all of you! And give me my Midnight!”

  She did not pause for a response from the brood. She simply pointed her black rod at the apex of the Pyramid. One last bend of brightness flew from it, and struck the top of the Pyramid. Unlike those messengers of light she’d previously unleashed, it was, however, instantly extinguished. It had done its work, triggering a mechanism somewhere in the Pyramid’s belly. A profound growl shook the structure, punctuated by something akin to the beating of a vast drum.

  “What’s happening?” Maratien said.

  “They are being freed to do what they were born to do,” Mater Motley replied. “See?”

  She directed the girl’s attention to the spot where she had sent the triggering pulse. Moon-silvered clouds were now visible with a litter of stars between them. The pyramid was opening, its sides no longer touching at the apex, but parting like a three-petaled flower. To move stone walls of such immensity was no easy task, and the blossoming above was slow. But the sacbrood sensed their imminent release.

  Waves of agitation passed through their prodigious numbers. A few of those close to the roof fluttered up to the three-pointed aperture and flirted with the moonlight; some even flew up fearlessly into the night. Their escape encouraged other members of the brood that were clinging to the walls lower down the Pyramid to also take flight, so that soon the Pyramid was filled with the clamor of wings.

  The shafts of moonlight were broadening as the Pyramid continued to open, but the sight of the sky only caused word to spread into the deeper and deeper hives. The floor of the massive structure, though built by masons who had known how to move blocks of stone the size of mountains, vibrated from the motion of a billion wingbeats, each striking the air with no great violence.

  Midnight had arrived.

  Chapter 30

  Draining the Ghost

  THE DEVICE THAT BILL QUACKENBUSH’S technicians, Elliot and Thompson, had hooked Candy up to was very obviously not of any parts its builder had available in the Hereafter. The portion secured to the wall behind the altar curtain was a large, messily constructed device made of equipment that had probably been taken from the big pharmacy on Main Street mingled with stuff that might have come from a garage or perhaps from the wreckage of the chicken factory, or both.

  At its heart, however, were magical mechanisms that had not, she thought, been found in Chickentown, unless by chance the floodwaters of the Izabella had conveniently brought them here. More likely, Candy thought (no, feared) they had been supplied to him by somebody in the Abarat, which meant that trade between the two worlds had begun again. Perhaps it had never been fully eradicated in the first place and all that her father needed to do to find the parts for his machine was ask the right people.

  There were two parts of the device that really carried the stamp of Abaratian technology. One was a globe of pulsing power about three feet across—the glass it was made from, full of flaws—that was set at the center of the device. It made the air smell like summer lightning: sweet and metallic. The second piece of Abaratian design was the bizarre mechanism that the globe was set upon. It looked like the innards of an old television, only slightly melted and then given to a family of tiny, white bugs to nest in and that now lived inside the guts of the thing and moved at such speed through the machine that they were blurs.

  There was a third piece: a chair.

  “Sit,” her father said. “Go on. And before you try any of your tricks, just remember: your mother is back at home, fast asleep. Defenseless. Do you understand me?”

  Candy nodded.

  “Say it.”

  “I understand,” she said quietly as she sat in the chair.

  “Sir, may I step outside and take a breath of air?” one of the men said, as Elliot and Thompson each uncoiled lengths of the needle tubing. “I’ve always been a little squeamish around medical things.”

  “No, Futterman,” Bill Quackenbush snapped. The nervous man, who Candy only now recognized as the manager of the supermarket on Riley Street, reluctantly obeyed the preacher’s instructions. Bill grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him closer. “You will stay right there—”

  “Must I? I think—”

  “I don’t care what you think. I’m the minister of this church and if you want to stay in the Lord’s good graces then you’d better do as I damn well say!”

  Meekly, Futterman remained where he’d been told to stand. All the color had drained from his face, leaving him pasty white. Candy felt sorry for him. He looked so afraid. He seemed to feel her watching him, because his eyes flicked in her direction. Candy desperately wanted to give him some hope. She wanted to throw a thought into his head to say: It’s going to be all right. The preacher’s just a bully who found some magic hats. He hasn’t got any real power.

  Candy’s concern for him distracted her from her own problems, until at a little nod from her father, Elliot and Thompson, working with well-rehearsed synchronicity, went down on their haunches to either side of the half-melted television with the white bugs in it, and unraveled from either side of it long black and yellow cables. They had at the end of them small discs with lids that the two men cautiously unscrewed.

  “Now we just have to get this thing going,” Bill said.

  He reached behind Candy and flipped one switch, which started a deep, regretful moan in the machine. Thompson and Elliot knew their cues.
They each opened one of Candy’s hands without any need of force, and placed the discs on the palms of either hand.

  “The Silter nests are in place, sir. We’re ready.”

  Bill flipped two more switches, and Candy felt a creeping sickness climb through her body. The Silter nests broke through the flesh of her translucent palms and began to send fine tentacles up into her hands. She instantly started to feel the hunger of the voracious things called Silters. At once she felt weaker, as though her very life force was draining from her.

  “Dad, please . . .” Candy muttered in her sleep.

  “Did you hear that?” Malingo said. “She’s talking to her father?”

  “Lordy Lou,” said John Moot. “That man’s psychotic.”

  “She knows how to deal with him,” said John Fillet.

  “Does that sound like somebody who’s dealing with things?” John Serpent said.

  “She sounds as if she’s dying,” Geneva said.

  “She’s just dreaming,” Mischief said.

  “Look at the poor girl,” John Serpent replied. “They’re tormenting her. We have to do something!”

  “I think he’s right, for once,” Tom said. “She’s obviously in pain.”

  The expression on Candy’s face was becoming more and more agitated. Malingo glanced up at the faces of the John Brothers, Tom and Geneva, all looking down at Candy with echoes of her pained expression on their faces.

  “You have to wake her,” Geneva said.

  “But what’ll happen if we do? She’s never been like this,” Malingo said.

  “Oh, Lordy . . .” she murmured. “Now you’ve got me doubting my own instincts.”

  “What do you think, Malingo?” Tom said.

  “I think . . .” he said softly. Then, drawing a deeper breath, “. . . I think we have no choice but to trust that she knows what she’s doing.”

  “Doesn’t look that way,” John Serpent said.

  “She’ll be okay,” Malingo said. “I believe in her.”

  Chapter 31

  The Flock

  E XACTLY WHEN DID I get to be so appetizing? Candy asked herself. She seemed to be on a lot of menus lately. The first clue, now that she thought about it, was the attack of the Zetheks, who would definitely have bitten a sizeable chunk out of her if she’d not kept out of his way. Then, of course, Boa, who’d been determined to get a new body out of Candy’s energies. And now, the unlikeliest thief of all: her own father.

  The machine, she could see from the corner of her eye, was devouring her visions. No, not visions—visions were simply sights, passively admired—no, it was experiences she was having leeched from her: glorious experiences.

  All her beautiful experiences, and the memories of these experiences, were being stolen, drained into large phials that sat in the center of the machine. And it wasn’t just one life the device was sucking out of her, it was all the lives that she’d seen or felt in the Abarat. Her ever-inquisitive soul had touched them all in its way, made them her spiritual kin. They had stayed with her long after their physical forms had gone from sight: the dream-bedecked occupants of Marapozsa Street, Jimothi leading an army of tarrie-cats in battle against the bone beasts on Ninnyhammer, the Sea-Skippers on the tide of the Izabella. She’d confronted Zetheks, the Beasts of Efreet, not to mention Carrion and his grandmother.

  Some of the memories had been nightmarish visions but she had kept hold of them in her mind for a reason. They were hers, for better or worse, and she wanted them all back. Experiencing them, in all their strangeness, she had come to better understand herself. If her father took them from her, then the Candy she had become—the true Candy—would also disappear.

  “ . . . not . . . going . . . to happen,” she said.

  “Reverend?”

  “What is it, Norma?” he said as he studied the readouts from the Thieving Machine.

  “The girl said something, Bill.”

  “You are to call me Reverend, do you understand, Norma? And I heard her. I just didn’t care.”

  “I think you should.”

  “I told you, I couldn’t care—wait. Wait! These readings aren’t right!” He looked up at Candy. Her body pulsed with light as the Silters flailed about riotously in her etheric body. “Stop! You can’t do this!”

  “You’d . . . be . . . surprised . . .

  “. . . what I can do.”

  “Look! She looks better. I think whatever was happening to her before . . . she has it under control,” Malingo said.

  “You’re supposed to die now,” her father said. “Stop fighting it!”

  “My memories of the Abarat don’t belong to you!”

  “She’s getting agitated again,” Geneva said. “Look how wildly her eyes are moving behind her lids. She’s watching something.”

  “Yes,” Malingo said. He watched the motion of her eyes closely. “It looks like she’s looking down.”

  “At her hands, maybe?” Betty said.

  Candy, asleep on the boat, continued to clutch at nothing. The sinews in her fingers taut like harp strings.

  “Lordy Lou, what is that monster doing to her?” Tom said.

  “I was born with a piece of Abarat inside me,” Candy shouted. “I was meant to be in the Abarat.”

  “Well, you can take comfort in this: soon you won’t even remember the word.”

  “I’ll remember it forever,” she said defiantly. “Abarat. Abarat. You’ll never take it from me! Abarat. Abarat. Abar—”

  Her recitation of the three syllables was interrupted by a yell from the other end of the church.

  “Dad! I’m bored! Nothing’s happening outside,” Ricky said as he entered the church and walked down the center aisle toward the altar.

  “Ricky, I told you to stay outside. Get the hell out! Why have I been cursed with idiotic children?”

  Ricky stopped short at his father’s insult. His eyes welled with tears.

  “Dad?”

  “I said get out of here, boy! This isn’t for your eyes.”

  It was then that Ricky saw Candy, strapped to the machine, the slimy Silters creeping up her arms and into her chest, draining her of life and essence.

  “What are you doing to her?” An expression of profound disgust came over his face. His question became an outraged yell. “What are you creeps doing to her?”

  “It’s none of your damn business, boy!”

  “Look at her! Oh, God. You’re torturing her!”

  “Go home, boy!” Bill said, a dangerous growl in his voice. “If you don’t, you’ll be sorry.”

  “I already am. I thought you’d changed, but you haven’t. You’re . . . bad. Rotten inside! That’s what you are.”

  “Thompson, grab him!”

  The burly Thompson pushed through the other witnesses to go and grab Ricky. But Ricky had no intention of being caught. He backed up along the center aisle, picking up one of the folding wooden chairs from the end of the row and throwing it at Thompson, who was quick enough to swat it away before it struck him, but not fast enough to see the second chair coming. It struck him hard, and it was he who folded up, not the chair, taking several more chairs with him when he went down.

  Candy knew she would not get another chance to undo the harm her father had done. She let her head loll as though she was barely conscious, and the ruse seemed to work. She caught a sideways glimpse of her father glancing up at her and—apparently deciding she was in no state to cause him problems—turning his back on her and starting to clamber over the litter of overturned chairs to get Ricky.

  “I need some help here!” he yelled to his little congregation. “He’s just a kid! He can’t hurt you!”

  He’d no sooner spoken than Ricky made a liar of him, picking up one of the folded chairs in both hands and swatted at Miss Schwartz with it. She was thrown off her feet by the blow, knocking over the man called Elliot on her way to the ground.

  Candy needed to pull the wretched Silters out of her, she knew, and be quick about it
. Bill wouldn’t be distracted for long. In a matter of seconds he could be back to finish his work. She lifted her hand up toward her mouth as far as the restraints allowed, and bent so that she could remove the invading Silters with her teeth. But she had to be quick. There was no time to be squeamish.

  Do it! she told herself, and giving her mind no chance at second thoughts, she bit down, taking off their heads.

  They tasted like rotting, slimy flesh, but as soon as she bit into them, the flowing tentacles shrieked and withered. She pulled them out with her teeth and spat them onto the ground.

  The machine was not happy with this sudden change in events. In the few seconds it took Candy to remove the Silters she’d glanced back to see that just about every element of the device capable of motion was registering this unexpected reversal; its gauges fluttering, its warning lights ticking, and the phials in which the loot of Candy’s mind was stored, rattling in their metal cages. Her luck could not hold for very much longer. It was only a matter of time before her father took his eyes off the messy struggle going on in the pile of folded chairs, and saw her escaping.

  It was not Bill Quackenbush who raised an alarm, however. It was Mr. Futterman, who had been crying, forgotten on the ground in his faint until now. When he opened his eyes he saw Candy biting into the slimy Silters and spitting them out.

  “I’m going to be sick!” he said, his comment by chance finding a window in the general racket of shouts and chairs that echoed around the church.

  Candy slid off the edge of the altar and by the time the soles of her feet were on the ground the clatter of conflict died away almost entirely. She looked up. Her father was turning, his eyes already fixed upon her. Candy couldn’t make any sense of the string of curses he then unleashed, but there was no doubting the raging fury that fueled them. Bill drew back his right arm, at belly level, to the side of his body, his hand raised, palm out, fingers bent. He made a quick counterclockwise flick of his wrist, then reversed the motion. As a result, the overturned chairs that lay between father and daughter divided. The chairs squealed on the polished boards and were whipped away by an invisible force, thrown up and over one another by the power of Bill’s gesture.