Lenore was not alone. Two mandalas blistered through the ceiling, drawn in by the spectacle.
The fat woman glanced up for a second, her eyes red, her face aboil with pus, flesh and fat slithering from cheek and jaw. She seemed to be smiling at the mandalas, but Lenore knew she couldn't actually see them. Her attention went back to the girl, now more like a charred monkey dragged along unresisting. The mandalas bobbed lower, wheels of grainy flame. One flailed the mother with tendrils like bullwhips coated with broken glass and razors, goading her on like a horseman whipping its broken mount to impossible feats. The other hung above the child and peeled back filmy lips from a myriad pores that perforated the pulsating disc of its body. Each pore or mouth was a gate into another world, and as they opened Lenore could hear screams from somewhere within that realm the color of a stomach. As it lowered toward the shriveling girl, it began to siphon off a thin mist like smoke or steam that curled wispily from her soul, an aroma of agony visible to Lenore, who could no longer look away or forget or ignore anything. The girl was left with a little less juice, and the mandala looked quite a bit fatter. From the shriveled look of the child, this had been going on for quite a while. Once the one had fed from the girl, the other wrapped itself around the mother and caught at the streaming ribbony flecks of astral tissue, like bloody chunks of soul, that had torn free with every act of violence and now hung around the woman's head waiting to be harvested by her keeper. The mandalas kept the humans like a couple of prize milk cows, like ants tending aphids.
Lenore jarred back into her body. The cold metal walls of the stall clanged in around her, drab and unmarked, the toilet paper hanging in limp strands, the porcelain bowl sparkling, all its chrome recently polished. Thinking herself safe, she opened the door and stepped out.
The mother stood there, running water, holding her daughter to the sink. The woman's face was restored; the girl looked small but not withered; she startled at the sight of Lenore, but otherwise showed no particular signs of suffering. The woman was scooping water into the girl's face, and now she reached for paper towels to dry her daughter's mouth; but Lenore's appearance slowed and distracted her. They both stared at Lenore, openly disgusted by her black clothes, her streaky dyed hair, all of which Lenore could see in the mirror behind them. When the woman's eyes went to the symbol on her forehead, she jerked her daughter away, but her lips were moving and Lenore could hear her muttered obeisances. She ducked and bowed, as if humbling herself before a priestess of her religion. Lenore scraped past them toward the door. It took a conscious effort to continue seeing them as humans, especially when their auras gave off a brittle electric buzz accompanied by the stench of rot and burning hair.
Lenore hurried out to the car, afraid to sit where she would have to look at people. Michael returned with a tall cup and a paper bag stuffed full. She unwrapped an Egg McMuffin, but when she saw what it had turned into she set it on the floor for Scabby.
"I saw ..." she started to say. "In the rest room just now...."
"What?" He washed down his eggs with a huge swallow of Coke.
"A woman beating her child."
"I think I saw them. The little snot was making a scene in there; she wanted a milkshake for breakfast. I'd have paddled her too."
"She was really beating her. I thought she was going to kill her."
"What? I doubt she would beat her in a McDonald's."
"They were in the bathroom. They didn't know I could see them."
"Maybe you—maybe you were seeing things, Lenore. You know what I mean? I saw them come out of there, and the girl was quiet, but she didn't look abused."
Lenore couldn't answer, because she wasn't sure what she'd seen. She'd seen two things: the scene of torture, and then the pair facing her, looking superficially unharmed. She wondered which was real and then realized that both were. The first scene, the one she'd witnessed from above, had been a mental projection, something running parallel to the physical world; she had seen what the mother wished to do in that moment; she had seen the fulfillment of repressed anger; and she had also seen its effect on the child. The attacker's vicious thoughts, in that realm, took a tangible toll from their victim. It was in this way that the mandalas fed and worked their magic. And since so much of what was thought and dreamed and accomplished in that realm worked its way eventually into the physical plane, the mandalas had established a solid foundation here as well.
"You think you're okay to drive?" Michael asked suddenly.
"Me? Drive?"
"I don't know if I can make it all the way to California, Lenore. I mean, if we're gonna get there in a hurry and all, you should help out. If you're, you know, lucid."
"Sure," she said. "I'm perfectly ... lucid."
Even as she said it, the car shifted slightly, becoming something other than she had realized. Usually cars gave her a feeling of security, of speed, all that protective metal pushing them on. But now she had an unwelcome vision of the Beetle as a little death trap. It only waited the right opportunity to buckle and crush inward, trapping the soft things (them) in hard jagged pinchers of torn steel.
No, that's not real, she told herself. I can see through to reality—I can see clearly enough to drive.
"I'll take over," she said. "For a while."
"Great. I could use some sleep. You let me know if you start to feel funny, all right?"
"Sure."
But she could not tell him that by the time she climbed into the driver's seat, the parking lot itself had changed. She caught a glimpse of her guardian in the rearview mirror, black and whirling about her crown. Well, if you can't keep me from getting in an accident, what good are you?
The thought stung; her head seemed to clog with black bitter smoke. Then it cleared and she saw the landscape with perfect clarity, as if it were an extension of herself, as if she were inhabiting a map. The trees were arranged in intricate symmetry; the clouds had been laid upon the sky and set into deliberate motion. Everything funneled together as in a perspective drawing, pulling her eyes westward. She felt like a god at the wheel....
This is going to be easy.
Then she twisted the key and the car moaned to life, sounding like something resurrected to torment. It screamed when she trod on the pedal, as if the small explosions of gas in its guts were unbearable.
Where McDonald's had been she now saw a squat, smoldering box like a black concrete bunker with nervous death camp faces peering out from glassless slits in the sides.
The car lurched forward and the ground squirmed away underneath. There was only one road, leading in only one direction, covered with endless rows of flexible dagger caltrops like tastebuds on a demon's tongue that bowed as she drove over them, and sprang back instantly to prevent her from retreating. If she hesitated even a moment, the road-tongue would curl up like a chameleon's and suck them back into that black bunker, shrouded in the smell of carrion charred and raw.
Ignoring the car's apparent agony, she sped toward higher ground.
24
Michael stopped for coffee, Coke, and gasoline, never for sleep. He knew he would need it eventually, but he held off as long as he could.
Letting Lenore drive again was out of the question.
He had tried that for a while; been lulled into dozing; and then awoke, somewhere east of Memphis, just as the car veered off the road toward a slough. He grabbed the wheel from Lenore, who was babbling about stones—singing stones with bloody hearts—and how the clouds were blood and blood rained down everywhere. He barely managed to get back onto the road.
Never again.
"Leave the driving to me, Lenore."
He had shouldered the responsibility for the entire trip.
Of course, he was just as likely to get them into an accident as Lenore had been—though his reasons were more mundane.
Late at night, the oncoming headlights became a torment, jabbing his eyes like bits of broken glass. They drifted past endless oases of light in the dark of the lands
cape—gas stations, motels, Western Sizzlin's. The thought of rest was torture. His eyelids grew heavier, heavier. The sound of the engine was a constant reassurance, lulling him to sleep ... sleep....
He swerved onto the shoulder, crashed through a litter of bottles and cans, braked to a halt just short of a road sign showing the distance to Oklahoma City.
"I've gotta sleep, Lenore," he said. "Just a little while, okay?"
She didn't answer. With her head slumped against the window and her eyes closed, she appeared to be sleeping herself. He couldn't be quite sure of what that meant in her state.
The overhead light was burned out, but anyway there were no pertinent maps in the car. He couldn't see his wristwatch. Time didn't matter. All that mattered was that he find a rest area before he crashed. They seemed to be spaced about every sixty miles, but he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen one. That was probably a good sign; it meant one should be coming up soon, unless he had spaced out and passed it without noticing.
He found it ten miles later and came cruising in past rows of station wagons, family cars, people walking their dogs and stretching under floodlights where a few insects circled in the chill. As soon as he shut off the engine, the cold crept in to exert its claim on everything that dared to cross the plains this time of year. He draped himself and Lenore with blankets, then sank down in his seat and tried to get comfortable enough to sleep.
Comfort, it turned out, made no difference to his exhaustion. He was dreaming within minutes. He stirred once, hearing Lenore's door slam, but didn't wake. Her footsteps trailed off in the direction of the rest rooms.
His dreams were a surrealist's collage of the day's drive. Faces rushed toward him like pieces of the landscape, streaking around his eyes like the edges of the road. The tires squealed on sharp curves, the car rocked from side to side. His eyes began to burn—literally. Flames filled them, singeing his brain; flames lit the whole world, a ghastly orange scene of smoke and screaming and always the language of The Mandala Rites babbling at him, in Lenore's voice, in his mother's. Derek Crowe appeared in a state trooper's uniform, tearing the door from its hinges, and as he dragged Michael from the car with metal fingers, his features dissolved into bloodred steam.
Michael woke hearing unintelligible words floating on the night wind. He had sprawled over into the passenger seat, the emergency brake handle gouging his thigh.
Sitting up, wide awake, he found he was alone in the car.
His breath had fogged the windows. With a corner of the blanket he tried to wipe a clear spot in the glass, but the smear was worse than the fog. He found a bottle of Windex between the seats and tried to squirt it on the glass, but the liquid had frozen to an icy slush and merely oozed all over his fingers. He dropped the bottle, cursing, and opened his door. Stepping out into the still air, he looked down the row of silent cars. Silent except for the voice, still chanting. Suddenly a woman rushed out from the open area between the rest rooms, glancing back over her shoulder as she hurried toward the cars.
Michael ran toward the brick shelter, hearing Lenore's nightmare voice echoing louder, hearing car doors slam behind him.
"What's going on in there?" a man called.
"Some crazy girl!" a woman answered.
The circular cement plaza was lined with vending machines, maps under Plexiglas, informative displays on the Great Plains. Lenore stood in the center of the circle with her arms reaching out to the sky. The moon, nearly full now, was visible through a weathered plastic skylight. She seemed to be pleading with it, screaming and shouting and weeping, tearing her hair and clothes. Her shirt was open, her breasts bared to the sky and the floodlights. But it wasn't the moon she addressed.
Like a dark balloon bobbing against the plastic skylight, the black mandala hung tethered to her words, a thick black root buried deep in Lenore's open throat.
Michael glanced back and saw a man moving cautiously forward from the cars, followed by the woman who had run from the plaza. He grabbed Lenore by the elbow and the mandala vanished. He pulled her into the dark behind the brick way-station. She wouldn't stop raving, but there was no point wasting strength or time trying to shut her up. As soon as he got to the car, he thrust her in and started the engine. Headlights off, he drove down the short ramp toward the highway, leaning out his window for visibility. Glancing back as he gained the highway, he saw several figures gathering under the plaza floodlights.
It was one more scattered bit of havoc strewn in their trail. How long would it take the law to catch up with them if anyone ever managed to piece the loose links into a single chain? As soon as Tucker was discovered, he and Lenore would be wanted for questioning, no doubt of that; presumably the cops would interview Earl and start searching New York. But how could they ever tie that event to the North Carolina cop shot through the head with his own gun?
They couldn't, that was a fact. At the very least, they should have time to get answers—and help—from Derek Crowe before anyone started looking for them. Tucker and Scarlet were always jaunting off for days at a time; they didn't have anyone dependent on them, or anyone who'd come looking very hard.
For the time being, they were safe. He felt like a turtle in its shell, his whole world reduced to this tiny compartment that could carry him wherever he wished. His entire existence had sharpened to a single point. He had to stop thinking about his destination. It was waiting somewhere ahead; it would be there when the journey ended. First they had thousands of empty miles to deal with. Miles when he hardly dared sleep and couldn't use the rest areas for fear of what Lenore would do in a crowd. At least he had this little world of his own, covered with protective symbols inside and out, a pentacle swinging from the rearview mirror, the cryptic Tarot emblem on the steering wheel. It gave him an infantile feeling of security: the roar of the engine was a mother's heartbeat, a cat's purr; it felt like a cradle rocking. He had come to resent even the necessity of pulling over to refuel, to eat.
The moon moved steadily ahead of him, downward, westward, followed by all the planets in their course. The car might have been another satellite, pulled by some force beyond his ability to identify—as inexplicable as gravity prior to Newton. Science had not managed to illuminate the universe's moral nature; there was no road map for Michael's real journey. But the mandalas knew the way, possessed of some insight that he lacked. Good, bad or neutral, they were, like gravity, irresistible.
25
Nicholas Strete, the reporter from the Bayrometer, was waiting for Derek just outside a North Beach coffee bar in the cold midday fog. At first he thought the kid was loitering, waiting for a bus or spare change; then he came forward grinning, and Derek saw he was carrying a laptop computer. He had expected a serious young man with a pencil behind his ear and a spiral notebook in his hand, ready to take shorthand notes. Strete looked childishly young, with long black hair, a silver nose ring, and clustered loops and gemmed studs in each ear. Bands of symmetrical tribal tattoos ran like chevrons from under the cuffs of his black leather jacket and out over the backs of his hands. But no mandalas, he was glad to see. "Mr. Crowe, I recognize you from your picture!" "Yes, hello." He peered into the cafe, and Strete opened the door to usher him toward a booth in the corner. There were others at the table already, which caused him to hesitate. Friends of Strete's? Journalistic parasites, hoping to sit in on the interview? "I hope you don't mind," Strete said as they approached the table; the other two rose to let him slide in if he wished, "but for this 'Mandala Madness' thing, I thought I'd do sort of a group interview. Originally I planned to just talk to you separately, then it occurred to me, more of a forum thing would be really cool."
"Cool," Derek echoed. The couple at the table were not much older than Strete. The male looked Asiatic, but when he extended his hand and greeted Derek, his voice was accented French. Derek's skin crawled when he realized where he had heard it before.
"Mr. Crowe, at last we meet!" said the young man. "I am Etienne and this is Nina."
/> "Club Mandala," Derek said with undiluted venom.
"I assume you know each other," said Strete.
"No, no! We have been waiting so long!"
"Too long," said the woman, Nina. Her hair was black with red highlights, sleek and cut short, curving in toward her jaws like a helmet; she wore horn-rimmed black glasses, lipstick some shade of dark metallic green that reminded him of a tropical insect's carapace. Her nails were painted to match. As she withdrew the hand Derek refused to take, he saw that her bare shoulder was brightly tattooed with a mandala that might have been taken intact from his book.
"I can't believe your nerve," he said in a low voice, glaring from one to the other.
"What's that?" Strete said, swaying nervously between them. "Did I walk into something?"
"No, everything is fine!" Etienne said. "We relied on you to introduce us, Mr. Strete—this is so much better than a lawyer's office! But now, I think, you can go."
Strete bit his lip, looking baffled. "Uh ... well, the article ..."
"There's plenty of time for that, don't you worry," Nina said, taking Strete by the shoulders and gently walking him away across the restaurant, leaning close to murmur in his ear. Derek watched them go. Etienne's hand closed on his own shoulder.
"Come, have a seat with us," he said very easily. "I really wish you would relax."
Derek stiffened, but what was he to do? He had intended to confront them all along; if he could just shake off his surprise, he could reduce their advantage to nothing. He would come out on top of this with a few surprises of his own. He thought of how he had already sicced Huon on them, and smiled.
The 37th mandala : a novel Page 24