But fifty paces after that the tunnel dead-ended.
* * *
"So what did you do?" asked Selene as the Jaguar breezed down the Waldo Grade.
Jamey shrugged. "Panicked, of course. Freaked large. But after I'd calmed myself with a swig from my flask, I started feeling my way around the cul-de-sac. The walls were solid dirt, but directly overhead my fingertips brushed what felt like wood. Hoping that it was another trapdoor, I squatted down, jumped straight up with my arms outstretched, hit the board with my palms. It felt as if it had budged just the slightest bit, so I took another whack at it. And another and another, slamming against the board overhead with all my strength, dirt sifting down on my head, until my palms were bleeding and my legs were turning to jelly. Once more, I told myself, and this time I gave it everything I had, and the board shifted, and a crack of sunlight came shooting through and damn near blinded me. I had to retreat all the way back around that last bend in the tunnel before my eyes stopped hurting. But it was well worth the pain to know there was a way out. Of course, I'd have to wait until sunset…"
Whistler paused. What was there to say about the next seven or eight hours alone in the dark with only his grief and rage, his fear, and of course the goddamn rats, to keep him company?
"But how?" Selene prompted.
"Moved enough dirt to make a mound two feet high directly underneath the trapdoor. That gave me enough leverage to force the trapdoor open."
"And you went straight to Mr. Munger's?"
Jamey gave her a surprised glance as they approached the Tarn Junction crossroads. "Who?"
"The Rastaman. By the way, he told me to tell you, if I ever caught up to you, to consider the bread and jerky as a gift, but you owe him five dollars for the spliff."
"Why, that old thief! It was barely a roach."
* * *
And the least of the debts Whistler incurred that night. There was only one other settlement within walking distance of where the Maroon tunnel ended, a village consisting of a half dozen geodesic domes built by a commune of Georgia hippies who had fled Calhoun County back in the sixties only steps ahead of a drug bust. After another pull on his flask he set out for it, limping down the. dundo road on bare feet so burned and bruised and sore that he'd have needed a great deal more blood than he had available to him (the flask was by this time scarcely a quarter full) to still the pain.
Even before he'd turned up the long unpaved commune trail he heard the Luzan version of an intruder alarm—a pack of dogs in full cry—going off all over the village. When he reached the gate of the hand-split rail fence, a woman's voice informed him from somewhere in the dark that there were three guns trained on him.
"Shiner?" he called painfully. The sound of his own voice startled him; he hadn't heard it since that morning.
"Jay Dubya? That you, Jay Dubya?" A tiny white woman with a sixties-style whitish-blond Afro burst out of the shadows and came running to unlatch the gate, surrounded by yapping dogs. "We went up to look at the Greathouse just before dark. Fire truck's still up there—they said nobody got out. What happened?"
He stumbled forward; she caught his arm and steadied him with surprising strength for a woman whose bones seemed as light and hollow as a bird's. Long ago, back in the sixties, they had been lovers, Shiner and he. But then, back in the sixties everyone had been lovers.
"Are any of the others here?" he whispered urgently—it hurt less to whisper.
"Just the kids. Everybody else is down at the quay."
That would be Smuggler's Quay. "They're sailing tonight?"
"I didn't say that." She locked the gate behind them. "For God's sake, J. W., what happened up there?"
He could only shake his head. "Someone blew it up. Every building was wired."
"But, who—"
"I don't know." He could feel his voice starting to falter as an image of Lourdes nursing Cora whizzed through his mind with subliminal speed. He quickly banished the unwelcome thought, a skill he'd had quite a few hours to perfect during that long afternoon. What he'd decided to do, every time a memory like that slipped through, was to replace it with purpose. Purpose, like grief, was one of those new companions that had come to live with him during those long hours in the tunnel. "But I'm going to find out, Shiner. And when I do, they're going to pay. In the meantime I need your help to get off the island. Can you lend me a car to get down to the quay?"
"Can you drive?"
"I can do anything," he said through the pain. "Before I go, though, I need one more favor."
He didn't have to say what it was; that was another secret she'd kept for him for twenty-five years.
"On two conditions," she replied.
"Name them."
"One, Buffalo never knows. Two, you keep that thing in your pants, in your pants."
"Sex is the last thing on my…" Then something occurred to him. "You didn't know, did you?" he said softly.
"What?"
"I was married a year and a half ago. We had a daughter. They were both… up there."
Now Shiner's voice failed her; she threw her arms around him and hugged him with the side of her face pressing against his chest. Gently he pushed her away—rather, purpose pushed her away; grief made it gentle. "When do they sail?"
"With the tide—about an hour before sunrise."
* * *
"All I had with me was my flask and my watch," Jamey explained to Selene as they turned off Highway 1 to take the ridge route over Mt. Tarn. "Shiner found a pair of deck shoes that fit me, threw some clothes and a toothbrush into a gym bag, dug up one of the kids' old Sesame Street thermos bottles, and gave me more blood than I should have allowed her to; when I left her she was pale as a ghost."
Selene patted his knee. "Times like these, you find out who your friends are."
"I know." He pressed down firmly on the back of her hand. "Believe me, I know. And Buffalo was a brick as well. He sent most of the crew back to guard the compound, in case somebody was just blowing up the forest for the hell of it, though neither of us really believed that, and we sailed short-handed, with only his brother Toby and Shiner's oldest son, Luke, for crew."
On the third night of the voyage (Selene had "visited" him on the second night) the Layla reached St. Croix and dropped off half its cargo; on the fourth night Whistler attempted to call Selene from St. Thomas.
"That was the second, right?" asked Selene, remembering his phone message. "I'd just flown out of St. Thomas that very afternoon. Talk about coincidence."
Whistler made no reply. He didn't want to talk about coincidence. He'd done more than his share of pondering about its role in human affairs during the past few weeks, and had decided, with the aid of his new allies, grief and purpose, that he could not, would not bring himself to accept any other explanation for the chain of events that had delivered him from Lourdes's and Cora's fiery fate.
Because if there was a God or a Fate or an angel that guided the affairs of mortals, that had arranged for Lourdes to wear that powder blue lace thingie from Victoria's Secret to bed that morning instead of more circumspect nightwear, thereby arousing the Creature and sending its servant/owner out of the Greathouse in search of blood just before the holocaust began, a Fate that had so carefully placed his face between Josephina's thighs while the Greathouse went up, then rushed him out of harm's way when the slave quarters exploded, that had led him to the tunnel, etc., etc., etc., then as far as James Whistler was concerned, It could pucker up and kiss his ass. And if there was more than one God or Fate or angel, They could stand in line.
Then something else occurred to him—he laughed mirthlessly.
"What now?" asked Selene.
"Remember I quoted from the Book of Job before?"
She nodded. "I remember I was surprised. You never were much of a biblical scholar."
"Well, the library aboard the Layla was rather limited in scope. Four Tom Robbins novels and a Bible. Needless to say, I spent a good deal of time reading the Bibl
e. Are you familiar with the Book of Job?"
"More or less. God takes everything away from him on a bet with the devil. Oh, and boils."
"Yes, everyone remembers the boils. But do you remember the end, when it comes time for God to even accounts with this man whose life he has destroyed?"
"I… no, I guess not."
"Neat trick. He replaces the children and doubles the livestock."
"Beg pardon?"
"At the beginning of the book Job has seven sons, three daughters, seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses. God takes it all away, then at the end, after He's had his fun, He gives Job back fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, a thousand she asses, seven more sons, and three more daughters. Replaces the children, doubles the livestock. Oh: And every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold. He lived another hundred and forty years, and died old and full of days—and earrings, I suppose.
"But here's what struck me funny just now. It occurred to me that when my father dies, which he will, soon, assuming I get him before he gets me, I'll receive the other half of the Whistler legacy—double my livestock, so to speak. Throw in this new daughter I never knew I had, and… well, you follow my drift."
" 'Tain't funny, Whistler."
"Tizzent," he replied.
She almost smiled. Would have, too, if she didn't still have the stench of Nick in her nostrils, and his image in the back of her mind.
PART 4
For Every Evil
For every evil under the sun
There is a remedy or there is none.
If there be one, seek till you find it;
If there be none, never mind it.
—MOTHER GOOSE
CHAPTER 1
« ^ »
"… But Selene was apparently a tad too clever for your grandfather," Aldo explained to Martha, toward the conclusion of their bedside chat on Tuesday morning. "Otherwise I wouldn't have had to involve you in all of this."
"Sounds like she was a tad too clever for you too," Martha retorted.
"Yes, well, we'll see about that," was Aldo's surprisingly mellow reply. It was not the girl's first dig at him, but he'd washed down another Perc with a little blood about halfway through the narrative, and could have tolerated any amount of irony.
As for Martha's sass, it wasn't that she was no longer afraid of him, just that the bizarre, scarcely credible tale he'd told her had more or less robbed her of any hope she'd had of getting out of this alive. Clearly he was going to kill her sooner or later. Sooner, maybe, if she had a vote; perhaps that was why she went on teasing him. "Yeah, we'll see. But as far as I can tell, so far the score is Selene two, wacko zip."
"And by wacko, you are referring to… ?"
"Guess wh—Ow! Cut that out!"
For he had seized the tip of her button nose and twisted it so sharply that the cartilage made a grinding sound. But there was no anger in his eyes, nor in his voice when he reprimanded her. "You forget yourself, child. Now you wouldn't want me to forget myself, would you?"
Martha's eyes were tearing from the pain, but she still had the strength of her despair. "How about if instead of forgetting ourselves, we just forget each other?" she joked nasally.
He laughed and released her nose. "How could I ever forget you, my dear Martha?"
He might have been smiling, but she wasn't watching his face; she was watching his unbandaged left hand. Somehow a scalpel had appeared in it. An ordinary surgical steel scalpel with a gently curved inch-long blade. It had no sheath—how he'd been concealing it she couldn't imagine, but there it was. And no matter how badly she wanted not to, she had to ask. "What's that for?"
"Do you remember how I told you we recognize each other, we strigoi?"
If you drink their blood and don't get off! thought Martha in terror. But her sudden decision to scream, no matter what the consequences, just on the off chance someone might hear, must have shown in her eyes, because Aldo's hand was over her mouth almost before she'd opened it.
"Foolish idea," he hissed; he was holding the scalpel in his clenched teeth like a pirate. "I can put you out in a second, but I couldn't guarantee you'd wake up again. Now are you going to behave yourself? It's hard enough doing this one-handed without you complicating matters."
He let go; she turned her face to the wall; he retrieved his roll of duct tape, tore off a six-inch strip using his teeth and his good hand, smoothed it over her mouth, then cut a slit in her gag with his scalpel so she could breathe through her mouth.
"As I was about to say," he went on, pulling her arms out from under the bedcovers and slitting the tape that bound her wrists, "now that you know about us, I'd better find out whether you're one of us." He was sitting on the side of the bed now; he took her arm in his lap, wrist up, nicked the web of skin between her thumb and forefinger, brought the hand up to his lips as the blood began to well, and began to suck. Had she begun to struggle at this point she'd have been a goner, all of Aldo's self-admonitions to the contrary. Instead she lay unmoving, eyes shut tight, face turned resolutely to the wall.
When he'd finished, he pinched off the wound. "The bad news is, you're not one of us," he said softly, feeling the hot blood begin to course through him. "The good news is, I have even more reason to keep you alive—several liters' worth, in fact."
But she refused to open her eyes.
"Fine. Be that way," joked Aldo—it was a turn of phrase he'd heard one of the girls use in the hot tub a week before. "I'll be in the other room—call if you need me." Another joke—when he left he did not remove the gag. But neither did he tie her hands again, and within minutes of retiring to the adjoining room he heard the TV click on. Some dreadful music—MTV, no doubt.
Aldo took his Discman out of his kit bag, settled the plugs into his ears, and dropped the CD of Andrea Chénier into place. The girl's live blood had excited him almost beyond endurance. Listening to Callas sing "Mamma morte" would calm him, or at least get his mind off the naked child in the next room, and back to business. His hand had begun throbbing again. He popped another Percodan into his mouth and washed it down with a belt of Stoli, then lay down on the bed and began rethinking his plans.
Clearly, he held the upper hand now. But he held it—excellent pun—one-handed, which might make it difficult to go after the striga again, much less the strigoi, should the two of them have joined forces. Fortunately, he didn't have to go after them. He could take his time, choose his ground, bring her—or them—to him.
Where, though, should that ground be? If Whistler was in the picture, he'd have to take him from a distance. No sense risking a hand-to-hand battle with another strigoi, especially one-handed. Which, meant using Nick's .38, which meant he'd have to find someplace more isolated—certainly not a motel. And not the Bay Area, either—no sense hanging around until Nick's body was discovered. But he was familiar with only two other locations within driving distance, Monterey and Tahoe. He settled on Monterey, as it was more or less virgin territory, in that he had yet to commit a crime there, other than holding Martha against her will.
Aldo spent much of Tuesday afternoon on the phone chatting up realtors from a list provided him by a pleasant woman at the Monterey County Chamber of Commerce, scouting for properties, remote tear-downs or fixer-uppers (he'd quickly learned the lingo) where he could stage the next phase of the operation.
Eventually he reached a realtor by the name of William Honey, who was peddling what he carefully referred to as a distressed property, in a location known as down the coast, about halfway between Carmel and Big Sur.
Sounded perfect. When he had assured himself that the property was not only isolated but deserted and likely to remain so, Aldo schmoozed the realtor for a few more minutes, then made an appointment to see the place on Monday the 22nd, and obtained detailed instructions as to how to find it, along with Honey's assurance that he had no plans to show the place t
o anyone before then.
Immediately after hanging up, Aldo stuck his head through the doorway into the room where Martha lay channel surfing. "Just so you know, we'll be checking out right after sunset. In the meantime I'm going to try to catch a nap—if you behave yourself all day I'll let you ride in the front seat instead of the trunk."
"How ha-haw hunh?" Martha tried to enunciate through the tape covering her mouth. Apparently she had decided to abandon the silent treatment.
Aldo came over and loosened it. "Again?"
"I said how about lunch?"
"How about it?"
"Do I get some?"
"If you behave yourself."
"You keep saying that like I have a choice. What are you expecting me to do?"
"I don't know. But I'm sure you'd try to think of something—I just wanted to give you a bit of incentive not to."
* * *
Aldo kept his second promise to Martha—lunch, that is—Mexican food. They spent the rest of the afternoon quietly; Martha watched TV while Aldo rested and listened to Callas on the Disc-man and washed down Percodans with blood or Stoli, as needed. After the sun had gone down Aldo trussed Martha to the bed and went out shopping for camping supplies, including an ice chest for the bottles of blood now cooling in the tub. He'd realized he couldn't trust himself to drink from Martha again until it didn't matter whether she was alive or not.
As for Aldo's first promise to Martha, about letting her ride inside the car, he'd never had any intention of keeping it. He did let her get up to pee one last time after the car was loaded, then retrussed her. Her eyes were wild and angry over the shiny silver tape; he shrugged an apology, rolled her up in a green vinyl tarpaulin, hauled her over his shoulder out to the Toyota, and stuffed her back into the trunk. He left the tarp wrapped around her tightly so she couldn't pound for help, but peeled it back from her face so the fumes from the fresh vinyl wouldn't suffocate her. That had happened to him once in Timisoara, and wasn't Aldo's face red when Major Strada unwrapped the corpse he'd been planning to interrogate.
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