“I’ve seen it,” Chance says, when she can speak again, even though she believes that even less than she believes Narcissa Snow could really be a werewolf. “Even if you don’t keep your promise, I’ve seen my child.”
“Sure,” Narcissa says. “Whatever gets you through the day. Come on, crazy lady, we’re at the top.”
Chance blinks through the sweat and the grit clinging to her eyelashes, blinks through the pain, at the road winding steeply down the far side of the hill, this lone and stony hill lost out here among the dunes, and at first all she sees is the darkening sky and the white sand, stretching away to the edge of the ocean. The eastern horizon is turning a deep purple, and the setting sun throws long uneasy shadows across the dunes.
“Down there,” the werewolf growls. “Down there near the shore.”
“What?” Chance asks, teetering on the thin rim of another contraction, but then she sees it and sits down in the sand before Narcissa can stop her.
“I was born there,” the werewolf tells her, so maybe it doesn’t care that she sat down, maybe it isn’t going to try to make her walk anymore. “It was a very big house. My grandfather built it.”
“Well, there’s no house there now,” Chance mutters, taking a deep breath and wiping the sweat from her face. “There’s nothing but a bunch of rocks.”
“I thought rocks got you all hot and bothered, crazy lady. I thought rocks were practically your religion.”
“Not rocks. The fossils I find in the rocks. There’s nothing in these rocks. It’s all igneous—”
“You hurt too much to fucking walk, but you can lecture me on geology,” the werewolf barks. “Now, isn’t that something?”
“They’re only rocks,” Chance says again, and then the pain’s back and this time she screams because it’s easier than not screaming. Every second longer than the one before, and the werewolf grabs her by the shoulders before she can lie down.
“Not just rocks,” it snaps, its ivory teeth clicking loudly together, yellow-white blades that slice the evening to ribbons. “But you wouldn’t know that, would you, because it’s nothing anyone’s ever had the nerve to put into one of your science books, is it? The hounds built that altar to Mother Hydra and Father Kraken ten thousand years before the last ice age. Before Orc and all his children followed the night roads down into the earth, before men had even learned to build fires to keep away the monsters.”
The contraction ends, and Chance gulps the salty, cold air, shivering now, drinking the air like it’s the sweetest water she’s ever tasted. “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve said yet,” she says, trying not to let her teeth chatter, not wanting the werewolf to hear her discomfort. And then she forces herself to laugh, even though her throat hurts and she feels more like vomiting. But it’s a clean sound, nonetheless, and she imagines the wheeling gulls laughing with her, opening their sharp, hooked beaks and letting Narcissa Snow know exactly what they think of her delusions.
“The last ice age would have ground those boulders to dust, if they’d been here then. The glaciers were a mile thick. Do you have any idea how much a mile of ice weighs, Narcissa?” And she laughs again before the pain returns or the werewolf can think of an answer. “Is that what you dragged me all the way from Birmingham to see?”
“You’ll never see past the lies that were put here to blind you,” Narcissa says, and now she almost sounds like she feels sorry for Chance. “You’ll never see the truth of things, the beauty and horror hidden just beneath the surface.”
Chance stares down at the long, flat boulders, half buried in the sand, laid out in a rough, uneven sort of rectangle running parallel to the sea. There’s some passing resemblance to photographs she’s seen of megaliths in England and Ireland and other places, but not enough that it can’t be coincidence, the work of tides and the weather, the random work of time, not designing hands. In places, she can make out the charred remains of brick walls built directly on top of the granite, and part of a crumbling chimney is still standing at the nearer end of the ruins. Here and there, blackened timbers rise from the sand like the scorched bones of a giant.
“You’re beginning to sound like some of my students,” Chance says. “You’re not going to start talking about Noah and the fucking ark, are you?” and then the next contraction comes, but this time she digs her hands into the sand and doesn’t scream.
“Maybe you’ll get a glimpse, before you die,” but Narcissa’s voice is muted by the pain, Chance’s body trying to rip itself into some new form and function, as her cervix strains to dilate the final few centimeters. She shuts her eyes tightly, forcing her fingers deeper and deeper into the soft, dry sand. The Atlantic wind in her ears, the cries of the birds, and she can almost lose the werewolf entirely. She tries to think of Deacon, wishing him here, wishing she could see his face one more time, wishing Narcissa would give her another shot of morphine.
You think it’s over, Mother, the child says. You think it’s over, but it’s not. He’s coming. And Chance opens her eyes, but there’s only Narcissa and the ruined house sitting at the bottom of the hill, only the pain and the things she’s hurting too much not to want to be true.
The starlings are showing him the way.
“—on your feet. It’s time. The moon will be along soon.”
Chance exhales, breath like her life shuddering out of her, if only it could be that easy, and then, because it isn’t, she draws more of the chilly ocean air deep inside her.
“I can’t walk any more, Narcissa,” she says. “I fucking swear to god. If you want me to go any farther, you’re going to have to pick me up and carry me.”
The werewolf squats down beside her, peering at her with its odd yellow eyes, peering through her, just a hint of fire around the rims of the irises now, and it licks its lips.
“Then the deal’s off,” it says. “I was keeping my end of the bargain.”
“Just please shut up and get this over with,” Chance tells her, and Narcissa Snow, who isn’t really a werewolf, frowns and nods her head. The wind fingers through her hair, whipping it about her hard, pale face.
“Hold this,” she says, handing Chance the leather satchel, “and don’t drop it, I don’t care how much pain you’re in.”
And then Narcissa lifts her off the sand, one arm around her shoulders and the other beneath the crooks of her knees, lifting Chance as though she were a hollow, weightless thing.
He’ll never, ever stop looking for us, the child whispers, so maybe Narcissa won’t overhear, and then the woman with eyes the color of sunflowers carries her down the hill.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mother Hydra
“Go on ahead,” Starling Jane says. “I’ll catch up,” and she pops the trunk of the Lincoln with something that almost looks like a bent paper clip. Inside, there’s a jumble of cardboard boxes and suitcases, and she lifts the first box out and sets it on the road; as far as Deacon can tell, it’s filled with medical supplies.
“We’ll come back for this shit,” he says as she takes another box out of the trunk, “after we find Chance.”
“I said go on. Just follow the road. It’ll take you there. I have to be sure it’s all here.”
“Bullshit,” and he raises the pistol and aims it at her head.
Jane stops unloading the trunk and stares at him, a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth, and then she glances at her watch. “You better hurry, or you’ll be too late.”
“That wasn’t the deal. First we find Chance, then you can worry about—”
“Isn’t there enough blood on your hands, Deacon Silvey?” she asks, still smiling. “Wasn’t Scarborough enough?”
“That was an accident.”
“You think the police are going to believe that when they find his body? You think they’ll believe it when they find mine? You’re wasting time, and there’s not much of it left to waste.”
“You know I can’t do this alone.”
“I know we can’t do it together,” Jane
says, glancing back at the trunk. “We can’t stop Narcissa. No one can. Isn’t that what you told Chance in your dream?”
“Fuck this shit,” Deacon growls. “We’ll find whatever you’re looking for after we’ve found her. You’re coming with me, Jane. Maybe we can’t stop her, but we are going to try, both of us,” and he cocks the pistol just like Scarborough Pentecost showed him.
“Deacon, are you going to stand here pointing that gun at me until the moon’s up and your wife is dead?”
“Make up your mind. If we can’t stop Narcissa, what the hell do I have to lose by shooting you?”
“Your last chance,” Jane whispers purposefully, each word like a stone dropped into still water, and Deacon turns his head, turns to look down the overgrown dirt road winding away into a grove of cedars, because he thinks maybe he heard someone calling his name. Thinks maybe he heard Chance, but there’s no one back there, just the murmuring trees and the dunes farther out. And then he hears Jane pumping the big shotgun, chambering a round, and he turns back to face her.
“You know, I’m getting pretty goddamned tired of the Jedi mind-control shit,” he says, looking directly into the twin barrels of the gun.
“Then turn around and start walking. Like I said, I’ll catch up when I have what I came for. Four twenty, Deacon. You better get moving.”
He swallows, his throat so dry it’s hard to find so much as a drop of spit, and looks up from the shotgun, stares into the lenses of Jane’s sunglasses instead.
“These people you work for, did they ever tell you your real name? Did they ever even bother to tell you where you were born?”
“That life was lost to me.”
“You know the police took your prints, right?” and she nods, and her finger tightens on the trigger. “Did you know they found a match?”
“Shut up,” she snarls at him.
“Yeah. A missing kid from Connecticut—”
“I’m not going to tell you again. Turn around and start walking, or I’m going to blow your head off.”
“Then you might never know. You’ll spend the rest of your life, whatever’s left of it, wondering—”
“I don’t want to have to shoot you, Deacon. I don’t want your wife to have to die.”
Then a sound from the opened trunk, wet and brittle noise like someone breaking eggs, at least a dozen eggs breaking all at once, thin white shells cracked to spill precious liquids, and Jane looks, startled, taking her eyes off Deacon. He slaps the muzzle of the shotgun hard with his bandaged hand and she drops it, a small, staccato gasp from her parted lips as it clatters to the pavement at her feet. And Deacon fires the pistol into the pitch blackness pouring out of the back of the Lincoln, the solid, intangible nothing rushing hungrily towards them.
“A trap,” Jane says, sounding more surprised than scared, as the blackness flows thick around her—now you see her, now you don’t—and there’s not even time for Deacon to get off another shot before it’s engulfed him, as well. The entire world wiped away, and he knows it’s the same trick as the one Narcissa Snow used in the spider-girl house, the one that got Scarborough killed, the same perfect smoke screen made more terrible by its power over the fading daylight.
“Can you hear me?” he asks, half afraid the blackness will slip down his throat and strangle him, will fill him until it’s leaking from his pores, from his blind eyes, and “Yes,” Jane says. “I’m still here. I haven’t moved.”
“Well don’t. Stay right where you are. She did this when we went after her at the house. Scarborough made a blue light to—”
“I can’t do that. I don’t know photomancy. That was one of Scarborough’s, but it isn’t one of mine.”
“That just so fucking figures,” Deacon mumbles and slides his aching, bandaged hand into the pocket of his trousers. He can tell it’s bleeding again, the wound torn open when he knocked the shotgun out of Jane’s hands, but he finds what he’s looking for, his cigarette lighter, and manages to get the lid open without dropping it.
“I can’t breathe,” Jane says. “I think it’s going to suffocate us. I think that’s what it does.”
“No, it’s just something she put here to slow us down. You’re not fucking going to suffocate, so just stay calm,” and he runs his thumb quickly across the strike wheel. The Zippo gives up a small shower of white sparks, an oily whiff of butane, and then a feeble yellow-blue flame that does nothing whatsoever to push back the darkness.
“I can’t breathe,” Jane says, her voice grown very thin and strained, and Deacon tries holding the lighter up like a torch, but it doesn’t work any better than before.
“Deacon, it’s trying to get inside me,” she whimpers, and now she sounds very small and very, very frightened. “Oh god, I can taste it.”
“It can’t hurt you,” Deacon says, and he takes a step forward, moving towards her voice, towards the spot where she’s supposed to be. “Don’t you go losing your shit on me, little girl. That’s exactly what she wants.”
“It’s not just a darkness. It’s something she’s called up. It’s eating me alive—”
“Stop it, Jane! Listen to me. I want you to hold your hands out in front of you until you can feel me.”
“It was a trap. It was a trap, and I tripped it.”
Deacon takes his finger off the strike wheel, and the impotent flame vanishes immediately. He puts the lighter back into his pocket and takes another step towards Starling Jane.
“I don’t want to die like this,” she whispers, and he thinks that she’s started crying now. “I don’t want her to get my soul. I want to know the name my parents gave me.”
“Listen, I thought you were the hard-as-nails spooky bitch—”
“I can’t find you,” she says, but then her fingertips brush his right arm, and she screams.
“C’mon, Jane. I thought you were the bad-ass monster-slayer. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark?”
But Deacon has started hearing things in the blackness, a sound like delicate chitinous legs moving swiftly across the asphalt, a crisp and scuttling sound that seems to come from everywhere at once and nowhere at all. Jane clings tightly to his sleeve. “Do you hear that?” she asks. “Do you hear that, Deacon?”
“I don’t hear anything and neither do you, you understand? She’s just trying to frighten us. That’s how Scarborough got killed.”
“Something’s coming. There’s something in the dark with us.”
“Listen to me, Jane. I need you to bend down and find the shotgun. It ought to be right there at your feet.”
“I dropped it,” she sobs. “You made me drop it,” and the scuttling sounds are growing louder, a ceaseless, jointed susurration like busy insect legs, busy crab or lobster legs, moving swiftly through the blackness towards them.
“Just reach down and find it.”
“I’m not letting go of you.”
“Then I’ll bend down with you,” and he does, moving slow so she won’t lose her grasp on his arm, and he can feel the scuttling things on him now, slipping fast across his feet and under the cuffs of his pants, probing claws and mouths pressed painfully against his skin.
“They’re all over me—”
“They’re not real, Jane,” he says. “They’re nothing. I fucking swear to god they’re not real.”
“I have it,” she says a second or two later, only inches from hysteria now. “The shotgun, I found it.”
“Good, now don’t let go of it or me,” he tells her. “Whatever you do, don’t let go of me. I’m gonna try to get us out of here.”
“They’re all over me, Deacon!”
“It’s only darkness,” he says, struggling to sound calm, as much for himself as her. “It’s only something to slow us down. Don’t let go of me.”
He takes a deep breath and lets himself fall backwards, away from the car, and for a moment they’re tumbling together, arms and legs and guns, rolling across the asphalt, crushing a moving carpet of invisible, armored bodi
es beneath them. And then they’re in the light again, twilight as bright as noon after the blackness from the Lincoln’s trunk. They roll a little farther, off the road, across hard gravel, and into a shallow ditch filled with brambles and cold, stagnant water. Deacon sits up and looks at the car; there’s nothing back there but the open trunk and the two cardboard boxes that Jane took out and set on the edge of Argilla Road.
“You can open your eyes now,” he says. “I think it’s over,” so she does, her sunglasses lost in the escape, and she blinks and squints painfully at the light.
“Oh god,” she whispers, wiping mud from her face. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”
“Yeah,” Deacon says. “It’s absolutely fucking gorgeous. What time is it?”
A pause while Jane checks her wristwatch, holding it close to her face so she can see the hour and minute hands, and “Four forty-one,” she replies reluctantly.
“How is that even possible? We couldn’t have been inside that thing for more than a few minutes.”
“Maybe my watch isn’t right. Maybe it broke—”
“It’s right,” he says. “You know it’s right and I know it’s right.” He gets to his feet, cold and dripping ditch water, pulling Jane up after him. “Are you coming with me or not?”
She glances at the gray Lincoln again and then down at the shotgun in her hands.
“You have to understand. The things she stole—”
“Simple question. In or out, yes or no. I don’t need to hear a goddamn explanation,” and before she can answer, he turns his back on the car, on her, and starts running down the dirt road towards the white dunes and the sea.
It’s done, Chance thinks with no sense of relief at all. At last, it’s finally done.
Lying there at the very center of the crude rectangle of black granite slabs, after Narcissa carried her down the steep hill and the moon began to rise above the horizon, a moon as red and swollen as an infection, malignant moon to stare hatefully down at them while Narcissa chanted and shouted and finally screamed at the sagging sky. While her hands moved ceaselessly over and inside Chance’s naked body, drawing signs across her skin in fresh blood, in shit and saliva, and no moon was ever so full, ever half so wicked, as the bloated crimson thing leering down at them as the child slipped smoothly out from between her legs. Floating helpless in the freezing saltwater pool hidden inside the stones, water not so deep that she would likely drown, but deep enough her head kept going under, while Narcissa lifted the child by its feet, severing the umbilical cord, tying it, and a moment or a hundred thousand years later, the baby began to cry. Opened its tiny mouth and released the breathless wail like the bottomless loss spilling from Chance’s heart, the voice of her desecration and emptiness, and neither that sound nor any other could ever fill the void.
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