And then he was gone, descending into a bright wash of dream-river current, where a million flickering images of crazy dream-logic rushed over him, like rainbow fish in an endless succession.
It was there that Syd first began to perceive how deeply his world was changing. How the freight train of destiny he'd sensed last night was already mowing him down. Unconscious, barraged by images he kept secret even from himself Syd absorbed the colors of understanding, uninterrupted by the tyranny of the mundane.
While in the living room, Nora stepped into another world entirely.
THERE IS THAT one amazing second, when you watch a thing spin out of control, and you know exactly what is going to happen. You can calculate where it is going to hit, how fast and how hard, and you can even begin to visualize the extent of the damage. The only thing you can't do, in fact, is stop the collision from happening.
The most amazing second was the one in which you knew it was too late.
Nora watched the bottle drop, and got that old familiar shiver. Like liquor, death, and orgasm, it was a feeling she never got used to, no matter how many times it happened: a sensation so potent it obliterated all prior experience of it, coming each time fresh and new. From the moment the bottle slipped between her fingers, she could feel the voidrush in her spine, whirling vertiginously in her throat and her bowels.
"Fuck!" she spat, weaving slightly as she danced out of shrapnel range. The bottle exploded, in terrible confirmation of her fear. She watched the liquid plume, the glass shards disassemble and soar. Half-empty, half-full, it clearly no longer mattered. What it was, was all over the place.
"Shit!" she hissed, her eyes on the shards and the spreading stain. She didn't know if she was more angry with the bottle for breaking, herself for dropping it, or the floor for being so goddam hard. She was simply, suddenly infuriated; her anger flaring like a pyromaniac's wet dream, squirting colorful light and dangerous fire in every direction.
Then it dissipated: an emotional impulse with the life span of a glorious one-shot firework display. And when the last sparks had fallen to earth, she was left with nothing but the emotion that preceded, and that emotion was inescapably dread: a vast and all-encompassing fear, huge as the universe itself, dark and exquisite and born of experience. It was the backdrop for everything she knew, and everything she felt. It was her emotional bottom line.
By the time the red mist and green dust had settled, Nora was crying again.
Of course, this was nothing new. Crying was something Nora did quite a bit of lately. She'd been fighting the impulse practically from the moment Syd had crashed, telling herself everything is fine, he's doing great, it's going to work this time. But being left alone with her thoughts and his things was probably not the greatest idea; she'd learned enough about his history to infuse them with meaning, and meaning inevitably equaled pain.
But that was the way it always went, as much a part of the pattern as the need to feed. It was emotional damage that made the nightmare come alive: emotional damage, and the scars that it left behind. And Syd's spartan waystation at the crossroads of life was crawling with artifacts, regardless of how stripped-down he believed his world to be. The evidence was everywhere. She'd smelled it from the second she walked in the door.
Like his music collection, for example. It was the one thing he claimed was completely his own; but, of course, he was completely mistaken, because Karen had sprayed all up and down those old vintage LPs, left her scent on every CD case and speaker cone. Every time he listened to any of the music he'd picked up in the last ten years, it would throw him right back on the time they'd spent together: the fighting, the fucking, the moments of peace, and all the passion he'd ever invested in their love. That bitch had left her mark on them as surely as if she'd scratched her initials directly into those black vinyl grooves and iridescent discs.
And the same went for everything else in his life, from the clothes he wore to the car he drove to the comforter on his bed. Even tonight's dinner dishes, which still sprawled across the kitchen table. Even after flavoring them with the herbs necessary for Syd's awakening—yohimbe and kava kava, cannabis indica and damiana—Nora could still smell Karen in every hand-me-down plate and utensil. Did he have any idea how hard it was for her to eat under those circumstances? Much less make love on those sheets?
She felt the anger flicker back, but it was quickly subsumed by sadness. She picked an album blind, going more on smell than on musical taste, not even caring what it was, just needing to hear something that was post-Karen, something they'd never listened to together. It wasn't easy.
She got a grip on herself, began cleaning up the mess, her hands trembling as she handled every jagged piece. The fact was, she wasn't mad at Syd at all. And today had been nothing if not hopeful. Her instincts were right about him; she could feel it. And Christ, his potential notwithstanding, Syd was the first guy she'd found that she actually liked since . . .
Since Michael. The words came up unbidden. Since Michael. Up from the nowhere place that she tried so hard to bury. Even now, as the tears burned her eyes, and the sorrow welled up in her so huge that she thought she would surely burst, there was no stopping the voice when it came.
Since Michael died.
And that was when the music came up to smack her, with a gentle wash of tremolo guitar. It was an old blues tune, something off a soundtrack to a movie she'd never even seen. It was amazing how cruel background music could be, how brutally ironic and synchronistically apropos.
The name of the song was "The Dark End of the Street," a tune that she'd heard a million times or so. She didn't know who was singing this time, and didn't care. The voice was rich and raw and soulful, and it collided perfectly with the pictures that had crept back into her mind, sent her reeling down her own private memory lane. . . .
"At the dark end of the street
That is where we always meet
Hiding in shadows, where we don't belong
Living in darkness, to hide a wrong
You and me, at the dark end of the street.
You and me."
She had met Michael on an Amtrak luxury liner, heading from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to succulent, intoxicating New Orleans. Grabbing the train was a sudden stroke of inspiration, at a time when she'd desperately needed one; after that fucking incident in Las Vegas, with the imitation redheaded strippers and the leaking generic garbage bags, it had been time to put some serious distance between herself and Vic. Besides, she loved Amtrak; it was a great way to see the country, the only form of long-distance transit other than driving that let her feel somehow connected with the earth.
Michael was a handsome Italian drifter and ne'er-do-well, long ago of Brooklyn spawned and never quite released from the bounds of that distinctive macho stance. Forty years old and displaying it proudly, very definitely holding on to his looks, he was far and away the pick of the Amtrak litter that weekend. He had been traveling since Seattle, spending almost all of his time in the bar car on the downstairs level of the double-decker train.
From the moment their eyes met, she knew he was special. Everything about him gave off that instinctive alpha male pheromone rush: his amused confidence, his complete sense of self-possession, his innate ability to intimidate lesser males simply by ordering a beer or strolling through the car. She'd noticed it instantly; the fact that the furtive leers and pickup vibes evaporated around her the minute she started talking to him told her everyone else knew it, too.
Nora was charmed by the fact that he didn't hit on her, even though his attraction to her was crystal clear. Hell, he could even admire her strategic flashes of thigh and cleavage and not lose his train of thought as they talked.
And talk they did: for hours upon hours, long after the sun had set and on, as the train rolled through miles of endless black night. Getting to know each other. Revealing themselves by degrees. By the time she dragged him back to her sleeper, she had all but decided.
The first night c
onfirmed it. Michael was an astonishing lover, devout and confident, with great strong hands and a passionate mouth and an artist's appreciation of what made her erotic mechanism tick. Better than Syd. Maybe better than Vic. Certainly better than the Vic she'd fled.
It was hard not to succumb and give herself over to the Change, in those first few nights—his dense and knowing cock drove her crawling mad—but the hurtling metal walls were close, and she knew that if she let herself go there'd be no stopping it, and she'd have to kill just to cover her tracks. There were two hundred and thirty-seven passengers on board. It was easier to just rein in the beast. But God did he make it hard. . . .
"I know that time is gonna take its toll
We have to pay for all the love we stole
It's a sin, and we know it's wrong
But our love keeps comin' on strong
Steal away to the dark end of the street
You and me."
The beautiful thing was, he was already a small-time grifter and criminal; there was no need to soft-pedal the seamier aspects of the life. He'd done time, so the realities of the cage didn't need to be spelled out for him. By the time they landed in New Orleans, she believed that she had finally found the man of her dreams. All she had to do was take his monster out for a little run in the dark.
St. Louis Number 1 was a huge old standing cemetery on Rampart Street, on the border of the French Quarter. There, against a tableau of whitewashed marble and burnt red mausoleum brick, she set Michael's animal spirit free. They fed that night on thugs and vagabonds, gloriously rampaging amongst the dead.
Michael was a natural, and his gratitude knew no bounds. Together, they spent two glorious months on the run, conquering each hurdle in his evolution with savage grace and surprising ease. She cultivated and nurtured his bestial side, trained him in the ways of the hunt. His killer instincts, never buried far beneath the surface, emerged full-blown and formidable. When Vic came—and it was only a matter of time, she knew—Michael would be ready. There was no doubt in her mind.
And he, in turn, was good to her: treating her the way she'd always wanted to be treated, the way she'd always wished Vic would have known enough to treat her. He didn't go chasing after every little bitch he saw. He knew that he would never find another Nora. He loved her totally, worshipped her without kissing her ass, and she had never felt more happy or alive.
But, of course, it was too good to last. . . .
"They're gonna find us
They're gonna find us
They're gonna find us, love, someday
You and me
At the dark end of the street."
Vic finally caught up with them in Mississippi, on a night so swollen and miserable with heat that the sweat beaded thicker than blood on your skin. He ambushed them out back of a zydeco shack, upwind and completely off-guard. They were drunk on bourbon, Cajun stomp, and each other. Michael fought like hell, but in truth he never even had a chance. She blamed herself; there just wasn't enough time before he had to put it to the test. The look in his eyes when Vic's jaws closed on his throat would haunt her for as long as she lived: not so much one of pain as a terrible, infinite regret.
She had slashed Vic then, with murderous intent: a razored divoting rake across his face, showering Michael's agonized countenance with a red rain not his own. It was the first time she'd ever taken a real shot at Vic, for all their years of fighting; and it was very nearly the last thing she ever did. Only Michael's last dying efforts saved her, keeping Vic busy disemboweling him just long enough for Nora to get away.
And even now, when she closed her eyes, she could see that road stretching out before her. A road made bleary by a river of tears and the terrible fear that there was no hope at its end. She could remember it all as if it were yesterday.
She could still hear Michael's screams.
"And when the daylight hour rolls around
And by chance we'll go down the town
If we should meet, just walk, walk on by
Oh darling, please don't you cry
Tonight we meet
At the dark end of the street."
Nora leaned hard against the sink, bracing herself against the sorrow, the wracking sobs that would not stop no matter how hard she tried. There was no defense against the sadness when it came, no way to fend off or reason with the pain. And not enough booze in the world to drown it in.
Her throat felt dry and rank with phlegm. Cotton-mouth, on top of everything else. She groped out blindly through her tears for the bottle, then remembered it was shrapnel in a pool on the floor.
"FUCK!" she yelled, purely reactive now: no longer Nora, but a hysterical re-creation, a creature made entirely of red wine and grief.
The terrible truth was, there was no hope. She'd feared it then, and she feared it now. She was as doomed as a lobster in a restaurant aquarium, as doomed as doomed can be. Vic would never die, and he would never stop coming, and nothing she could do or say would make a goddam bit of difference.
And here she was, in the middle of as grim a nowhere town as she'd ever found, in the apartment of a guy she had met just last night, contemplating a happily-ever-after life of monogamous downwardly-mobile domesticity. As if such a thing were even possible, not to mention desirable; as if it were even an option at all.
But the fact was that part of it was incredibly attractive; she was surprised by how strongly the feeling surged. As much as she loved the night and the roaming and thrill of the kill, she was—dare she admit it?—tired. Tired of the road and the running, the relentless shadowy trail. Too many miles. Too many faceless strangers in nameless bars, snuffling after her like a bitch in heat and paying for it with their lives. It used to be fun; now it was just stale. Spent. Old.
Then again, what wasn't? She certainly was not getting any younger; quite the opposite, in fact. Even given the obvious perks of her turbocharged metabolism—she was eighty-eight years old and didn't look a day over thirty-five—she was still a long way from immortal.
Worse still, lately it seemed she was feeding more and getting less for it; the glistening predatory rush she used to get from swallowing another's life essence was receding to a dull, throbbing buzz. She wasn't bouncing back like she used to, either. Indeed, not a day went by that she didn't check her face for lines, her tits for sag, her ass for loss of definition. It was age as gravity, and more: it was youth as a fading window of opportunity.
And that made her think about the other urge; the one she measured by the ticking clock that thundered ever louder inside her. The need to love and be loved by someone who saw her as the center of all creation, someone who would be there long after her strength and beauty had faded. Someone whose love would never leave her, who would never let her die alone.
She longed to feel the life growing inside her, to cradle her baby's tiny, helpless form in her arms, to feel its mouth pressed to her nurturing breast. It was a naked desire, one that sprang from her deepest self, and it transcended all logic or politics or reason. It was both incredibly human and utterly animal, the one point where ' her warring natures inexorably met.
And no amount of running could put it behind her. Or the fear that snapped at its heels.
She thought about the little white lie she'd told Syd this evening, the one about not being able to conceive. Not a lie, she instantly amended. Not exactly. It was very true that she hadn't been able to carry a young one to term. And she feared whether she could ever get pregnant again, especially after Vic . . .
Nora stopped in mid-thought, unable to face the memory of the last time she'd tried, and what Vic had done. It was his fault, the shit. It had to be. He was the one who was corrupted: he'd been at it too long, far longer than she. Yes, they both fed against nature: perverting the instinct even as they strengthened it; she knew it in her bones as every new theft coursed through her veins. It was cannibal karma, a shortcut to power. And it was an abomination.
But she could turn it around, and he never
would. He was a dead end; she wasn't. It was what she told herself, what she needed to believe. She had the power, she was an experienced and seasoned survivor, she held the future in her belly and between her legs. All she needed was a fresh chance. Vic just couldn't give her that.
The question was, could Syd?
Could anyone?
And that was when the fear caught up to her, in all its rabid, snarling glory: slashing at her flanks, bringing her tumbling down. The idea that she had inadvertently polluted herself beyond repair. Feeding on the forbidden spark until she was a barren and empty vessel. Unable to hold, let alone give forth life. It was simply too much to bear.
It was just another one of the little things Vic hadn't told her about, way back when he'd first seduced her from the mortal normalcy of her girlhood in the mountains of Montana. She flashed back to that long-ago time—the memory distant, faded, worn with time—when she was still nothing more than a good girl with a bad streak, and he was the deadly handsome stranger that drove her daddy crazy-
Nora was all of fifteen when Vic blew into town and blew her neat little world apart: promising her the passion and danger she'd always dreamed about, the kind she knew she would never find as the precious only daughter of a successful, upright Christian cattle rancher. Vic offered her the moon, and everything under its cold blue light. Nora was only too happy to accept.
So he stole her away one night, running south all the way to Mexico. Along the way he also stole her heart and her virginity, though not in that order and with not much of a fight. He showed her how to Change, how to hunt and feed and roam the night, how to live wild in a world full of human cattle ripe for slaughter.
He showed her the ways of the wolf inside, and in the process made her over in his own image.
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