And the strings pull taut again as the dying girl crumples to the stone table, her eyes glazed with shock, eyes gone blank as any slaughter"s, and Pikabo Kenzia raises her knife again.
The blood, and the meaty smell of boiling blood, the chanting women and the drying lines traced on Niki"s body, all these and a thousand other things for strings. Will you, won"t you, will you, won"t you, won"t you join the dance?
And the temple dissolves around her and, rising into that alien night, those Van Gogh stars, Niki looks down at moonlight rippling over the waters of the Yarin and falling on the ruins of the temple a thousand years from this moment, as the forest reclaims the stubs of shattered towers.
Will you, won"t you, will you, won"t you 357.
dance the ghost with me And the wheels turn.
Daria lies on the dirt floor of the bas.e.m.e.nt, curled fetus-small and round, watching as the flames from the ball bearing spread, consuming earth and wood and anything else they touch, and there is no smoke or burning sounds, and there is no heat.
Do not fail her. The Hierophant will need you, at the end, and the black thing trapped inside the circle turns towards her and gurgles, as though her thoughts have grown so loud she may as well be screaming them through a bull-horn. When Archer Day fell, the blue glow illuminating the cellar flickered out, and now there"s only the strange light from the coc.o.o.n and the fire. It shimmers across the creature"s glossy hide, skin like living latex, across eight eyes that are all pupil. She recognizes the fear in those eyes, the fear she ought to feel, but doesn"t, because she knows she won"t live through this.
She thinks the ball bearing was meant to go inside the circle, but that can"t be helped now.
A few feet away, Archer Day"s body convulses inside its contracting, hardening sh.e.l.l, the midnight gout from the thing"s throat quickly setting around her like a polymer built somehow from the absence of matter and energy and sanity. Something from nothing, and Yes, Daria thinks, something from nothing exactly, and watches the creature"s face as it tries to catch her thoughts.
She"s p.i.s.sed herself, and maybe that"s the very worst of it.
The fire spreads to the bas.e.m.e.nt ceiling, and soon it"s eating away at the empty coc.o.o.n. There"s a sickening smell like burning hair, but still no smoke. This fire too complete for smoke, too intent upon consuming everything.
"I don"t know what to do next," she whispers. "I don"t know what I"m supposed to do, Niki."
The black thing gurgles pathetically once or twice and then turns away to watch the advancing fire.
358.
"I found it for you, Niki, and I brought it here, but now I don"t know what to do. I don"t know what to do but die."
Now the black thing has reared clumsily up on its splayed hind legs, and Daria realizes that it"s trying to crawl back inside the flaming chrysalis. The fire accepts it like an oblation, enveloping it in a heartbeat, and the thing begins to scream with the terrified, hurting voice of a teenage girl.
"You can"t even hear me, can you?" Daria asks Niki, as though she were sitting right there to answer the question.
The creature stops screaming and collapses in a shriveling heap, and the fire begins to swirl around it, like a tornado trapped within the borders of the circle. Daria squints into the blazing whirlwind, the color that is no color, and wonders how long until it blinds her, how long until it devours her, too. When she closes her eyes, that alien light leaves no afterimages, and she opens them again.
And notices the child near the bottom of the bas.e.m.e.nt steps. For a while, the child just stands there, indecisive, looking at Daria, and Daria thinks maybe she should tell her to run. Run for help, or just run, but she doesn"t. The girl turns her head and glances up the stairs, so Daria thinks she"ll run after all, until she turns back and warily descends the last few steps to the bas.e.m.e.nt floor. She walks past what"s left of Archer Day, staying clear of the flames, and a few seconds later, she"s kneeling between Daria and the whirlwind. A silhouette against h.e.l.l, mouse-hair and eyes so blue they"re almost a bruised sort of white. Her overalls are ragged and threadbare, and she"s wearing nothing under them.
"You"re the lady that found my book, ain"t you?" she asks, and Daria feels the wet heat of the tears beginning to leak from her eyes.
"Yeah, that was me. I found your book."
"No one was ever supposed to find my book."
"I know that. It was an accident. I didn"t mean to find it."
The child glances over her shoulder at the fire and then back at Daria. "I know that," she says. "Did you read it?"
359.
"Just a little bit," and the girl reaches out and brushes Daria"s wet cheek with her fingertips.
"Are you going to die here, too?" she asks.
"I don"t know. What do you think I should do?"
The girl"s eyes seem to spark with some inner light of their own, some suspicion or misgiving, and then she leans close and whispers in Daria"s right ear.
"I"m only a moment. I can"t answer questions like that,"
and then she sits up again.
"A moment," Daria whispers, and looks past the child at the fire, still held within the circle, but straining at its circ.u.mference.
"If you stay, I"ll show you the rest," the girl says. "I have it all in here," and she touches an index finger to an angry pink-red scar between her eyebrows, a coa.r.s.e sort of cross carved into her skin. "Where the angels can"t ever find it."
"If I stay, will I be a moment, too?" Daria asks, wiping her eyes, sitting up, and she can see that the fire has swept over Archer Day"s body, and there"s no path left back to the stairs.
"You"re already a moment," the child says, as though it"s the silliest question in the world, something everyone should know without having to ask.
"And you"ll stay here with me?"
"Yes," the girl says. "I"ll stay here and tell you stories. I know so many. I didn"t write them all down. There wasn"t time."
Daria puts her arms around the child and holds her close, holds her tightly as she dares. The girl doesn"t protest or struggle, only returns the embrace, and they hold each other as the silent inferno gorges itself, burning its way through the bas.e.m.e.nt ceiling to the house overhead.
"Don"t you be afraid," the girl tells her and rests her head on Daria"s shoulder. "Niki knows what to do now, I think, even if Spyder doesn"t. But don"t look up, please."
And then the old house at the end of Cullom Street begins to come apart, collapsing in on itself, drawn down by 360 the fire, and Daria does as the child"s told her to do and doesn"t look up.
Niki Ky stands alone near the center of the bone and wire span of the Dog"s Bridge. She stares into a blistering, acid wind, trying to glimpse the other side through spiraling veils of smoke and ash and brimstone, and waits for the nausea to pa.s.s. The clothes she was given in Padnee are all gone now, and her blue fur coat and backpack, too. Instead, her body is protected, head to toe, in what she first thinks is a suit of armor, part sci-fi anime and part Hollywood Joan of Arc, but then she realizes that it isn"t something that she"s wearing. It"s her own skin, changed somehow by the red witches, her skin grown smooth and shiny and jointed, a hard exoskeleton tinted the somber color of winter storm clouds-the bluest gray or grayest blue. Only her wounded right hand is unchanged; she"s lost the bandage and the Dragon"s bite shines red and swollen with infection. She knows now that there"s a poison festering in that hand that will kill her, that will make her no more than food for the maggot-G.o.d, if something else doesn"t kill her first. In her left hand is a broadsword, its tip resting on the bridge, the hilt clutched in her jointed, gauntlet fingers.
She knows that Daria"s dead, because she saw that much in the shimmering, lantern-show pa.s.sage from Nesmia Shar to the Dog"s Bridge. And she also knows that the portal Spyder would have opened has been sealed shut at the other end. Maybe that means it"s all over and done with, and now she can lie down and really die. Or maybe it only means that everything will be worse somehow.
Niki stares down at the sword in her hand, certain that she doesn"t have even half the strength to lift such a ridiculous thing, but when she tries, it seems to weigh almost nothing at all. It might as well be a child"s sword of cardboard and aluminum foil, and she holds it up so that the broiling light of this place gleams hot across the blade.
"A sword," she says incredulously, and the greedy wind 361.
s.n.a.t.c.hes at her voice. "A G.o.dd.a.m.ned sword." Behind her lies the interior limit of the final counterclockwise turning band, and ahead of her are the scabby hills and igneous wastes of the hublands, and the Dragon, too, waiting for her deep inside the ruins of Melan Veld. But Niki knows that the red witches haven"t given her the sword and this armored skin for fighting the Dragon. When she looks to the far side of the bridge again, she sees Spyder walking slowly across the bones towards her, and Niki bends over and lays the sword down in front of her, because she isn"t going to use it against Spyder, either.
"It"s over!" Niki shouts, shouting to be heard above the roaring wind, and Spyder stops and gazes up at the low, sulphurous clouds. Niki follows her gaze and notices the Weaver"s portal for the first time, a point not very far above the bridge where the clouds have begun to swirl, a nascent, inverted cyclone, and she looks back at Spyder.
"It is f.u.c.king over!" she screams, but Spyder only shrugs and starts walking again; in another minute or two, she"s standing in front of Niki.
"Did the witches do that to you?" she asks and points at the shiny new skin. "Not half bad."
"Listen to me, Spyder. Something"s happened. The portal"s been sealed shut from the other side. Can"t you feel it?"
"Yeah. Daria"s failed you again," Spyder Baxter says and looks down at the sword lying on the bridge between them.
"I"d hoped, when the Nesmidian"s mole got cold feet and jumped sides like that, that she might see that the philtre reached its nexus. But no, she was a f.u.c.k-up, too." And when Spyder raises her head again, Niki sees that her pale blue eyes have gone a luminous, opalescent ultramarine, a blue so bright and piercing that Niki can hardly stand to face it.
"It doesn"t matter anymore," she says. "Even if you could lure the Dragon into that thing, and even if I"d help, or even if you don"t need me, there"s nowhere for it to go."
"As long as the fire burns and a single stick of that house 362 remains, there"s time, Niki. As long as the surrogate"s ashes are caught up in the tempest, there"s time. So, no, it"s not over, not just yet."
"Spyder-"
"Is that thing meant for me?" Spyder asks and kicks at the sword. "Is that the best they could come up with? A sword? Do you think it"s at least magical?"
"I"m not going to fight you. I don"t care how many women died to send me here."
Spyder"s blue eyes flare, bleeding so much color that Niki has to look away. "Well, you can"t sit on the sidelines this time. And I can"t let you go on thinking that you can.
It"s like Bob Dylan said, you know? You gotta serve somebody, and it might be the devil or-"
"Then I serve me, " Niki says and reaches for the sword.
But Spyder kicks it, and the weapon goes spinning end over end and comes to a stop mere inches from the edge of the Dog"s Bridge.
"Nope. Sorry. That"s not one of the options. It"s either me or the Dragon. And that old c.u.n.t Pikabo can"t help you this time."
"You used me," Niki growls and hits Spyder hard, slaps her, and Niki can feel bone and teeth breaking beneath the blow, beneath the hammer that the exoskeleton has made of her hand. Blood spurts from Spyder"s nostrils, pours from her lips, and she staggers backwards a step or two and shakes her head like a stunned animal. Her blood spatters across the cracked, bleached bones at their feet, thick drops that quickly turn to glittering beads of crimson gla.s.s. She spits out part of a tooth, and it lands near Niki"s right foot.
"Nice piece of work, Pikabo," Spyder mumbles and spits again, more blood and so, in only a moment, more red gla.s.s. "But it doesn"t make any difference."
"The Dragon belongs here," Niki says. "You"re the one who doesn"t. You and me both."
"Nothing belongs anywhere. Nothing"s ever anything but what we choose to make it, what we have the resolve to make it."
363.
The bridge lurches and shudders beneath them, a million bones all set to rattling at once, and a geyser of flame a thousand feet high rises from the molten sea off to Niki"s right.
"He"s coming," Spyder says, and she laughs. "And he won"t be alone, Niki. Oh, no, my father is a serpent, and he"ll bring his lieutenants, Michael and Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel and the rest of the mangy lot, and their jackals that hunt the Nephilim, and he"ll bring other things, beings you can"t even begin to imagine."
"No, Spyder. The Dragon isn"t your father. And there are no angels here. Maybe it thinks these things are true, but that"s only because you taught it to believe them," and Niki glances quickly at the sword lying near the edge of the rattling, swaying bridge. Spyder catches her looking at it and smiles.
"So . . . maybe you want to fight after all," she whispers, and wipes blood and flecks of gla.s.s from her face.
"Go on ahead. Get it, if that"s what you want. I"m not going to try to stop you. But you better hurry. There"s not much time."
"I loved you. I don"t think you have any idea how much I loved you."
"You think I don"t love you? I f.u.c.king left, I came here, because it was the only place I could be and not hurt you.
I"d already hurt so many people, Niki. After Robin-"
The bridge shudders again, and the geyser of fire falls back into the sea, only to be replaced by another.
"Listen to me, Spyder-"
"-I wasn"t going to let him have you, too. I wasn"t going to let anyone else die just so he could keep hurting me."
"You didn"t kill Robin. She tried to get to the dream catcher. She broke into the house, and the black widows in the tank killed her, or they made her so sick she froze to death."
"I put it there," Spyder snarls, and her lips are pulled back to show her broken, bloodstained teeth, and her face has become a vicious mask of fury and loss.
364.
"You put it there to keep them all safe from him, from your father."
"No, Niki. I put it there because I was scared that they would all leave. My father was a serpent-"
"Your father was only a man, Spyder. A very sick man who thought he saw angels, who hurt you because he was crazy and thought you wouldn"t let him go to Heaven. You told me that yourself."
Far away, somewhere in the hublands, in the stony bowels of Melan Veld, something gargantuan stirs, awakening from endless nightmares, and the horizon burns white as the heart of a kiln, the fissioning heart of a nuclear explosion, and the sky is filled with the blare of trumpets.
And suddenly the pain in Niki"s hand has become almost unbearable, and she bites her lip to keep from screaming. As if answering the Dragon"s call, her wounded hand has begun to change as something cancerous bubbles from the hole in her palm. A blackness to reshape her bones and flesh and skin, and in only another moment it"s reached the place where the blue-gray exoskeleton ends at her wrist and has begun to melt through her armor.
"There"s no more time," Spyder says. "You have to make your choice now."
Niki gasps, struggling against the pain to drag enough breath into her lungs that she can speak, but her voice is only a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "I"ve already made my choice, Spyder."
And as a third fountain of lava rises from the magma sea that divides the hub from the wheels, the Dog"s Bridge shakes so violently that cables snap and sections of the high piers begin to crumble and fall. Niki falls too, and lies staring up into the widening portal that Spyder"s opened above the bridge. It"s a sort of mouth. She can see that now. A toothless mouth of clouds and wind, and its throat runs across hypers.p.a.ce infinities to a collapsed dead end. It has begun to pull at her, the same irresistable tug she felt in the place of colored strings, the pull that dragged her back into the temple by the Yarin. That pull or something close 365.
enough. She looks away from the portal and watches as Spyder walks across the swaying bridge and picks up the sword.
"I"m no good with scripture," she says. "But I think you"ve heard that line about plucking out the eye that offends you, or cutting off the hand, or whatever it says. At least, I think that"s in the Bible. Maybe it"s Shakespeare."
"Please, Spyder," Niki croaks, and glances back at the widening gyre above them. "Close it."
"You need to pay attention, Niki, because this is going to hurt. Even now, he"s trying to take you away from me, and I have to stop that from happening," and Spyder kneels down beside her, the sword gripped in both her hands.
"Someone really should have done this days ago."
Niki wants to ask what she"s talking about, but her throat has gone too dry, her head too full of pain, and the white light approaching from the hublands, too filled with the trumpets and the portal"s nagging pull on her soul.
"He wants to make you like him, because then I"ll have to hate you."
Oh, Niki thinks, understanding come too late for her to do anything but turn her head to one side, her cheek pressed against the bones, and watch as Spyder struggles with the broadsword. She"s using both arms, and it"s still all she can do to lift it. And then Niki sees the fingerless, pal-pitating thing that her right hand has become, a tumor of scales and spines, and there"s a single bloodred eye staring back at her as its corrosive secretions eat away at her wrist.
"I"m sorry," Spyder says and brings the sword down, severing Niki"s hand at the wrist and burying the blade deep in the deck of the Dog"s Bridge. The one-eyed thing squeals and tries to wriggle away, but Spyder catches it and flings it over the side, into the flames.
And the pain is gone.
Niki turns her head to face the yawning, rotating maw of the portal again.
"It had to be done," Spyder says. "You"ll be stronger now. You"ll see."