“Shut up. Don’t come near me—”
“You?” He laughed, a sharp sound like an injured dog. “You think I’d want to get anywhere near you? Christ, look at you!”
He pointed at me. “You look like a fucking animal! You look like you killed him with your teeth—”
“He’s not dead,” I said. There was a thunder in my ears. “He’s—maybe we should call an ambulance.”
“An ambulance?” Ralph shook his head. “No, sweetie pie. The only way out of this is through it. Here—”
He held out his hand. In it was a small bone knife with a broken blade. “Finish what you started.”
“No—” I started to back away. “No, I won’t, you’re crazy—”
“You have to.” He grabbed my wrist, shoved the knife into my palm. “You can’t leave him like that.”
“Then you kill him!”
“I can’t, Lit. If anyone other than you kills him, it won’t be the apotheosis of a god. It’ll be the murder of Axel Kern.” He forced my fingers around the handle. “He’s almost free now—help him, Lit. It’s what you were born for. It’s why you’re here. It’s why we’re all here…”
He pushed me toward the body, his hand clasped around mine so that the jagged blade was poised above the man’s chest. “Kill him.”
I pushed back but it was no good, he was too strong. Slowly the blade drew closer to the bruised body. I could hear his breathing, so rapid it must stop, suddenly, like a clock; and Ralph’s breathing, too, a slower, measured panting. It sickened me, but I could not keep myself from twisting my head to look at him, as I tried one last time to pull the blade free.
“No—you—don’t,” he gasped. “You little bitch—”
His face was contorted, eyes bloodshot. He smiled, horribly, and said, “Poor little puppet…”
And at those words something broke inside me. If before my rage had felt like another living thing bashing against the inside of my chest, now it burst free. With a shout I kicked, my boot driving into Ralph’s stomach. He gave a strangled cry and went flying backward. The bone knife spun from my hand as I straightened and watched Ralph crash into the wall beneath the cave painting of the horned god.
“YOU!” I shouted, and the entire room shook. “YOU!”
I pointed at him. My arm felt as though an iron bar were rammed inside it. Before me the room swam. The wall with its gallery of ancient figures began to blur and fade. “YOU—ARE—NOTHING!”
As though I truly was a lightning rod, a jolt of radiance streamed from me, leaped from shoulder to arm and from my fingers across the shadowy space that separated me from Ralph Casson. With a scream he flattened himself against the wall, one hand in front of his face. Then, as though an immense hand had struck him, he receded into the wall—into it and becoming part of it, his arms curving upward, his face growing hugely elongated: eyes exploding into chasms, mouth swelling and then splitting in two, so that his lower jaw formed a great jagged threshold and his upper jaw a lintel. In between yawned a dazzling black space, and from that space echoed a scream that went on and on and on, fading at last into a low, ominous buzz.
Panting, I stared at the portal—the prison—I had made. Then I turned and crossed to where Axel Kern lay upon the bed. He was motionless save for his shallow breathing, a trickle of blood down his breast. On his brow the crown of ivy and grape-leaves trembled, as though stirred by the wind. Slowly I knelt beside him, lowered my head until my lips brushed his; then stretched so that my body covered him. For a long time I lay like that, listening to the faint shushing of his heart, the rustle of wind in the leaves. Finally I drew back, my hand lingering upon his cheek; stood and for one last time looked down upon him.
He did not look peaceful, or asleep. He did not look like anything I had ever seen, except perhaps for the body of my friend lying blue beneath black light in another upstairs room. I stared at the bound man, his arms bruised and chained with ivy, the pulpy shapes of crushed grapes and figs beneath his cheek, the smear of honey on his thigh.
And as I looked it was like before, when his figure had appeared to blur and burn before me. Once more I felt that shiver of apprehension, a prickling along my arms and neck and it seemed that something would break through. There was a mystery there, a secret bound like the man in vines and blood, fire and seed.
But it was not my mystery. Not now, anyhow; not yet. As Precious Bane had done to me, I blew a kiss at the bed. Then I gathered my clothes and dressed.
“Very nice,” someone murmured. “Your portal. The irony will be lost on Ralph, of course, but not on me.”
I turned, pulling on my boot, and saw Balthazar Warnick standing in front of the door. A real door, an ordinary door, that opened onto a hall where wind sent rainy gusts of brown leaves spiraling into the night.
“You—you saw—” I stammered.
He smiled, a small rueful small, and stepped toward me. Then he stopped, frowning, and bent to pick up something.
It was the bone knife. He turned it over in his hands, carefully slipped it into the inside pocket of his wool greatcoat. “I’ll take this,” he said. “For safekeeping.” He looked at the man on the bed. “And I will take care of that as well.”
He glanced at the bottles strewn everywhere, the scattered opium cakes and bloodstained ropes. After a minute he turned back to me. In a low voice he asked, “Lit—will you change your mind? Will you come with us? Now, or—well, soon?”
I shook my head. “No.” Then, trying not to sound so harsh, “No, thank you.”
“Then go,” he commanded. “Now.”
But as I hurried toward the door he stopped me. “Wait. Take this—”
He took my right hand and prised it open, slid something onto the middle finger. I blinked. It was a ring, shaped precisely like the grotesque image of Ralph Casson’s face that now served as a portal.
“So you’ll always have a way out,” said Balthazar Warnick softly. “Or back.”
For a long moment his sea-blue eyes held mine. Finally I pulled away.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “G’bye—”
I walked like a seasick passenger into the hall. It was dark, but through the windows a chilly light gleamed. Behind the watchful shadow that was Muscanth Mountain, dawn was gathering. I staggered down the corridor, found a stairwell and nearly fell down it, my boots sliding on the runners. When I reached the bottom I lurched into another corridor, and another, until at last I made my way to the great hall. There were bottles and ashtrays everywhere, candle stubs and light bulbs, torn clothing and record albums, the detritus of a dozen parties; but no people. I walked through the room and went onto the patio.
“Oh, man…”
It was covered with terra-cotta masks. All broken, so that as I crossed to the lawn I stepped through a wasteland of crushed mouths and hollow cheeks, beatific smiles turned to death’s-heads where they had been trodden into the flagstones. At the very edge of the patio one lay, more intact than the others, eyes slanted beneath a crown of grapes. It shattered beneath my boot as I left the patio and walked downhill. It was still raining, fine icy needles that made my skin feel numb, but that was okay. Numb was okay. Numb was good.
I reached the drive and started down. I shoved my hands into my pockets and something pricked my thumb. I swore, fumbled in the pocket until I found something sharp.