She was moving at her old, leisurely pace, as though they had all the time in the world to play out the last reel of this tragedy.
Todd reached into the alcove and found an antique pitcher there. His body blocked what he was doing from Katya's view, but even if she'd seen what he was up to, Tammy thought, she would have still kept coming. She had the knife, after all. And more than that, she had the certainty that Todd had nowhere else to go; nowhere to fall, finally, except into her arms; into her knife. That was what the pace of her approach announced: that she expected him to die in her embrace.
Todd grasped the pitcher and swung it round. It caught Katya's shoulder, and shattered, shards of ceramic flying up into her face.
The impact was sufficient to throw her back against the wall, and the knife dropped from her hand, but the effort had used up a significant part of what was left of Todd's energies. He stumbled across the passageway, his arms outstretched, and fell against the opposite wall.
His face was ashen, his teeth clenched -- his eyelids lazy with pain.
"Let them in," he murmured to Tammy. "What are you waiting for? Let. Them. In!"
At the other end of the passageway, Tammy felt Katya's gaze fix on her. A ceramic chip had nicked the skin beneath her eye; a single drop of blood ran down over her flawless cheek. She didn't trouble herself to wipe it away. She simply dropped to her haunches and casually picked up the knife.
Even in the chaos of her thoughts, the symmetry of all this was not lost on Tammy. Two women, each with a knife. And dying between them, the man they'd both loved; or imagined they had.
As Tammy's mother had been fond of saying, when the subject of love had come up in conversation, as it would from time to time: it'll all end in tears.
Well, so it had. And more to come, no doubt. Plenty more to come.
She tore her gaze from Katya, picked up the knife with her left hand and guided it with her right back to the assaulted wood around the middle icon.
Again, she leaned into the task, put every pound to work. She twisted the knife to the left. A few small sprinters came away. She twisted again, this time to the right, wanting nothing in the world as much as she wanted that sickening jolt through her bones. She could see more of the icon's depth now, embedded in the wood. It went far deeper than the others, she saw. That was why it refused to budge. It wasn't just wider, it was longer.
She glanced up at the ghosts. They'd missed nothing of what was going on in the passageway. Eyes like slits, they'd all come a little closer to the threshold, daring its consequences.
Behind her, Todd said: "Tammy?"
He was sliding down the wall, his gaze fixed on her. Katya had apparently used the knife on him again, but hadn't lingered to finish him off. She was moving past him, her eyes on Tammy.
"It'll all end in tears ... " Tammy murmured herself, and then turned one last time to the challenge of the central icon.
For the last time, she threw her weight down upon it, using her weakened left hand and her benumbed right to twist the knife-blade in the groove beneath the metal ridge.
Another two or three small splinters came away.
"Come, on" she begged. "Please God. Move."
Katya was right behind her now. She could feel her presence at her back. And of course Tammy was a perfect target, right now, but there wasn't a thing in Hell she could do about that, not if she wanted to keep going, keep pushing, keep hoping the damn thing would --
It moved!
She looked down at the icon, and yes, God love it, the thing had lifted out of the wood a little. Scarcely at all, in truth, but movement was movement.
She twisted again, using what little strength her left hand had. And suddenly the jolt came up out of the icon with such force that it threw her backwards, so that she landed in front of Katya, deposited before her like a sacrificial lamb.
The pain in her hands and her arms was so severe this time that she had difficulty staying conscious.
The image of Katya loomed above her, knife in hand. Blotches of darkness invaded it from the corners of her sight. But she held on by force of will, determined not to lie there passively while Katya leaned over and slit her throat.
"You interesting bitch." Katya said, raising the knife. She took hold of
Tammy's hair, pulling back her head to expose her throat.
But before she could deliver the cut, something else drew her attention. It seemed she had not realized until this moment that all her defenses had been breached.
"Jesus Christ," she said.
Weak as she was, Tammy was still capable of feeling a little satisfaction as she saw the look on Katya's face go from murderous intent to puzzlement, and then -- very suddenly -- to fear.
"What have you done?" she murmured.
Tammy didn't have the energy or the wit for a pithy reply. But she didn't really need one. Events would speak for themselves now.
The door was open and the threshold cleared.
After years of frustration and exile, Katya's long-neglected guests were coming back to reacquaint themselves with the mysteries of the Devil's Country.
PART TEN. AND THE DEAD CAME IN
ONE
They came almost silently at first, and cautiously, as though even now they suspected Katya had laid some trap to catch them once they were inside the house. But as soon as four or five of them were safely over the threshold, and it became obvious that there were no traps, their silence erupted into a horrid din of triumph, and their caution turned into an ungainly torrent of desperate spirits, all struggling to get through the door at the same time.
Though Tammy's consciousness was still slippery, she had enough strength left to protect her face from the feet of those coming through, rolling herself into a semi-fetal position to avoid the worst.
There were so many revenants, and the door through which they were attempting to pass was so narrow, that impatience soon ignited amongst the crowd. Arguments became physical assaults, as the stronger pushed the weaker aside so they could be the first down the stairs, the first through the door that would take them into the Devil's Country. Tammy had her hands over her face, but between her fingers she saw Katya put up a vain protest against this invasion. She shouted something, but it was lost in the din of triumph and argument. A moment later, she was too was lost, as the wave of exiles threw themselves against her and carried her away. This time Tammy did hear her, though it was not a word she uttered but a scream, a furious scream.
They were in her dream palace --
These things, which had once been her friends, her beautiful friends, the virile and the beautiful deities of a lost Golden Age, reduced by hunger and despair to the filleted, smeared, wasted dregs of humanity now bore her away.
The noises they made as they came -- and came, and came -- were some of the most distressing sounds Tammy had ever heard.
Slaughterhouse shrieks and plague-pit moans, chattering and curses that were more like the din out of a padded cell than anything that should have come from an assembly of once-sophisticated souls.
Finally, however, the noise and the kicking of her body by passing feet, slowed and ceased.
The procession of the dead had passed over the threshold, along the corridor and into the house. It had taken perhaps five minutes to get the entire assembly inside. Now they were gone. The passageway was deserted, except for Tammy and Todd.
Tammy waited another minute or two before gathering the strength to unknot her weary limbs and roll herself over. She gave thanks, as she did so, to her mother, of all people, who had been an unpleasant piece of work (especially in her latter years) but had possessed the constitution of a horse, which Tammy had inherited. Most of the women Tammy knew would not have survived the brutal physical assaults and violations that had punctuated the adventures of her last few days. Thanks to Momma, Tammy had.