Almost instantly he rose before her in the form of liquid rock, raging.
"I told you: no blood!"
"So get me out of here," she said, chilly with a sudden sweat "or I'll just keep bleeding."
The shaking was getting worse by the moment. In the walls there was a grinding sound, as though some vast engine was slipping its gears.
"I am the rock," he said.
"So you keep saying."
"If I said you were safe, then safe you were."
The wall behind her shook so violently several of his rejected faces cracked and fell to the ground. "Are you going to take me up, or not?" she said.
"I'll take you," he said, unknitting his feet from the floor of the passage and approaching her. "But you must come with me on my terms."
She looked at him through a throbbing haze. "What... are... your terms?" she said. His face was cruder than she'd previously seen it, she realized, like a mask hewn with a dull axe.
"If I take you," he said, "then it must be here." He opened his arms.
"For your safety, you must be cradled in the rock. Agreed?"
She nodded. It was not such a terrible idea. He was a King, he was a rock, and he had a heart for love, even if it was a fossil. "Agreed," she said, and clamping her hand to her cut arm to stem the flow, let him gather her into his embrace.
Grillo was no expert when it came to babies but he was damn sure the sound coming from the child in Jo-Beth's arms wasn't healthy.
"What's wrong with her?" he said.
"I don't know."
"It sounds like she's choking."
"I think maybe you should stop."
The baby seemed to be having minor convulsions now, and with every bump in the road they were worsening. Grillo slowed down a little, but Jo-Beth wasn't satisfied. "Stop!" she said. "Just for a minute or two,"
He glanced down at little Amy, who was making a pitiful sobbing sound. Reluctantly, he pulled over and brought the car to a halt, "She wants her Daddy," Jo-Beth said.
"He'll catch us up."
"I know," the girl went on. The child's sobs were subsiding now. "Why don't you leave us here?" she said. "He won't come looking for you, as long as he's found us."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I know you did what you thought was right. But it wasn't. Amy knows it and so do I."
"You're talking about Tommy-Ray-" Grillo said softly.
"We have to be together," she said. "Or we'll die. We'll all of us die."
Grillo looked back down at the child in her arms. "I n't know whether you're mixed up, fucked up, or just lain crazy, but I'm not trusting you with Amy any longer." He reached down to take the baby from her. She instantly drew the child tight to her body, but Grillo wasn't about to be denied. He dug his arm down around the bundle and pulled Amy out of her mother's arms.
to his surprise, Jo-Beth didn't attempt to reclaim her. Instead she glanced back down the road.
"He's coming," she said, reaching for the handle of the door.
"Stay inside."
"But he's coming-"
"I said@'
Too late. She had the handle down, and was pushing open the door. He grabbed for her arm, and caught it momentarily, but she slipped him and stumbled out into the road.
"Get back in here!" he yelled.
A gust of wind rocked the car. Then a second, more violent than the first. Jo-Beth was standing in the middle of the road now, turning on her heels, and lightly touching her breasts. Again, the car rocked. This time Grillo knew he couldn't wait for her. If he got out to fetch her, she'd outrun him, and all the time her beloved Death-Boy was getting closer,closer.
He gently laid the child on the passenger seat and was reaching over to pull the door closed when a blast of bitter, dirty air hit him in the face, sending him sprawling across the seat. The back of his skull hit the window hard, but grabbing the wheel he started to haul himself up again, reaching for the baby with his free hand as he did so. The dust was filling the interior, forming fingers to scrabble at his eyes, and reaching down into his throat to choke him.
Blinded, he kept reaching for the child, as the car's rocking became steadily more violent. He found the blanket, and began to pull it towards him, but as he did so the ghosts pushed the car over onto two wheels, where it teetered, its metalwork creaking. He inched the blanket towards him, fearful that at any moment the dusty dead would claim the baby from its folds, while the legion threw its will and wind against the car, plainly determined to overturn it. Perhaps some of his tormentors had been summoned to help, because the fingers tearing at his eyes and throat had retreated. He wiped his face against his shoulder to clear his sight, and opened his eyes only to find that the blanket in his hand was empty. Grabbing the dashboard he hauled himself up towards the open door, determined to get Amy back. The windshield shattered as he climbed, and through the dust he saw the abductors' faces, four or five of them, carved of the dirty air, and leering at his desperation.
"Bastards!" he yelled at them. "Bastards!"
The sound of his voice brought a sob, not from the ghosts but from Amy. They'd not taken her after all; she'd slipped between the front seats, and was lying, as yet unharmed, on the floor behind him.
"It's okay," he said to her, forsaking his handhold to reach for her. As he did so the car's teeterings reached the point of no return, and it was flung over onto its side. Through the din of breaking glass and concertinaed metal he heard the voice of the Death-Boy, roaring, "Stop!"
The order came too late. The car was pushed over onto its roof, which buckled under the impact. The remaining windows blew inwards, the glove-compartment spilled its contents. Tumbling in a hail of trash, Grillo's instincts overtook his conscious thought, and he drew the baby into his arms as he fell. His frail body snapped and tore. He felt something in his belly and chest, like a sudden dyspepsia.
Then the vehicle rocked to a halt, and there was something close to silence. For a moment he thought the child was dead, but it seemed she was simply shocked into silence, because he heard her ragged breathing close to him in the darkness.
He was upside-down, his legs akimbo, and something hot was running down his body from his groin. He smelled it now, sharp and familiar. He was pissing himself. Very gingerly he tried to shift himself, but there was something preventing him doing so. He reached up to his chest and his fingers found a spike of wet metal sticking out of his body a few inches behind his left clavicle. It gave him no pain, though there was little doubt he was skewered from back to front.
"Oh Lord he said to himself, very softly, then bly reached out towards the source of Amy's breathing. motion seemed to take an age. He had time, while he ached and reached, to think of Tesla and hope she would be spared the sight of him like this. She had endured so much and after all her searching and suffering had gained so very little.
His fingers had found Amy's face, and inch by inch he passed his hand over her tiny body. His hand was becoming numb, but as far as he could gather she was not bloodied, which was some comfort. Then, as he once again reached up to her face she took hold of his finger and grasped it.
He was astonished at her strength. Delighted too, for it surely meant she'd not sustained any significant harm. He demanded his body draw a little extra breath, and his muscles obliged him. He drew a sip of air into his seeping lungs, enough for a word or two.
He used it wisely.
"I'm here," he said to Amy, and died so quietly she didn't know he'd gone.
Even before they rounded the corner Tesla heard the ghost's cacophony: a rising wail of complaint. She pulled the bike over, and parked on the curve, just out of sight.