"Whatever we find around that corner," she told Howie as they dismounted, "keep control of yourself."
"I just want my wife and baby back."
"And we'll get them," Tesla said. "But Howie, brute force isn't going to do us any good. One word and we're both dead. Think about that. You're not going to be much use to Jo-Beth and Amy dead."
Point made, Tesla headed off round the corner. There were no streetlights along the road, but there was enough light from moon and stars for the scene to be plain enough. Grillo's car sat battered and overturned. Jo-Beth was standing clear of it, apparently unharmed. There was no sign of either Grillo or the baby.
As for Tommy-Ray, he was disciplining his troops, the ghosts gathered around his feet like a pack of beaten cuts.
"Fucking stupid!" he yelled at them. "Stupid!"
He reached down into their shifting substance and hauled two ragged handfuls of it up towards his face. It hung from his fingers in tatters.
"Why don't you learn?" he raged.
The murmurs of the ghosts grew more panicky. Some of them turned their wretched faces up towards him in supplication. Others hid their heads, apparently knowing what was coming.
Tommy-Ray opened his mouth, wider than any natural anatomy allowed, and put the muck-laced ether between his teeth. Then he literally inhaled it, sucking the dirty air into his body. Tesla saw two phantom faces, sobbing and gasping, disappear down the Death-Boy's gullet, while the next in line scrabbled to avoid joining them. But the lesson was apparently over, because now he grabbed the strands of matter that hung from the corners of his mouth and bit down on them, grinding them between his teeth. The ether dropped away from either side of his chin. He let the severed ends drop.
The survivors murmured their gratitude and shrank away.
The whole episode had taken perhaps fifteen seconds, during which time Tesla and Howie had halved the distance between the corner and the wreckage. they were now no more than twenty-five yards from the car, and in danger of being seen if Tommy-Ray chanced to look in their direction. Luckily, he had another distraction: Jo-Beth. He had gone to her and was speaking to her face to face. She didn't retreat from him. Even when his hands went up to her face-stroked her cheek, her hair, her lips-she stood unmoving before him.
"Christ... " Howie murmured.
Tesia glanced over her shoulder. "There's something alive in there," she said, nodding back at Grillo's car.
Howie looked. "I don't see anything," he said, his gaze returning to the dalliance between the twins.
"He can't do that," he growled, and pushing past Tesia, started towards them. He was gone so fast Tesla had no choice but to act out at the same time. She moved off towards the car, scanning the dark snarl of metal for further evidence of life. She found it too; a tiny motion. She was perhaps a dozen yards from the car now, the stinging smell of gasoline filling her head. Bending low and moving fast she moved round the far side of the vehicle, putting the wreckage between her and Tommy-Ray. Though she tried to tune out his voice, snatches of what he was telling Jo-Beth drifted her way.
"There'll be more... " he murmured. "Lots more...
She knelt in the pooled gasoline and peered into the wreckage, using Tommy-Ray's talk to cover her calling: "Grillo-?"
As she spoke her eyes began to make sense of the tangled forms in front of her. There was an upturned seat; a litter of maps. And there among them, oh God, there, was Grillo's arm. She reached out and touched it, whispering his name again. There was no response. Ducking her head through the broken window she started to pull at the debris blocking her way to him. A drizzle of oil fell in her hair and ran down her face. She wiped it away from her eyes with the back of her hand and attacked the wreckage afresh. A portion of the seat came away this time, which she shoved to the side, offering her a fuller view of him. His face was half-turned towards her, and seeing him she said his name again, knowing in the same moment that her breath was wasted. He was dead, pierced by a spike of metal. Despite the horror of this it seemed from his expression that he'd not died in anguish. His worn face-which she had reached up to touch-was almost serene.
As her fingers grazed his cheek, something moved in the darkness beyond him. Amy; it was Amy! Tesla inched into the creaking wreckage until her face was inches from Grillo's pierced chest and peered over him. There was the baby, her eyes wet and wide in the murk, her hand clutching the index finger of Grillo's left hand.
There was no hope of moving the dead man, Tesla was certain; he and the vehicle were inextricably connected. Her only hope-and Amy's-was to reach over the body, past the spike that had skewered Grillo, and ease the child between the ragged metal overhead and the corpse below' She crawled as far into the wreckage as space would allow, and stretched her arms across Grillo's body-her breasts pressed against his sticky torso-to take hold of the infant.
- I - - @. - - @ @ A. JL As she did so she heard Tommy-Ray's voice,
"Dead - -. " he was saying.
This time there was an audible response. Not from JoBeth, but from Howie. Tesla caught only a few of the words; enough to know he was addressing Jo-Beth, not her brother.
"Keep talking," Tesia murmured. The longer Howie kept Tommy-Ray distracted, the more hope she had of getting the child out.
With some gentle persuasion she succeeded in loosing Amy's hand from Grillo's finger, and now began to lift her over Grillo's body, shimmying backwards as she did so, belly to the roof of the car. The baby was eerily quiet throughout. Shock, Tesla presumed.
"It's okay," she cooed, attempting a Smile of reassurance. Amy looked back at her blankly.
they were almost free of the wreckage now. Certain that she would not lay eyes on Grillo again, she took a moment to study his face, "Soon," she promised him. "Very soon."
Then she knelt up, gathering the baby to her body, and started to et to her feet.
On the other side of the wreckage, Tommy-Ray was yelling. There was a complexity in his voice Tesla had Dever heard before, as though he had assembled a chorus of the dead he'd devoured, and they were weaving their voices with his.
"Tell him-" the voices were saying to Jo-Beth, "tell him the truth-"
Clear of the wreckage now, Tesla dared to stand, assuming (correctly)
the Death-Boy would be too preoccupied to look in her direction. He was standing a little way behind his sister, his hands on her shoulders.
"Tell him how it is between us," the voices out of him said.
Jo-Beth's features were no longer a blank. Face to face with her husband, whose distress was all too apparent, she could not help but be moved. Tommy-Ray shook her a little. "Why don't you just spit it out!" he said.
Finally, she spoke. "I don't know any more," she said.
At the sound of her voice, the baby in Tesla's arms began crying. Tesla froze, as three pairs of eyes were turned towards her.
"Amy!" Jo-Beth sobbed, and breaking from her place between the two men, she started towards Tesla, arms outstretched.
"Give her to me!"
She was a yard or two from the wreckage when Tommy-Ray yelled, "Wait!"
There was such vehemence in his voice she obeyed on the instinct.
"Before you touch that kid," Tommy-Ray demanded, "I want you to tell him who it belongs to."
Tesla could see Jo-Beth's face; the men could not. She could see the conflict written on it. "W-w-what are you t-t-ttalking about?" Howie said.
"I don't think she wants to tell you," Tommy-Ray said. "But I do. I want you to know once and for all. I came calling quite a while back, just to see how my little sister was doing, and we-got together, like you wouldn't believe. The kid's mine, Katz."