It was not Fletcher he found, however. Sifting through the reports logged in the last couple of weeks, he came across a tale that had previously gone unread. It came from a regular and, he thought, reliable source: a woman in Illinois who printed up crime-scene photographs for a local county sheriff's department. She had a horrible account to make. A young couple had been attacked in late July, the female victim, who was seven months pregnant, killed outright and then opened up by the attacker, who had taken his leisurely time to examine her in front of her wounded lover," then removed the fetus and absconded with it. The father had died a day later, but not before he passed a strange description along to the police, which had been kept out of the newspapers because of its bizarrity, but which Grillo's informer felt needed relating. The killer had not been alone, the dying man had said. He'd been surrounded by a cloud of dust "full of screams and faces."
"I begged him," he'd gone on to say, "begged him not to mess up Louise, but he kept saying he had to, he had to. He was the Death-Boy, he said, and that's what Death-Boys did."
That, in essence, had been the report. Having read it Grillo sat for half an hour in front of the screen, as confounded as he was intrigued. What was happening out there in the real world? Fletcher had died in the mall at Palomo Grove. Cremated; gone to flame and spirit. Tommy-Ray McGuire, the son of the Jaff, the Death-Boy, had died a few days later, at a spot in New Mexico called Trinity. He too had been cremated, but in a more terrible fire than had consumed Fletcher.
they were both dead, their parts in the tangled tale of humanity and the dream-sea over. Or so everyone had supposed.
was it possible everyone had been wrong? That somehow they'd defied oblivion and each returned to pick up the threads of their ambition? If so, there was only one explanation as to how. Both had been touched by the Nuncio during their lives. Perhaps evolution's message was more extraordinary than anyone had guessed, and it had put them beyond the reach of death.
He shuddered, daring to think that. Beyond the reach of death. Now there was a promise worth living for.
He called California. A bleary Tesia answered the phone.
"Tes, it's me."
"What time is it?"
"Never mind the time. I've been going through the Reef, looking for stuff about Fletcher."
"I know where he's headed," Tesia said. "At least I think I know."
"Where?"
"This town in Oregon, called Everville. Has it ever turned up in the street?"
"It doesn't ring a bell, but that doesn't mean much."
"So why are you calling? It's the middle of the fucking night."
"Tommy-Ray." "Hub?" "What do you hear about Tommy-Ray?"
"Nothing. He died in the Loop." "Did he?" There was a hush from the other end. Then Tesla said, "Yeah. 11 "You got out. So did Jo-Beth and Howie-"
"What are you saying?" "I've found a report in the Reef about a killer calling himself the Death-Boy-"
"Grillo," Tesia said. "You wake me up-" "And he's surrounded by a cloud of dust. And the dust's screaming." Tesla drew a long breath, and expelled it slowly. "When was this?" she said softly. "Less than a month ago." "What did he do?" "Killed a couple in Illinois. Ripped a baby out of the woman. Left the guy for dead." "Careless. Is that the only report?"
"It's the only one I've found so far, but I'll keep looking."
"I'll check in on my way up to Oregon@' "I was thinking@'Grillo began.
"You should talk to Howie and Jo-Beth." "Yeah, I will. I was thinking about Fletcher." "When did you last talk to them?" "A couple of weeks ago." "And?" Tesla pressed. "they were fine," Grillo replied.
"Tommy-Ray had the hots for her, you know. They're twins-2' "I know@'
"One egg, one soul. I swear, he was crazy about her-"
"Fletcher," Grillo said. "What about him?"
"If he's there in Everville I'm going to come meet him." "What for?" There was a short pause. Then Grillo said, "For the Nuncio."
"What are you talking about? There is no Nuncio. I destroyed the last of it." "He's got to have kept some for himself." "He was the one that asked me to destroy it, for God's sake." "No. He kept some." "What the hell's all this about?" "I'll tell you some other time. You find Fletcher, and I'll try tracing Tommy-Ray."
"Try sleeping first, Grillo. You sound like shit."
"I don't sleep much these days, Tes. It's a waste of time."
Howie had started working on the car just after eight, intending to get his tinkering over and done with before the sun got too hot. This was the fifth blistering summer they'd lived in Illinois, and he was determined it would be the last. He'd thought returning to the state where he'd been born and raised would be reassuring in a time of uncertainty. Not so. All it had done was remind him of how radically his life had changed in the last half-decade, and how few of those changes had been for the better.
But whenever his spirits were down-which was often since he'd lost his job in March-he only had to look at Jo-Beth cradling Amy and he would feel them rise again.
It was five years since he'd first laid eyes on Jo-Beth in Palomo Grove; five years since their fathers had waged war on the streets to keep them apart. Years in which they'd lived under an assumed name in a suburb where nobody cared about your life because they'd given up caring about their own. Where the sidewalks were littered and the cars dirty and smiles hard to come by. It wasn't the life he'd wanted to give his wife and his daughter, but D'Amour had put it to them this way: If they lived in plain sight as Mr. and Mrs. Howard Katz, they would be found within months and murdered. they knew too much about the secret life of the world to be allowed to survive. Forces sworn to protect that life would silence them, and call themselves heroes for doing so. This was certain.
So they had hidden themselves away in Illinois, and only called each other Howie and Jo-Beth when the doors were bolted and the windows locked. And so far the trick had kept them alive. But it had taken its toll. It was hard, living in shadow, not daring to plan too much, to hope too hard. Once every couple of months Howie would talk to D'Amour, and ask him for some sense of how things were going. How long, he'd say, before they've forgotten who the hell we are, and we can get out into the light again? D'Amour was no great diplomat, but time after time Howie could hear him doing his best to prettify the truth a little; to find some way of keeping them from despair.
But Howie was out of patience. This was the last summer they'd be in this God forsaken hole of a place, he told himself as he sweated under the hood; the last summer he'd pretend he was somebody he wasn't to satisfy D'Amour's paranoia. Maybe once he and Jo-Beth had some part to play in the drama they'd glimpsed half a decade before; but that time had surely passed. The forces D'Amour had evoked to intimidate them-the murderous heroes who would slaughter them in their beds-had more urgent matters on their minds than pursuing two people who'd chanced to swim in Quiddity once upon a time.
The phone was ringing in the house. Howie stopped work, and picked up a rag to clean his hands. He'd skinned his knuckles, and they were stinging. He was sucking at the bloodiest when Jo-Beth appeared on the step, squinting in the sun just long enough to say, "It's for you," then disappearing into the darkness of the house.
It was Grillo.
"What's up?" Howie said. "Nothing much," came the reply. "I was calling to see if you were okay,"
"Amy's keeping us up most nights, but otherwise@'
"Still no job?"
"No job. I keep looking, but@'
"It's tough."
"We're going to have to move, Nathan. Just get out there and start a proper life."
"This... may not be the best time to do it."