"Did he say what?"
"Just things," she said. "He's been traveling around, working for a friend of his."
Tesla hazarded a guess. "Kissoon?" she said.
Jo-Beth actually smiled. "Yeah. How'd you know?"
"It's not important."
Jo-Beth raked her fingers through her long-unwashed hair, and said again, "He loves me."
"So does Howie," Tesla pointed out.
"Howie belongs to Fletcher," Jo-Beth said.
"Nobody belongs to anybody," Tesla replied.
Jo-Beth looked at her, saying nothing. But the look of utter abjection in her eyes was chilling.
Would nothing be saved? Tesla thought. There was Grillo, playing his endgame, thinking of the Nuncio as some last reprieve (but not truly believing it); D'Amour climbing the mountain to spend his last hours where the crosses stood; and this poor girl, who had been so blithe and so effortlessly beautiful, ready to be taken by the Death-Boy because love had failed to save her.
The world was turning off its lights, one by one.... A gust of wind shook the windowpane. Jo-Beth, who had turned from Tesla to tend to the baby, looked round. "What is it?" Tesia said softly.
There was another gust now, this time at the door, as though the wind was systematically looking for some way in.
"It's him, isn't it?" Tesla said. The girl's eyes were glued to the door. "Jo-Beth, you have to help me here@' Tesla crossed to the door as she spoke, and gingerly turned the key in the lock. It was a pitiful defense, she knew (this was a force that brought down houses), but it might earn them a second or two's grace, and that might be the difference between saving a life or losing it. "Tommy-Ray's not going to solve anything," Tesla said. "You understand me? He's not."
Jo-Beth was bending to pick up little Amy. "He's all we've got," she said.
JOL, EVEP.VILLE 471
The wind was rattling both the window and the door now. Tesla could smell it as it gusted through the keyhole and the cracks. Death was here, no doubt of that.
Amy had begun to sob quietly in her mother's arms. Tesla glanced down at the child's tiny, knotted face, and thought of what such innocence might rouse in the DeathBoy. He'd probably be proud of infanticide.
The floor was shaking so hard the key was rattled from its slot. And somewhere in the gusts there were voices, or the fragments of same, some speaking in Spanish, some, Tesia' thought, in Russian, one of them nearly hysterical, one of them sobbing. She caught only a smattering of their words, but the gist of it was plain enough. Come outside, they were saying. He's waiting for you...
"Doesn't sound all that inviting," Tesia whispered to JoBeth.
The girl said nothing. She just stared at the door, gently rocking the troubled baby, while the voices of dead pined and moaned and muttered on. Tesla let them speak for themselves. to judge by the look on Jo-Beth's face they were doing a far better job of dissuading her from stepping over the threshold than Tesla could have done.
"Where's Tommy-Ray?" Jo-Beth said at last.
"Maybe he didn't come," Tesla replied. "Do you... maybe want to slip out the bathroom window?"
Jo-Beth listened for a few second longer. Then she nodded. "Good," Tesla said. "Make it fast. I'll keep them busy."
She watched Jo-Beth retreat to the bathroom, then she turned and went to the door. The ghosts on the other side seemed to sense her approach, because their voices dropped to a murmur.
"Where's Tommy-Ray?" Tesia said.
There was no coherent response, just more distressing din, and a further rattling of the door. Tesia glanced over her shoulder. Jo-Beth and Amy were out of sight, which was something. At least now if the ghosts tried to break in "Open... " they were murmuring, "open... open,"and while they murmured they escalated their assault on the door. The wood around the hinges began to splinter, and around the lock too. "It's okay," Tesia said, fearful that their frustration would make them more dangerous than ever. "I'll unlock the door. Just give me a moment."
She stopped and picked up the key, slid it into the lock, and turned it. Hearing this, the ghosts were quieted, the gusts hushed. Tesia took a deep breath and opened the door. The cloud of phantoms retreated from her in a dusty wave. She looked for Tommy-Ray. There was no sign of him. Closing the door after her, she walked out into the middle of the lot. She'd written an execution scene in one of her failed opuses-a terrible screenplay called As I Live and Breathe. This walk put her in mind of it. All that was missing was the warden and the priest, She started to turn, looking for the Death-Boy, and her eyes came to rest on an area of stunted trees and ambitious weed on the far side of the lot. There were lanterns hanging in the branches, she saw, giving off a sickly phosphorescence. And somebody standing in their midst, more than half hidden. Before she could start towards the place a voice behind her said, "What the hell's going' on out here?"
She looked back to see the motel manager appearing from his office. He was sixty or more, with a bald pate, a gravy-stained shirt, and a can of beer in his hand. By his staggering step it was plain he was the worse for its influence.
"Go back inside," Tesla told him.
But the man had seen the lights in the thicket now, and he strode on past Tesia towards them. "You put them up?" he demanded.
"No," Tesia said, following after him. "Somebody very-"
"That's my property. You can't just go hanging'-" He stopped in mid-stride, as he came close enough to see exactly what these lanterns were. The can of beer dropped from his hand. "My God... " he said.
The branches of the trees and bushes had been hung with horrific trophies, Tesla saw. Heads and arms, pieces of a torso, and much else that was not even recognizable. All of them shone, even the scraps, charged up with a luminescence she assumed was the Death-Boy's gift.
The manager, meanwhile, was stumbling back the way he'd come, his throat loosing a series of panicked animal noises. Instantly, the cloud of phantoms rose up, excited by his terror, and moved to intercept him. He was swept off his feet and pitched ten yards or more, coming to rest a little way from his office door.
"Tommy-Ray?" Tesia yelled back into the thicket. "Stop them!" Getting no response, she strode towards the bushes, haranguing the Death-Boy.
"Call them off, damn you! Hear me?"
Behind her, the manager had started to shriek. She looked back in time to glimpse the man in the midst of the swarming cloud, sinking to the ground. He went on shrieking for a little longer, while they tore at his head. It was twisted left-, then right, then left again with such violence his neck ripped. The shriek stopped. The head came off.
"Don't look," the man in the thicket said.
She turned back and stared into the mesh of twigs, trying to see him better. The last time she'd laid eyes on Tommy-Ray McGuire, back in Kissoon's Loop, he'd been a shadow of his former glory, wasted and crazed. But it seemed the years had been kinder to him than anybody else in this drama. Whatever duties he'd performed for Kissoon, and whatever he'd witnessed (or perpetrated) along the way, his blond beauty had been preserved. He smiled at her out of his grove of lanterns, and it was a dazzling smile.
"Where is she, Tesla?" he said.
"Before you get to Jo-Beth-"
"Yes?"
"I just wanted to talk a moment. Compare notes."
"About what?"
"About being Nunciates."
"Is that what we are?" "It's as good or bad as any."
"Nunciates He turned the word on his tongue. "That's cool."
"Being one seems to suit you."
"Oh yeah, I feel fine. You don't look so good yourself You need to get some slaves, like me, 'stead of wandering around on your own." His tone was completely conversational. "You know a couple of times, I almost came to find YOU."