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.
"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.