"Riiii! " Seth told her.
She had a moment only in which to decide, and her instinct carried the day. Before Giodoski or Bosley could get a bead on her she was away, pelting down the block. Behind her she heard Glodoski yellin-. Then he fired. The bullet carved a niche in the sidewalk a ytrd to her right.
"Larry, stop!" Waits was shoutin-. "Are you crazy?"
Glodoski simply fired again. This time the bullet shattered a store window behind her. She made the corner without a third shot being- fired, and glanced round to see that Waits had caught hold of Glodoski and was attempting to wrest the weapon from him. She didn't wait for the outcome, but darted out of sight and range.
She bitterly regretted losing Seth and Amy, but the encounter had served a purpose Giodoski and his bully-boys would regret. If there was power to be begged, stolen, or borrowed from Buddenbaum then she'd have it, and damn the niceties.
iv As Harry, Maeve, and Raul crossed Unger's Creek the lights in the streets ahead, which had been flickering for a quarter of an hour, gave up completely. The trio halted for a moment, their other senses attenuated in the sudden darkness. There was no comfort to he had from them, however. they heard only panicked cries from the city, and from the thicket and trees silence, as though every nighthird and insect knew what Sapas Humana did not: that death was coming, and the loudest would be found first. As for the other senses, their news was no better. For all the balm of the summer air, it carried that tang Harry had nosed entering the building at Ninth and Thirteenth: rotten fish and smoking spice. It was on the tongue too, tempting the stomach to rebellion.
"They're coming," Raul said.
"It had to happen."
"Will you hurry yourself, then?" Maeve said. "I want to see my city before we all go to Hell."
"Anywhere in particular?" Harry said.
"Yes, as you're asking," Maeve replied. "There's a crossroads-"
"What is it about those damn crossroads?" Harry said.
"It's where I lived. Where we built our house, my husband and me. And let me tell you, that house was a glory. A glory. Until the sons of bitches burned it down."
"Why did they do that?"
"Oh, the usual. Too much righteousness and too little passion. What I would give for a taste, just a taste, of the way it was at the beginning, when we still had hope... "
She fell into silence for a few moments. Then she erupted afresh: "Take me there!" she hollered. "Take me there! Let me see the ground where it all began!"
Tesia found Buddenbaum sifung in the Nook, as Seth had told her she would. The little coffee shop was deserted, and dark but for the fire Buddenbaum had started on a plate in front of him, feeding it with scraps of menu.
"I was about to give up on you," he said, with a smile that was very nearly sincere.
"I got waylaid." "By some of the locals?"
"Yes." She came to his table, and sat down opposite him, plucking a napkin from the dispenser to moo the sweat from her face. Then she plucked another and blew her nose.
"I know what you're thinking," Buddenbaum said. "Oh, do you?"
"You're thinking: Why should I give a shit about these fucking people? They're cruel and they're stupid, and when they're afraid they just become more cruel and more stupid."
"You're exempting us from this, of course."
"Of course. You're a Nunciate. And I'm-"
"The Jai-Wai's man."
Buddenbaum grimaced. "Do they know you've come here?"
"I told them I was going walkabout, to think things through." She dug in her pocket, and pulled out the cards. "Ever seen these before, by the way?" She laid them on the table. Buddenbaum regarded them almost superstitiously, his mouth tight.
"Whose are they?" he said, his fingers hovering over them but not making contact.
"I don't know."
"They've been in powerful hands," he said appreciatively.
Testa went back into her pocket in pursuit of a stray card, and brought out the remains of the reefer she'd confiscated from the crucifixion singer. She sniffed it. Whatever it contained, it smelled appealingly pungent. She plucked a spill of burning cardboard off the plate, and putting the reefer to her. lips, lit it.
"Will you work for them?" Buddenbaum said.
"The Jai-Wai?" she said. He nodded. "I doubt it."
"Why not?"
"They're psychotic, Buddenbaum. they get a buzz out of seeing people suffer."
"Don't we all?" "No." She inhaled, just half a lungful. Held the smoke. "Oh, come on Bombeck," Buddenbaum replied. "You wrote for the movies. You know what gives people a thrill." She exhaled a breath of lilac smoke. "The difference is: This is real."
Buddenbaum leaned forward. "Are you going to share that?" he said. She passed the joint over the fire. It had induced some subtle visual hallucinations. The flames had slowed their licking, and the beads of sweat on Buddenbaum had become crystalline. He drew on the joint, and spoke as he held his breath. "What's real to us isn't what's real to the rest of the world. You know that." He turned his gaze towards the dark street. A family of five was hurrying along the sidewalk, the children sobbing. "Whatever they're suffering," he said, exhaling now,
"and I don't mean to diminish them in saying this-it's an animal response. that's not real in any absolute sense. It will pass. All things pass, sooner or later." She remembered Kissoon, in Toothaker's house. This had been his wisdom too.
"The life of the flesh, the animal life, is transient. It melts, it fades away. But what's hidden in the flesh-the enduring spirit-that has permanence, or at least the hope of permanence. It's up to us to make that hope a reality."
"Is that why you want the Art?"
Buddenbaum drew on the joint again, passed it back to Tesia, and leaned back in his chair. "Ah... the Art," he said.
"I was there when the Jaff got it. You know that?"
"Of course."
"He didn't exactly flourish."
"I know that too," Buddenbaum said. "But then he was weak. And crazy. I'm neither. I've lived two and a half lifetimes, preparing for what's about to happen here. I'm ready to handle power."
"So why do you need me?"
Buddenbaum rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "This ganga's good," he said. "The truth is, it's not you I need, Tesia."
"It's the Jai-Wai."
"I'm afraid so."
"Do you want to tell me why?"
Buddenbaum considered this for a moment.
"If you want my help," Tesla said, "you're going to have to trust me."
"That's difficult," Buddenbaum said. "I've had so many solitary years, keeping my secrets."
"I'l I make it easy for you," Tesla said. "I'll tell you what I know. Or what I've guessed." She picked up the cards, and shuffled them in the firelight, her eyes on Buddenbaum as she spoke. "You buried one of the Shoal's medallions at the crossroads, and over the years it's been gathering power somehow. And now you're ready to use it, to get you the Art."
"Good... " said Buddenbaum, "go on.. - "
She pushed the fire-plate aside, and started to lay the cards out on the table, one by one. "The Jaff taught me something," she said, "when we were together under the Grove. I was looking at the cross he had, trying to work out what the symbols meant-these symbols"-she waved the cards. "And he told me: to understand something is to have it. When you know what a symbol means, it's no longer a symbol. You have the thing itself in your head, and that's the only place anything needs to be."
She looked down at the cards for a moment. When she glanced back up at Buddenbaum his gaze was icy. "Everything dissolves at the crossroads, doesn't it'? Flesh and spirit, past and future, it all turns into mind." She had found all the cards picturing the body spreadeagled at the center of the cross, and now proceeded to assemble them.