"Where the fuck did you go?" Larry demanded.
Bosley felt a chill wind at his back, and glanced over his shoulder to see McGuire rounding the corner, with the carpet of dust rising around him.
"Christ Almighty!" Larry said. "Keep runnin'!" Alstead hollered.
"It's closing' on you!"
Bosley didn't need any encouragement. He fled towards the men, the dust swirling around his legs now, as if to trip him up.
"Out of the way!" Larry yelled, racing towards him. Bosley changed direction, and Giodoski fired at McGuire, Who stopped in his tracks. The dust kept coming however, flinging Glodoski against the brick wall. He started to sob for help, but he got out no more than a word or two before his pleas were choked off. In an instant the dust had enveloped him, and his body was lifted off the ground, still pinned against the wall.
Alstead, who had only reluctantly given up his assault on Seth, now let the boy slide to the ground and went to Glodoski's aid. But the dust had done its work. In a matter of ten seconds, if that, it had dashed
@'s brains out against the brick; now it turned on Alstead. He started to back away, raising his hands in surrender, but the dust was on him like a rabid dog and would surely have slaughtered him too had Bosley not begged Tommy-Ray to call it off.
"No more death!" he said.
"All right," said McGuire, and called the dust back to his feet, leaving Alstead sobbing on the sidewalk a few yards from Waits, who had passed out in the gutter and remained there comatose.
"Just give me the kid," Tommy-Ray said'to Bosley. "And I'm gone."
"You won't hurt her?" Bosley said.
"No." "Don't-" Seth murmured, hauling himself to his feet. "In God's name, Bosley@'
"I've got no choice," Bosley replied, and proffered the child.
Seth was on his feet, and with a broken cry in his throat stumbled towards Bosley. But his bruised body couldn't carry him fast enough. Tommy-Ray claimed Amy from Bosley's hands and gathering her to his burned body whistled for the killing cloud to follow him down the street.
Seth was abreast of Bosley now, sobbing out his frustration.
"How could... you... do... that?"
"I told you: I had no choice."
"You could have run."
"He would have found me," Bosley replied, staring blank-eyed into the darkness that already enveloped Tommy-Ray.
Seth didn't waste his breath arguing. He had little enough energy left in his bruised body, and it was a long trek from here back to the crossroads, where all of tonight's journeys were bound to end.
At the crossraods Beddenbaum stared down into the ground, into the dark where the medallion lay, gathering power.
The end's almost here, he thought. The end of the stories I've made and the stories I've manipulated, and those I wandered through like a bit player and those I've endured like a prisoner. The end of all my favorite clich6s: tragic mismatches and farcical encounters; tearful reunions and deathbed curses. The end of Once upon a time and Now we shall see and Can I believe my eyes? The end of final acts; of funeral scenes and curtain speeches. The end of ends. Think of that.
He would miss the pleasure of stories-especially those in which he'd appeared in some unlikely guise or other ut he'd have no need of them very soon. they were solace for the rest of humanity, who were mired in time and desperate to glimpse something of the grand scheme. What else could they do with their lives but suffer and tell tales? He would not be of that tribe much longer.
"I have nothing but you, my sweet Serenissima," he said, turning on his heel, surveying the streets in all directions. "You are my sense, my sanity, and my soul " The pain in these words had moved him in the past, many, many times. Now he only heard the word-music, which was pretty in its simplicity, but not so pretty he would miss hearing it again.
"Go from me now and I am lost in the great dark between the stars-" As he spoke he saw Tesla Bombeck approaching down the street. And coming after her the girl, the fool, and the cretin. He went on declaiming: "And cannot ever perish there, for I must live until you still my heart." He smiled at Tesla, at them all. Opened his arms wide in welcome.
"Still it now!
She looked at him with puzzlement on her face, which he rather enjoyed.
"Still it now! " he said again. Oh, but it was fine, roaring over the din of screams and sobs, while his victims came wandering towards him.
"I beg thee, still it now, and let my suffering cease!
Doing her best to conceal her nervousness, Tesia looked back in the direction of the lad. She could see nothing of the invader itself, but two fires had started in the streets closest to the base of the mountain, and flames from the larger of them were leaping up over the roofs, seeding sparks. Whatever their originsdesperate defense measures or accidents that were goiti,,, unchecked-the fires would surely spread. In which case the invader would be lording itself over a city of charcoal and ash by morning.
She returned her gaze to Buddenbaum, who had given up his theatrics and was now standing in the middle of the crossroads with his hands behind his back. She was still thirty yards from him, and, the only light being that of the distant conflagrations and a few uneasy stars, she could not confidently read his expression. Would he give her a signal, she wondered, when she'd brought the Jai-Wai close enou,,h that she could retreat? A nod? A wink? She silently berated herself for not prearranging some sign. Well, it was too late now.
"Buddenbaum?" she said.
He inclined his head a little. "What are you doing here?" he said.
Not bad, she thought. He was pretty convincing.
"I came to say... well, I guess to say goodbye."
"What a pity," Buddenbaum replied. "I'd rather hoped we'd have a chance to get to know each other."
Tesia glanced back at Rare Utu. "It's up to you now," she said, studying the Jai-Wai's face in the gloom. She could see no sign of suspicion, but that didn't mean much. The features were a mas@ after all. "Maybe I should just head off and leave you to it," she suggested.
"If that's what you'd prefer," Rare Utu replied, walking on past Tesla to Buddenbaum.
"I think she should stay," Yie said. "this isn't going to. take very long."
Tesla looked back at Buddenbaum, who seemed to be staring at his feet. His hands were at his sides now, and tightly clenched. He's holding something down, she thought, he's suppressing some evidence of what's going on here.
He wouldn't be able to do so much longer. Haheh had by now wandered on past Tesla, sloughing off his human form as he did so, and he seemed to have become aware that the street was simmering.
"Do you have some kind of surprise for us, Owen?" he asked mildly.
"I'm... always trying my best to... to keep you diveri.ed," Buddenbaum replied. The stress of his attempts at containment were audible in his voice. It had lost most of its music.
"You've done well for us over the years," Rare Utu said. She sounded almost sorrowful.
"Thank you," Owen replied. "I've always tried my best. I'm sure you know that."
"we also know that great stories have a shape to them," Utu went on.
"they bud, they come to flower, and then... inevitably-"
"Get on with it, will you?" Yie said from behind Tesla. She turned her head an inch of two, just glimpsing him from the corner of her eye. He had also given up his human skin in favor of his fleshy cocoon. Even in the murk, the blebs his empathy had nurtured gleamed. "We don't owe the man any niceties," he continued. "Tell him the truth and let's be done with it."
"What have you come to tell me?" Buddenbaum asked.
"That it's over," Haheh replied gently. "That we have body new to show us the wonders of the story tree."