ill you please stop her?" Coker yelled in Raul's ear.
Raul was too distressed by Tesla's disappearance to reply. Coker yelled on until Raul said, "I thought you'd gone."
"No, never," Coker replied. "I was simply silenced by her bitterness. Now I beg you, my friend, don't let her be taken from me. I want her to know what I feel for her, just once."
Raul swallowed a sob. So many people already taken, and this last the most unthinkable. Tesla had survived a bullet, Kissoon, and enough drugs to fell a horse. But now she was gone.
"Please," Coker said. "Go after Maeve."
"I'll do my best," Raul said, and started in pursuit of the old woman. For all her frailty, she'd already covered quite a distance.
"Wait!" he called after her. "Somebody wants to talk to you!"
As he caught up with her, she scowled. "It's him I want to talk to!" she said, nodding in Buddenbaum's direction. "He's the one!"
"Listen to me a moment," Raul said, catching hold of her arm. "It wasn't an accident we found you. Somebody led us to you. Do you understand? Somebody who's here, right now, beside us."
"Are you crazy?" Maeve replied, looking around.
"You don't see him because he's dead."
"I don't give a shit for the dead," Maeve snapped. "It's the living I want answers from! Buddenbaum!" she yelled.
It was Erwin who piped up now. "Tell her who you are!" he said to Coker.
"I wanted it to be a special moment," Coker replied.
"I wasted my life waiting for the special moments," Erwin told him. "Now is all we've got!" So saying, he pushed his fellow phantom aside to get access to Raul's ear. "Tell her it's Coker! Go on! Tell her!"
"Coker?" Raul said aloud.
Maeve O'Connell stopped in her hobbling tracks. "What did you say?" she murmured.
"The dead man's name is Coker," Raul replied. "I' in her husband," said Coker.
"He says he's-"
"I know who he is," she said, and drawing a gasping breath she said,
"Coker? My Coker? Can this be true?"
"It's true," Raul said.
Tears came, but she didn't stop saying his name. "Coker oh my Coker... my sweet Coker...
Harry heard Maeve sobbing behind him, and looked round to see her with her head flung back, as though her husband was raining kisses on her and she was bathing in them. When he returned his gaze to the crossroads, Buddenbaum had dropped to the ground where Tesla had vanished, and was beating his fists violently against the now-solidified street. He was on the verge of apoplexy, sprays of spittle, sweat, and tears erupting from his face. "You can't, you bitch!" he shrieked at the street. "I won't let you have it!"
Energies were still pouring up out of the ground, spirals and filigrees rising around him. He tried to snatch hold of them in his bloodied hands, as if they might still transfigure him, but his fists extinguished those he caught, and the rest simply climbed on out of his reach and faded into the darkness above him. His fury and frustration mounted. He began to swing around, unleashing a solid scream of rage,
"This can't happen! It can't! It can't!"
Behind him, Harry heard Maeve O'Connell say, "Do you see this, Coker? At the crossroads?" "He sees it," Raul replied.
"That's where I buried the medallion," Maeve went on. "Does Coker know that?" "He knows."
Maeve had come to HarTy's side now. Her face was wet with tears but her smile was unalloyed. "My husband's here... she said to Harry, rather proudly. "Imagine that...
"That's wonderful."
She pointed down the street. "That's where we had the whorehouse. Right there. It's no coincidence, is it?"
"No," said Harry, "I don't think it is."
"All that light, it's coming from the medallion."
"It certainly looks that way."
Her smile broadened. "I'm going to see for myself"
"I wouldn't if I were you."
"Well you're not me," she said sharply. "Whatever's going on there's my doing." She calmed herself a little, and the smile crept back on to her face. "I don't think you know what's going on any more than I do, am I right?"
"More or less," Harry conceded.
"So if we don't know what's to be afraid of, why be afraid?" she reasoned. "Raul? I want you on my left side. And Coker, wherever you are, I want you on my right."
"At least let me go first," Harry said, and without waiting for her permission, headed on towards Buddenbaum, who was once again berating the asphalt. He saw Harry coming from the corner of his eye.
"Keep your distance," he gasped, his breathing raw. "This ground's mine. And I've still got power in me if you uy to take it from me."
"I'm not here to take anything," Harry said.
"You and that bitch Bombeck, plotting against me."
"Mere was no plot. Tesla never wanted to be a part of this-"
"Of course she did!" Buddenbaum replied. "She wasn't stupid. She wanted the Art the same as everyone." He looked round at D'Amour, his fury decaying into self-pity. "But you see I trusted her. That was my mistake. And she lied!" He slammed his wounded palms down upon the solid ground. 'This was my ground! My miracle!"
"Listen to the shit he speaks!" Maeve hollered. Harry stood aside, to let Buddenbaum see her. "You're the liar!" she said. "that land was, is, and always will be mine."
Buddenbaum's expression turned from fury to astonishment. "Are you... are you what I think you are?"
"Why do you look surprised?" Maeve said. "Sure, I got old, but we can't all do deals with the Devil."
"It wasn't the Devil I dealt with," Buddenbaum said softly. "I might have more to show for it if I had. What are you doing here?"
"I came to get some answers," Maeve said. "I deserve some, don't you think, before we both go to our graves?"
"I'm not going to my grave," Buddenbaum said.
"Oh are you not?" Maeve replied. "My mistake." She waved Raul away, so as to proceed unaided to where Buddenbaum knelt. "Do you want another hundred, hundred and fifty years?" she said to him. "You're welcome to them. I'm off, after this. Somewhere my bones don't ache."
While she was speaking, one of the luminous ribbons risin- from the ground strayed in her direction. She reached out towards it and instead of avoiding her grasp it woye between her arthritic fingers. "Did you ever see the house we built here?" she said, as she watched the ribbon at play. "Oh it was such a sight. Such a sight."
The ribbon went from her fingers now, but several more strands and particles were rising from out of the earth towards her.
"What are you doing, woman?" Buddenbaum said.
"Nothing," Maeve shrugged.
"Even if the land isn't mine, the magic is."
"I'm not taking it from you," Maeve said mildly, "I'm too old to be possessive about anything. Except maybe my memories. Those are mine, Buddenbaum... " The motes were getting busier all the time, as though inspired by what she was saying. "And right now they're very clear.
Very, very, clear." She closed her eyes for a moment, and a new wave of luminosity broke from the street, rising to graze her hands and face before darting off. "Sometimes I think I remember my childhood more clearly than yesterday... " she went on, extending her hand. "Coker?" she said. "Are you there?"
"He's right here," said Raul.
"Will you take my hand?" she said.
"He says he's doing it," Raul said. Then, after a moment. "He's got tight hold of you."
Maeve smiled. "You know I believe I can feel it?" she said.