"What's going on down there?" Owen said, leaning out of the window. "Do you know that woman7'
"The one who just puked? Yeah. It's Mrs. Bullard. She's a real bitch." "Extraordinary," Owen said.
Dorothy was pushing and shoving her way through the crowd. She was yelling something, but Owen couldn't catch it over the din of the approaching band.
"She looks really upset," Seth said. "That she does," Owen said, leaving the window and heading for the stairs.
"Maybe she saw the avatars!" Seth yelled after him.
"The same thought occurred to me," Owen said. "The ve same-"
Dorothy Bullard's warning had not gone unheard by the crowd around Kitty's Diner. As she strode forward they cleared a path for her, in case she intended to puke again. One girl, perhaps a little worse for drink, failed to get out of her way fast enough and was shoved aside as Dorothy charged the barricade. It fell before her, and she ran out into the middle of the crossroads, waving her hands wildly.
At the head of his shining ranks, Larry Glodoski saw the Bullard woman flailing in front of him, and was presented with a choice. Either he brought the band-and thus the parade-to a halt in the next ten seconds, or trusted that somebody would have the presence of mind to gei the bitch out of his way before there was a collision. In truth, it was no dilemma at all. She was one; they were many. He lifted his baton a little higher, and marked the beats with sharper motions than ever, as if to erase the woman from the street in front of him.
"I'm listening," Tesla murmured, "I'm listening as hard as I can." Every now and then she heard what might have been a munnur, but her mind was whining with hunger and heat. Even if it was the ghosts speaking she could make no sense of the sounds.
And now there was yet another distraction: some kind of brouhaha up at the crossroads. The crowd had become more frenzied than ever. She went up on her tiptoes in the hope of seeing what was happening, but her sight was blocked by heads and balloons and waving hands.
Harry had the scoop, however. "There's a woman in the middle of the street, yetting@'
"Yelling what?"
Harry listened for a moment. "I think she's telling people to get off the street@'
An instinct she would once have called Raul's had her out of the doorway in a moment, back into the swelter and stench of the crowd, pushing Harry ahead of her. "Clear the way!" she yelled to him.
",my?"
"It's the crossroads! it's something to do with the fuc@ing crossroads!"
"Do you see them?" Seth said, as he and Owen carved their way to the front of the crowd. Owen didn't answer him. He was afraid if he opened his mouth he'd cry out: in hope, in pain, in expectation. He ducked under the barricade and out into the open street.
This was the most dangerous of moments, he knew: when everything could be gained or lost. He hadn't expected it to come upon him so suddenly, Even now, he wasn't certain this wa. s f moments, but he had to act as though it indeed the moment o were, The sun suddenly seemed merciless, beating on his bare head, softening his thoughts, and On the bare street, softening that too. It would flow soon, the way it had in the vision he'd shared with Seth; flow into the place where flesh met flesh, and the Art ignited
"Get away!" Dorothy yelled, turning to appeal to the crowd. "Get away before it's too late!"
"She has seen something," Owen thought.
There were people converging on the woman from all sides, intent on silencing her, but Owen put on a burst of speed to reach her first.
"It's all right!" he yelled as he went, "I'm a doctor!"
It was a trick he'd used before, and as before, it worked, He was given clear access to the crazed woman.
Larry saw the doctor wrap his arms around poor Dorothy, and offered up a little prayer of thanks. Now all the guy had to do was get the Bullard woman out of the way-but quickly, quickly!-and the rhythm of the band would not be broken. He heard somebody in the ranks calling, "Larry? We gotta stop!" Larry ignored the cry. they still had another ten strides before they would reach the spot where the doctor was talking to Dorothy.
Nine, now. But nine was plenty. Eight
"What are you seeing?" Owen demanded of the woman. "It's all going to burst," she said to him. "Oh God, oh God, it's all going to burst!"
"What is?" he asked her. She shook her head. "Tell me!" he yelled at her. "The world!" she said. "The world!"
Harry had no difficulty clearing a way through the crowd for Tesla. Now he lifted the barricade and she ducked under it, out into the open street, delivering her into the arena. There were perhaps a dozen players-ahead of her-excluding the band-but only three were of significance. One was the woman at the very center of the crossroads, another the bearded man who was presently talking to her, the third the WI young man a few yards ahead of her, who was calling out:
"Buddenbaum!"
The bearded man glanced round at his companion, and Tesia had a clear look at his face. The expression he wore was grotesque; every muscle in his face churning and his eyes blazed.
"Mine!" he yelled, his voice shrill, and swung back towards the woman, who was in some delirious state of her own, her eyes rolling in her sockets. She started to pull herself free of Buddenbaum, and in doing so her blouse tore open from neck to belt, exposing bra and belly. She scarcely noticed, it seemed. But the crowd did. A roar rose from all sides-gasps, wolf-whistles, and applause all mingled. Flailing, the woman stumbled away from Buddenbaum Larry couldn't believe it. Just as he thought things were in hand Dorothy pulled away from the doctor-practically showing her all to the world in the process-and reeled round, straight in front of the band.
Larry yelled "Halt!" but it was too late to prevent catastrophe. The Bullard woman collided with him, and he staggered backwards into the trumpet section. Two of the band members went over like bowling pins, and Larry fell on top of them. There was another roar from the spectators.
Larry's spectacles had come off in the melee. Without them the world was a blur. Detaching himself from the knot of trumpeters he started to search the ground, patting the warm asphalt.
"Nobody move!" he yelled. "Please! Nobody move!"
His plea went unheard. People were moving all around him. He could see their blurry forms; he could hear their shouts and curses.
"We're all going to die," he heard somebody sob nearby. He was sure it was Dorothy, and good man that he was, forsook his search a moment to comfort her. But when he looked up from the street to seek out the blur that most resembled her, something else came into view. It was a woman, but she was not blurred; far from it. He could not have wished for a vision more perfectly in focus. She was not standing in the street, but hovering a little distance above it. No; not even hovering, stan&ng; she was standing in the air, with a silk robe loosely knotted around her. Very loosely, in fact. He could see her breasts-they were glossy and full-and a hint of what lay between her legs. He called out to her,
"Who are you?" But she didn't hear him. She just moved off, climbing the air as though ascending a flight of invisible stairs. He started to get to his feet, wishing he could follow, and as he did so she looked back, coquettishly, not at him, he knew, but at somebody whom she was coaxing to follow her.
Oh how she smiled at him, the lucky bastard, and plucked at her robe to tease him with a glimpse of her beautiful legs. Then she continued to climb, and a few steps up the flight, seemed to encounter another woman-this one descendingthe contact briefly illuminating the second beauty.
Larry-?"
What was he seeing?
"I got your spectacles."
"Hub?"
"Your spectacles, Larry." they were thrust in front of him, and he fumbled for them, not wanting to take his eyes off the woman.
"What the hell are you looking at?"