“Can she be moved?” he asked Doc. “Back home to Eighty-first, then out of town? Away from here?”
The Russian was quiet for a time, his eyes returning to Tina. “Her fever’s gone, but who knows if it will return? And what is happening to her is continuing to happen.” He shrugged. “On the other hand, if power doesn’t return-if the world doesn’t return to the way it was-this city’s a hungry beast, Calvin. A day, two days… it will begin to devour itself.”
Cal nodded, his mind racing. Where would they go? Back to the prairies, the plains? Was this same nightmare happening there?
He didn’t know. He was just going on a feeling.
But in the past twenty-four hours, it had served him to trust his feelings.
Colleen’s eyes met his. You really want to do this?
He nodded. “Don’t think I’m not open to suggestions.”
She smiled. “I’ve got some stuff I think you can use.”
Her flat was just down the street from his, the next block over. He’d passed it a thousand times, but he’d never known she was there.
Once Cal had gotten Tina safely settled in his apartment, Doc watching over her, he and Colleen had walked the few dozen yards to Colleen’s place. Her brownstone was much like his own, a relic of the previous century: weathered brick and mortar, decades of paint layers, railings of curlicued black iron. Once through the heavy oak door with its leaded stained glass, Colleen led Cal up the narrow wood staircase past silent apartments to the fourth-floor landing. Musty sunshine filtered through a dingy skylight. The thick odor of cooking cabbage filled the stairwell, and Cal wondered how they were managing it.
At her door, Colleen slid her key into the lock, slipped back the bolt. She eased the door open and stepped through soundlessly, alert. Cal followed her in. The living room was airless, dark and still.
“Hello? Rory?” Colleen called out. There was no response. “Guess he’s out.” She tried to make it sound neutral, but Cal heard the relief in her voice.
She threw the drapes open, and light flooded in, twinkling dust in the air. Cal blinked against the sudden brightness, turned from the window and nearly jumped: rows of hunting knives in holders covered the walls, flanked by spears, fiberglass and wood bows, quivers of steel-tipped arrows. Colleen had vanished into the bedroom.
“Your guy’s a real macho jerk, huh?” Cal called after her.
Colleen returned, carrying an empty cardboard box. “Most of those are mine,” she said, nodding at the arsenal.
“Oh.” And it made perfect sense, of course it did-and that there were no guns. Cal remembered the weekend warriors in Hurley, with their hats like Elmer Fudd, their assault rifles with the extra clips. But Colleen, with her sense of honor, would demand a more level playing field, pitting will and muscle, fang and claw, against that of her adversary.
And he felt sure that whatever she killed, she ate.
“It also happens to be the stuff I thought you could use.” She shoved the carton against his chest. “You ask nice, maybe I’ll show you a trick or two.”
“You know, once upon a time, I was Midwest regional junior fencing champ, three years running.”
“Someone throws Errol Flynn at you, you’ll do great.” She began removing gleaming blades from the wall, selecting a bow, piling them into the box. “We’re not talking some effete rich boy’s sport here, slick. Where you’re going, you might not always be able to find dinner wrapped in paper and served in a sack. Might just have to run it down and wrestle it.” She handed over quiver and arrows, replacement barbs, then moved to the far end of the room, started rummaging in drawers.
“Got a tent I can spare, and some thermals. That one’s Rory’s,” she added, as Cal fished out an elaborate blade of the double-deluxe super-duper Special Forces variety, complete with brass knuckles on the hilt and hacksaw on the back. “He’s a sucker for the really big ones. Goes through sporting goods stores like Sherman going through Georgia, but then they just collect dust.”
Cal set the box on a weight bench. His eye fell on a photograph atop an end table. It showed Colleen in Gore-Tex and microfleece, victorious atop a snowy peak. “You climb, too.”
“Hey, you ain’t got money or looks, you gotta do something.” She tossed a bundle of tent barely larger than a paving stone down by the box.
Cal thought to correct her on the looks part but, feeling sure it would be rebuffed, said nothing. A man was standing beside her in the photo, a lopsided grin on his face, his arm around her. Rory, in all probability. A little roughneck with a knife at his belt (on a climb?) and a tattoo on his ungloved hand.
“Matter of fact,” she said, turning toward a big wardrobe, “if I can find that gear, that’s something else you can probably-” A figure burst from the closet as she opened the door, blundered into her, clawing and shoving. “Jesus…!”
But the figure bulled past them, frantic, as Cal sprang to Colleen’s side. It lunged to the front door on bare feet. As it struggled with the bolt Cal saw that it wasn’t human, at least not entirely so. It was five feet or less, wearing a brown bomber jacket and “I Love NY” T-shirt and jeans too big and bunched up; its skin was light gray, almost blue, its bald head huge, with tufted, pointed ears. There was a broad muscularity to it, in spite of its twitchy fear.
Colleen was staring opened-mouthed. “Rory. .?”
Now Cal too saw that, incredibly, the creature before them was Rory, unmistakably the guy in the photograph, but shrunken and altered to this thing before them.
Rory froze in the open doorway. He stared at them through milky white, bulbous eyes with vertical slits for pupils. “I–I-I don’t want to live here no more!” With that, he ran thudding down the steps.
Cal dashed after him, but the little brute was devilishly fast. By the time Cal hit the pavement, Colleen close behind him, Rory was halfway across the street. But he was slowing now, reeling, shielding his eyes with his hands. He’s blind, Cal thought. The daylight’s blinding him.
Rory tripped over a discarded bottle and fell flat. Screeching hideously, he flailed his arms, legs kicking futilely. His fingers brushed a manhole cover. Desperately, he clawed at the edge, pried up the disc and lifted it with one hand. He scrunched into the open hole and vanished, the cover dropping back with a thump.
Colleen was beside Cal now. “That was my old man. I mean, I mean, he was never any beauty prize but he didn’t look like-like-”
“His eyes,” Cal said, and the anguish in his voice stopped her. “They were like my sister’s.”
Afternoon sun slanted through the gauzy curtains and lay across Stern’s broad shoulders and massive head as he squatted in the living room, too big now for the sofa, a blanket wrapped around him. He held the china cup delicately in his taloned hands as Sam poured, then took a sip and sighed. “I’m not human till I’ve had my coffee.”
Sam thought, That’s supposed to be amusing. And he sensed Ely had always been powerful enough to have underlings assure him that he was.
Even squatting, Stern was now taller than Sam. Sam could see that Stern’s face was becoming more of a muzzle, teeth longer and sharper, brow more severe. His skin was continuing to alter, thicker now, its ordered trenches and rises gleaming like brown-black carapace.
Sam replaced the kettle in the fireplace. While Stern had slumbered-twelve hours, dead to the world-Sam had searched feverishly for the notepad that Stern had confiscated, but he had not been able to find it anywhere in the house.
No one messes with the big guy, but the big guy messes with them.
Stern had relished the murder he had committed, that much was crystal clear. To be released from the bottle, to have no limits, no limits at all.