“But—”
“You waste precious time.”
Rolanda studied her for a moment, then nodded. She pulled a twenty out of her pocket.
“They’re coming in a cab,” she said as she handed the money to the reading woman, “but they won’t be able to pay the driver. This should cover it.”
“I will deal with whatever arises,” the reading woman said.
“Right.” Rolanda gave Cosette a quick glance. She looked terrible. “You ready?”
When Cosette nodded, Rolanda led the way to the front door. Opening it, she found yet another half-familiar stranger standing there on the porch. In the poor light he seemed to loom up taller than his bulky six-two, one hand raised, reaching for the doorbell. He glanced down at the baseball bat that Rolanda was holding and took a step back from her.
“I’m reaching for my ID,” he said as his hand went for the inner pocket of his sports jacket.
He brought out a small billfold and flipped it open so that she could see his badge and identification.
“Detective Roger Davis, NPD,” he said slowly. “We met one of the times you brought some of your kids down to the precinct for a tour.”
“I remember,” Rolanda said.
“I want to ask you a few questions about this afternoon’s attempted robbery—in particular, what you know about the Native American with the ponytail who was involved.”
“He thinks Bitterweed’s John,” Cosette said.
The detective had misleadingly placid features. Rolanda remembered thinking when she first met him on that precinct tour how he seemed to be just a big easygoing guy. Then she’d looked into his eyes and realized that he didn’t miss a thing. That penetrating gaze that had so surprised her was now focused on Cosette.
“You know who I’m talking about,” he said, making a statement of what could have been a question.
Cosette shrugged. “It wasn’t John’s fault they looked the same, but he was getting blamed for what Bitterweed did.” She turned her attention away from the detective to look at Rolanda. “It was Bitterweed who killed Kathy’s mother—not John. And certainly not Alan.”
“You’re saying that we’re dealing with two men here and they look exactly the same?” Davis asked.
Cosette gave him a tired nod.
“One named Bitterweed and one named John?”
“John’s dead,” Cosette said in a voice drained of expression. “As for Bitterweed, if you hang around here long enough, he’ll be—”
She broke off suddenly, features going ashen. Behind them, Rolanda heard the reading woman gasp.
“What is it?” Rolanda asked, looking from Cosette to the older numena. “What’s happened?”
“She ... she did it,” Cosette said softly. “She really did it ...”
They were talking about Isabelle, Rolanda realized. Through their connection to the artist, they’d just felt her die. Rolanda thought she was going to be sick.
“You mind telling me what’s going on here?” the detective asked.
Rolanda straightened up, determined not to fall apart. Someone had to hold things together because there were still other lives at stake. Ignoring Davis, she asked the reading woman, “And the others? Alan and Marisa?”
“There’s no way to tell. We’ve no connection to them as we ... as we had with Isabelle.”
“Did you drive over?” Rolanda asked the detective.
“Sure,” he replied, pointed to the unmarked sedan that stood at the curb. “But what’s that got to do with anything?”
“We’ll tell you in the car. Right now we need to get to a tenement in the Tombs before somebody else dies.”
“Look, lady—”
Rolanda gave him a hard glare. “I don’t have time to argue with you. If you want to help, give us a lift. Otherwise, just stay out of our way.”
She took Cosette’s hand and hurried down the walk toward his car without waiting to see if he’d follow. Davis hesitated for a long moment before he sighed and joined them.
“This better be good,” he said as he started up the car. “The only reason I’m going along with you is because I know you folks are straight shooters, but if you’re dicking me around we’re going to be playing twenty questions down at the precinct. Take that as a serious promise, lady.”
“My name’s Rolanda.”
“Whatever.”
He pulled away from the curb, putting his cherry light on the dash with his free hand. As he reached for the siren’s switch, Rolanda caught his hand. “No sirens,” she said. “Otherwise you’ll scare them away.”
He pulled free of her grip. “Fine. You mind giving me an address so I can call it in?”
“We don’t have an address.”
The car slowed. “Lady,” he began, then started over at the sharp look she gave him. “Look, Rolanda. If you can’t trust me with the address, why the hell are you having me tag along?”
“We don’t know the address,” Rolanda said. “Cosette can tell us how to get there, but she hasn’t got a street name or number.”
Davis glanced at the pale-faced girl who sat between them.
“Great.”
He put his foot on the accelerator and the car picked up speed again, heading north for the no-man’s-land of the Tombs.
“Turn right here,” Cosette said.
Davis nodded and followed her direction. Once they were out of the traffic and driving down the empty, rubble-strewn streets of the Tombs, he slowed down and turned off the cherry light.
“Left,” Cosette said.
“I’ve got to call this in,” Davis told Rolanda.
When she nodded, he unhooked the mike from its holder, but before he activated it, he studied the graffitied walls and darkened streets that lay beyond the windshield. There were no street signs. There was no indication that anyone had lived here for decades. All he could see were derelict buildings and over-grown lots.
“I haven’t a goddamn clue where we are,” he said.
“Left here,” Cosette told him.
After he made the turn, he replaced the mike on its holder. He had to swing around a couple of abandoned cars, weave around a rotting mattress that lay in the middle of the street, and then the way was relatively clear for a few more blocks. Ahead of them, at the far end of the block, the car’s headlights caught the rusting bulk of a city bus, its sides festooned with graffiti.
“We’re almost there,” Cosette said.
Davis nodded. “Almost where?” he tried.
“This is what we know,” Rolanda said as he pulled up in front of the abandoned bus and she began to explain.
XI
The dark, claustrophobic space in which John had unaccountably found himself made a wild unreasoning fear flare up inside him. With an effort he worked to suppress it. There was too much at stake to panic. He took a slow, steadying breath, then another.
He had meant what he’d said just before he’d lunged for Rushkin. He wouldn’t allow another to die in his place. He would prefer oblivion to walking in the same world as the monster. But most of all he’d prefer to continue the existence Isabelle had given him and instead, rid the world of Rushkin.
But the latter wasn’t an option since he’d discovered that he couldn’t physically harm Rushkin. So when John had leapt forward, it wasn’t to attack Rushkin. He’d had the painting in mind, Isabelle’s The Spirit Is Strong, his gateway. If he could reach it before Rushkin pierced it with his knife, John knew he could wrest the painting from the monster’s grip. He was capable of that much. It would be up to Isabelle to stop Rushkin for good.
Halfway to Rushkin he’d felt a familiar sensation—that faint buzz of something like static electricity heralding the instantaneous passage from wherever he was to his source painting. And then he’d vanished from Rushkin’s makeshift studio in the Tombs. He’d felt an endless moment of bewildering vertigo as he hovered in the between place through which he had to pass before his journey could be completed. A long confusing moment during which there was no up and no down, no before or behind, no direction whatsoever, only an endless flux of possibilities. He had expected to reappear directly in front of Rushkin, prepared to grab the painting away from the monster when he did, but the between hadn’t functioned as it normally should have. Instead of being returned to the tenement studio where Rushkin was holding his gateway painting, John now found himself floundering about in an enclosed dark space, unidentified objects pressing against him from every side.