Стивен Бойетт - Mortality Bridge

What seems like a long time is less than ten seconds before Nikodemus rushes from the house in a blur of wings and tendrils and sees Niko in the Bentley and runs toward him with one tendril wrapped around the mason jar and the other reaching for the door. The demon lifts the latch but nothing happens. The automatic locks engaged when Niko put the car in gear. Past Nikodemus the Black Taxi Driver appears in the doorway of the house. Niko blindly stabs the control panel and his window whines down. Nikodemus is about the tear the door off when Niko stabs another button and the doors unlock. Nikodemus piles in and Niko peels out.

Nikodemus holds the mason jar in one coiled tendril. “I tried.”

“I know you did.” Niko speeds down the drive past soulless blind statues and surges to a halt before the gate. They wait an eternity for the automatic gate to clatter open. Niko glances at the jar. Does it give forth light or mere reflection now?

Beyond the gate the Black Taxi still faces the pummeled Checker Cab, but the black sedan’s bonnet hood is folded up. There’s no sign of the cabbie. In the rearview Niko sees the Driver strolling down the driveway toward them.

When the gate is open wide enough Niko glides forward twenty feet and punches an overhead button and the gate begins to slowly rattle shut as Niko stops beside the Franklin. The black car’s hood folds down and the cabbie looks at Niko with a big old shiteating grin. Her hands are smudged with grease and a smear of it warpaints her forehead beside the streak of Niko’s blood. The cabbie glances up the driveway at the Driver coming toward them. “Goodbye, good luck, get going.”

“One question.”

“Better be quick.”

“Black Cab test question.”

Her eyebrows raise. “Shoot.”

“Shortest distance from point A—” Niko indicates their surroundings “—to point B.”

And points up.

Her mouth opens in surprised delight. “Dang I like you. You got brass.” And quickly she gives Niko the directions he needs.

He can only shake his head when he hears where he is bound. Doesn’t that just goddamn figure? He glances in the rearview and sees the Driver at the gate now. “Thanks,” he tells the cabbie. “I’ll marry you next time around, I swear.”

“You already did. Now get out of here.” She squeezes his arm and nods farewell to Nikodemus and slaps the rear of the Bentley as if spurring on a horse as Niko speeds away. She watches the car speed round the corner and listens to the throaty engine dwindle down the hill. Good car, the Bentley. Rich man’s car.

She closes her grease-stained fingers over an object in her hand and smiles. Then she straightens her thin tie and turns toward the gate to face the enemy she has faced so many times so many places, the enemy she so truly deeply loves. “I think you dropped this, Sparky,” the cabbie says, and holds out the magneto wire she tore loose from the Black Taxi.

SO. FRIDAY NIGHT, Hollywood Freeway northbound. Traffic not too bad if you don’t mind whipping in and out of the breakdown lane at ninety to pass the slowpokes and piss off just about everybody.

Niko doesn’t mind. Whatever the cabbie did to the Black Taxi will only be a stalling measure at best. We’re talking about a car that repaired itself after an eighty mile an hour collision with an iron gate and a dog the size of a one ton clubcab pickup. So put some miles on, buddy pal.

Speaking of buddy pals. Niko looks at Nikodemus filling up the front seat like a grownup in a schoolboy’s desk. The torn and battered eyepatched demon watches cars they pass, watches the city with the open curiosity of a child. He shifts constantly on the seat. Nowhere is comfortable because of his wings. Opposing traffic a motionless headlight river. Must be an accident somewhere past Hollywood. Oh wait a minute. Niko remembers the overturned fueltruck by the Virgil exit. I drove by the cause of this traffic jam an hour ago. My god.

Nikodemus rubs a tendril against the thick pad taped over his ruined eye.

Nikodemus I owe you so much. You haven’t even asked where we are going. My dark and ruinous twin you have a faith I never had. Our destinies are linked and always have been. Knowing this should make it easier to tell you what I must. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t. I still believe in my own volition.

He snakes through traffic as he speaks his demon’s given name. “So Nikodemus.”

The white patch turns toward him. “That’s not really my name, is it?”

Niko shakes his head.

“I didn’t think so. It doesn’t feel right.” The head turns away again. They’ve reached the downside of the Cahuenga Pass connecting Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. Ahead to the right the multicolored neon and lighted tubes and spires and pyrotechnic flashes from Universal City Walk hold the demon’s attention. Its black tower cleaves the misted night.

“I don’t know your real name. I gave you that one after you fell in the Lethe. I had to call you something.”

“I’m not mad. It’s kind of funny. Nikodemus.”

Niko feels like a total shit. He has to tell Nikodemus what he’s up to. The demon has the right to know. Especially now that he is mortal.

Ahead the right three lanes split off to form the westbound Ventura Freeway. Niko whips across traffic and into the far right lane. Streetlights all around them dim. How odd.

Then Nikodemus is shaking his shoulder with one tendril and steering the car into the breakdown lane near Laurel Canyon with the other. “Hey. Wake up. Come on, wake up.”

Niko grabs the wheel. “I fell asleep?”

They ease into the breakdown lane and stop. Staccato rush of passing cars. Nikodemus studies him. “You’re very pale.”

The surrounding traffic lights have grown abstract. Niko can’t make sense of them. He’s cold. Ask Nikodemus to turn the heater on? Can’t concentrate. Nikodemus talking. “What’s that?” Niko shouts as if his demon is far away.

“I said I think you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“Oh.” Niko considers this. Yes that seems right. He’s lost a lot of blood. He shakes his head in great big arcs. “Can’t do that. Wayyy too soon. Got a little ways to go. Then I can bleed to my heart’s content.”

“How far?”

“Hmm?”

“How far away is where we’re going?”

“Maybe thirty miles.”

“All right.” The car chimes as Nikodemus gets out. Niko’s head lolls as he watches the enormous alien figure walk around the car and open his door. The surf of speeding cars grows louder. A horn blows and tires screech. Boy gonna cause him a accident.

Nikodemus leans into the car. “Come on.”

“Wherem I goin?”

“Passenger side. I’m driving.”

“Smy car.”

“All right, I’m driving your car.”

“Oh. Okay.” Niko sleepily acquiesces and clambers painfully to the passenger seat instead of getting out and going around. Ooh look at all the blood. A cable in his back pulls taut. Niko lifts the mason jar from the floorboards and breathes deeply. Faintest trace of her perfume and not a ray of light. Hang in there baby Niko tells the jar and cuddles it.

“Where is the clutch pedal?” Nikodemus says. “How do I work this lever?”

“Issa automatic. Put it in D an you don’t gotta shift.”

Nikodemus looks impressed. He fiddles with the electronic controls until the seat is as far back as it will go. He adjusts the rearview mirror and puts the Bentley in drive and abruptly steers onto the freeway. A horn blares and a Honda screeches around them, missing their rear bumper and then the car in the next lane over by less than a foot.

They’re doing ninety by the time they pass Coldwater Canyon. “Umunna go seepy now.”