Tim Powers - Dinner At Deviant's Palace

Rivas winked at him and drove the knife blade through the clinging hemogoblin into the tanned slab of chest, digging around a bit before finding a gap between the ribs.

A strange thing happened when he drew the blade out; as if he'd reached into a tub of water and stabbed a hole in the bottom, the burning hemogoblin began draining into Sevatividam. Now there was fear in the pouchy eyes, and something like . . . pleading?

Not certain that it was by his own volition, Rivas now swiped the blade across the corded throat, and after the first hard-propelled gout of blood had burst out and rocked him back, and he'd dragged his sleeve across his eyes to be able to see again, he saw an angular object about the size of a thumb joint emerge from the opened throat and hover unsupported in the air in front of his face.

It quivered, and the blood disappeared from it in a fine spray, and he saw that it was a crystal.

Behind him Sister Windchime had found a gondola and wrestled Uri's bulk into it—the gunfire had stopped, but the rain of stone was getting worse, the water was choppy, the air full of splash spray, and the night sky more and more visible beyond the buckling walls and ceiling—but Rivas slowly reached out and took hold of the crystal.

Instantly there was a voice in his head: Swallow me. You win. You're the boss. I'll work for you. Swallow me.

He knew what it would mean—to live forever, always knowing who he was, with a cozy border between what was himself and what wasn't, never to be hurt; in fact, never to be touched.

A week ago he might have been tempted. He pushed the crystal into the tequila bottle and firmly corked it.

He turned around. Sister Windchime was in the gondola with Uri and was clutching the edge of the raft, but not patiently. Rivas tossed the bottle into the little boat and started forward. The light was bad with most of the hanging lamps extinguished, and so though he heard the hollow coughlike sound of another section of roof giving way, and even looked up in useless alarm, he never saw the piece of stone that came tumbling down through the smoke-fouled air and broke his head.

the gang of pocalocas, most of them squinting in the noonday sun but a few staring wide-eyed, hurried wrathfully down the street where the singing had seemed to come from. People skipped out of their way into doorways, and then when they'd passed peered after them nervously.

Crouched on a fire escape high above them, Urania Barrows watched them disappear around the corner. When they were gone she shivered, and clung more tightly to her perch because her eyes weren't focusing. The pocalocas were gross dirty creatures, Urania knew that, but every time a gang of them strode past she found herself wanting to join them, graft herself smoothly onto the group. She sensed that they had something she used to have, something she missed now.

After some length of time the blurriness passed and she uncramped her hands, and she remembered how mean Barbara could get when she dawdled around like this, so she scrambled hastily back down the old iron ladders to the street, and then walked quickly in the direction opposite to the course of the pocalocas until she came to Barbara's donut wagon.

Barbara must have been watching for her, for when Urania was two strides away from the wagon she opened the rear door and reached down a hand to help her in.

«Thanks, Sister Windch—» Urania began.

«It's Barbara now,» the other woman said when Urania had climbed inside and shut the door. «You've got to remember that. Did you take 'em far?»

«Three, four blocks,» said Urania, leaning against the wall across from the occupied bunk and blinking in the sudden dimness.

«In which direction?»

Urania shook her head tiredly. «I don't know about directions, I—»

«West is behind us,» interrupted Barbara. «East is forward. North is toward the canal and south is toward the grocery shop.»

«I thought north was always straight ahead.»

Barbara closed her eyes for a moment. She opened them and repeated, «In which direction?»

«Uh . . . behind us . . . toward the ocean.»

«That's lucky, anyway.» Barbara glanced at the unconscious bandaged head of Rivas, then frowned and crossed to the bunk he was lying in.

Urania had begun to drift toward the sugar-powdery churros that Barbara had cooked this morning, but paused to see what she was doing. «Is he dead?»

«I thought he moved,» said Barbara. «Get me a damp cloth.»

«Okay, in a minute. Ow! Okay! Jeez, you don't have to . . .» She lost the thought, looked around blankly, and then started toward the churros again.

«Damp cloth! Now!»

«Jeez, you just got to ask.» Urania dipped a towel in a bucket, wrung it out and brought it over to the bunk. «Here, Sis—I mean, Barbara.» She smiled happily at having got the name right.

«Thank you.» Windchime wiped the parts of Rivas's face not covered by the bandage.

Urania got her donut at last, then watched. «You ever figure out whether it's him that keeps drawing the pocalocas, or that?» She pointed to the shelf where stood the half-full bottle of tequila with the crystal suspended in it.

«I'm not sure. I think it's the thing in the bottle. I think they can sense where it is.»

«Well, why don't we throw it away?»

«Because,» said Barbara, obviously tired of repeating this, «he saved it. It may be important. We've got to hold it for him until he wakes up.»

Urania swallowed some donut. «He's real sick. Shouldn't we just leave him and the bottle with a doctor? We can't take care of him as well as a doctor. He'd thank us for leaving him with one, I bet.»

«The doctor we took him to told us everything that needs to be done. He said that he actually has a better chance under our care than he would in that awful hospital.»

«But taking care of sick people isn't our job! Jeez, it's been two days he just lays there and needs cleaning up like a damn baby.»

Barbara rounded on her. «He saved your life! He's trashed himself—starved, sick, fingers missing, split head—to save you. He wound up saving me, too, and maybe himself, maybe to some extent himself . . . but he did it for you. He—» She looked down at Rivas with an unreadable expression and added in a whisper, «he killed God for you.»

«Well excuse me for living,» said Urania indignantly.

«You knew him?» asked Barbara after a pause. «From what he said at the dinner I gathered you knew each other once.»

Urania nodded. «A long time ago.»

«Arf barf,» said Rivas.

Windchime turned back to him and crouched beside the bunk. «Rivas?» she asked urgently. «Can you hear me?»

Rivas muttered indistinctly and seemed to laugh.

Barbara turned to Urania. «Why don't you try talking to him.»

Urania took her place. «Hi, Greg. This is Uri, remember?»

There was such a long pause that she was about to speak again, but finally he said, «Yeah.» He opened his eyes, narrowly, as if the wagon's interior was very brightly lit. «Long time,» he croaked. His voice was rusty, but there seemed to be contempt in it. «Thirteen years. I've been unconscious thirteen years.»

«Oh, naw, Greg,» said Urania. «It's just been two days.»

«Jaybush,» he said softly. «And I thought I left him behind when I was twenty-one. Ten years ago. But I've just been sort of a . . . what, wandering disciple or something.» He subsided, then suddenly opened his eyes and tried to sit up. «Jesus,» he choked, nearly passing out, «where's his crystal, where is he? That can't—»

Barbara touched his shoulder and pointed at the bottle on the shelf. «There.»

«Ah.» He relaxed, sweating with relief. «Good. Don't uncork it.»