Tim Powers - Dinner At Deviant's Palace

He'd seen the kid who was his younger self come lurching out of the Barrows house, pale and sweaty and unhappy-looking, and go reeling toward the road—then stop, slap a hand across his mouth and go lunging into the bushes. There had followed the inelegant racket of someone being violently ill.

An elderly couple had strolled out of the house, and registered startlement at these sounds. «What on earth is that, Henry?» the woman asked.

«Oh,» said the man, smiling tolerantly, «it sounds like a dog, behind the bushes there. Nothing we need concern ourselves with.» They'd started to wander away then.

But a moment later a strange new sound arose from behind the bushes. «Rowf. Rowf. Arf barf. Owooo —Oh, God, gaaak —oh, rowf, rowf . . .»

Urania, who had fetched herself another donut, looked up and caught Rivas's eye just as he began laughing. He was too weak to laugh very hard, but he did it for quite a while.

«You laughing at me?» Urania asked when he'd subsided somewhat.

He sniffed and weakly wiped tears away from his eyes. «No, Uri. Me.» He looked at her fondly. «It's been thirteen years, Uri. Did you think about me much?»

«Some,» she said. «Of course I've been busy. Uh . . . did you think about me much?»

He shrugged. «I thought so.»

«Would you like one of these donuts?»

«I guess not, thank you.»

Abruptly there was a hard knock at the wagon's door, and, overlapping that noise, Barbara's voice, quiet but tense: «Lemme in, quick. That last gang of pocalocas is back.»

Urania let her in, and Barbara hurried forward and crouched by Rivas. «Can we let them have that?» she asked, pointing at the bottle with the crystal in it.

Starkly aware of his own helplessness, Rivas shook his head. «No. That's Jaybush dormant in there, that crystal. It they can get it, he'll be alive again.»

«Okay, we run.» She turned to Urania. «Uri, they're coming from behind us. Do you remember how to drain the deep fryer?»

«Well, you only showed me once. You turn the—»

«You've got to do it. And then take the broom, hop down and quickly sweep the oil off to both sides of the street. Go!»

«But why do—»

«Now, damn it!»

Uri went, grumbling, to the front of the wagon.

«Can I help at all?» asked Rivas.

Barbara dropped the bar across the flimsy door. «Of course not,» she said with the briefest backward glance. She peered through a narrow hole in the door, sunlight making a luminous slash across her smooth cheek. Without feeling the least bit less useless, Rivas found himself growing excited by the sight of her.

Brilliantly appropriate response to peril, you idiot, he told himself.

Urania came puffing back in through the kitchen. «There, it's all—»

«Bring me the broom,» snapped Barbara.

Rolling her eyes like a martyr, Urania went back to the kitchen. Rivas could hear a sort of unsynchronized marching outside, getting louder. Urania returned with the broom, which was dripping and reeked of cooking oil.

Barbara straightened and snatched it from her. «Now when I say go,» she said quickly to Urania, «you fling the back door open—lift the bar first—and then instantly run forward and whip up the horses and get us out of here fast, it doesn't matter where. Got it?»

«Yes,» said Urania, moving forward and taking hold of the bar.

«Go.»

The bar clanked back, the door was flung open, and Rivas, raising his head in the bunk, was sure he glimpsed the pain-gaunt face of Sister Sue in the moment when Barbara held the broom head to the candle and the oil-soaked straw brush blazed into flame. Then the wagon lurched forward and Barbara blocked his view as she leaned out the door to toss the burning broom to the pavement.

Over the rattling of the wheels and his own pounding heartbeat he didn't hear any whoosh of sudden ignition, but he did hear screams of surprise and pain and rage. Barbara lost her balance and had to grab the door frame, and Rivas watched her swing out and around, her white teeth bared with effort, and then he saw muscles flex in her brown arms and legs as she dragged herself back inside. She gave him a taut grin as she pushed the door shut.

«We're away from 'em,» she said, «but now we don't dare stop. They'll remember this wagon.»

«And I'll bet one of them recognized you, and probably me too,» Rivas told her, letting his head fall back onto the pillow. «I think their leader was Sister Sue.»

«Oh. Yes.» She grabbed the bunk to brace herself, and a pan fell in the kitchen, as Urania took a fast turn. «Are you sure? I didn't look at any of them closely.»

«I'm afraid I'm sure.»

«Huh. Well, I hope we all—including the horses—like donuts, because I think we're going to have to just make one long burn straight to Ellay. Objections?»

He spread his hands. «It's your show.» The wagon took another sharp turn and this time there were angry yells from outside as well as pans falling in the kitchen, and Barbara started forward but stopped when Rivas said, «Oh, one thing . . .»

«What's that?»

«Did you get my beer?»

She frowned, then reached into the big pocket of her skirt. «Well, yes,» she said, producing a bottle. «Can you drink it?»

«I think with it balanced on my chest I could.»

«All right.» She uncorked it and set it on his chest and braced his hands around it. «You okay?»

«Yeah,» said Rivas. «Thanks.» He tilted the bottle to his mouth, and got a good sip in spite of the wagon's rocking.

She smiled. «Good. You really did look terrible when I got you out of there. The doctor who put your head back together knew you, by the way. He said, 'Rivas is rapidly using himself up.' I told him there was lots more to you than met the eye.» She patted his bony shoulder and went forward to help Urania with the driving.

Rivas spent most of that day eating and drowsing, and when it became imperative that he either call for a bedpan or visit the wagon's bathroom—a tiny closet between the head of the bunk and the back kitchen wall—he managed to stand up and make the trip himself, though when he reeled back to the bunk he collapsed limply into it, nauseous, cold, sweating, and almost fainting from exhaustion. He slept several hours after that, and when he woke up Barbara had halted the wagon for the night in what she assured him was a well-concealed spot. The three fugitives made the last of the soup serve as dinner, though dessert was lavish, and then, over Rivas's weak protests, the two women stretched out on the floor to go to sleep.

Rivas slept too, but fitfully, and a tiny clink in the middle of the night brought him instantly awake.

The wall across from his bunk could be unlatched and folded down on hinges to provide a window and flat counter for selling donuts, and by the faint moonlight filtering in through the cracks he could see someone holding the tequila bottle. She turned half toward his bunk as she held the bottle up to peer into it, and he saw that it was Urania. Even as he opened his mouth to tell her to put it back, she licked the glass, sliding her tongue up toward the cork.

«Uri!» Rivas croaked in alarm, «put that down, you—»

When he spoke she jumped, then with feverish haste clamped her teeth over the whole neck of the bottle.

Rivas flung himself out of the bunk and managed to collide with her and knock her against the hinged wall, but a moment later he had tumbled helplessly to the floor, blinking his eyes and breathing deeply to fight off unconsciousness.

Barbara was on her feet and looking around jerkily, aware that there was an emergency but not what it was; she seemed to think someone was trying to break in, and Rivas didn't have enough strength in his lungs and jaws to speak.