Tim Powers - Dinner At Deviant's Palace

The cork came out of the bottle with a pop, and then Barbara knew what was happening, and she lunged at Urania. Her shoulder thudded into Urania's stomach and they both crashed into the hinged wall, which came unlatched and fell open with a series of loud wood-on-wood whacks and a sudden glare of moonlight. Both women had fallen and as they gasped and struggled on the floor, the tequila bottle rolled past Rivas's face. There was still some tequila sloshing around in it, but no crystal.

Rivas rolled over and propped himself up on one elbow to see what was going on. Barbara was kneeling on Urania's back and strangling her; Uri was thrashing furiously, but one of her arms was pinned under her and she could only claw ineffectively at Barbara's wrists with the other. Rivas might have interfered, at least to stop Barbara from being quite so rough, if he hadn't seen Uri's eyes blazing at him out of her darkening face, for in that instant he was sure that it was Jaybush glaring through her eyes at him.

» Spit — it — out — or — die — Uri ,» grated Barbara.

For another three seconds it looked as though Uri had decided to die, but then her mouth opened and the crystal was spat out; Barbara rolled off her and Uri went limp, panting rapidly in harsh whistling gasps.

Rivas picked up the crystal. You win, it said in his mind. You're the boss. I'll work for you. Swallow me.

Barbara was helping him up. He had to keep blinking, for blood was running down his forehead from his reopened wound.

«That would have,» said Barbara tightly as she rolled him back up onto the bunk, but she began coughing before she could finish the sentence, and had to sit down on the foot of the bunk.

«What?» The monotonous voice in Rivas's head made him speak too loudly. Uri kept on wheezing.

«If she'd swallowed it,» said Barbara. «That would have harmed it, harmed him?»

Rivas looked at her with something close to despair, then closed his eyes. The pillow was wet with blood against his cheek. «I can't do this . . . by myself,» he said. «You've got to help. Do you want him to come back? Do you want to take the sacrament again?»

» . . . No,» Barbara said slowly. «No, I don't want him . . . back again, but I somehow don't want him dead either.» She stood up and went to the kitchen and came back with a lit lamp, which she put down on the floor in order to step over Urania. She unfolded the counter wall, lifted it back into place and latched it shut. Urania, incredibly, was snoring, evidently fast asleep.

«Do you want him dead?» Barbara asked when she sat down again on the bunk.

«Yes,» said Rivas.

Barbara smiled at him. «Really? There isn't any little bit of you that would like to . . . merge with the Lord, stop being you?»

Swallow me. You win. You're the boss. Rivas reached out and put the crystal down on the torn blanket between them, and it was a relief for him to stop hearing the voice. «Okay, maybe there is. And when I took a huge dose of Blood recently, there was a part of me that wanted to just relax and go down. But have you seen any real Blood freaks? Well, you've seen real far-gones.»

«Sure, but their outward form, we're told, isn't the whole story. If I take a boat to get somewhere, and then later you find the boat all rotted and decrepit on some shore, you can't tell anything about where I've gone or how I am.»

She touched the crystal, and her eyes widened in shock. After a few seconds she took her finger away. «What would have happened if Uri had swallowed it?»

«She would have become Jaybush.»

«He'd have been with us again?»

Rivas nodded unhappily. It was very late, and he was exhausted and scared and his head hurt.

«Swallow it,» said Barbara suddenly. «Quick, without thinking about it. You know you want to.»

«No,» snapped Rivas, «I want—» He paused, thinking about what he'd started to say, and then he said it quietly, with a smile. «I want you to.»

«Me? But then I'd be him. And you're the guy who killed him.»

«If I wanted him back that wouldn't make any difference to me, the fact that he might kill me right away.»

She nodded sadly. «I know what you mean. Better that your parents find you and beat the daylights out of you than that you spend the night lost.»

Rivas laughed softly. «We both . . . sort of . . . want him back, but neither of us wants to be him.» He looked down at Uri. «We shouldn't have stopped her.» He smiled at Barbara, and said, «We should wake her up and feed it to her.»

And then suddenly his words weren't a joke at all. Barbara snatched the crystal and stood up. Rivas thought he should say something to stop her, and he meant to, but not right away. He had to catch his breath first.

At that moment a voice spoke from outside the wagon. « Swallow me. You win .»

Barbara dropped to her-knees, and Rivas fell back onto his soggy pillow, his eyes tightly shut.

» You're the boss ,» the voice went on. « I'llwork for you . . .»

It's him, Rivas thought dizzily, somehow he's right outside, he's gonna break down the wall and get us, he'll burn us to ash just by looking at us, consume the souls out of our bodies like a big spider emptying a couple of captured flies, we'll absolutely cease to be and what is he waiting for?

Abruptly the familiar litany stopped; Rivas opened his eyes; and then it started up again—» Swallow me. You win . . . «—but in a different voice.

Barbara stood up and tottered to the back door. She lifted the bar and pulled the door open and peered around outside.

Rivas could hear other voices now. «He isn't gone!» someone exclaimed. «His spirit is still with us!»

«Tell us how to find you, Lord!» cried a woman's voice.

» Swallow me . . . » the second voice droned on.

Barbara closed the door and carne back to the bunk. «It's a gang of Jaybirds,» she told Rivas, «evidently without a shepherd. Why are their far-gones saying the same things as this?» She held up the crystal.

«They're picking up his thoughts,» Rivas said. «Evidently without a brain to project them the thoughts don't carry very far.» He sighed. «Do you still want to feed it to Uri?»

Barbara's shoulders slumped with loss. «No. Not right now.»

«Is this moon bright enough to drive by?»

«I don't know,» she said dully. «I guess so.»

«Then I think maybe we ought to get a head start on the morning.»

On the floor Uri snored on.

Despite being shy one pedal, the bicycle ratcheted rapidly up the street and a couple of doors east of Serena's Cantina the boy laid the bike down in a controlled slide that left him, after a couple of running steps, right in front of the place. The boy peered into the bar from the doorway until he'd spotted Fracas McAn, and then he darted in and yanked on McAn's sleeve before the bartender could yell at him to get out.

When McAn saw who it was, he raised his hand to prevent the bartender's outburst. «What is it, Modesto?» he asked the boy. «Have you seen him?»

«I think so, man. He's traveling with two women.»

«Two of them? I don't see—well, no, that sounds like Rivas, actually,» he said. «Afoot? On horseback?»

«In a donut wagon.»

«A . . . a donut wagon.»

» Si. »

«Coming from the south, is it?» McAn asked hopefully. «He's at the army checkpoint?»

The boy looked apologetic. «No, man. He's coming in from the west, on the Ten Highway.»

«Like from Venice? Hell, I'd like to be able to let you have the fifth, Modesto, but I don't see how this—»