Люциус Шепард - The Best of Lucius Shepard

Billy’s people, I told myself.

“Did you hear that?” Jo clutched my arm.

I bellowed at Pellerin. He looked at me from, I’d estimate, twenty-five feet away, and it was not a human look. His features were strained, his lips drawn back, stretched in a delirious expression, part leer and part delighted grin. That’s how it seemed, that he had been made happy beyond human measure, transported by the perception of some unnatural pleasure, as if the fire were for him a form of release. I was frightened of him, yet I felt a connection, some emotional tether, and I was afraid for him as well. I urged him to come with us, to make a try for the boat. He stared as if he didn’t recognize me, and then his smile lost its inhuman wideness.

“Come on, man!” I said. “Let’s go!”

He shook his head. “No way.”

“What the hell are you doing? You’re going to die here!”

His smile dimmed and I thought his resolve was weakening, that he would break through the fences of flame separating us and join us in flight; but all he did was stand there. Behind me, I heard an explosive crash as the window gave way; the gunfire grew louder.

“Listen!” I said. “That’s Billy’s men out there! You want them to catch you?”

“That ain’t Billy! Don’t you believe it!” He pointed at Jo. “Ask her!”

Despite the high ceiling, smoke was beginning to fill the room, drifting down around us, and Jo was bent over, coughing.

“This shit isn’t working for me.” Pellerin seemed to be talking mostly to himself. “It’s just not acceptable.”

I understood what he meant, but I entreated him once more to come with us. He shook his head again, an emphatic no. Turning his attention to the fire, he performed a series of complex gestures. The latticework of flames surrounding us appeared to bend away from his fingers and a path opened, leading toward the kitchen. The heat was growing intolerable—I had no choice but to abandon him. My arm around Jo’s waist, I started along the path, but she panicked, fighting against me, scratching my face and slapping the side of my head. I hit her on the point of the jaw, picked her up in a fireman’s carry as she sagged, and broke into a stumbling run.

The sky was graying as I emerged from the house and staggered across the lawn; the Mystery Girl lurched in my vision with each step, appearing to recede at first, as though I were on a treadmill that kept carrying me backward. The small arms fire had intensified—at least a dozen weapons were involved. I had no idea what was happening, and not much of an idea where I was going. If the boat had gas, I thought I would head north and search for the entrance to the intercoastal waterway, try and make it to Tampa where I had friends. But if Billy had survived, Tampa would not be safe and I didn’t know where to go. Not New Orleans, that was for sure. I could have kicked myself for not shooting the scummy little weasel when I had the chance.

The planks resounded to my footsteps as I pounded along the dock, and the smells of creosote and brine hit me like smelling salts. When I reached the Mystery Girl, I laid Jo in the stern. She moaned, but didn’t wake. I climbed the ladder to the pilot deck, keyed the ignition, and was exultant when the engine turned over. The needle on the fuel gauge swung up to register an almost-full tank. I pulled away from the dock and opened up the throttle. There was a light chop on the water close to shore, but farther out, beyond the sandbar, the surface was smooth and glassy, with gentle swells. Crumbling banks of fog blanketed the sea ahead. Once inside them we’d be safe for a while. I wondered what had gotten into Pellerin, whether it was Ogun Badagris or simply a madness attached to having been brought back to life by bacteria that infested your brain and let you use more of it. Maybe there wasn’t any difference between the two conditions. Jo’s first slow-burner had gone out in much the same way, in the midst of a huge veve, so you were led to conclude that some pathology was involved… and yet it might be the pathology of a god trapped in a human body. I remembered how he’d smiled, leering at his fiery work, and how that smile had planed seamlessly down into a human expression, as if the man he was had merely been the god diminished by the limitations of the flesh.

I cleared my mind of ontological speculation and focused on practical matters, but when I tried to think about what we were going to do once we reached Tampa, it was like trying to walk on black ice and I wound up staring at the flat gray sea, listening to the pitch of the engine. I zoned out and began to think about Pellerin again. Formless thoughts, the kind you have when you’re puzzled by something to the point that you can’t even come up with a question to ask and are reduced to searching the database, hoping that some fact will provoke one.

I had all but forgotten about Jo and when she called out to me, I turned toward the sound of her voice, full of concern. She came scrambling up the ladder and, once she had solid footing, told me to cut the engines, having to shout to make herself heard. The wind lashed her hair about, and she held it in place with one hand.

“Are you crazy?” I gestured at the fog bank. “Once we’re into the fog, we’ll be okay.”

“We’ll never get away! If I thought we could, I’d go with you. You know that, don’t you?”

“You are going with me,” I said. “What’s the problem?”

She didn’t answer, and I glanced over at her.

She had moved away from me and was standing with her legs apart, aiming a small automatic with a silver finish. A .25 caliber Beretta. With that black cocktail dress on, she might have stepped out of a Bond movie. She had to be wearing a thigh holster. The unreality of it all tickled me and I couldn’t repress a laugh.

“Where’d you get that thing?” I asked her. “Out of a cereal box?”

She fired, and a bullet dug a furrow in the control console an inch from my hand.

I recoiled from the console. “Christ!”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

She looked sorry. Her make-up was mussed. The heat of the fire had caused her to sweat, and sweat had dragged a mascara shadow from the corner of her eye, simulating a tear. She told me again to cut the engines, and this time I complied. The boat lifted on a light swell. I heard the faint cries of seagulls—they sounded like the baying of tiny, trebly hounds. I heard another noise, then. Two dark blue helicopters were approaching from the south.

“Who the hell is that?” I shouted.

“Calm down. Please! This is…” The wind drifted hair across her face; she brushed it aside and said weakly, “It’s the only way. They’re relentless, they keep coming after you.”

“You did this? You told them where we were?”

“They always knew! They never went away! Don’t you get it?”

“You knew the whole time? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know. Not for sure, not at first. And what good would it have done? You didn’t listen to Doctor Crain.”

“I would have listened to you,” I said.

One of the helicopters positioned itself off the port side of the Mystery Girl; the side door had been slid back and someone in harness sat in the opening. I couldn’t see what he was doing. The other helicopter hovered above the boat. A gilt script D was painted on the nacelle.

“I love you, Jack,” Jo said.

“Yeah, uh-huh.”

“I do! Back at the hotel… they contacted me. They were going to step in, but I convinced them to keep the experiment going.”

“The experiment. This was an experiment?”

“I told them we might learn more about Josey if he went through with the game. Maybe that was wrong of me, but I wanted some time with you.”