Charles De Lint - The Ivory and the Horn

Newman's attention is fixed on the window of his bedroom. He never hears me come in the door and sidle my way alongside the wall to where he's sitting. I'm sure of it. But something— sixth sense, cop smarts— has him turn just as I'm reaching for him.

"What the fuck are you?" he says as he brings up the gun. The bandage on his hand is a white flash in the dark.

Stupid, I think. I'm so stupid. I still wanted to make a try at keeping this clean. Step into his private place and shut him down instead of cutting him open. And maybe I can.

I grab his hand, the one holding the gun, skin to skin. Contact.

Everything stops. He can't shoot me, I can't claw him. We're locked in a space between our heads. Not his private place, but somewhere else. There's a sudden shift of vertigo, a crazy quilt strobing in my eyes, and then we're somewhere else again. It takes me a few moments to realize what's happened.

We're in someone's head, all right, but it's mine. This is my own dreaming place.

I've never tried to step inside when the monster was awake before. It's so easy to make the transition when they're asleep, dreaming. But Newman was so focused, his will so strong, that even though he couldn't have a clue as to what he was doing, he's managed to push me out of his head and then follow me back into my own.

I can't seem to do anything right tonight.

I try to take us back out again, but it's no good. I give Newman a shove and he goes sprawling. As soon as he hits the ground, that crazy-quilt-spinning starts up again. When it finally settles down, things have changed once more.

My dreaming place looks like the kitchen in the house where I grew up. I took for Newman, but he's gone. My father there in his place. He's standing there, weaving slightly from side to side, grinning at me, smelling like a brewery.

"Time to even the score," he says, slurring the words but not so much that I can't understand them.

He takes a step toward me, mad drunk gleam in his eyes, and I lose it. This is too much for me.

I never dealt with what happened to me as a child. I just left home as soon as I could. When I remade contact with my parents— before I told them I was gay— we all just pretended that all the drinking and screaming and beatings had never, happened. That was just the way it worked, I thought. Keep the family unit whole, no matter what the cost.

But I never forgot. And I never forgave. And seeing him like this now, it's like I've stepped right back into the past and all the years between were just a dream. Except I'm not powerless anymore. When he hits me, I don't have to take it. I don't have to cringe and try to hide from his fists. Not anymore. Not ever again.

With his first blow, all of my animal rage comes tearing through me and I lash back at him. My fingers are clawed, taloned, killing weapons. It's like I have rabies. I cut him down and I'm still slashing at him, long after he's fallen to the ground. Long after he's dead. There's blood everywhere. And there's this screaming that just goes on and on and on.

I think it's me screaming, I know it's me, until I fall out of my head and I'm back in Newman's bedroom. I'm crouched over his savaged corpse, snarling and growling, and then I realize how wrong I've been. It's not me screaming. It's not me at all.

I see her in the doorway, the monster's daughter. The screams stop when I turn to look at her, but then I see her go away. She folds away inside herself, going deeper and deeper, until there's just this blank-eyed child standing there, everything that ever animated her walled away against the night creature that snuck into her Dad's bedroom and tore him apart.

Doesn't matter what he did to her. That's gone, swallowed by the more horrible image of what's been done to him.

I stagger to my feet, but I don't even think of trying to comfort her. I almost fall through the window, trying to get out. And then I just flee. Run blind. I'll do anything to get rid of those emptied eyes, their blank stare, but they follow me, out into the night.

I know I'll carry them with me for the rest of my life.

When I finally stop running, the cramps hit me. I lie on my side and throw up. I'm still dry-heaving long after my stomach's empty, but I can't get rid of what's inside me that easily. The guilt's just going to lie there and fester and never go away.

8

Nothing helps.

It comes out that Newman was on the payroll of Yukio Nakamura, the boss of Little Japan's biggest Yakuza gang.

It comes out that not only was Newman taking graft, he was using his badge to help Nakamura get rid of his competition. And when the badge didn't provide intimidation enough, Newman was happy to use his gun.

It comes out that he beat his wife, abused his daughter.

By the time the investigation's over, half the Yakuza in Little Japan are up on racketeering charges and there's not one person in the city who has an ounce of sympathy for the monster. If they knew I'd killed him, they'd probably give me a medal.

But all I can focus on is that fact that his daughter's lost to the world now, locked up inside her own head, and I put her there. I tried to help, but I all I did was make things worse.

"You can't beat yourself over this," Chris said the one time I let him find me. "It's unfortunate what happened to the girl— an awful, terrible thing— but there's still a war going on. The freaks are still out there.

"You can't walk away from the fight now."

He thinks I'm scared, but that's not it. I'm not anything. All I can think of is that little girl and what I put her through, what I made her see.

Susan Newman didn't just lose her innocence. She had any hope of a normal life torn away.

"Do you need anything?" Chris asks. "Money? Food? A place to stay?"

I shake my head.

"Give this a little time," he says. "You're suffering from trauma too, you know."

I let him talk on, but I stop listening. I've regained my strength. I can leap tall buildings with a single bound again— or at least spider my way up their walls— but I don't have the heart for it anymore. I don't have the heart to step into anybody's dreaming place and then shut him down. And I certainly can't see myself killing someone again— I don't care how much he deserves it.

After a while, Chris stops talking and I walk away. He starts to follow, but finally gives up when I keep increasing the distance between us.

I don't wear my bodysuit anymore; I don't look like some dimestore ninja. I just look like any other homeless person, wandering around the street in clothes that are more than a few weeks away from clean, looking for handouts at the shelters, cadging spare change from passersby.

A month goes by, maybe two. I don't know. I just know it's getting really cold at night. Then late one afternoon I'm standing over a grating by a used bookstore, trying to get warm, and I see, in amongst the motley selection of titles that crowd the display window, a familiar cover and byline.

When the Desert Dreams, by Anne Bourke.

I've got two dollars and eighty cents in my pocket. I'm planning to use it to get something to eat later, but I go into the bookstore. The guy behind the counter takes pity on me and sells me the book for what I've got, even though there's a price of fifteen bucks penciled in on the right-hand corner of the front endpaper.

I leave, holding the book to my chest, and I walk around like that all night, from one side of the city to the other. I don't need to read the stories. I was there when they were written— almost a lifetime ago.

Finally, I start walking up Williamson Street, just trudging on and on until the downtown stores give way to more residential blocks, which give way to drive-in fast-food joints and malls and the 'burbs, and then I'm finally out of the city. The sun's up for about an hour when I stick out my thumb.