Clive Barker - The Great and Secret Show

"Howie," he said.

His voice, like his face, had lost its individuality. He was holding on to being Benny, but only just.

"What do you want?" Howie asked.

"We've been looking for you."

"Don't go near him," Jo-Beth said. "It's one of the dreams."

"I know," Howie said. "They don't mean us any harm. Do you, Benny?"

"Of course not."

"So show yourselves," Howie said, addressing the whole ring of trees. "I want to see you."

They did as they were instructed, stepping from the corner of the trees on every side. All of them, like Benny, had undergone a change since he'd seen them at the Knapp house, their honed and polished personalities smudged, their dazzling smiles dimmed. They looked more like each other than not, smeared forms of light who held on to the remains of identities only tenuously. The imaginations of the Grovers had conceived them, and shaped them, but once gone from their creator's company they slid towards a plainer condition: that of the light that had emanated from Fletcher's body as he'd died at the Mall. This was his army, his hallucigenia, and Howie didn't need to ask them what they'd come here searching for. Him. He was the rabbit from Fletcher's hat; the conjuror's purest creation. He'd fled before their demands the previous night, but they'd sought him out nevertheless, determined to have him as their leader.

"I know what you want from me," he said. "But I can't supply it. This isn't my war."

He surveyed the assembly as he spoke, distinguishing faces he'd seen at the Knapp house, despite their decay into light. Cowboys, surgeons, soap-opera queens and game-show hosts. Besides these there were many he hadn't seen at Lois's party. One form of light that had been a werewolf; several that might have been comic-book heroes; several more, four in fact, who had been incarnations of Jesus, two bleeding light from brow, side, hands and feet; another dozen who looked as though they'd stepped from an X-rated movie, their bodies wet with come and sweat. There was a balloon man, colored scarlet; and Tarzan; and Krazy Kat. And mingled with these identifiable deities, others who'd been private imaginings, called, he guessed, from the wish-list of those Fletcher's light had touched. Lost spouses, whose passing no other lover could replace; a face seen on a street whom their dreamers had never had the nerve to approach. All of them, real or unreal, bland or Technicolored, touchstones. The true stuff of worship. There was something undeniably moving about their existence. But he and Jo-Beth had been passionate in their desire to stay apart from this war; to preserve what was between them from taint or harm. That ambition hadn't changed.

Before he could reiterate the point one of the number he couldn't name, a woman in early middle age, stepped out of the ranks to speak.

"Your father's spirit's in all of us," she said. "If you turn your back on us, you turn your back on him."

"It's not as simple as that," he told her. "I've got other people to consider." He extended his hand to Jo-Beth, who rose to stand beside him. "You know who this is. Jo-Beth McGuire. Daughter of the Jaff. Fletcher's enemy, and therefore, if I understand you right, your enemy. But let me tell you...she's the first person I ever met in my life...I can really say I love. I put her before everything. You. Fletcher. This damn war."

Now a third voice rose from the ranks.

"It was my error—"

Howie looked round to see the blue-eyed cowboy, Mel Knapp's creation, moving forward. "My error thinking you wanted her killed. I regret it. If you don't wish harm done to her—"

"Don't wish harm? My God, she's worth ten of Fletcher! Value her as I value her or you can all go to Hell."

There was a resounding silence.

"Nobody's arguing," Benny said.

"I hear."

"So you'll lead us?"

"Oh Jesus."

"The Jaff's on the Hill," the woman said. "About to use the Art."

"How do you know?"

"We're Fletcher's spirit," the cowboy said. "We know the Jaff's purpose."

"And you know how to stop him?"

"No," the woman returned. "But we have to try. Quiddity must be preserved."

"And you think I can help? I'm no tactician."

"We're decaying," Benny said. Even in the brief time since he'd appeared his facial features had become more smudged. "Getting...dreamy. We need someone to keep us to our purpose."

"He's right," said the woman. "We're not here long. Many of us won't make it through to morning. We have to do what we can. Quickly."

Howie sighed. He'd let Jo-Beth's hand slip from his when she'd stood up. He took it again.

"What do I do?" he asked her. "Help me."

"You do what feels right."

"What feels right..."

"You said to me once, you wished you'd known Fletcher better. Maybe—"

"What? Say it."

"I don't like the idea of us going up against the Jaff with these...dreams as an army...but maybe doing as your father would have done is the only way to be true to him. And...be free from him."

He looked at her with fresh understanding. She had a grasp of his deepest confusions, and could see a way through the maze to a clear place, where Fletcher and the Jaff would have no hold on either of them. But payment had to be made first. She'd paid: losing her family for him. It was his turn now.

"All right," he said to the assembly. "We'll go up the Hill."

Jo-Beth squeezed his hand.

"Good," she said.

"You want to come?"

"I have to."

"I wanted so much for us to be out of this."

"We will be," she said. "And if we don't escape it...if something happens to one or both of us...we've had our time."

"Don't say that."

"It's more than your momma had, or mine," she reminded him. "More than most people here. Howie, I love you."

He put his arms around her, and hugged her to him, glad that Fletcher's Spirit, albeit in a hundred different shapes, was there to see.

I suppose I'm ready to die, he thought. Or as ready as I'll ever be.

Eve had left the room at the top of the stairs breathless and terrified. She'd glimpsed Grillo getting up and crossing to the door and Lamar intercepting him. Then the door was slammed in her face. She waited long enough to hear the Jokemeister's death-cough, then she hurried down the flight to raise the alarm.

Though darkness had now descended upon the house there were more lights burning outside than in: colored floods illuminating the various exhibits she and Grillo had wandered among earlier. The wash of mingled colors, scarlet, green, yellow, blue and violet, lit her way to the landing where she and Lamar had encountered Sam Sagansky. He was still there, with his wife. They seemed not to have moved at all, except to cast their eyes towards the ceiling.

"Sam!" Eve said, hurrying to him. "Sam!" Panic, and the speed of her descent, had made her breathless. Her description of the horrors she'd seen in the room above came in a series of gasps and non sequiturs.

"...You have to stop him...you never saw anything...terrible things...Sam, look at me...Sam, look!..."

Sam didn't oblige. His whole posture was one of complete passivity.

"For Christ's sake, Sam, what are you on?"

Giving up on him she turned and sought help elsewhere among the loiterers. There were perhaps twenty guests gathered around. None of them had moved since she'd appeared, either to help or hinder her. None, now she looked at them, was even looking in her direction. Like Sagansky and his wife they all had their eyes turned ceilingward, as if in expectation. Panic hadn't taken Eve's wits from her. She needed no more than a scanning of this crowd to realize that they'd be of no use to her. They knew perfectly well what was going on a floor above them: that was why they turned their eyes up like dogs awaiting judgment. The Jaff had them on a leash.