Clive Barker - The Great and Secret Show

"Keep away," she said.

"I have to speak with Howard, before the Jaff arrives."

"The who?"

"You led him here. He and his army."

"It couldn't be helped. Howie's real sick. This thing on his back—"

"Let me see—"

"No naked flames," Tesla warned, "or I'm out of here."

"I understand," said the man, raising his palms like a magician to prove them empty of tricks. Tesla nodded, and let him approach.

"Lay him down," the man instructed.

She did so, her muscles buzzing with gratitude. No sooner was Howie on the ground than his father took a two-handed grip of the parasite. It immediately began to thrash wildly, its limbs tightening around its victim. Barely conscious, Howie began to gasp for breath.

"It's killing him!" Tesla yelled.

"Take hold of its head!"

"What?"

"You heard me! Its head. Just take hold!"

She glanced at the man, then at the beast, then at Howie. Three beats. On the fourth she took hold of the beast. Its mouthparts were fixed on Howie's neck, but it loosed them long enough to chew on her hand. In that moment the gasoline man pulled. Body and beast separated.

"Let go!" the man yelled.

She needed no persuasion, pulling her hands free despite the sacrifice of flesh to its maw. Howie's father threw it backwards, into the market, where it struck a pyramid of cans, and was buried.

Tesla studied her hand. The palm was punctured in the center. She was not the only one interested in the wound.

"You have a journey to undertake," the man said.

"What is this, palm-reading?"

"I wanted the boy to go for me, but I see now...you came instead."

"Hey, I've done all I can do, guy," Tesla said.

"My name's Fletcher, and I beg you, don't desert me now. This wound reminds me of the first cut the Nuncio gave me—" He showed her his palm, which did indeed bear a scar, for all the world as though someone had driven a nail through it. "I have a great deal to tell you. Howie resisted my telling him. You won't. I know you won't. You're part of the story. You were born to be here, now, with me."

"I don't understand any of this."

"Analyze tomorrow. Do, now. Help me. We have very little time."

"I want to warn you," Grillo said as he drove Hotchkiss down towards the Mall, "what we saw coming out of the ground was just the beginning. There's creatures in the Grove tonight like nothing I ever saw before."

He slowed as two citizens crossed the path of the car, heading on foot to the source of the summons. They weren't alone. There were others, converging on the Mall as though heading to a Carnival.

"Tell them to go back," Grillo said, leaning out of his side of the car and yelling a warning. Neither his calls nor those of Hotchkiss were attended to. "If they see what I've seen," Grillo said, "there's going to be such panic."

"Might do them some good," Hotchkiss said, bitterly. "All those years they thought I was crazy, because I closed the caves. Because I talked about Carolyn's death as murder—"

"I don't follow."

"My daughter, Carolyn..."

"What about her?"

"Another time, Grillo. When you've got time for tears."

They'd reached the Mall's parking lot. Maybe thirty or forty Grovers were already gathered there, some wandering around examining the damage that had been visited on several of the stores, others simply standing and listening to the alarms as if to celestial music. Grillo and Hotchkiss got out of the car, and started across the lot towards the supermarket.

"I smell gasoline," Grillo said.

Hotchkiss concurred. "We should get these people out of here," he said. Raising his voice and his gun he instigated some primitive crowd control. His attempts drew the attention of a small, bald man.

"Hotchkiss, are you in charge?"

"Not if you want to be, Marvin."

"Where's Spilmont? There should be somebody in authority. My windows have all been smashed."

"I'm sure the police are on their way," Hotchkiss said.

"Pure vandalism," Marvin went on. "Kids up from L.A., joy-riding."

"I don't think so," said Grillo, The smell of gasoline was making his head spin.

"And who the hell are you?" Marvin demanded, his shouts shrill.

Before Grillo could respond somebody else joined the hollering match.

"There's somebody in there!"

Grillo looked towards the market. His stinging eyes verified the claim. There were indeed figures moving in the murk of the store. He began to walk through the shards towards the window, as one of the figures came clear.

"Tesla?"

She heard him; looked up; shouted.

"Stay away, Grillo!"

"What's going on?"

"Just stay away."

He ignored her advice, climbing in through the hole in the shattered pane. The boy she'd gone to save lay face down and naked to the waist on the tiles. Behind him, a man Grillo knew and didn't know. That is, a face to which he could put no name, but a presence which he instinctively recognized. It took him moments only to work from where. This was one of the escapees from the fissure.

"Hotchkiss," he yelled. "Get in here!"

"Enough's enough," Tesla said. "Don't bring anyone near us."

"Us?" said Grillo. "Since when was it us?"

"His name's Fletcher," Tesla said, as if in reply to the first question in Grillo's head. "The boy is Howard Katz." To the third question: "They're father and son." And the fourth? "It's all going to blow, Grillo. And I'm going to stay till it does."

Hotchkiss was at Grillo's side. "Holy shit," he breathed.

"The caves, right?"

"Right."

"Can we take the boy?" Grillo said.

Tesla nodded. "But be quick," she said. "Or it's over for us all." Her gaze had left Grillo's face and was directed out to the lot, or to the night beyond it. Somebody was expected at this party. The other wraith, surely.

Grillo and Hotchkiss took hold of the boy, and hauled him to his feet.

"Wait." Fletcher approached the trio, the smell of gasoline intensifying with his proximity. There was more than fumes off the man, however. Something akin to a mild electric shock passed through Grillo as the man reached to his son, and contact was made through all three systems. His mind momentarily soared, all bodily frailty forgotten, into a space where dreams hung like midnight stars. It was gone all too suddenly, almost brutally, as Fletcher dropped his hand from his son's face. Grillo looked towards Hotchkiss. By the expression on his face he too had shared the brief splendor. His eyes had filled with tears.

"What's going to happen?" Grillo said, looking back at Tesla.

"Fletcher is leaving."

"Why? Where?"

"Nowhere and everywhere," Tesla said.

"How do you know?"

"Because I told her," came Fletcher's response. "Quiddity must be preserved."

He looked at Grillo and the faintest murmur of a smile was on his face.

"Take my son, gentlemen," he said. "Keep him out of the line of fire."

"What?"

"Just go, Grillo," Tesla said. "Whatever happens from here on it's the way he wants it to be."

They took Howie out through the window as instructed, Hotchkiss stepping ahead to receive the boy's body, which was as limp as a fresh cadaver. As Grillo relinquished the boy's weight he heard Tesla speak behind him.

She simply said:

"The Jaff!"

The other escapee, Fletcher's enemy, was standing at the perimeter of the parking lot. The crowd, which had swelled to five or six times its earlier size, had parted, without being overtly requested to do so, leaving a corridor between the enemies. The Jaff had not come alone. Behind him were two Californian perfects Grillo could not name. Hotchkiss could.

"Jo-Beth and Tommy-Ray," he said.

At the name of one, or both, Howie raised his head.

"Where?" he murmured, but his eyes found them before there was time for a reply. "Let me go," he said, struggling to push Hotchkiss off. "They'll kill her if we don't stop them. Don't you see, they'll kill her."