Clive Barker - The Great and Secret Show

"I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm just saying you're in no state to judge whether they're dangerous or not."

"What are you trying to do, Howie?" she said. "Keep all these people to yourself?"

"No. No, of course not."

"I don't want to be a part of the Jaff—"

"Jo-Beth."

"He may be my father. Doesn't mean I like it that way."

The room had fallen entirely silent at the mention of the Jaff. Now everyone in the room—cowboys, soap-opera stars, sitcom folks, beauties and all—were looking their way.

"Oh shit," said Howie, softly. "You shouldn't have said that." He scanned the faces surrounding them. "That was a mistake. She didn't mean it. She's not...she doesn't belong...what I mean is, we're together. She and me. We're together, see? My father was Fletcher, and hers...hers wasn't." It was like being in sinking sand. The more he struggled, the deeper he sank.

One of the cowboys spoke first. He had eyes the press would call ice-blue.

"You're Fletcher's son?"

"Yes...I am."

"So you know what we're to do."

Howie suddenly understood the significance of the stares he'd been garnering since he'd entered. These creatures—hallucigenia, Fletcher had called them—knew him; or at least thought they did. Now he'd identified himself, and the need in their faces couldn't have been plainer.

"Tell us what to do," one of the women said.

"We're here for Fletcher," said another.

"Fletcher's gone," said Howie.

"Then for you. You're his son. What are we here to do?"

"Do you want the child of the Jaff destroyed?" said the cowboy, turning his blue eyes on Jo-Beth.

"Jesus Christ, no!"

He reached out to take hold of Jo-Beth's arm but she'd already retreated from him, slow steps towards the door. "Come back," he said. "They're not going to hurt you."

From the look on her face his words were scant comfort in such company.

"Jo-Beth..." he said, "...I'm not going to let them hurt you."

He started towards her, but his father's creatures weren't about to let their only hope for guidance go. Before he could reach her he felt a hand snatch at his shirt, and then another and another, until he was entirely surrounded by pleading, adoring faces.

"I can't help you, " he yelled. "Let me alone!"

From the corner of his eye he saw Jo-Beth, running scared to the door, opening it and slipping away. He called after her, but the din of pleas had risen around him until his every syllable was drowned out. He started to push harder through the crowd. Dreams they might be, but they were solid enough; and warm; and, it seemed, frightened. They needed a leader, and they'd elected him. It was not a role he was prepared to accept, especially not if it separated him from Jo-Beth.

"Get the fuck out of my way!" he demanded, clawing his way through the back-lit, glossy faces. Their fervor didn't diminish, but grew in proportion to his resistance. It was only by ducking down and tunnelling his way through his admirers that he got free of them. They followed him out into the hallway. The front door stood open. He sprinted for it like a star besieged by fans, and was out into the night before they caught up with him. Some instinct kept them from coming after him into the open, though one or two, Benny and the dog Morgan leading, followed, the boy's shout—"Come back and see us some time soon!"—pursuing him like a threat down the street.

The bullet struck Tesla in the side, like a blow from a heavyweight champ. She was thrown backwards, the sight of Tommy-Ray's grinning face replaced with the stars through the open roof. They got bigger in moments, swelling like bright sores, edging out the clean darkness.

What happened next was beyond her powers of comprehension. She heard a commotion, and a shot, followed by shrieks from the women Raul had told her would be gathering about this time. But she couldn't find the will to be much interested in what was happening on earth. The ugly spectacle above her claimed all her attention: a sick and brimming sky about to drown her in tainted light.

Is this death? she wondered. If so, it was overrated. There was a story to be had there, she began to think. About a woman who—

The thought went the way of consciousness: out. The second shot she'd heard had been fired at Raul, who'd come at Tesla's assassin at speed, leaping over the fire. The bullet missed him, but he threw himself aside to avoid another, giving Tommy-Ray time to dart out of the door he'd entered through, into a crowd of women which he parted with a third shot aimed over their veiled heads. They put up a clamor and fled, hauling their children after them. Nuncio in hand, he headed off down the hill to where he'd left the car. A backward glance confirmed that the woman's companion—whose misbegotten features and weird turn of speed had taken him aback—was not giving chase.

Raul put his hand to Tesla's cheek. She was feverish, but alive. He took off his shirt and clamped the bundle to her wound, laying her limp hand upon it to keep it in place. Then he went out into the darkness and called the women out of hiding. He knew all of them by name. They in turn knew and trusted him. They came when called.

"Look after Tesla," he instructed them. Then he went after the Death-Boy and his prize.

Tommy-Ray was within sight of the car, or rather its ghost-form in the moonlight, when his foot slid from beneath him. In his effort to keep hold of gun and vial, both went from his hands. He fell heavily, face down in sharp dirt. Stones stabbed his cheek, chin, arms and hands. As he got to his feet blood began to run.

"My face!" he said, hoping to God he'd not damaged his looks.

There was more bad news to come. He could hear the sound of the Ugly Fuck following down the hill.

"Want to die, do you?" he grunted to his pursuer. "No problem. We can supply. No problem."

He scrabbled for the gun but it had skidded some distance from him. The vial was there beneath his hand, however. He picked it up. Even as he did so he realized it was no longer passive. It was warm in his bloodied palm. There was motion behind the glass. He grasped it more tightly, to be certain it didn't slip from him again. It responded instantly, the fluid glowing between his fingers.

Many years had passed since the rest of the Nuncio had worked its work upon Fletcher and Jaffe. This, the remnants, had been buried, out of sight, amid stones too revered to be turned. It had grown cold; forgetful of its message. But it remembered now. Tommy-Ray's enthusiasm woke old ambition.

He saw it push against the walls of the vial, bright as a knife, as a gun-flash. Then it broke its cage, and came at him, between his fingers—spread now against its attack—up towards his already wounded face.

Its touch seemed light enough—a spatter of warmth, like a jism when he jerked off, hitting his eye and the corner of his mouth. But it flipped him over on to his back—the stones bringing blood to his elbows, ass and spine. He tried to yell but no sound came. He tried to open his eyes, so as to see where he was lying, but he couldn't do that either. Jesus! He couldn't even breathe. His hands, touched by the Nuncio as it leapt, were clamped to his face, blocking eyes, nose and mouth. It was like being screwed down in a coffin made for someone two sizes smaller than he. Again, he cried out against the gag of his palm, but it was a lost cause. Somewhere at the back of his head a voice said:

"Let go. This is what you want. To be the Death-Boy, you first have to know Death. Feel it. Understand it. Suffer it."

In this, as in perhaps no other lesson in his short life, he was a good pupil. He stopped resisting the panic, and went with it, riding it like a wave at Zuma, towards the darkness of some unmapped shore. The Nuncio went with him. He felt it make new stuff of him with every sweating second, prancing on the points of his stiffened hair, beating a rhythm, death's rhythm, between the throbs of his heart.