Clive Barker - The Great and Secret Show

Kissoon nodded. "I can't say I blame you. Apologies sometimes aren't enough. But you must understand the gravity of this. Even now, up in Palomo Grove, the Jaff is preparing to use the Art. I can stop him. But not from here."

"Teach me then."

"There isn't time."

"I'm a quick learner."

Kissoon looked up at her, his face sharp.

"That really is a monstrous arrogance," he said. "You step into the middle of a tragedy that's been moving towards its final act for centuries and think you can just change its course with a few words. This isn't Hollywood. This is the real world."

His cold fury subdued her; but not much.

"All right, so I get feisty once in a while. Shoot me for it. I've told you I'll help but I won't do any of this body-swapping shit."

"Maybe, then..."

"What?"

"...you can find someone who is willing to give themselves over to me."

"That's a tough call. What am I supposed to tell them?"

"You're persuasive," he said.

She thought back to the world she'd stepped out of. The apartment building had twenty-one occupants. Could she persuade Ron, or Edgar, or one of her friends, Mickey de Falco perhaps, to step back into the Loop with her? She doubted it. It was only when her seeking centered on Raul that she glimpsed a little hope. Might he dare what she wouldn't?

"Maybe I can help," she said.

"Quickly?"

"Yes. Quickly. If you can get me back to my apartment."

"Easily done."

"I'm not promising anything, mind you."

"I understand."

"And I want something from you in return."

"What's that?"

"The woman I tried to speak to; the one you said was a sex-aid?"

"I wondered when you'd get to her."

"She's hurt."

"Don't believe it."

"I saw for myself."

"It's an Iad trick!" Kissoon said. "She's been wandering around out there for a while now, trying to get me to open the door to her. Sometimes she pretends she's hurt, sometimes she's all purrs, like a sex-kitten, Rubs herself against the door." He shuddered. "I hear her, rubbing herself, begging me to let her in. It's just another trick."

As with almost every statement Kissoon made Tesla found herself not knowing whether to believe or disbelieve. On her last visit he'd told her he thought the woman was most likely a dream-mistress. Now he was saying she was an Iad agent. One but not both.

"I want to speak to her myself," she said. "Make up my own mind. She doesn't look that dangerous."

"You don't know," Kissoon warned. "Appearances lie. I keep her at bay with the Lix out of fear of what she might do."

She contemplated asking what he could possibly fear about a woman so clearly in pain, then decided it was a question for a less desperate hour.

"I'll go back then," she said.

"You understand the urgency."

"You don't have to keep telling me," Tesla said. "Yes, I understand. But like I said you're asking a lot. People get attached to their bodies. Joke."

"If all goes well, and I can stop the Art being used, then the supplier gets his flesh back intact. If I fail it's the end of the world anyway, so what will it matter?"

"Nice," Tesla said.

"I try."

She turned back to the door.

"Go quickly," he said. "And don't get distracted—"

The door opened without her touching it.

"You're still a condescending fucker, Kissoon—" was Tesla's parting remark. Then she'd stepped out into the same early morning light.

Off to the left of the hut a cloud-shadow seemed to be moving over the desert floor. She studied it a moment, and saw that the sun-beaten ground was covered with Lix, a small sea of them. Sensing her gaze they stopped moving, and raised their heads towards her. Hadn't Kissoon said that he'd made these creatures?

"Go, will you?" she heard him say. "There isn't much time."

Had she acted upon his instructions immediately she'd have missed the sight of the woman appearing beyond the Lix. She didn't, so she didn't. And the sight of her, despite the warnings Kissoon had issued, held her on the step. If this was indeed one of the Iad Uroboros' agents, as Kissoon had claimed, it was a brilliant conceit to present herself in such a vulnerable guise. Try as she might she couldn't quite believe a villainy as vast or indeed as ambitious as the Iad would present itself in so wretched a manner. Wasn't evil too full of itself, even in its machinations, to come so undressed? She couldn't ignore her instinct, which told her unequivocally that in this at least Kissoon was wrong. The woman was no agent. She was a human being in pain. Tesla could turn her back on many appeals, but never on that.

Ignoring a further entreaty from the man in the hut behind her, she took a step towards the woman. The Lix were alive to her approach. They began to seethe as she stepped towards them, raising their heads like cobras. The sight quickened her approach rather than slowing it. If this was Kissoon's instruction, and it surely was, then their keeping her from the woman only further reinforced her suspicion that she was being misled. He was trying to keep them apart; why? Because this wretched, anguished woman was dangerous? No! Every fiber of Tesla's being refused that interpretation. He wanted to keep them apart because of something that might pass between them; something that might be said or done that would throw him into doubt.

The Lix had new instructions it seemed. To harm Tesla would be to keep the messenger from her purpose; so they instead turned their heads towards the woman. She saw their intention, and fear came over her face. It occurred to Tesla that she was familiar with their malice; that maybe she'd dared them before in an attempt to get to Kissoon, or one of his visitors. She certainly seemed versed in how best to confuse them, running back and forth quickly so that they tied their nest in knots trying to decide which way to lunge.

Tesla added her own contribution to the defense by yelling at them as she picked up her pace, suddenly certain that they dared not harm her as long as Kissoon was so desperate to be out of his prison, and she his only hope.

"Get away from her!" she yelled at them. "Leave her alone, fuckheads!"

But they had their target fixed, and weren't about to be deflected from it by shouts. As Tesla came within a few yards of them they started after their quarry.

"Run!" Tesla yelled.

The woman heeded the advice, but too late. The speediest from the nest was at her heels; then climbing her body to wind itself around her. There was a vile elegance to its motion, whipping around the woman's torso and pulling her to the ground. The Lix that followed were quickly upon her. By the time Tesla got within a few yards of the woman she was all but indistinguishable from her attackers. They'd virtually mummified her. Still she fought them, tearing at their bodies as they closed ranks around her.

Tesla didn't waste time with further words. She simply tore at the Lix with her bare hands, first attempting to free the woman's face for fear they smothered her, then, that done, pulling her arms free. Though they were many, they weren't particularly strong. Several simply broke apart as she hauled on them, yellow-white blood oozing from them over her hands, and spraying up in her face. She let disgust fuel her, fighting their every twisting trick, pulling and pulling at them until she was sticky with fluids. The woman they'd come so close to killing had taken fire from her rescuer, and was struggling free of her assassins' grip.

Sensing that victory was available, albeit snatched, Tesla readied herself for escape. She could not go alone, she knew. The woman had to come with her, back to the apartment in North Huntley Drive, or she'd be prey to further attacks, and after such an assault she'd have little power to resist them. Kissoon had taught her to imagine her way into the Loop. Could she now do the same in the opposite direction, not only for herself but on the woman's behalf? If not they'd both fall to the Lix, who seemed to be appearing from all sides now, as though an alarm call had been sent out from their maker. Putting their approach out of her mind as best she could, Tesla pictured herself and the woman in front of her out of this place and into another. Not any other. Into West Hollywood. North Huntley Drive. Her apartment. You do this, she told herself. If Kissoon can do it, you can.