“I understand,” the priest said softly, and the faint smell of the sea came to Bloat. “I really do.”
Then the Turtle and his burden moved softly away as the Bloatblack barrage continued. To the jeers of the Rox, the Turtle and the limo left through the open mouth of the Bloat-face in the ceiling of the Great Hall.
The light was red.
The Buick idled in the middle of the Jokertown intersection. The bodysnatcher tapped on the driver’s window. The man inside looked at her, hesitated. He must have decided she looked harmless enough. The window came rolling down. Power window. Very nice.
There was a family inside. Daddy was tall and balding, wearing a gray suit. His wife was a plump woman in a polyester pants suit. In back was an ugly little girl in blue jeans and Smurfs T-shirt, maybe three.
“Yes?” Daddy asked. “Can I help you?”
“Your little girl isn’t wearing her seat belt,” the bodysnatcher told him. “What kind of parents are you?”
The man didn’t know what to make of this. His wife said, “The light’s changed,” nervously. She was smarter than he was. She knew you don’t stop and talk to strangers in the middle of a Jokertown street.
“It’s not just a good idea,” the bodysnatcher said. “It’s the law. Watch this.” She took the bottle of Drano out of the pocket of her trench coat, twisted off the cap, and drank.
The pain was a purifying fire inside her, burning out all the filth. She heard them gasp. When the bottle was empty, the bodysnatcher tossed it aside, wiped her lips, and smiled down at Daddy. She had to lean against the car to keep from falling. She would have said something, but her throat was too badly burned.
Daddy was staring up at her in horror, knuckles white where they gripped the steering wheel. The bodysnatcher blinked back tears, and jumped.
Inside the car, inside Daddy, he raised the power window and watched the face outside twist in sudden agony. Mommy was whimpering in the seat beside him. The bodysnatcher hit the accelerator, heard a thump as the body hit the street. The screams began before they were halfway across the intersection.
“Oh, God, oh, God,” the wife was saying. The Buick’s handling was flabby. The bodysnatcher turned a corner hard. “We have to call the police,” the wife finally managed. "Blueboy would like that,” the bodysnatcher told her.
The wife looked at him strangely. “John?” she said. She still didn’t get it. By then the bodysnatcher was turning into the alley, and it was too late. They went down past the dumpster, to the dead end way in back, under the fire escape. Blueboy and Vanilla and Molly Bolt were waiting there, in the shadows.
“No,” the wife said as they came toward the car. “No, no, no.” She locked all the doors, closed all the windows, frantic with fear. As if windows could stop a jumper.
Molly Bolt shook her head in disgust, and jumped.
Mommy sat back, adjusted her pantsuit. “Polyester,” she complained. “I hate polyester.” She looked over her shoulder at the girl in the backseat. “How you doing?”
“Motherfucker,” the little girl said, squirming. “The brat isn’t even toilet trained yet. This is disgusting.”
Outside, Molly and Blueboy had both collapsed. Vanilla carried them under the fire escape, and tied them at wrist and ankle in case they came to. It wouldn’t do for them to run off. Molly and Blueboy had a sentimental attachment to their original flesh. “Where to?” the bodysnatcher asked impatiently.
“The Empire State Building,” said Mommy, counting the money in her purse. “I think we got enough for lunch at Aces High.”
The world into which Wyungare plunged was dark.
The dull thudding of the drum was not what he remembered of the complex jazz rhythms. He didn’t know where he was.
Wyungare raised his right hand and snapped his fingers once, twice, and then on the third attempt, a flame sprang up on his palm. It was cool and blue and did not burn his flesh. Instead, the flickering illumination crept out around him until he could see that he stood on a springy carpet of dark moss in the midst of huge trees. The trunks of those trees descended into tangled puzzles of winding, interconnected roots.
The Aborigine turned until he saw an opening among the trees, a path that led through that gap. He began to follow it, his hand held in front of him like a torch.
He walked perhaps a quarter of a mile until he saw the path blocked by a hillock; more properly, it looked like the flank of a mountain. Bare of vegetation, the stony surface seemed to shine.
Wyungare blinked. The mountainside had now become the mouth of an enormous cavern. The top and bottom of the opening was lined with sharp, curving stalactites and stalagmites. The man couldn’t remember which of those was supposed to grow from the top down, and which from the bottom up. He supposed it didn’t matter, since the formations jutted everywhere around the opening.
And then the cave spoke. “So, my star-seeking cousin, you travel in company with unusual and fine drums.” The words vibrated low, shaking inside Wyungare like ocean tides sweeping up an estuary and into the coastal swamplands.
Wyungare stopped in his tracks and slowly began to grin. “Cousin Kurria, it is you? The crocodile guardian?”
“None other.” High on the flank of the “mountain,” two huge eyes abruptly blinked open. staring down at the man. “I watch over all such as the one you seek, even if their forms are a bit alien, something less sleek than the cousins in our home.”
“Then you know my mission.”
The laugh sounded like the toppling of tall trees. “I have spoken with Viracocha and others. I know of your need to encounter this one called Jack Robicheaux.”
“Will you aid me?”
“Come right on in.” The laughter rolled out again. “I will help you.”
Wyungare walked up to the huge spikes he now understood to be teeth. He slipped between two of the largest and sharpest. He climbed up into the jaw of Kurria. He stepped upon the resilient tongue and walked forward, toward the back of the guardian’s throat.
Then the jaws closed and there was utter darkness, save for the blue flame still flickering from Wyungare’s hand.
The man walked farther. He didn’t know how long he traveled, or how long it took. But finally, he found himself in a room darker than the passage through which he had come. He could feel impressions: sleep, hunger, pain. The walls around him pulsed. A pair of invisible eyes opened behind their armored, protective lids.
“Cousin,” said Wyungare. “Friend.”
Hunger, came the response.
Hunger can be fed. Wyungare projected the image of fish. Enough fish to sate.
Hunger.
Wyungare projected the image of the black cat, of Cordelia. He received back flickers of recognition, but still one overriding response.
Hunger.
Wyungare sighed. It looked to be a long, though not especially sophisticated conversation.
The hallway was narrow and filthy. The walls looked like they hadn’t been washed, let alone painted, in Ray’s lifetime. He couldn’t understand how anyone, particularly an ace, could live in such an environment.
He stopped before the warped door. Light spilled through the gaps in the frame from the apartment beyond. Ray paused, smelling the exotic fragrances wafting through the floor from the Chinese grocery below. A mysterious touch of the Orient, he thought, rapping authoritatively on the door. How appropriate.