From behind approaches arrhythmic pounding. Niko’s about to ask his demon what’s going on when suddenly around them gallop emaciated horsemen on elongate mounts like anorexic jockeys on enlarged greyhounds. They part around the Franklin to the left and to the right so spindly on their matchstick legs they cannot possibly support their famished weight. Yet they dart like nimble antelopes and flash so quickly in and out the headlamps cone that some dozen of them have sped by before it can be seen that horse and rider are not separate entities at all but joined and of a single will. Running easily beside the car are centaurs. Not the burly robust creatures of Greek myth but gaunt and predatory frames supporting taut thin flesh the gray of crematorium ash stretched near to piercing by protruding bones. If there are eyes within those hatchet heads they are so deepset or black that they appear as twin holes only, painted patches like dark spots on the wings of dusty moths. Their hooves kick up no leaf or twig or clod. Three dozen of them run before the Franklin’s prow like shepherd dolphins before a schooner’s bow, their hoofbeats’ number not accounting for the distance they advance. In their aspect more like insects than like creatures with a meated heart. They part to flow around the bleeding trees and sessile gluttons and argus demons they encounter, each obstacle revealed to Niko moments before he might plow into it. He dodges and swerves, and he curses the centaurs because of course it is their aim to lull him into fallen logs and stone outcrops.
A headless snake jabs past Niko’s shoulder as his demon points. “There’s a trail there.”
Niko heads for it. “Does it lead out of here?”
“Yeah but we’re not out of the woods yet.”
Niko drives along the rough and winding path. “Why’d you jump?”
“To make the car lighter, stupid.”
“I mean from the train.”
Silence from the back. Then, “I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time? I might ask you the same question you know.”
The car spits from the forest like offending gristle out across the open hardpan, the horsemen left behind. Across the fearsome night they drive. Niko and his demon and a faintly glowing jar. See them from a sky that never saw a dawn: carshaped blackness inching over ancient plain, paltry white light leading and dim red light behind, some luminescent bottomfeeder hugging the flat plain floor to follow currents or magnetic lines because its route is charted in the very helix of its twining DNA. And so prowls on. Mercifully oblivious to the indifferent vastness of the deep it crosses. More must yet unwind from out the Stygian dark. This the route the car must forge.
Within minutes they are come to the shore of frigid Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. Scant light gleams from its obsidian liquid. “How are we supposed to get across?” Niko says to the back seat. “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.”
Niko glares at the dark instrument panel. Once again he fights the urge to look back at the smug inhuman bastard he chauffeurs.
“If you know something tell me. There are gonna be enough surprises without you adding to them.”
“I don’t know something.” The whiskey voice grows closer as the demon hunches forward. “I’m making this up as I go. Same as you.” Niko’s nostrils flare at the rot of his demon’s breath. His skin has the sour smell of a threeday bender. Mercifully the demon leans back. “When I want to go across a river I fly.”
They drive until the river flows before them.
Niko’s demon says Go right and Niko turns right. On his left the river flows. How much of my mortal life did I waste returning to that memory-cleansing water? I might still be bathing there had not the grave Achaian delivered my guitar, and the voice of it returned me to my self. Akileo, Akileo. Somewhere on this hard-packed shore I bested you. A feat no Homer will relate. Possibly your disgraceful armor weighs you still beneath those very waters. For your sake I hope it does.
Though the sand is hard and flat the car is still a little squirrely. It wants to get away from him again.
“We’re not headed out anymore,” says Niko.
“Why thank you Daniel Boone. No we’re not. If out is north we’re headed east.”
“What are we looking for?”
“A bridge would be nice.”
“I don’t see one.”
“There isn’t one.”
“Then we’re looking for the narrowest spot we can find.”
“You can never find the narrowest spot on an infinite river,” says his demon.
“The narrowest spot in the next five miles then.”
“Whyyy?” Like an obstinate six year old.
“Because we’re going to cross it your way.”
“How’s that?”
“We’re gonna fly.”
IT’S MORE LIKE ten miles but finally Niko finds a promising spot. Here some obstruction, probably logjammed bodies, has caused the mounding-up of runoff sand over uncounted centuries until a respectable dune has formed. It projects perhaps a hundred yards into the river and rises maybe thirty feet. From the end of the dune to the frozen far side of the river is about fifty yards. Using the slightly up-angled dune as a ramp, assuming the sandbar is hard and firm all the way, driving at a top speed of around ninety miles an hour ought to land the Franklin just about smack in the middle of the river.
Which is why Niko’s demon is on the roof as Niko backs up the car without looking. The mason jar is clamped between Niko’s thighs and his head is half out the window like a happy dog to hear his demon’s shouted directions.
“Right. Go right. More. Good, now straighten out. Ah nuts. Hold on, will you?”
Niko stops. The car rises as his demon jumps off the roof. “Let me do the talking.”
“Someone’s coming?” Niko doesn’t want to idle here. He must keep moving.
“One of my compadres.” He puts on a big ole shiteating grin and through clenched teeth says Look the other way, then nods amiably to whatever’s coming toward them.
Niko looks the other way. In his peripheral vision an obese demon waddles to the car. One side of her face looks halfmelted, one eye two inches lower than the other. The bottom of her face thick with caked-on food. A standard issue trident in one clawed hand. She glances at the car and Niko promptly looks away. Niko hears her say Howdy.
“How do.”
“What brings you guys to our neck of the woods? You’re a little off the beaten path.”
“Well. We’re delivering a cake. A big gooey chocolate cake with creamy rich frosting thick as dogshit.”
“A cake.” Her voice is suddenly pure sex.
“Bout yea big. In fact—” His demon’s voice lowers seductively and Niko can’t make out the rest. As she listens lustfully the obese demon’s gaze slides hopefully toward the Black Taxi where she sees Niko trying to look innocuous. “Say,” she says.
Niko hears a soft grunt and a strangled squawk and a meaty thump. By the time he looks his demon stands above the corpulent demon writhing with the blunt end of her own trident piercing her head. Her lower eye halfpushed from the socket by the length of iron rammed behind it. Niko’s demon has his foot on the trident to hold the bucking bloated figure down.
“Well, I see you did the talking.”
“My favorite form of communication. Wait here. I gotta take out the trash.” The vanquished demon’s mouth works spastically. “We don’t have time for this.”