“No,” the cabbie says. “Jeez, isn’t that enough?”
“Come on, Niko. If you’re going to dump me like an ashtray and go on with your charmed little life at least have the balls to do it to my face. Instead of slinking off like some kind of thief. Like you always do.”
Niko nods and says Okay. The way the cabbie’s watching him he wonders if she isn’t hearing everything after all.
“Give me a goodbye, Niko. Is that too much to ask? I wasted my life on you.”
The cabbie carefully picks up the mason jar and holds it out to Niko. He takes it from her and nods thank you. This time out he held no hand on his ascent. The letting go is different now.
“What’ll it cost you to be a man for once and face me, Niko? You’ll be fine, you always land on your—”
“Ready?” the cabbie says.
“Yeah.” Niko nods. “Thanks.”
She shrugs and picks up Nikodemus’ tendril. “No problem.”
“Niko look at me. I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t part of this. You can’t just walk away from me. You killed me. You sent me here. Look at me. Niko look at me you selfish son of a bitch.”
Niko hoists up Nikodemus’ tendril. “Nice try, Phil. You had me for a minute there.”
“Be seeing you, Nik-orpheus.”
“Niko—”
Niko and his guide and his demon and his love cross over.
XXIX.
HELLHOUND ON MY TRAIL
OLD SPRINGS CREAK as Niko and the cabbie deposit Nikodemus on the dark green bench seat. They’re not sure what to do with his wings. One is torn near the thick muscle padding where wing joins back. It does not bleed. One long thin birdlike wingspar bone is broken.
Niko and the cabbie settle for turning Nikodemus on his side to face the seatback so his tattered wings can overhang onto the floorboards. Blood is everywhere on the cab and on their palms and clothes. The cabbie has a smear of it along one cheek where she wiped unthinkingly.
Niko’s eyes tear when he regards the trailing pulp of Nikodemus’ jellied eye. The demon is still unconscious. No pulse, no respiration. Was there ever?
Is it wrong to bring him along? Maybe. But it’s more wrong to leave him behind.
don’t leave me here Niko you can’t
Niko pats his demon’s chest and wings twitch with a sound of rustling taffeta.
Before he backs out Niko looks at floorboard litter stirred by Nikodemus’ restless wings. All exactly as remembered and welcome as a lifeboat to a struggling swimmer in a freezing sea.
He is suddenly impatient to get moving again and backs out of the cab. Ahead of him the cabbie stands holding the passenger door open.
Niko glimpses something blurring toward the cab in time to push the cabbie out of the way. She lands on her ass just as a hurled mallet slams the windshield and tempered glass explodes across the front seat and dashboard. A bellow cuts the tarnished air. The enraged Thor who threw this hammer rushes from the darkness toward them.
“Encule de ta mere, je vous tuerai!”
Auguste the sculptor runs fullout with arms outstretched and fingers curled. Beard a trailing banner and bright eyes crazed.
Niko is in no shape to fight anyone but he sets Jemma on the front seat and steps around the open door and braces himself to meet Auguste’s mad rush. Past the bellowing Frenchman the toppled ladder lies beside carved marble cracked and alabaster arms and heads amputated from the wall by the Black Taxi’s collision with the gate.
“Philistin! Assassin! J’arracherai votre coeur et violerai le trou! Mangeur de merde!” Auguste looms like a bear with arms spread wide and spittle flecking his beard. Niko drops into a squat and Auguste is suddenly overhanging him. Niko calmly stands and raises his arms and winces at the sharp pain of his broken rib as Auguste arcs high and loudly thuds onto the hood of the Checker Cab. For a moment the Frenchman lies there blankly staring up, and then he’s off and after Niko once again. Niko lifts his leg to kick Auguste in the kneecap but his leg just won’t cooperate and the Frenchman bowls him over. Niko slams the ground with Auguste on top. The hands that have spent lifetimes wresting life from inert rock now clamp his throat and bear down. Niko bucks like a fish on a deck. Maddened eyes glare inches from his own. Coarse gray beard tickles his purpling face. Tongue bloats in mouth. Buck again. Throw him off. No good. Grunt with effort. Nothing comes out. Scream. Throat pinched shut. Vision red edged. Heartbeat rhythm bludgeons skull. Face swells. Bursting. Auguste’s incoherent screams. Spittle patters face. Tight against him. Find his thumbs. Pull back. Relieve pressure. Not enough to get air through, strong hes strong. vision disperses. last sight flat mad light of his eyes. sorry auguste. sorry. think id have done the same
A distant thump. Auguste scowls. Blinks rapidly and tosses his head. Another thud. The pressure lets up on Niko’s throat. Auguste’s eyes cloud and he pitches forward against Niko. Who worms from under the unconscious lump and draws a great long wheezing gasp. His hands go to his throat as if to open it wider. Air just won’t come fast enough. Breathing through a clotted straw. The dark veil slowly lifts and the cabbie’s standing there. Her mouth says Are you all right? All he hears is steady ringing. Helps him to his feet. He tries to tell her I’m okay but nothing will come out. Nods instead and thinly coughs. Hockey puck in windpipe. Every time he coughs a sharpened wire stabs his broken rib. Niko motions I’m okay, let’s go, get in the cab. She agrees and then he sees she holds a tire iron in one hand. Ah. Thank you. Again.
The cabbie swipes broken windshield glass off of the seat and helps Niko get in the cab. He huddles round the mason jar and stares at chunks of glass that rim the windshield. Bet it doesn’t grow back on this car.
The cabbie shuts the door and seals him from a universe of wretched suffering and pain. Give it a parting glance? Can I do that now? Give it the finger? Give some goodbye anyhow. Isn’t that what the forgery of Jemma said?
The cabbie brushes glass away and dusts her bloodstained palms and gets behind the wheel. She shakes her head at the jagged windshield frame. “Man.”
Auguste’s mallet lies between them on the seat. The cabbie picks it up and tosses it out over the hood. “Poor Auguste. Wish I hadn’t had to do that.”
She shuts her door and buckles up. “Seatbelt.”
Without looking Niko points to where the battered gate lies broken open. He hoods his eyes like a ship’s lookout and points at himself and then points again at the gate and draws a question mark in the air.
The cabbie purses her lips. “Orpheus held Eurydice’s hand all the way to the entrance of Tænarus cave. He never looked back the whole time. Until he stepped into the sunlight and turned to tell her how happy he was they’d made it. But she was still in the shadows and he lost her.”
Niko draws a ragged breath and looks heavenward. Brings the jar up and turns it in his hand and forces himself steady. It isn’t over. Won’t be over till they’re back up on the world. Okay. All right. He nods and shrugs.
“We’ll get there,” the cabbie says. “They won’t go past the gate. The hard part’s over.” She slaps his leg and smiles. “Besides, I never dropped a fare off anywhere but where he said he was going.” Then she glances at the wall and her expression changes.
Niko tugs her sleeve but she shakes her head. “Nothing. Never-mind. Let’s ramble.”
They inch forward.
“Wave bye bye.” The cabbie’s cheer sounds forced but Niko does it anyhow albeit listlessly. Goodbye. Goodbye.
The cabbie edges forward around the unconscious body of Auguste. “Désolé, Auguste,” she calls. “Pardonnes-moi.”
When she’s past the laidout Frenchman she tells Niko to shut his eyes and she turns the cab in a wide circle. Headlights sweep the screaming figures frozen in the stone and shifting shadows lend them motion they will never know. Then the headlights reveal nothing but the cracked bland floor of the empty plain until the cab is heading away from the gate and all that lies behind it. Niko uncovers his eyes. A deeper well-like darkness far ahead must be the tunnel entrance.