"Children," he said. "Why's it always children?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she told him. "Listen to me, Grillo."
"I'm...listening," he said.
"You wanted to get out. I told you the way, remember?"
"Through the town."
"Through the town."
"Out the other side."
"Right."
"Take Howie and Jo-Beth with you. Maybe you can still outrun it."
"Outrun what?" Howie said, only raising his head with difficulty. It was weighed down with monstrous growths.
"The Iad or the bomb," Tesla told him. "Take your pick. Can you run?"
"We can try," Jo-Beth said. She looked at Howie. "We can try."
"Then go to it. All of you."
"I still...don't see..." Grillo began, his voice betraying the Iad's influence.
"Why I have to stay?"
"Yes."
"It's simple," she said. "This is the final trial. All things to all men, remember?"
"Damn stupid," he said, holding her gaze, as though the sight of her helped him keep the insanity at bay.
"Damn right," she said.
"So many things..." he said.
"What?"
"I haven't said to you."
"You didn't need to. And I hope neither did I."
"You were right."
"Except one. Something I should have told you."
"What?"
"I should have said—" she began; then grinned a wide, almost ecstatic grin that she didn't need to fake because it came from some contented place in her; and with it terminated her sentence as she'd terminated so many telephone calls between them and turned away, heading off into the next wave out of the schism, where she knew he couldn't follow.
Somebody was coming her way; another swimmer in the dream-sea, thrown up on the beach.
Tommy-Ray, the Death-Boy. The changes wrought in Jo-Beth and Howie had been profound, but they were kindness itself compared with what he'd sustained. His hair was still Malibu gold, and his face still bore the grin which had once charmed Palomo Grove to its knees. But his teeth were not the only gleam about him. Quiddity had bleached his flesh so that it resembled bone. His brows and cheeks had swollen up, his eyes sunk. He looked like a living skull. He wiped a thread of saliva from his chin with the back of his hand, the pinpoints of his gaze directed past Tesla to where his sister stood.
"Jo-Beth..." he said, moving through the wash of dark air. Tesla saw Jo-Beth look back towards him, then take a step away from Howie as though she was ready to part from him. Though she had urgent business to finish Tesla could not help but watch, as Tommy-Ray moved to claim his sister. The love that had ignited between Howie and Jo-Beth had begun this whole story, or at least its most recent chapter. Was it possible that Quiddity had undone that love?
She had the answer a beat later, as Jo-Beth took a second step from Howie's side, till they were at arm's length, her right hand still holding his left. With a thrill of comprehension Tesla saw what Jo-Beth was displaying to her brother. She and Howie Katz were not simply holding hands. They were joined. Quiddity had fused them, their interlocked fingers became a knot of forms that bound them together.
There was no need for words. Tommy-Ray let out a shout of disgust, and stopped in his tracks. Tesla could not see the expression on his face. Most probably there was none. Skulls could only grin and grimace; opposites collided in one expression. She saw Jo-Beth's look, however, even through the intervening murk. There was a little pity in it. But only a little. The rest was dispassion.
Tesla saw Grillo speak, words to summon the lovers away. They went immediately; all three. Tommy-Ray didn't move to follow.
"Death-Boy?" she said.
He looked around at her. The skull was still capable of tears. They welled on the curve of his sockets.
"How far are they behind you?" she asked him. "The Iad?"
"Iad?" he said.
"The giants."
"There are no giants. Just darkness."
"How far?"
"Very close."
When she looked back towards the schism she understood what he meant by darkness. Clots of it were emerging, carried out on the waves like gobs of tar the size of boats, then rising up into the air above the desert. They had some kind of life, propelling themselves with rhythmic motions that ran down through the dozens of limbs arrayed along their flanks. Filaments of matter as dark as their bodies trailed beneath them, like coils of decaying gut. This was not, she knew, the Iad itself; but they couldn't be far behind.
She glanced away from the sight towards the steel tower, and the platform on top of it. The bomb was her species' ultimate idiocy, but it might justify its existence if it was quick in its detonation. There was no flicker from the platform, however. The bomb hung in its cradle like a bandaged baby, refusing to wake.
Kissoon was still alive; still holding the moment. She started back towards the rubble in the hope of finding him, and in the vainer hope of stopping his life with her own hands. As she approached she realized the clots had purpose in their upward movement. They were assembling themselves in layers, their filaments knotting so as to create a vast curtain. It was already thirty feet in the air, and each wave that broke brought more clots, their number rising exponentially as the schism widened.
She searched the maelstrom for a sign of Kissoon, and found both him and Jaffe on the far side of the rubble that had been the rooms. They were standing face to face, hands at each other's throats, the knife still in Jaffe's fist but held from further work by Kissoon. It had been busy. What had once been Raul's body was covered in stab wounds, from which blood was freely running. The cuts seemed not to have impaired Kissoon's strength. Even as she came in sight of them the shaman tore at Jaffe's throat. Pieces of his flesh came away. Kissoon went back for more instantly, opening the wound further. She directed him from his assault with a cry.
"Kissoon!"
The shaman glanced her way.
"Too late," he said. "The Iad's almost here."
She took what comfort she could from that almost.
"You both lost," he said, taking a back-handed swipe at Jaffe which threw the man off him to the ground. The frail, bony body didn't land heavily; it had too little weight. But it rolled some distance, the knife going from Jaffe's hand. Kissoon offered his opponent a contemptuous glance, then laughed.
"Poor bitch," he said to Tesla. "What did you expect? A reprieve? A blinding flash to wipe them all away? Forget it. It can't happen. The moment's held."
He started towards her as he talked, his approach slower than it might otherwise have been had he not sustained so many wounds.
"You wanted revelation," he said. "And now you've got it. It's almost here. I think you should show your devotion to it. That's only right. Let it see your flesh."
He raised his hands, which were bloody, the way they'd been in the hut when she first heard the word Trinity, and glimpsed him daubed with Mary Muralles's blood.
"The breasts," he said. "Show it the breasts."
A long way behind him, Tesla saw Jaffe getting to his feet. Kissoon failed to notice the motion. His eyes were all for Tesla.
"I think I should bare them for you," he said. "Allow me to do you that kindness. "
She didn't retreat; didn't put up any resistance. Instead she dropped all expression from her face, knowing how much he liked the pliant. His bloody hands were repulsive, the hard-on pressing against the soaked fabric of his trousers more disgusting still, but she succeeded in concealing her repugnance.
"Good girl," he said. "Good girl."
He put his hands on her breasts.
"What say we fuck for the millennium?" he said.
She couldn't quite discipline the shudder that ran through her at the touch and the thought.
"Don't like it?" he said, suddenly suspicious. His eyes flickered off to his left as he understood the conspiracy. There was a glint of fear in them. He started to turn. Jaffe was two yards from him, and closing, the knife raised above his head, the glint on its blade an echo of the glint in Kissoon's eyes. Two lights that belonged together.