Part 61 (1/2)
She sat up gingerly. ”All over,” she said. Pain was getting through numbness in a dozen places: head, neck, arms, belly. To judge by the way Hotchkiss moaned as he began to stand up, he had the same problem. Grillo was simply staring at the water that had claimed Witt, his teeth chattering.
”It's behind us,” Hotchkiss said.
”What is?”
”The light. It's coming from behind us.”
She turned, the aches in her side becoming short stabbing pains. She tried to keep her complaints to herself, but Hotchkiss caught her intake of breath.
”Can you walk?” he said.
”Can you?” she returned.
”Compet.i.tion?” he said.
”Yeah.”
She made a small sideways glance at him. There was blood coming from the region of his right ear, and he was nursing his left arm with his right.
”You look like s.h.i.+t,” she said.
”So do you.”
”Grillo? Are you coming?”
There was no reply; only chattering teeth.
”Grillo?” she said.
He had turned his eyes from the water and was looking up at the roof of the cavern.
”It's on top of us,” she heard him murmur. ”All that earth. On top of us.”
”It's not going to fall,” Tesla said. ”We're going to get out.”
”No we're not. We're f.u.c.king buried alive! We're buried alive!”
He was suddenly on his feet, and the chattering had become ringing sobs. ”Get me out of here! Get me out of here!”
”Shut up, Grillo,” Hotchkiss said, but Tesla knew no words were going to stop the panic running its course. She let him sob, and started towards the crack in the wall through which the light was coming.
It's the Jaff, she thought as she went. It can't be daylight, so it must be the Jaff. She'd planned what she was going to say to him, but the persuasions had been sluiced out of her head. All she could do was wing it. Confront the man and hope her tongue would do the rest.
Behind her, she heard Grillo's sobs stop, and Hotchkiss say: ”That's Witt.”
She looked around. Witt's body had come to the surface of the pool, and was lying face down in the water, some way from the sh.o.r.e. She didn't stare, but turned back towards the crack and headed on, her pace painfully slow. She had a distinct sense of being drawn to the light, that sense stronger the closer she got, as though her cells, touched by the Nuncio, sensed the proximity of someone similarly touched. It gave her weary body the necessary momentum to cross to the crack. She leaned against the stone, and peered in. The cavern beyond was smaller than the one she was leaving. In the middle was what on first viewing she took to be a fire, but it was only a distant relation. The light it gave off was cold, and its flickering was far from steady. There was no sign of its maker.
She stepped inside, announcing her presence to be certain he didn't misread her approach and attack.
”Anyone here?” she said. ”I want to speak with...with Randolph Jaffe.”
She chose to call him by that name in the hope of appealing to the man he'd been rather than the Artist he'd aspired to being. It worked. From a fissure in the furthest corner of the chamber a voice as fatigued as her own emerged.
”Who are you?”
”Tesla Bombeck.”
She started towards the fire, using it as an excuse to enter. ”Don't mind do you?” she said, stripping off her sodden gloves and extending her palms to the joyless flames.
”There's no heat,” Jaffe said. ”It's not a real fire.”
”So I see,” she said. The fuel looked to be rotted matter of some kind. Terata. The smoky glow which she'd taken for flame was the last vestiges of their decay.
”Looks like we're on our own,” she said.
”No,” he said. ”I'm on my own. You've brought people.”
”Yes. I have. You know one of them. Nathan Grillo?”
The name brought Jaffe out of hiding.
Twice she'd seen insanity in his eyes. Once at the Mall, pointed out by Howie. The second time when he'd stumbled out of the Vance house, leaving the schism he'd opened roaring behind him. Now she saw it a third time, but intensified.
”Grillo is here?” he said.
”Yes.”
”Why?”
”Why what?”
”Why are you here?”
”To find you,” she explained. ”We need...we need your help.”
The lunatic eyes swivelled in Tesla's direction. There was, she thought, some vague other form hovering around him, like a shadow thrown through smoke. A head swollen to grotesque proportions. She tried not to think too hard about what it was, or what its appearance signified. There was only one issue here: getting this madman to unburden himself of his secrets. Best perhaps that she volunteered one of her own first.
”We've got something in common,” she said. ”Quite a few things in fact, but one in particular.”
”The Nuncio,” he said. ”Fletcher sent you for it, and you couldn't resist it.”
”That's true,” she said, preferring to agree with him rather than argue and lose his attention. ”But that's not the important thing.”
”What is?”
”Kissoon,” she said.
His eyes flickered.
”He sent you,” he said.