Part 17 (1/2)
”You have a show tonight.”
”I could come right after the show. I could go straight from the show to the airport. I could be there by morning, Niki.”
”Tomorrow night's Miami,” Niki reminds her. ”Miami and then Orlando on Wednesday, and then-”
”Why can't you just be quiet and listen for five seconds?”
”You can't miss any more shows.”
”Niki, we're more important than the shows.”
Niki touches the window, the cold plate gla.s.s, the invisible barrier keeping out the night, holding back the wind.
”We need the money. There's the mortgage.”
”We're more important than the money or the G.o.dd.a.m.ned house,” and Niki can hear the frayed edge in Daria's voice beginning to unravel completely. In a moment, she'll be shouting or crying or both.
”What did he say?” Niki asks.
”Who?”
”The a.s.shole, the guy who got your number. It must have been something pretty awful, the way you sound, the things you're saying.”
”Yeah, well, we can talk about it when I get there, okay?
I really don't want to get into what he said, not on the phone.”
”Where's Alex going to sleep?” and that last bit out quick, before Niki can consider the consequences, before she can weigh the damage her words will do. The way they'll cut, the blood they'll draw, how she can never take them back. Daria doesn't answer her, doesn't say anything, and the connection crackles faintly in Niki's ear.
”The bay is very pretty tonight, Dar. It's so pretty it doesn't even look real. It looks like a painting.”
144.
Through the phone, she can hear the familiar sounds of Daria lighting a cigarette-the crinkle of cellophane, her thumb on the strike wheel of her lighter, the sudden rush of smoke from Daria's lips and nostrils. Behind Niki, Marvin asks for the phone.
”I'm trying to do the right thing,” Daria says, her voice shaking, and Niki knows she's struggling to hold it steady.
”I'm tired, and I'm sick, and I'm scared, but I'm f.u.c.king trying to do the right thing.”
”I think it's too late for that,” Niki replies. Down on the bay, beneath the bridge, there's a sudden flash of light, and she stands up.
”Niki, please, don't say that. When I get back home, we'll talk. I mean really tal-”
”We should have talked a long time ago, Daria.”
”I know that. I know that now.”
”I don't think there's any time left for talking. Something's happening.”
”No,” Daria says. ”Please, Niki. Listen to me. I can be there for breakfast. We can go to that place on the water-front you like so much.”
Beneath the bridge, the light ebbs, flickers, and almost winks out. And then it explodes, a perfect circle of blue-white waves radiating across the black water, rus.h.i.+ng soundlessly towards sh.o.r.e. Light so bright that Niki squints, then turns her head away. She lets the phone slip from her fingers and fall to the carpet, opens her mouth to warn Marvin, but then the blast wave hits and the hotel window comes apart in a storm of jagged, melting gla.s.s.
The light fills her eyes, burning them to wisps of steam.
Her skin turns black and curls like frying bacon, exposing flesh and bone and blood that boils away in an instant. The air stinks of cinders and ozone, and the California night has become a hurricane of fire.
The Dragon is awake and insatiable after its sleep. In a moment more, it will have devoured the city and moved on. Before sunrise, the whole world will burn inside its bottomless cauldron belly.
145.
”No,” Niki Ky whispers. ”Not yet.”
The Dragon hears her and pulls back in on itself, a blazing serpent vanis.h.i.+ng down its own gullet.
And there is no fire.
There is only the night, filled with possibility, with things that can be avoided and things that are inevitable.
Niki stands at the window, staring down at the dark waters of the bay. She can still hear Daria's voice, but now it's too small and quiet and far off for her to make out any of the words. Niki glances down at the cell phone, still right there in her good hand, and she sets it carefully on the windowsill. The bedsprings squeak, and then Marvin's holding her, asking her questions that she's too tired to understand.
”I'm sorry,” she says to him. ”Please, tell her I said that I'm sorry,” and then oblivion opens itself wide, swelling to fill the s.p.a.ce between the hotel room walls, between horizons, and gives her a place to hide for a while.
For a long time, or a time that only seems long because there's no sun or moon, and no clocks nor anyone to remind her that time is pa.s.sing, Niki is nowhere, nowhen, and her thoughts are not important. There's no sorrow for Daria, no anger, no pain, no loneliness, no fear of her own insanity. Her hand doesn't hurt, and she doesn't remember the terrible things that no one else can see. And then somebody's talking, and the perfect nothingness is ruined, and she opens her eyes.
Or some other, more primal, part of herself.
She unfolds.
And she's standing in the front yard of Spyder's old house in Birmingham. There's a cool wind blowing through the pecan trees, rustling the limbs, the dry autumn leaves.
The night air smells like cinnamon and musty, windowless rooms where no one ever goes, and she looks up at the sky above the mountain. The stars are much brighter than they should be, or closer to earth, and they seem to writhe in the indigo heavens.
”Things happened here,” Spyder says, speaking softly 146 from somewhere directly behind Niki. ”Things that never should have happened. Things that violated and broke you.
The things that are killing you.”
”I know,” Niki says. ”I've known that all along.”
”Don't turn around,” Spyder says. ”You can't see me here. It isn't allowed.”
”I wasn't going to turn around,” Niki replies and takes a step towards the house. All the windows are dark, no lights in there, not an electric bulb or a candle, only the night choking every inch of wall and floor and ceiling.
”Why am I here, Spyder?” Niki asks. ”I know this is where it started, but I don't know why I'm here. I feel like I'm going in circles.”
”Yes,” Spyder replies, ”you are. Circles, and circles within circles.”
”Then I'm never going to get anywhere, am I?”
The ground shudders beneath her feet; all the moldering leaves, the soil, the earthworms, and black, scurrying beetles, all the decaying, living matter, everything shudders, and Niki looks at the sky again.