Part 33 (2/2)
”Yeah,” Niki agrees. ”A c.o.ke and a Big Mac with fries and an apple pie,” and that makes Scarborough throw up again.
When he's done, Niki apologizes, but he just sits on the 302 floor, the cramped aisle between the two rows of bunks, and shakes his head. ”Just don't do that again,” he croaks.
”I have questions, Scarborough,” she says, because she does, and it seems like a good idea to change the subject.
”Ever since this started, I've had questions, and no one's even tried to answer them.”
”That's what happens when you fall in with all these mystical snoke-horns-the Weaver and Esme, the lot of them-they don't like answering questions. None of them do. Trust me on this.”
”What's a 'snoke-horn'?”
”That's beside the point,” Scarborough says and wipes the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his s.h.i.+rt. ”You can't get a straight answer from them with a yardstick and a level and a double-barreled shotgun, that's the point.”
”Can I get straight answers from you?”
Scarborough looks at her a moment, his face as pale as cheese, and then he sighs and looks up at the ceiling.
”We're right beneath the foremast, I think,” he says.
”Is that a 'no'?” Niki asks him.
”You've got this notion in your head that the answers are going to make it all better somehow,” he replies. ”You think, maybe if you know what's up, you might have some say in what comes next. Maybe you'll even have a choice.
Am I right?”
”Something like that.”
”You think it's that simple? I expound, give you a neat little infodump to s.h.i.+ne some light into that pretty skull of yours, and at last you'll find yourself empowered against the forces of darkness and chaos?”
”But that's why I'm here, isn't it? I mean, that's what Spyder and that talking white bird kept saying to me, that without me everything was lost. But how am I supposed to save anything when I have no idea what's going on or what I'm expected to do about it?”
”It's just horse s.h.i.+t,” Scarborough says and rubs at his temples. ”The more I tell you, the less you'll know. That's how it always works.”
303.
”Is that some sort of riddle?”
”No, Vietnam, it's just the G.o.dd.a.m.n, sick-a.s.s truth.”
”What's the Dragon?” Niki asks, undaunted, and she leans over the edge of her bunk and looks down at him.
”You're not listening to me-”
”That's because you're not saying anything. Now, tell me, what's the Dragon, Scarborough?”
He pushes away the vomit pail and glares up at her, his bloodshot eyes and the sweat rolling down his face, bright beads in the candlelight. ”I work for Esme Chattox. That's what I do. Before that, when I was alive, when I was home, I worked for something even worse.”
”That's not an answer.”
”What's the f.u.c.king Dragon?” he mutters and stares at the floor between his knees. ”Jesus, you get straight to the point, don't you?”
”It's not a real dragon, is it? I mean, not some big scaly lizard thing with wings and fiery breath.”
”Oh, you better believe it's got fire enough,” he replies.
”Don't you go forgetting Padnee so quickly. Before this s.h.i.+t's done, you're gonna wish it was just some big scaly lizard thing.”
”But it's not?”
Scarborough stops rubbing his temples and peers up at her again. ”The Dragon was always here. No one knows what the f.u.c.k the Dragon is. Maybe it's evil. Maybe it's G.o.d. Maybe it's just a G.o.dd.a.m.n force of nature or a bad joke the cosmos decided to play on this place, but when the Weaver came, she changed it somehow. Just her being here, or something she brought with her, and that's when everything started going to h.e.l.l. But, hey, that was before my time.”
”Spyder brought me here to stop the Dragon,” Niki says.
”She said it would destroy this place if I didn't stop it.”
”Yeah, okay, whatever. But you gotta understand something. You gotta get it straight and keep it straight. This thing's complicated. We're not playing Dungeons and Dragons here. This isn't hobbits versus Sauron. If there's 304 good and evil, black and white, it's just as hard to see here as it is back home.”
”So, you're saying the Dragon isn't bad?”
”No. I'm not saying that at all,” Scarborough replies wearily and wipes his face again. ”The Dragon's a bad motherf.u.c.ker, and you can bet your skinny Asian a.s.s on that and come up flush every time. And he's got a lot of bad motherf.u.c.kers out there to do his dirty work. What I'm saying is that you need to see that the Weaver might not be so G.o.dd.a.m.n different her own self. On a good day, it's all just G.o.dd.a.m.n shades of gray, Vietnam. On a good day.”
”Then what am I doing here?”
”Near as I can tell, making things worse,” Scarborough tells her, and then he gags and doesn't say anything else for a while.
Niki lies in her bunk and thinks about the things he's said, the consequences of the things he's said, and watches the empty berth across the aisle from her. There are footsteps overhead, the inconstant tattoo of hobnailed boots and bare feet, and she tries to shut out all the sounds and smells of the s.h.i.+p. A runaway train since she stepped off the bridge, however long ago that might have been, no way of reckoning time when she doesn't have a watch, and the nights here seem to last forever. Back home, maybe Daria's dead, or maybe she went to Kansas and found the ball bearing, and she's on her way to Birmingham, or maybe she just went home with Alex Singer and they'll live happily ever after, freed from the inconvenience of having a crazy girl around.
”I wish you would stop thinking of yourself like that,”
Dr. Dalby said, more times than she can recall, but she does, anyway. Niki, the crazy girl hung about Daria's neck since Boulder, the stone to drag her down. Part of her can't blame Daria if she's glad to finally be rid of that weight.
And another part of her aches at the loss.
Maybe it's already been a month, or a year, or ten years back there, in the San Francisco where she started out.
305.
Scarborough's remarks about Sauron and hobbits has her thinking about time and other books, Narnia and Oz and The Land, and how such a long time where she is could be a very short time in the ”real” world. Maybe it's only been a moment back home, one tick of a second hand, and no one even knows she's dead yet.
Stop thinking of it as ”home,” she chides herself. That's not home anymore, because I can never go back. Spyder said so.
But what if Spyder lied, another voice inside her whispers. What if Spyder's wrong?
”They don't want me in Auber,” she says. ”I heard Esme say that to Spyder.”
”Did you?” Scarborough replies, and he stands up again, propping himself against the edge of her bunk; she can smell him, sweat and sick and body odor, and wonders how she must smell. His lips are badly chapped, and there's a dab of blood at one corner of his mouth. ”Well, I expect she was telling the truth. Anyone who takes you in is asking for what Padnee got, or worse.”
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