Part 37 (2/2)
C H A P T E R E L E V E N.
Wishfire Niki bends over the globe, studying the sculpted forests and marshes and ancient battlegrounds, the hills and lakes, the varicose network of roads and rivers; rotating circles held within rotating circles, like the vision of Ezekiel. She's counted the circles several times and is certain that there are only twelve, beginning at the Palisades and moving inward to the Dragon's hub. And maybe twelve means something, something that she should understand, and if she did, then everything could go another way. But she doesn't understand, if there's even anything there beyond the random languages of this cosmos.
All the red witches have gone now, except Pikabo Kenzia. She wanted Scarborough sent away, because men are not permitted in the towers, but Niki insisted that he stay.
”He stays, or I go with him,” she said, and Pikabo didn't argue. ”And I'll need to ask him questions,” Niki added, ”so you'll have to let him speak.”
”Our rules are old,” Pikabo Kenzia protested. ”They were handed down to us by the thralls of Dezyin before the first stones were laid at Yarin.”
”Is that thing there supposed to be Dezyin?” Niki asked her and pointed at the idol, and the red witch nodded her head. ”Well, no disrespect, but unless Dezyin's going to come to life and deal with this c.r.a.p himself, Scarborough 343.
stays, and he gets to talk whenever I need him to. No, whenever he feels like it.”
And once again, Pikabo Kenzia relented, but Niki could see there was a limit to her ability to make concessions and perhaps it had been reached.
Niki traces the Serpent's Road with the index finger of her good hand and tries not to notice the way the wound in her right has begun to throb again. The road starts at the edge of a line of steep, wooded hills not far from Nesmia Shar, but that would still leave nine bands she'd have to cross before reaching the hub.
”It would take you months,” Pikabo Kenzia said when Niki asked, ”if the bridges were all with you. If they were against you, it might require years, and do not forget, Hierophant, the jackals are abroad, and the angels, who hold their reins. You'd never make it.”
Niki looks over at Scarborough, who's sitting on the floor a few feet away. ”What do you know about numbers?” she asks him.
”You mean like mathematics?”
”No, I mean like numerology.”
”A little. More than you might think.”
”Then impress me. Tell what twelve means.”
Scarborough frowns and makes a derisive, snorting noise. ”Vietnam, the lady's already told you, there's only one way to get your a.s.s from here to there quickly and in one piece. You're grasping at straws-”
”Does twelve mean anything?”
Scarborough Pentecost shrugs and stares up at the strips of fabric suspended overhead. ”Twelve means lots of things, in our world. It's the zodiac, twelve signs on the house cusps. There are twelve members of the Dalai Lama's council, and Jesus and Mithra both had twelve apostles. The Hebrews say there are twelve fruits growing on the Tree of Life and twelve gates into the Heavenly City. Herodotus wrote that there were twelve G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses on Olympus. Do you want me to keep going, or are you starting to get the picture? And anyway, you've got 344 thirteen levels there, not twelve. You have to count the hub.”
”Then what does thirteen mean?”
But this time Scarborough only laughs at her and shakes his head.
”I have shown you the only way,” Pikabo Kenzia says firmly. ”Soon, the Weaver will have discovered where you are, and once she arrives-”
”There has to be another way,” Niki mutters and goes back to the map, as if she could somehow close the distance between the third band and the hub by force of will alone. ”I won't accept that someone has to die to get me there. You've already killed one woman, to get me here.”
”There is no other way,” the red witch replies, ”not in the time remaining. And if the Weaver finds you, if the portal is opened, the number of people who will die because of you is beyond reckoning.”
”Why don't you just f.u.c.king do it?” Scarborough asks the red witch, but she doesn't respond, stands glaring down at him, and the look on her face like she would kill him this very minute if she could. ”You didn't need her permission when you s.n.a.t.c.hed us off that s.h.i.+p, so why the h.e.l.l do you think you need it now?”
”Shut up, Scarborough,” Niki tells him, wis.h.i.+ng she'd never insisted that he be allowed to speak, and then she walks around to the opposite side of the globe, turning her back on Pikabo Kenzia.
”Twelve,” she whispers. ”Thirteen. Twelve and thirteen.
There has to be something here that I'm missing.”
”Yeah,” Scarborough says, ”the obvious.”
Pikabo Kenzia goes to Niki's side and rests a hand on the shoulder of her blue fur coat. ”We're almost out of time, Hierophant. The Weaver must be very near.”
”What about twelve and thirteen,” Niki asks Scarborough, ignoring the red witch. ”What do they mean together?”
”Twenty-five,” Scarborough replies unhelpfully.
”There's no other way,” Pikabo Kenzia says again, and 345.
now she grasps Niki firmly by both shoulders and turns her away from the stone globe until they're standing eye to eye. ”We're reaching the end, and we must accept the costs of taking the one option which has been left to us.”
”You said that it's my choice,” Niki snarls and pulls free of the red witch's grip, surprised at the woman's strength.
”That's what you said. That it had to be my choice.”
”How you face the Dragon and the Weaver, that's where your choice lies. Perhaps you misunderstood-”
”No. You will not force me to let some woman be sacrificed to this Dezyin b.a.s.t.a.r.d just so I get an express ticket to h.e.l.l. I'm not f.u.c.king worth another life.”
”No,” the red witch agrees, ”you're not.” There are thick blood-tears gathering at the corners of her eyes again, and Niki watches as the frustration drains swiftly from Pikabo Kenzia's purple irises and realizes too late that what has replaced it is decision.
”You're just gonna have to forgive me for this, Vietnam,” Scarborough says, and then his hand comes down hard across the base of her skull, and there's an instant of pain, and then, for a while, only the unacknowledged peace of oblivion.
In some silly horror movie, Daria thinks, she might have fought Archer Day for the gun. Or they could have struggled on the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs, and maybe Daria would have pushed her, or she might have fallen on her own. In a horror movie, she might not have handed over the ball bearing the first time the woman asked for it. And in a horror movie, Alex would be pulling into the weedy driveway at the end of Cullom Street with the police right behind him.
But she knows this isn't a movie, and this time it isn't a dream, either, and she stands in the unreal blue light filling the s.p.a.ce below the house, the pistol's barrel pressed to her spine, and watches as the wet and mewling thing tears itself free from the black coc.o.o.n on the ceiling.
”Daria Parker, meet Theda,” the woman says. ”Theda, this is the Hierophant's b.i.t.c.h-d.y.k.e wh.o.r.e, Miss Daria 346 Parker, who came here-all the way from California-just to save the world. h.e.l.l, you know what? I bet Theda here has all your records,” and she pushes Daria nearer the circle drawn on the cellar floor.
”Where's Niki?” she asks, trying not to look at what's inside the circle.
”Oh, so far away from here, my lady,” Archer Day chuckles and jabs Daria in the ribs with the gun. Then she begins to sing in a high and hitching voice, ” 'Far, far away is my love of yesterday, She's gone, gone, gone, gone, from me, from me-' ”
”I f.u.c.king gave you what you wanted. I gave you what you f.u.c.king asked for.”
”Yeah, you did, and just look at how well that's working out for you,” and then she starts singing again, an old Roy Orbison song that Niki used to ask Daria to play when she was still just doing bars and nightclubs. Far, far away is my love of yesterday, and something, or everything, about Archer Day's voice makes her sorry that she ever believed Niki was insane.
”You're not telling me because you don't know.”
And Archer Day tangles her fingers in Daria's short hair and jerks her head back sharply so that she's staring directly into the eight, unblinking ebony eyes of the thing writhing on the ceiling. Daria feels cold metal behind her right ear, the pistol pressed to the soft flesh of her neck, and Close your eyes, she thinks. Close your eyes so you won't have to see it.
”Personally, I think poor Theda's getting a lot more than she bargained for.”
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