Part 38 (1/2)

”Is Niki dead?”

”Well, I know there's at least one coroner in San Francisco that'll swear to it. But then you people seem to have an awfully narrow view of life and death. Now, open your eyes.”

But Daria keeps them shut tight, too far past even the desire to simply survive, because she'd always have the memory of the black thing on the ceiling and the mess in- 347.

side the circle. Because she'd never be able to forget the sound of this madwoman's voice, and whatever Archer Day intends to do to her, Daria knows that she's going to do it, regardless.

”I said to open your f.u.c.king eyes, b.i.t.c.h. Don't you want to see this? Imagine, two universes touching across the void-”

”The man who called me in Atlanta,” Daria interrupts, wis.h.i.+ng there were some way to shut out the sounds of it all, as well as the sights, ”the man who wanted me to find Niki, so he wouldn't have to hurt her-”

”-is dead. Plans changed, and he was never very flexi-ble. Why won't you open your eyes? You're going to die, anyway.”

”I know that.”

”Then wouldn't it be better to witness such wondrous events first-the birth of a G.o.ddess, the Dragon's coming, the beginning of the end? A few marvels to keep you company through infinity?”

”Thanks,” Daria hisses between gritted teeth, ”but I think I'll pa.s.s,” and Archer Day curses and shoves her; she stumbles and falls hard near the edge of the circle.

”Don't you dare f.u.c.king presume to judge me,” the woman snaps and pulls the trigger. Trapped inside the bas.e.m.e.nt, the gunshot is earsplitting, thunder in a bottle, and the dirt floor a few inches from Daria's left knee explodes. She begins scrambling backwards, away from the circle and the thing on the ceiling and the crazy woman with the gun.

”Daria Parker, you cannot begin to imagine the sacrifice, what this has cost me, what I've given up-”

There's a sound then from the thing hanging above the circle, and even through the ringing in her ears the sound makes Daria think of a watermelon splitting slowly open, and suddenly the bas.e.m.e.nt air smells like s.h.i.+t and ammonia. And now she looks, following an instinct stronger than the knowledge that she doesn't want to see, some undeniable, primal twinge, and for this moment, she's only a very 348 small and frightened creature huddled in the trees while hungry reptilian giants stride past.

”My life, my calling, everything which I'd ever believed and held sacred, I let them take it all from me,” but now Archer Day and her gun seem far away, small concerns, at most, and there's no room left in Daria for anything more terrible than the burst coc.o.o.n and what's crawled out of it.

It crouches over the puddle of meat and bone inside the circle and begins to feed.

”For you, I did that, so don't you dare f.u.c.king judge me, wh.o.r.e!” and she pulls the trigger again. This time the bullet grazes Daria's left shoulder before it buries itself deep in the bas.e.m.e.nt wall.

She screams and covers her ears with both hands.

And the black thing stops eating and raises its head.

Eight eyes deeper than the sea, more secret than eternity, watch her briefly before it turns towards Archer Day. What Daria sees in its face, all it has told her without uttering a single word, is enough to wipe away the faintest hope that she might somehow survive this, that she would ever want to survive this.

”That's enough,” she whispers to herself or whatever's listening, no more room left inside her for revelation or horror or the d.a.m.ning perspective that follows either. And she crawls to the bas.e.m.e.nt wall and stops because there's nowhere left to go.

”What the f.u.c.k are you looking at?” Archer Day asks the thing crouched inside the circle. ”Isn't this exactly what you wanted? Isn't this Heaven, little girl?” and the ball bearing clutched in her left hand has begun to glow, a hot light like melting iron, light that might be red or orange, but everything's the wrong color down here. There's steam rising from her hand, but she doesn't seem to notice, all her attention focused on the black thing staring out at her from the circle.

”You're the lucky one, Theda. You're the lucky, lucky little goth girl who went looking for transcendence, and now you've found it in spades, wouldn't you say?”

349.

I won't see this, Daria thinks. I won't look, but her eyes are open wide, and she doesn't turn away, doesn't hide her face in the sanctuary of her own shadow.

Inside the circle, the black thing makes a strangled, gurgling sound, and the cat's cradle of its jaws opens wide.

Light has begun to seep from the empty coc.o.o.n or chrysalis; a liquid light like careless drops of mercury, yet no color that Daria has ever seen before, some shade a little or a lot too far beyond one side or the other of the visible spectrum. But she's seeing it now, anyway. It splashes across the high spines on the back of the black thing and trickles down its emaciated xylophone sides, though the creature doesn't seem to notice. It doesn't turn away from Archer Day, who suddenly looks more frightened than insane. She's raised her gun again and is pointing it at the thing's open mouth.

”Oh no, you little c.u.n.t. I get to go home. That's the G.o.dd.a.m.n deal, and we're playing by the rules.”

Daria silently begs herself to shut her eyes, shut them quick while there's still time not to see what's coming next, but she doesn't close them, as though she's forgotten how to work her lids.

The thing from the coc.o.o.n opens its spindle jaws wider still and sprays Archer Day with some viscous, oily fluid, a living stream like the purest, darkest night, like the aching, barren distance between stars, erupting from its throat.

Her body shudders once before she sinks slowly to her knees, and the ball bearing rolls out of her hand towards the edge of the circle drawn in the earth. And the creature turns back towards Daria, cold night dribbling from its skull. Beyond it, the ball bearing glows, a tiny sun dropped in the dust.

Archer Day slumps back against the bas.e.m.e.nt wall and lies still.

Daria manages to keep her eyes on the ball bearing, surely the lesser of three evils. The earth around it has begun to burn the same indescribable color as the stuff oozing out of the coc.o.o.n, and the fire spreads quickly.

350.

Niki wonders how long there have been slivers s.h.i.+ning through the soothing nothingness, how long there has been something to mar the exquisite absence of anything.

The singularly when-where consciousness began again, and all these intruding thoughts take longer than she expected them to; before they're done, the slivers have become radiant gashes and ugly strands and clots of existence are spilling through. If she had a needle and thread, or knew a little of the red witches' magic, perhaps she could seal them up again. Then she could float nowhere for a trillion billion years until there are no universes left that want any part of her. But she doesn't, never mind that she's the Hierophant, she doubts she could pull a rabbit out of a hat, even if she'd put it there first. She clutches in vain at the shreds of nothing coming apart all around her.

”Time to get on with it,” Danny Boudreaux whispers from one of the clots or strands, and this is not the cruel spectre of Danny that haunted her in San Francisco. This is simply Danny, the boy who might have become the girl she could have spent her life with, if she hadn't been so afraid.

”If we could lie in bed all day,” he says, ”if we could lie in bed all day listening to the people in the street. Remember that guy who used to wander up and down Ursulines shouting, 'The monkeys are coming! Repent! The monkeys are coming!'?”

And she does, as the variegated waves of being wash over her, like frothy ocean waves around her knees. But she doesn't answer him, and she doesn't know why.

”You were always the strong one, Niki,” he says, and she imagines his smile. She wants to tell him that's not true, that she isn't strong, and she's never been strong, no matter what's happened or what people have expected of her. But there are strings now, as if she's tumbled into a black room crisscrossed wall to wall and ceiling to floor with countless lengths of kite string dipped in glow-in-the-dark tempera paint or, no, not string, but fiber optic filaments in all the 351.

hues that roses grow-deep reds and pale pinks, snow and cream and vivid yellow fringed with vermeil-and if she moves, if she so much as breathes, she might sever a strand and bring it all down on her head.

”Mind you, this is only a representation,” Dr. Dalby tells her. ”A rude cartoon, if you will.”

The filaments begin trading their colors, a game of musical chairs or a Halloween masquerade for the cast of the chaotic eternal inflation, carnival bulbs flas.h.i.+ng first one delirious color and then another, and this is better than any acid or mushroom trip or schizoid hallucination, she thinks, even if it is only a representation.

Beyond the event horizon, the gashes have become gaping holes, drawing her ever nearer their rotting ivory teeth.

The flas.h.i.+ng strings part to let her pa.s.s, though she wishes that they wouldn't.

”Wait,” Spyder calls out, and Niki looks back, and her heart breaks again, and again, and again, at the beauty of the white, white woman who had once been someone she loved. The filaments are winding themselves into Spyder's gown and dreadlocks, and the red gem between her eyes devours them alive.

”You go so far with a thing, Niki, there's no turning back. Do you know what I mean?”

”I think so. But maybe there is a turning back. I just turned my head to see you, didn't I?”

”There's no direction here,” Spyder mutters, annoyed, like Niki should have known that.

”But you know what I mean, ” Niki insists. ”I know you know. What they've told me, is it true? Is that why you brought me here?”