Bleak caught her in his arms to keep her from falling. “I wonder if she's faking that,” Giant said. “Shut up, Giant,” Oliver said.
“They're okay,” Pigeon Lady said. “We can trust them. Bleak is telling the truth. And with Shoella gone...we need someone who can call the shots.”
“I guess so,” said the albino. “Let's vote. But I think it should be him. He's the one that took down the CCA.”
“What the hell,” Giant said boomingly. “I'll vote for that. Until Shoella returns...let it be Gabriel Bleak.”
***
THE NEXT MORNING. SUNNY and bright, not yet hot. Bleak and Loraine were walking along a street in
Harlem, with Bleak's dog, Muddy, running ahead of them. Loraine wore jeans, and a sleeveless, red T-shirt, red high-top sneakers.
Bleak wore a long, untucked white shirt, jeans, boots, with a vintage rock T-shirt under it: HAWKWIND. And over one shoulder he had slung a backpack.
It was a run-down street, its gutters cluttered with trash; buildings were boarded up on the left. But at brownstones farther down, people sat companionably on the steps. The closed-down school was still shuttered, across the street. Turfies milled on the sidewalk near the school fence, talking; people in hoodies, glancing suspiciously at Bleak and Loraine.
Pigeons fluttered suddenly, in front of them, and Loraine visibly shuddered. “Oh, God, I'm not quite over that. You made it sound like nothing. But...”
Bleak chuckled. He wanted to put a reassuring arm around her. He wasn't sure if it would be welcome. She seemed scared of their special status, together—and Sean's death hung between them, not quite resolved.
“Why'd you want to come back here?” Loraine asked. “Where you killed that speed dealer.”
“Thought he might still be here. He doesn't seem to be. I wanted to have a shot at telling him to move on. I don't feel right when I...” Bleak shrugged. “Never felt good about killing people. I was pretty good at it once—but never learned to
like
it. Even knowing there's life after death. 'Cause
you're ending something you don't have a real right to end. Zweig's death—that was his doing. But still...1 had a nightmare about that one, early this morning.”
She thought about it, then nodded. “What's in the backpack?”
“Ah. About that.” He put his hand in his left pants pocket and closed his fingers around the talisman—this one altered a bit from the design that Shoella had used. “I spent yesterday doing some research. Refining Shoella's technique. Talking to the Talking Light...1 can talk to it better now. Now we've made more contact. And it told me.”
She looked at him. “Told you what?”
“That you'd better take my hand now.”
She frowned—but she shrugged and took his right hand. They walked a few steps more. He called to the dog and it ran back to him, snuffling. “Stay real close, Muddy. Real close.”
The dog seemed to understand, following along pressed against Bleak's left leg as they walked a
few steps more...
And the street transformed around them.
Up ahead, the Harlem street glimmered and shifted, warped, and was gone—replaced by a country landscape. There were trees that hadn't been there before. A stand of pines. And just this side of the pines a curving line of green rushes marked out a stream running by a cottage, half broken-down, overgrown on one side with wild roses...a grassy field beyond it...a hawk circling in the immaculate blue sky...
Loraine gasped. “What...where's Harlem?”
“Look behind you.”
They both turned—Harlem was back there, visible through a circle of watery light. A cab was pulling up, a skinny, pockmarked, overly made-up white woman getting out beside a broken fire hydrant. Gang tags decorated the streetlight posts. A skinny cat ran up the chipped steps of a brownstone. A plane traversed the thin, smoggy clouds just above the skyline.
“It's still there,” Bleak said. “You have only to turn around, walk back. Get that cab before it leaves. You don't have to go with me.”
She looked at him, squinting a little against the sun—the other sun. “And the backpack?”
“Stuff we might need. If we stay in that cottage. It's a pocket world—an idealized world outside of time, a paradise I created between the planes—a living world, all to itself. This one is based on some land near my parents' ranch in Oregon. I used to stay in that little cottage overnight. It needs fixing up. The fishing's good. I've got a sleeping bag.”
“Just one?”
“Just one. If you want to come with me.”
“We couldn'tjust stay there. We have things we have to do in...in this world.”
“Yes. But time passes differently there. We could spend a long time alone together. Finding out what it means, when people are meant for one another.”
“What! You've never even kissed me, you son of a bitch!” She laughed.
Bleak grinned, dropped the backpack, and kissed her. The dog barked, someone on the street hooted at them.
She broke the clinch and stepped back. “Let's not waste any more time here.” Bleak picked up his backpack. She took his hand.
And the three of them, Bleak, Loraine, and Muddy, turned...and vanished from the Harlem sidewalk.
About the Author
John Shirley is the author of many novels, including
Demons, Crawlers, In Darkness Waiting, City Come A-Walkin
', and
Eclipse,
as well as collections of stories, which include
Really, Really, Really, Really, Weird Stories
and the Bram Stoker Award-winning collection
Black Butterflies.
His newest novels are
John Constantine: Hellblazer—War Lord; John Constantine: Hellblazer—Subterranean;
and, for Cemetery Dance books,
The Other End.
Also a television and movie scripter, Shirley was coscreenwriter of
The Crow.
Most recently he has adapted Edgar Allan Poe's “Ligeia” for the screen. His authorized fan-created Web site is
www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley
and his official blog is
www.JohnShirley.net
.
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