The Bone Triangle (29 page)

McKesson didn’t even look back. He reached the rim of the crater and clambered over, disappearing. Cursing, I followed him as fast as I could. I was tired after two days of wandering in the desert, but I found renewed energy now in the form of adrenaline.

“Don’t you open a rip and leave me out here, Jay!” I shouted.

There was no answer. I reached the top of the crater, and there it was, a shimmering, spherical rip. I charged toward it, cursing McKesson. He was very fast on his feet when death was near.

Behind me, I heard a slapping, slurping sound. Back home on Earth, where the land was cold and wet, the lava-creatures moved like sloths. Out here in their native habitat, conditions were very different. A lava-creature that was no faster than a slug in a rainstorm became as fast as a charging bull gator.

I glanced back and yelped uncontrollably. The monster had topped the rim. It was a big one, all right. At least as big as my couch back home. It dribbled red, superheated silicon from its flanks like a swimmer shedding water. The head was slug-like, with pods on extended stalks. I almost
tripped, but managed to keep to my feet. The rip was only ten yards away.

Then I heard something. It took half a second to register what it was. I’d heard a voice, which had said, “Where are you going, Quentin?”

My step faltered, and I stopped running. I turned around and put my hands on my knees, panting. “Ezzie? You scared the crap out of me.”

“Don’t go,” she said. “I’m lonely.”

I knew that McKesson’s rip wouldn’t last much longer, but I figured I had at least a few minutes to talk to Ezzie.

“Is this where you’ve been?” I asked her. “You’ve been hiding out here in lava pools all this time?”

“Of course. This is my home.”

I nodded. “Yeah, okay. That makes sense. Everyone wants to go home.”

“That’s the problem.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I have two homes now. I want them both, but I can’t have both. Now I’m sad everywhere.”

“Oh,” I said thoughtfully. Ezzie was a strange creature. She seemed to have emotions, but they were simple and direct. There was very little guile in this creature. In some ways, I admired her.

“Rostok does miss you,” I told her. “I’m not sure if that makes you feel better or not. But he sent me to look for you and—”

“Rostok
is
the problem,” Ezzie said suddenly. “Yes, I see what I must do. Thank you, Quentin.”

“For what?”

“For solving my problem.”

“I don’t see how I—”

“I must have both. I must have my swimming pools, and I must have my Rostok. You’ve made it all clear to me.”

As I puzzled over Ezzie’s thread of logic, she slithered forward to a spot where a flat slab of obsidian rested. There, she stretched out her stalks and began to undulate her body. In this pose, she looked more weird and disturbing than usual. I thought perhaps she was going to vomit, or give birth.

She performed this ritual for a full minute, ignoring me when I called to her. Every few seconds, I glanced over at the rip McKesson had made. It led back to Earth, I was certain of that. I wasn’t sure what sort of greeting I’d get if I followed him, but at least I would be home.

At last, Ezzie’s actions culminated in a gush of otherworldly light. It looked as if the air itself had lit on fire. I was dumbfounded and wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself: she’d formed her own rip. This one wasn’t evenly shaped; it had ragged edges. It looked like a hole torn through a movie screen. Inside it, I could see the churning movement of the chaos that existed between the worlds.

“Ezzie, where are you going?”

“I must go to a cooler place,” she said, and slithered forward into her rip.

I stared after her for a moment, uncertain. I looked back at McKesson’s rip, which was already fading. I had to make a decision, and I had to do it fast.

In the end, I followed McKesson’s path. I felt I didn’t really have much choice. I couldn’t take the chance and follow Ezzie. I didn’t think she’d harm me intentionally, but I was very sure she could do it by accident. She might have led me into a land full of poisonous vapors—which smelled like sweet lilac to her.

I stepped into McKesson’s rip and stood there, trying to figure out where I was. I peered at the wavering shapes around me. It didn’t look like a highway. Something moved in front of me and came closer. I could feel the rip fading and knew I had to step through or be caught inside when it closed.

A hand clasped mine. I gripped it and stepped through. I found myself standing on a rocky hillside at night. McKesson had pulled me out of the dying rip.

“How long do you think I can keep a coin spinning?” he asked. “You know what happens when it closes on you? Same thing that happens to a man in a great white’s jaws.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking over my shoulder. The rip was a dying orange wisp. “I talked to Ezzie.”

“She was the big slug in the pond? I wasn’t sure.”

I looked downslope. The lights of a town glimmered below us. In the open desert, the air can be very clear at night. I could see TVs in windows, even though the houses had to be a mile distant.

“Is that Indian Springs?”

“Yeah, come on. We’ll get a ride back to Vegas.”

“You said you weren’t sure it was Ezzie. That means you suspected it
might
be. Therefore, you knew she was out in the lava world somewhere.”

McKesson shrugged. He put out his hand toward me, palm up. “I need my gun back, please.”

I hesitated. Right now, as far as I knew, I held all the weapons. “You’ll get it back when we make it to Vegas.”

He sighed. “You never make anything easy.”

“Neither do you.”

He chuckled.

“Are you going to answer me or not?” I noticed McKesson had been pretty forthcoming with information back in Mercury, but now he was quiet again.

“Okay,” he said at last. “I knew Ezzie was there. I travel through that world a lot. I met up with her.”

“Why are you running around in the lava world?”

“Think about it. If you are good at estimating distances, all you have to do is spin the coin, step out, run a few hundred yards, then come back. I can get into the movies for free, anytime I want to.”

“Or into a bank vault.”

“Tricky. The space is too small to gauge it that closely.”

“How does Ezzie switch worlds then?” I asked. “I’ve seen her do it twice now. Who taught her the trick?”

“She must have an object. An artifact she stole from Rostok.”

I thought about that. It made sense. As far as I knew, no one could travel between worlds just using some kind of innate power. With the possible exception of the Beast, everyone needed a device or artifact to do it.

When we reached Indian Springs, McKesson had a cab waiting. He’d called for it on his cell at some point. I watched him hand over two hundred-dollar bills to the cabbie in advance.

“They’ll be a third if you get me to the Strip before three.”

“You guys have a dating girl, eh?” asked the cabby. He grinned, and his teeth were as broken up as his English.

“Yeah, that’s right,” McKesson said.

We rode back to town talking about our plans against the Beast.

“Is it going to be just the two of us doing this?” I asked.

“Just like old times. I asked Gilling, but his sense of adventure seems to have faded recently.”

I told McKesson about Gilling’s experience as a captive of the desert cats. He smiled and nodded. I wasn’t sure if he’d already heard the story or not.

When we reached the Strip and the cabbie dropped us off, McKesson led the way. He turned immediately toward the west.

“Heading for the Triangle?” I asked.

“Yeah, we don’t have much darkness left.”

“What did you do to cover up the building it attacked?”

“We burned it down. Wasn’t that hard, really, it was already on fire. The firemen showed up and squirted water—but they missed the flames.”

We walked several blocks. Once we entered the Triangle proper, I knew where I was. The city was virtually empty. Only a few lights gleamed in high windows. I wondered if there were holdouts, refusing to accept the fate of their neighborhood and the inability of the authorities to take care of it. There were always a few diehards when disaster struck, people determined to ride it out.

“I would have expected a panic by now,” I said, “and a lot of news stories.”

“People are good at ignoring what they don’t want to think about. But there was a camera crew out here earlier. The brass wanted me to shut them down, but I just gave them directions into the middle of the Triangle instead.”

I glanced at him, and he grinned back.

“You wouldn’t really do that,” I said.

“Nah. I’m joking!”

I shook my head uncertainly. McKesson had a strange sense of humor. “It sounds like you’ve been lucky so far. Someone will get a video online of this thing soon, and the story will be out.”

“That’s why we’re here,” he said, and stopped walking.

I paused and looked around. We’d reached a corner that was just as empty of traffic as the rest. I craned my neck, and then I saw it. The opposite corner of the intersection was blackened with soot. The concrete walls had been heavily damaged, as if wrecking balls had taken out random sections of it. This was clearly the burned-out building he’d been talking about.

“You think it will come back here for more?” I asked.

“Not exactly. But we have help tonight, and we’re supposed to meet him here.”

He walked over to a manhole and knelt beside it. The circular cover was an old steel type with a checkered top. I followed him and watched warily. I had an idea who he meant for us to meet.

He lifted his hand toward me, palm up. His fingers made a grasping motion. “We’re in town now, hand it over.”

I reluctantly took out his gun and laid it in his hand. It was loaded, and giving it to him was hard to do. I still didn’t trust him. But I didn’t think he’d brought me all the way out here just to blow me away. McKesson was more direct than that.

He took the gun and tapped the steel barrel on the manhole cover. He tapped out a pattern of ringing blows, then scraped it over the surface three times. He repeated the process several times.

“Morse code?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, but kept tapping and scraping. After a minute or two, he swore and leaned back. “Should have come by now or signaled back. I hope he didn’t get himself into trouble.”

McKesson did it one more time, but in the middle of it stopped the signal. The manhole cover had changed. Instead of a rusty metal surface, it became an inky black pool of nothing. Out of this nothingness arose a familiar figure. A moment later, Gutter Jim stood in the middle of the street.

“What took you so long?” McKesson complained.

“You guys are way off target. It’s in the city now—it’s in one of the casinos.”

“The Lucky Seven?” I asked.

“Good guess. Come with me.”

Gutter Jim slid from sight down into the manhole again. McKesson hurried after him. It was a strange sight to see; it was as if they were climbing down a ladder into a pond of black oil. When it was my turn, I made a face, then forced myself to put my foot down into that murk. I felt something solid, but it was moving downward and felt like an escalator taking my foot out from under me. I tried to recoil but found my foot was stuck and being sucked down. I went with it, heart pounding. It was either that, or I was going to have my leg pulled off and my body folded into the shape of that manhole. The force was irresistible, once the process had begun.

I entered Gutter Jim’s domain. To my credit, I managed to do it without panicking.

The underworld was cold and full of echoes. The walls were dark wet concrete and the ceiling was ribbed by pipes that dripped thick drops of water into my hair. Sometimes, the pipes hung low, and I found I had to duck in places as I hurried after the other two men.

Gutter Jim and McKesson were almost out of sight around the next bend. I splashed after them, trotting. I wanted to shout, “Wait up!” but resisted. Call it a matter of pride.

I caught up with them several twists and turns later. They stood over a shaft that went down at an angle. Gutter Jim was giving McKesson urgent instructions.