Coven (37 page)

“
Jervis left me,” Tom’s
head answered, “to pass on a message.”

Wade sat down on the
bed.
I’m having a conversation with a
severed head,
he realized. How much further
could this go? “Why did you and Jervis go over to the
Supremate?”

Tom mistakenly tried to
shrug. “We didn’t have much of a choice, we were chosen. Besides,
the Supremate offers immortality for service.” Tom’s head paused.
“I guess that part’s out for me now. What’s he gonna do, make
my
head
immortal?”
Tom chuckled. “You’re not cooperating, Wade. The Supremate’s got a
deal for you.”

“
Tell the Supremate he can
kiss my ass,” Wade said.

Tom’s eyes flicked to the fridge. “Pop me
open a Spaten, will you? It’s not like I can get it myself.”

“
I don’t pour beer for
heads,” Wade told him.

Sudden anger tinted Tom’s expression. “I’m
trying real hard to keep my cool. I lost my job because of you, ya
know.”

Wade sulked. “Yeah, I guess you’re pretty
pissed.”

“
If
your
best friend wrecked
your
car and got
your
head cut off,
wouldn’t
you
be
pissed?”

“
It was an accident, Tom.
I’m sorry.”

“
If you’re sorry, make it
up to me. Join the Supremate.”

“
Join this,” Wade replied,
indicating his crotch.

Tom’s chuckle came off as a blend of
amusement and sullenness. “I already told you, Jervis left me here
to pass on a message—”

“
I don’t want to hear it,”
Wade said. “I don’t give
a
fuck.”

“
The message is this: We
have Lydia.”

Silent turmoil landed on Wade like a dropped
net.

“
Jerv snatched her at the
student shop. We’ve got her locked up at the labyrinth. Look, Wade,
we don’t give a shit about her; she’s useless to us, and we’re not
going to be around long enough for her to hurt us if we let her go.
So that’s the deal. Join the Supremate, and we let her go. No
bullshit.”

Wade’s thoughts echoed like drips in a
cavern—

—
and Tom’s head went on,
“But if you refuse, the girl is shit out of luck. They’ll turn her
into ground round, nice and slow, and they’ll let the holotypes
have her first. You gonna sit back and let a bunch of aliens fuck
your girlfriend? Don’t you love her, Wade? What are you gonna
do?”

“
What I’m going to do,”
Wade answered, “is put
you
into the trash compactor.
That’s
what I’m going to
do.”

“
Super, Wade. Avoid the
issue. Chicken out.”

“
Shut up,” Wade said. “I’m
no chicken.”

“
Buk, buk, buk. You’re
gonna let the girl you love die slow because you don’t have the
balls to accept change.”

“
Piss off.”

“
I’m leveling with you,
Wade. Not as a vassal, as a friend.”

“
Hey,” Wade said. “Tom
McGuire was my friend. But you’re not him anymore. You’re just an
evil…head.”

“
Thanks a lot,
pal.”

But Tom—or Tom’s head—was
right about one thing. Wade was putting off the inevitable choice.
He could take the coward’s way out, or the man’s way.
Do I really love her that much?

“
It’s decision time,” Tom
announced. “In a second that phone’s going to ring. It’ll be
Besser, and he’ll want an answer.”

“
Besser doesn’t even know
I’m here,” Wade scoffed.

“
Sure he does” —Tom’s dead
lips drew up in pride— “I just told him through my
transceptionrod.”

Wade didn’t even bother frowning when the
phone rang. He simply picked it up and held it to his ear.

“
Wade, my boy. I’m glad you
got our little message.”

“
Clever,” Wade said. “Next
time leave a note on my refrigerator with a fruit
magnet.”

“
Time is short. Do we have
a deal?”

“
Yes,” Wade
said.

“
A wise decision. Your
lovely paramour goes free, and you get to live forever…with
us.”

“
How are we going to do
this?”

“
Meet me at my office,”
Besser instructed. “In twenty minutes. We’ll be waiting. And, Wade,
no tricks, please. Or else—”

Wade hung up.
I’m neck deep in it now,
he thought. “Why me?” he asked of Tom’s head. “Why does the
Supremate want me?”

“
Because you’re the
healthiest able bodied male on campus. We couldn’t take
just
anyone,
not
for something this important. That’s why Besser had me swipe the
medical records from the clinic. He wanted to check the medical
histories of as many students as possible within the time frame,
and that’s what he and Winnie did. They selected the healthiest
candidates of the bunch. The Supremate needs five girls and one
guy. You’re the lucky guy.”

Wade got another beer. He sat glumly on the
bed and drank.

“
Don’t look so bummed,” Tom
offered. “You get to live forever, man. We’re talking
eternal fucking life
.”

“
Thanks for the input.”
Wade checked his watch.
Twenty minutes to
eternity. Shit.

“
Destiny is calling, Wade.
It’s time for you to go.”

“
It’s time for you to go
too,” Wade said. “Into the trash compactor.”

Tom sighed a commendable resignation. “I
understand.”

Wade honestly found it difficult to hold
Tom’s head over the open Kenmore compactor. If only in part, this
gray smiling severed head was still his friend.

“
Good luck, dude,” Tom’s
head bid.

“‘
Bye, Tom.”

“
Wait, wait! Before I go,
here’s an old one.”

Wade rolled his eyes. “I’m about to drop you
into a trash compactor and you want to tell jokes?”

“
Just one more, for old
times’ sake.”

“
All right.”

“
What did Lincoln say after
his five day drunk?”

“
What?” Wade
groaned.

“‘
I freed
WHO?’”

Wade dropped the head in the compactor and
hit the power button. Tom’s laughter could be heard over the
machine’s descending hum. The motor whined. Tom’s skull folded up,
crunching. Then the motor cut off.

What did you do today, son? he could almost
hear his father asking. Well, Dad, I got chased by a dead man, I
found Dean Saltenstall’s body in a closet, I watched three police
officers get killed, I drove a Buick LeSabre over several dozen
women, and last but not least, I put Tom McGuire’s head into a
trash compactor. Pretty interesting day, don’t you think?

But not nearly interesting enough, not yet.
He stuck Lydia’s .357 in his pants and rechecked his watch.

Indeed, destiny was calling. It was time to
go.

—

CHAPTER 32

Tom’s black pendant, which Lydia had found
on the Route, lay in the console. Wade didn’t know what it was, so
he left it, and he left the thing that looked like a portable
tensor lamp, not knowing what that was either. There was very
little he did know just then, except that his life was either about
to end or take a dramatic change. He drove the Vette in stoic
grace.

His mind seemed to float,
vacant as space, as he entered the sciences center and went up the
steps.
We’ll be waiting,
Besser had told him, yet no one waited in the dim,
lamplit office. Preparations had been made, though: Blackout
curtains hung over the windows. The only sunlight came in through
the open door behind him.

Then: “Close the door, please, Wade.”

Wade closed the door. When he turned,
Professor Besser stood by the wall, fat as ever and all smiles.

“
Our central extromitter is
here, a marvelous invention. You wouldn’t believe the time they
save.”

Wade saw the black dot on
the wall, like the one at the shop.
Not a
dot,
he reminded himself.
A hole.

“
Say hello to my birds of
prey.”

A suboctave hum filled Wade’s head. The
black dot ran down the wall, like a bead of ink, forming a line to
the floor…

…
and through that line, one
by one, four sisters emerged. The line was a doorway, he realized,
to the place he’d seen through the hole in the shop wall. A doorway
to the labyrinth.

The sisters had
squeezed
through the
line, like cutouts pushed through a slit. Yet an instant later they
stood in the flesh, black cloaked, hooded. Fresh white faces
grinned at him, eight lenses of four pairs of sunglasses reflecting
the tiny dot that was Wade’s face.

The four sisters stood identically, grinning
identical grins.

“
We’re taking you home now,
Wade,” Besser informed him.

“
You’re not taking shit
till you let Lydia go. That’s the deal.”

“
Yes, but one that I’m not
prepared to honor. The sisters would catch you before you reached
the door.”

Wade drew the .357 from behind his back. He
pointed it at the biggest sister.

Besser laughed. “You already know that’s
futile.”

Wade fired one bullet. The sister batted it
down with her palm.

“
So you see, you can’t
shoot them, Wade.”

Wade turned the gun on Besser. “But I can
shoot your fat ass.”

“
If you like.”

“
I like,” Wade said, and
fired another.

The sister beside Besser plucked the
900 feet per second slug out of the air, like
catching a thrown pea. She looked at it curiously, then ate it.

“
You can’t hurt them and
they won’t let you hurt me.”

But Wade had one more trick. “You need me,
right? For some reason, I’m important to you?”

“
Yes, very,” Besser
said.

The sisters advanced,
reaching out with white hands. But then Besser, in a flash of
panic, shouted,
“Stop!”

Wade now held the gun to his head, hammer
cocked. “Get Lydia out here, or I blow my own head off.”

Besser jittered, dread in his face. “Wade,
please. You can’t—”

“
Sure I can. I don’t give a
shit.” It felt good to be the one with the power for a change: “I
got a hunch that this Supremate dude wouldn’t be too happy if you
brought me in dead.”

“
No,” Besser croaked. “He
wouldn’t.’

“
Then bring Lydia out here
right now, or you get to watch my brains take a one way flight
across the room.”

Besser backed the women off. Their eager
heads listed. “Be calm, Wade,” Besser said. Again, the black dot
ran down the wall.

Lydia unfolded from the line.

“
Wade! You came to rescue
me! I don’t believe it!”

“
Neither do I,” he said.
“And don’t bother asking me why I’ve got a gun to my head. Are you
all right?”

“
Yes, but—”

“
Then get out of
here.”

“
But—”

“
Just shut up and get out!”
he shouted. There could be no dramatic goodbyes, no final
professions of love, none of that corny shit. “The Vette’s outside.
Fill it with gas and don’t stop driving till you get to
Alaska.”

“
But what about
you?”

Wade’s mouth twisted. “I have to go with
them.” He didn’t want to see her anymore; that just made it worse.
“It’s the only way, so just…leave.”

This would be her goodbye: silent
acknowledgment. She looked at him, blinked, then walked out of the
office.

“
There,” Besser said. “So
what’s it going to be?”

Wade knew what he meant. There was still one
ultimate decision to be made. He heard the Vette start up outside
and drive away.

Somehow, Wade smiled. “I could screw you
bad, couldn’t I?”

“
Yes, but what a waste,”
Besser said with emphasis. “Why not come and see what we have to
offer?”

The sisters’ faces seemed radiant. They
looked like angels.

Wade dropped the gun.

Besser opened the extromitter with his
pendant. Two sisters took Wade by the hand and led him into the
wall, into infinity.

««—»»

“
Are you okay?” asked the
7 Eleven cashier.

Lydia realized how she must look. Uniform in
tatters, hair in her face, no gun in her holster. She’d look a lot
worse, though, if the holotype in the next hold had had its way
with her. Wade had sacrificed himself, for her.

She bought cigarettes and a six pack of
Coke. She sat in the Vette, thinking. During her stay in the
labyrinth, she’d overheard enough to know what was going on. She
knew what they were, yes, and what they were doing.

She also knew that they were leaving at
midnight tonight, and they were taking Wade with them.

The UV spotter was still in the Vette, and
thank God so was the black pendant she’d found where Wade had
wrecked Tom’s car. Winnifred had called it a key, and the
extromitters—the dots—were the doors they unlocked.