Coven (42 page)

Fanfuckingtastic,
he thought as she plugged her key into the next
extromission dot and pulled him through.

Wade didn’t care to have the molecular mass
of his body turned inside out as a means of transportation.
Elevators were more to his liking, or ladders, stairs,
dumbwaiters—anything. They extromitted down several levels until
they made it to what Wade presumed was the bottom of the labyrinth.
At the end of the warren, the sign glowed like a mirage:
POINTACCESSMAIN#1.

But the main was empty. No sisters stood in
wait.

“
This can’t be right,”
Lydia murmured.

“
Stick the key in the
hole!” Wade shouted.

She did so, almost fatally. She couldn’t
believe it was going to be this easy. Nevertheless, this final
extromission left them standing dumbfounded by the wall of the
student shop.

“
You did it!” Wade
celebrated.

They ran their asses off, to the door, to
the parking lot, to the waiting Vette. The twin turbos roared. The
Vette’s plushness embraced them, and in a moment they were smoking
out of the lot, through the turn, away, away…

Wade’s mind, as he drove, fielded countless
abstractions. He thought of birds flying lazily across the heavens.
He thought of cathedral ceilings, long open pastures, endless seas.
Never again would he take the becalmed night or the beauty of the
world for granted. Indeed, the air smelled of freedom—

—
and maybe even
absolution.

—

CHAPTER 37

Jervis, as with everything
now, took the radio to have a special meaning, symbols like shadows
of his new, mysterious life. The campus station played “Head Cut,”
by the Banshees, “The Cutter,” by Echo and the Bunnymen, and
“Delicate Cutters,” by Throwing Muses. “Lots of cutters tonight,
folks,” the D.J. said. Jervis agreed.
Lots
of cutters.
He looked fondly at the wrapped
bouquet of roses.
For you, Sarah. With
love, from the Cutter.

He dressed with care—to kill, you might say.
He put on the same jeans he’d worn when they first met, the same
shoes, the same belt. He plugged his bullet holes with tissue and
put on the black shirt she’d given him their first Christmas
together. This was symbology. This was the past coming to the
future. For such an important event, he had to look just right. He
had to look perfect.

The last song on the radio was by Bauhaus:
“Exquisite Corpse.” Jervis combed his hair a final time. He slicked
it back off his brow, not with Vitalis, but with Wilhelm’s
blood.

He lit a Carlton, grabbed
the bouquet, and left. He walked cheerily out into the night.
Across the quadrangle, Sarah’s window was lit. No doubt she was
waiting for Wilhelm, and that thought made Jervis smile.
Wilhelm won’t be coming over tonight, Sarah. He’s
a little bogged down right now.
The bouquet
felt heavy, its wrapping moist. When he knocked on room 202, the
door opened at once. Sarah squealed, “Willy! You’re so late! I was
worried!”

“
You better be worried,”
Jervis said.

A gasp froze in Sarah’s chest. She stared.
She wore canary-yellow pants, canary yellow shoes, and a Ram’s
Head Tavern T shirt.

Uninvited, Jervis stepped in. He closed the
door.

“
Jervis, I…” she started.
Then her eyes narrowed. “You look…terrible.”

“
But I feel great,” he
said. “How are you, Sarah?”

She was shivering already, on the verge of
making those canary yellow pants a bit more yellow. After a
long, gauging pause, she answered, “I I’m fine.”

“
That’s good. Aren’t you
going to ask
me
how
I
am?”

This query seemed to puzzle her. She did not
blink at all. “All right Jervis. How are you?”

“
How am I!” he exploded.
“I’ll tell you how I am! I’m fuckin’
dead!”

He marched a mad circle
about her, while she didn’t move at all. His footfalls made the
entire room vibrate, probably the entire building too. Frid, the
cat, fled to the top of the refrigerator, while Sarah remained
stock still. When Jervis pulled the Webley revolver out of his
belt, a wet spot did indeed appear on the front of Sarah’s
canary yellow pants. It was a
big
spot.

“
Oh, I’m not going to shoot
you,” he apologized. He set the gun down. “I came here…to give you
this.”

He gave her the bouquet. She took it,
surprisingly, with no reluctance. “They’re lovely, Jervis. Thank
you,” she said. She was faking it, of course, because she was
scared. She sniffed the roses, paused. She looked into the
bouquet.

Then she screamed.

Jervis laughed like a Titan. The bouquet hit
the floor and spilled open. Amid the beautiful fresh cut
roses, there it lay, once grand, but now shriveled, parodic.

“
What did—!”
she hitched.
“What
did—what did—”

“
Guess,” Jervis offered,
“and I’ll even give you a hint. It ain’t a ballpark frank in
there.”

“
What did you do?”
she shrieked.

“
I cut off his dick,”
Jervis said.

She screamed very unbecomingly and without
abatement. Now she was stepping back, and Jervis was stepping
forward.

“
But that’s nothing
compared to what I’m going to do to you.”

Frid watched placidly from
its high perch. Like all cats, it seemed to care only for itself.
Sarah continued to scream, throwing things as she backtracked in a
circle.
People are always throwing things
at me,
Jervis observed.

A Brother typewriter
bounced off his head. A stereo receiver hit him in the face. Jervis
shrugged it all off, maintaining a measured smile. Life had
bestowed only weakness on him. Death, though, gave him power,
physical
and
spiritual. He was the Seer, the Knower, the
Destroyer.

“
Enough,” he said. “You’re
the last loose end of my old life. It’s time for me to tie it
up.”

He threw her to the floor
and straddled her. How should he do it? Break her neck? Crush her
throat?
No,
he
thought.
Be creative.
He must execute this last symbol with diversity, with
style.
His brain seemed
to tick as he deliberated.

She squirmed under him, her tiny fists
beating his chest.

“
Why wasn’t I good enough?”
he asked.

She gave no reply, only continued to
squirm.

“
You dumped me like
garbage. Why? Tell me.”

She raked his arm with her nails, drawing
bloodless fissures.

Was he actually starting to
choke up?
Myrmidons don’t cry,
he commanded. What was wrong with him? This was
his moment of true existential triumph. Nevertheless, his grip
slackened. A tear came to his dead eye. “How could you do that to
me?”

She tried to claw his face, punch out his
eyes.

I know.

“
You took my heart,” he
said. “Now I’m going to take yours.”

It was perfect. He would tear her heart out,
just as she had done to him. Tear it out and eat it, feast upon
it…

He pulled the Ram’s Head shirt up, cast off
the pink lace bra. Her breasts were much more beautiful than he
remembered. When he touched them, the warm contact rifled back
images of love. Soon, his hands were shaking…

Do it! Take the bitch’s heart out! Eat her
guts and puke them back up into her face! Just DO IT!

His fingers stiffened, lowering…

“
No!” she whined. “You
can’t!”

“
Why not?” he
asked.

“
Because you love
me!”

He expected any reply but this. It silenced
his thoughts like wind blowing out candles. Beneath him, her
squirmings ceased; her heat flowed up into his dead groin. What
could urge her to say such a thing? Suddenly her voice was quiet,
soft as silk.

“
You still love me,” she
whispered.

Jervis jittered now. It was
truth—the real truth—that summoned these words to her lips. At
once, he was as helpless as he’d ever been. There was one thing
that wielded even more power than him. She was right. He
still
loved
her.

“
Goddamn it,” he muttered.
He hauled her up, put her car keys in her hand, and shoved her out
the door. “Get in your car and drive!” he yelled. “Drive far away,
because at midnight, I’ll be gone, and everyone on this campus will
be dead!”

Sarah didn’t question this inexplicable
revelation. She scampered away, into the elevator, and down.

Jervis watched from the window. He saw her
frantic form jump into her car and drive away.

A marshmallow even in
death,
he thought.
Some myrmidon I turned out to be. Yeah, some killing
machine.
“But, goddamn,” he griped aloud,
“I’ve got to kill
something.”

He realized the sacrifice even before he
turned. From atop the refrigerator, Frid hissed at him, showing
little feline teeth. Jervis’ smile almost cracked his head. He
raised the Webley to Frid’s whiskered cat face and squeezed off one
round. The report blew the wicked animal clear across the kitchen,
where it splattered grandly against the wall.

««—»»

“
Where are we
going?”

“
I don’t know,” Wade said.
“What time is it?”

Wade paid the attendant at DeHenzel’s
Texaco, grateful for the full serve option. He wasn’t up to
pumping it himself, not so soon after nearly receiving
non-anesthetic brain surgery. Small favors were rare these days.
But Lydia had made a pertinent inquiry. Where would they go
now?

“
That note you left me,”
Lydia recalled. “Didn’t you mention something about a
bomb?”

The bomb!
he thought. He floored it out of the station,
burning rubber. “Jervis has a bomb, and it’s supposed to go off at
one minute after midnight.”

“
What do they want to blow
up?”

“
I don’t know,” Wade said,
but he did know one thing…

He pulled onto the Route and pushed the gas
to the floor.

“
What are you doing?” Lydia
complained, her hair a flurry.

“
Just be quiet.”

“
Don’t tell me to be
quiet!”

“
All right, then. Shut
up.”

The speedometer rose from 60 to 120 rather
quickly. Then 130, 140. “Where are we going?” Lydia screamed over
the wind drag.

“
As far away as possible,”
Wade said. “Who knows how powerful that bomb is? When it goes, I
want to be as far away from the campus as possible.”

“
You’re chickening out? We
have to do something! Call the state bomb disposal unit, call
the National Guard—”

“
Right, and tell them what?
That aliens are here?”

Wade shut out her complaints. In twenty
minutes he covered about fifty miles of Route 13, which was easy
when he owned a twin turbo 455. Then he pulled over onto the
shoulder and stopped.

Lydia was wearing her pissed off look
again.

“
Get out of the car,” Wade
said.

“
What the—”

“
Just get out of the car.
There’s something I’ve gotta do.”

“
What?”

“
Find the bomb, disarm it.
Jervis is the only one who knows where it is, so I’m going to track
him down.”

Lydia laughed. “If you go anywhere near him,
he’ll drag your dumb ass straight back to the labyrinth.”

“
No, he won’t. I’ll be
crafty.”

“
Crafty! He’s a homicidal
walking corpse!”

“
Would you please just get
out of the car,” Wade implored.

“
No,” Lydia
said.

“
Get out of the car!” he
yelled.

“
Make me.”

Wade punched her in the face. It was a hard
thing to do, but he had no choice. The blow knocked her silly. He
dragged her half conscious from the Vette and set her down on the
shoulder.

“
I’m sorry,
Lydia.”

“
Fucker,” she
mumbled.

“
Just head north. There’s
nothing you can do. Even if you hitchhiked back to Exham, no one
would believe you.”

Wade got back in the Vette. He pulled a
perfect smoke raising 180 in the road. Lydia was up to her
hands and knees, but that was about it.

“
One more thing,” Wade
called to her.

“
What!”

“
I love you.”

Lydia’s eye was already growing a shiner.
She smirked in perfect female rage, “You better love me, you
asshole!”

Wade laughed.
What a woman,
he thought.
He floored the accelerator, burning rubber and heading
south.

—

CHAPTER 38

Time to go home,
Jervis thought. He drank Kirins and smoked,
steering the Dodge Colt downtown. His last night on this world was
a spacious and beautiful one. What would nights look like on other
worlds?

—
JERVIS.