In This Skin (34 page)

    Close up, he could see the mouth consisted of concentric circles of lips, one within the other, growing smaller in size until they reached the center. And at the center was a dark hole, an airway or passageway for food, he wasn't sure which. All the time the lips moved with the same undulating motion of sea anemone stalks underwater. A slow rhythm that, repulsive though the sight was, possessed an uncanny hypnotic power. The lips flushed deep red before the color drained to deathly gray; a moment later they would flush a fiery red again, before once more draining of color.

    The time it took for man and monster to regard each other could barely have been five seconds. In that time the creature didn't make an attempt to move its body. Benedict was locked in the same position. Any time now Noel would walk into the lobby, size up the situation, then step forward to fire at point-blank range. And BANG-they'd possess physical, incontrovertible evidence for whatever government agency took this case.

    In the distance he heard footsteps. That would be Noel crossing the stage. He was coming. Benedict pictured the gun in the man's hand. The weapon was as black as the crows that swarmed on the roof, waiting for an occupant of the Luxor to die tonight.

    His eyes focused on the face again with that monster mouth pulsating from red to gray. Its eyes locked on his. They had that same cold alien quality of a fish. Even so, they acquired a subtly altered expression, as if whatever brain worked within its skull shaped new thought patterns. Even the mouth twitched, missing a beat. The lips curled inward before blossoming outward. Those flaps of skin went from flaccid to tense as tiny muscles under the flesh shaped them. Then Benedict understood: The creature is going to do something. Benedict managed a single step back as the creature struck.

    The arms that weren't arms released their grip on the bloody rag. With sinuous ease they lashed upward with the speed of a striking rattlesnake. Benedict didn't even have time to shout before the glistening tentacles gripped him, one coiling around the back of his neck, the other lassoing his waist. Then with a speed that caused the pole to jerk from his hands and for the walls of the booth to blur, the creature yanked him toward it. There was no question of resistance. The powerful octopus-like limbs drew Benedict face-to-face with the creature. Such was its muscular power that it held him suspended there just a dozen inches from its face with that eruption of red flesh.

    Revelation, precognition, clairvoyance, prescience… whatever it was, Benedict sensed a truth surface inside his head. A terrible forceful truth that he resisted. For a whole ten seconds the monster held him suspended there in the air by its two limbs that glistened with mucus.

    The chill from its flesh seeped through his clothes to touch his own body. He locked eyes with those two glass-bright eyes. He felt its cold breath on his lips. And all the time he struggled not with it, but with the realization that surged up inside his own mind.

    Footsteps sounded on the dance floor. Noel coming, gun ready in his hand. The man was a shooter now. He would shoot again.

    Benedict found his eyes drawn to the mouth as muscles worked that delicate array of lip within lip, within lip, with its puckered ridges and deep, moist gullies… a fabulous mouthscape of eldritch complexity. Mouthscape… he wanted to focus on that word to the exclusion of all others as with a growing dread he anticipated the words that would soon rise up into his mind.

    The creature spoke, and all hope of suppressing the truth from himself was gone. Because the monster possessed a voice that he'd heard thousands of times before, a voice so familiar it made his heart surge.

    It said: ”Benedict… help me.”

    

    

    ”Sorry, old buddy Nothing doing.”

    Benedict saw Noel grimace with frustration at the ”Nothing doing”as he walked across the foyer. ”Nothing at all? No blood?”

    Benedict shook his head. ”I guess it gave us the slip after all.”

    ”Damn. We needed the body of the creature. We could have brought the cops down here to figure this out.”

    Benedict was careful to stand with his back to the ticket booth door, which he'd closed after him the moment the creature had set him back down again with those uncannily powerful limbs. Benedict. Help me. Its plea ran like hot wire through his veins. Now it was all he could do to keep his voice under control and his expression one of pretended disappointment at not capturing their prey ”We could make another sweep of the building?”Noel suggested.

    ”We'd be wasting our time. It's returned to its own world. That's the only explanation.”

    ”I guess.”Noel cast a longing glance at the doors to the dance floor.

    The hunter's spirit was in him now. And, dear God, did the man want to hunt! His hand appeared to pulsate as he repeatedly tightened his grip on the pistol. He itched to squeeze the trigger, blazing red-hot bullets from the muzzle.

    ”We'd best let Ellery know we're back,”Benedict suggested, while praying that Noel wouldn't think to look inside the booth just feet from him.

    ”Yeah, you're right. Although I doubt if I'll unwind enough to sleep tonight.”He walked by the ticket booth.

    Keep looking forward, keep looking forward. Benedict held his breath. If Noel should glance to his right… No, don't even think it. The man craved to fire the handgun again.

    Noel went to the door, tapped on a window slat at the top. Almost immediately it opened. Ellery must have been waiting for their return; he stood there, a scared expression on his face. Seeing it was friend, not foe, he sighed with relief. Benedict kept himself between Noel and the booth in the hope his own body would obscure the view at least enough for Noel not to notice that glass-sided office might offer a hiding place. In seconds, however, they were through the door and climbing the stairs to the apartment. Behind them Ellery closed the door, locked it, bolted it. Checked, rechecked it was secure before following them.

    Dear God in heaven. Benedict broke a sweat. That was close. How could he have explained to the trigger-happy Noel that he, Benedict West, not only knew the identity of the mouth creature, but he had loved it, too?

    Of course, ten years ago its bodily shape had been different, And Benedict had known it-no, her-as Mariah Lee.

    

    

    At this time of night the ghostly blend of darkness and starlight transformed the parking lot. Vast. Flat. A blue-black expanse that appeared more liquid than solid. A lake of asphalt that might contain unknown creatures prowling beneath the surface. Standing as if it were a rocky island was the building known to Logan as the Luxor, an old dance hall where his mother used to jive her teens away. Logan's stepfather had rowed about the mess Logan had once made when he spilled milk on a new rug. Accidentally on purpose, right? Logan hated his stepfather. And Stepdad yelled on demand just like he always did. ”Krista, look what the little bastard did. Jesus Christ, look at the mess. He's spilled… uh, the bastard… wait until I get my hands on him!”

    Logan had been hiding in the crawl space under the house but he heard every word Stepdad raged from his big mouth.

    ”I'll kill the little pig.”

    His mother drawled, sleepy from her trip to the bar. ”He didn't mean no harm. He's just a kid.”

    ”Just a kid? Yeah, and I know where you got yourself fucked up with the little bastard.”

    ”Ooh, Dwaa-ayne…”

    ”You got yourself fucked up in the parking lot at the freaking Luxor; that's where you conceived pig boy!”

    Now, years later, Logan sat here in his Chevy in the parking lot where his blood daddy's sperm had gone gushing to his momma's waiting egg that would become Logan. Full circle. Logan grinned. Just like coming home, huh? ”What's funny?”Joe asked from the passenger seat.

    ”I'm making my own entertainment, that's what.”Logan rolled the window down, tossed out the cigarette stub. ”Pass me another beer”

    ”We going to sit out here all night?”

    ”If it takes.”

    ”Logan, it's one o'clock in the morning. My butt aches.”

    ”What ya want me to do about it?”

    ”Nuthin'.”

    ”Well, keep your butt to yourself, man.”Logan took a mouthful of beer.

    ”Are you sure the Ellery kid's in that dump?”

    ”He'll be there.”Logan patted the submachine gun that nestled in his lap like a puppy dog. ”When he steps out of that place he'll never know what hit him.”

    There was silence for a while. Both drank beer as they gazed through the windshield. At last Joe grunted.

    ”What you make of all them?”

    ”All them what?”

    ”Can't you see 'em?”Joe pointed vaguely with the beer bottle. ”All those birds on the roof.”He squinted through the gloom. ”Crows. There's fucking hundreds of them.”

    

    

    I'm too wired to sleep. That was the gist of what Noel had told Benedict before they returned to the apartment together. By two in the morning Noel said he was going to return the gun to his bedside table. A moment later Robyn had gone through into the bedroom to check on him when he didn't return. She walked back into the living room and whispered that Noel had lain down on the bed and fallen into a deep sleep. That explosion of rage and, not to put too fine a point on it, bloodlust had exhausted him. She'd also taken the opportunity to change into jeans and T-shirt.

    Now, there's just we three, Benedict mused. That alters the dynamic of our little group. Ellery's less edgy without Noel's presence. The stammer drops away a little; he speaks with more confidence. Still way waaay short of chatty, but he articulates more. Robyn always tends to glance at Noel when she's talking to others. She and Noel had only just upgraded their relationship to live-together partners. For now, she tends to reassure herself that Noel approves of her point of view. And it's clear to any outsider that they're both deeply in love with each other.

    ”More coffee?”she asked.

    Ellery shook his head. ”N-no, thank you.”

    ”I'm fine,”Benedict told her.

    Robyn sighed. ”I just wish we could have found the Mouth Man.”Her shoulders gave a little hop. ”It's a silly name, but we can't keep calling it It, can we?”

    ”I'm not fine,”Benedict said, his voice tight with emotion. He saw Robyn react with puzzlement, but she reached for the cup as if he'd accepted her offer of more coffee. ”I'm not fine,”he repeated. ”And we don't have to call the thing we saw 'It.'”

    Robyn looked stunned. ”You mean you know what it is?”

    ”Yes… no. I don't know… I'm sorry, I'm expressing myself terribly… incompetently… shoot.”He glanced at the two people. Their eyes were trusting; they cared about him.

    ”Benedict?”There was sympathy in Robyn's voice as she coaxed him to say more.

    Here goes, he thought. ”Robyn. Ellery I have a confession. I did find the creature that Noel shot.”

    ”Where is it?”

    ”Downstairs in the ticket booth. But I'm afraid she might be dead by now.”

    Ellery blinked. ”She?”

    Benedict took two goes to swallow the lump in this throat. ”Not it. Not he… yeah, she-”

    He saw Robyn and Ellery look at each other. Flashes of understanding seemed to leap from one to the other, then back again. Instead of being near strangers, they appeared as close as brother and sister.

    Robyn stood up. ”I'll wake Noel.”

    ”No, please don't… Noel's a good man, but he's desperate for hard evidence to show the police. I think he'd use that gun of his before we could persuade him otherwise.”

    ”Is… is sh-she badly hurt?”Ellery looked troubled.

    ”Yes. Noel knew where to place the shot to do the most damage. When I saw her, she was dying.”

    Robyn asked, ”Benedict, who is she?”

    ”The girl I've spent the last ten years searching for. Mariah Lee.”

    ”Ellery bring the flashlights.”

    Ellery nodded, but Benedict held his hands up. ”Whoa, what are you doing?”

    Robyn sounded in gear. ”If that is Mariah down there we're not going to sit here while she bleeds to death. We're going to help her.”

    ”Please don't wake Noel. The mood he was in-”

    ”Don't worry It'll just be the three of us.”

    ”You're not going to tell him?”

    ”Only when the time's right. Best bring candles, too. We'll need as much light as we can get. Right, I'm going to my room. I've got bandages there.”

    Benedict thought: There. I've done it. I've told them. He picked up a carton of candles. I only hope I've done the right thing.

    

    

    She's gone. The words blossomed with dark despair inside Benedict as he looked through the doorway into the ticket booth. There was blood pooling on the carpet, more bloody smears on the paneling. Shadows danced from the light of the candle he held.

    ”She's gone.”This time he spoke the words aloud.

    Robyn stepped forward, shining the flashlight into the glass-walled cubicle. ”No… Benedict, see? She's hiding under the desk.”

    Benedict stooped to look. There she was, Mariah Lee. Earlier, the only thing he'd recognized had been her voice. Even though the words were spoken by that fulgent mass of overlapping lips, the voice had been instantly recognizable. Now her breathing was shallow, the skin grayer than ever. The bulging glass-ball eyes had dulled. Still she clutched the bloody rag to the wound in her chest.

    ”Mariah.”Benedict spoke gently ”Mariah. This is Robyn and Ellery. They are friends of mine. They won't hurt you. They're here to help.”