Walkers (33 page)

Kasyx formed the octagon in the air,
using his penultimate reserves of power. The octagon hung in the air like an
eidetic image, and then raised itself over their heads, and encircled them. As
it touched the ground, the desert vanished, the sky vanished, and they were
back in the dreamer’s bedroom. The dreamer himself had tossed and turned so
that he was sleeping on his left side now, his mouth open, his eyelids
flickering in the last vivid dreams of the night. Outside his window, the sky
was beginning to grow pale.

‘Let’s go, before he wakes up,’ said
Tebulot.

‘No,’ Kasyx replied. ‘First of all,
we’re going to find out who he is.’

‘But he’s going to wake up in a
minute. Supposing he finds us here?’

‘Then we can vanish,’ said Kasyx,
impatiently. He walked across to the dreamer’s closet, opened it up, and began
to rummage through his clothes.

‘Nothing here, no name-tags,’ he
said, closing the closet doors, and moving across to the bureau. He opened one
drawer after another, lifting up socks, shorts, and tee-shirts. On the bed, the
dreamer began to snuffle and snore, and tug at his pillow.

‘Hurry up, Kasyx, for God’s sake,’
Tebulot urged him.

‘I don’t see you helping,’ Kasyx
retorted. He opened the topmost drawer of the bureau and found what he wanted.
‘Eureka! Here we are, wallet, ID card, Social Security card, credit cards,
everything.’

He lifted one of the ID cards out of
the wallet and peered at it. Tebulot could see his lips moving as he read out
the words on it. Then, very slowly, he tucked it back into its plastic holder,
folded up the wallet, and returned it to the drawer. When he looked across at
Tebulot, his face was very serious.

‘Who is he?’ asked Tebulot.

‘His name’s Lemuel F Shapiro, and
that card identifies him as a senior medical examiner for the San Diego County
coroner’s office.’

‘What?’ Tebulot whispered. ‘I
thought that Springer said he was a businessman, a bankrupt...’

‘That’s what Springer said, sure.
But Springer was spinning us a yarn, wasn’t he?

And it makes me wonder just how many
other yarns he’s been spinning us. You see what he did, don’t you? He guided us
into the dream of one of the few people who were likely to have nightmares
about that embryo-devil they dug up from the beach today. He knew that we were
bound to come up against it sooner or later, and he didn’t give a damn what
happened to us. He didn’t warn us; he didn’t give us enough power to fight
back.’

Lemuel F Shapiro opened one eye, and
lay on his bed listening, like a man who can’t be quite sure if he can hear
voices. Kasyx immediately beckoned to Tebulot to clasp his hand. Together the
two of them rose slowly through the wall, their molecular structure disassembling
to let them through, and then sailed almost invisibly over the dawn streets of
Del Mar. The sky was the colour of iced tea. The ocean splashed listlessly
against the shore, its surface wrinkled like the skin of a very old woman.

Kasyx and Tebulot descended,
scarcely stirring the morning air as they vanished through the tiled roof of
Springer’s house on Camino del Mar, through the ceiling of the upstairs room,
and materialised side by side, their arms upraised.

There was no sign of Springer. They
looked all through the house, vanishing through ceilings and walls and doors,
and reappearing in every room. The house was quite empty. A thin film of
undisturbed dust lay everywhere, as if to give them proof that nobody human had
passed that way.

‘We’d better get back to our beds,’
said Kasyx. ‘But – as soon as you can – I want you to go up to Susan’s place,
and check out what’s happening to her body. If there’s any problem at all, call
me. They may think she’s gone into some kind of coma, if she doesn’t wake up. I
just don’t want them to think that she’s dead, and try to cremate her or
something stupid. You heard what Springer said – she won’t be in any danger
unless they destroy her physical body.’

‘Can we believe anything that
Springer said?’ asked Tebulot, taking off his helmet and wearily running his
hand through his hair.

‘I don’t know,’ said Kasyx. ‘But I
sure want to ask him some questions. Now, you won’t forget to call me about
Susan, will you? In fact – call me anyway.’

Tebulot raised one hand until it was
level with his eyes, the back of it facing towards Kasyx. Although Kasyx had
never seen such a gesture before, he knew what it was.

The farewell salute of the Night
Warriors; the salute that is always given as day breaks and the adventures of
the night come to an end. It means, may you be taken safely through the hours
of the sun, to preserve you and keep you for the hours of the moon.

Kasyx made the same gesture, and
then the two Night Warriors rose and faded through the roof of the house,
wheeling over it for a moment, and then each returning to his own bed. Kasyx
sank into his physical body with both relief and regret, just as his
alarm-clock began to bleep. He reached out with an unexpectedly heavy and
clumsy hand, and switched it off.

H
enry sat up in bed, licking his lips
because they were dry. The sun fell in zig-zag patterns across the rumpled
comforter, and on to the framed print
of
Fragrance of
Love
by Christine
Nasser. He washed his face all over with his hands, surprised at how thick and
coarse his skin felt, as if it were a latex mask of himself that he was wearing
over his real face.

He went to the bathroom and stared
at himself in the mirror. He was still the same Henry from yesterday evening,
the same man who had sat staring at a bottle of vodka and defying himself not
to pick it up and turn the screw cap and give himself all the courage and
confidence that lay distilled within it. But during the night, he had found a
different courage and a different confidence. During the night he had
penetrated the nightmares of Lemuel F Shapiro, and fought against the worst
that his imagination could offer. During the night he had faced the Devil.

He showered, soaping himself slowly
and evenly. Then, wrapped in a towel, he walked through to the kitchen to make
himself some coffee. Just as he was spooning it into the filter paper, the door
buzzer went, like a disconcerted wasp. He went to the door and called out, ‘Who
is it?’

‘Lieutenant Ortega. Do you mind if I
come in?’

Henry drew back the security chain
and unlocked the door. Lieutenant Ortega looked more summery today, in a pale
blue seersucker coat and a dark blue pair of permanent-press pants. He wore
mirror-lensed sunglasses, and a folded handkerchief in his breast pocket, both
of which were tell-tale signs of his age.

‘I was passing close by, on my way
to headquarters. I thought I would drop by to see how you were.’

‘Oh, yes?’ asked Henry, a little
suspiciously. He let Salvador pass by him, into the living-room, and closed the
front door. ‘You’ll have to excuse the way I’m dressed.’

Salvador’s eyes darted around the
room, as if he were checking for clues that would tell him how Henry had spent
yesterday evening. Henry said, ‘I’m making some coffee. Do you want to join
me?’

‘Sure, that would be nice.’

Henry went back to his bedroom, and
dressed quickly in a short-sleeved shirt and banana-yellow slacks. He came back
into the living-room, combing his hair. ‘Did the coroner get the chance to look
at that creature you dug out of the beach yesterday?’ he asked.

‘They’re starting on tests this
morning, so I understand.’’

‘Do they have any idea what it is?’

Salvador lifted his head slightly.
‘Why did you ask it like that?’

‘Why did I ask it like what?’

‘You asked me, do they have any idea
what it is, as though you yourself
knew.’

Henry pulled a face. ‘Did I? I
didn’t mean to.’

‘There was an intonation in your
voice,’ Salvador persisted.

Henry paused by the kitchen door. He
said nothing. But Salvador sat where he could watch him as he made the coffee,
his legs crossed, and Henry could tell by the expression on his face that he
was still expecting an answer.

Henry brought the coffee in, and sat
down opposite the detective.

‘Whatever it was, it looked as if it
grew out of one of those eels,’ Henry said, trying to sound conversational.

Salvador nodded. ‘John Belli is
quite convinced of that, too. The eel had obviously secreted itself in the
sand, down where it was damp, and then sloughed its skin. Of course, John
Belli’s only problem is to find out what kind of a creature goes through such a
life-cycle. He is beginning to wonder if the eels found their way into the body
of the girl not as predators, attacking her flesh from the outside, but from
inside, as growing elvers. Children, as it were, who had an insatiable appetite
for their mother.’

Henry said, ‘That’s impossible. A
woman can’t be impregnated with eels.’

‘Nevertheless, there are indications
on the girl’s remains that she was devoured from the inside of her abdomen
outwards, rather than the other way round. The pattern of the teeth-marks, for
instance, and – if your stomach can bear it at this time of the morning – the
amount of waste material which the eels excreted
within
the abdominal cavity rather than outside it.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ asked
Henry.

Salvador looked at him steadily. ‘I
am telling you this because your interest in what has happened here has been
unusual. I keep asking myself, why does Professor Watkins wish to come down to
the beach and inspect the evidence for himself? What does Professor Watkins
know about these creatures that he is declining to share with his friendly
neighbourhood detective?’

‘I used to be married to an
oceanologist, that’s all,’ said Henry. ‘I guess I have a taste for the aquatic.’

Salvador put down his coffee cup. ‘I
am not a fool, Henry. I want to know why you and those two young friends of
yours are showing such a keen interest in following this investigation.’

Henry tugged at the wet hair at the
back of his neck. ‘This creature... what are you going to do with it once
you’ve finished examining it?’

‘As I told you, it will be taken to
the Scripps laboratories for full biological tests.’

‘Are you going to kill it?’

Salvador’s eyes flickered. ‘How do
you know that it is still alive?’

‘I just assumed. You didn’t tell me
that it was dead.’

‘You would like to see it dead,
though?’

Henry said nothing. Salvador leaned
forward, and repeated, ‘You would like to see it dead. On the beach, you begged
me to destroy it. Destroy it, destroy it, that’ s what you said. It’s the spawn
of the Devil. Now, don’t you think you owe me some kind of an explanation for
that? The spawn of the Devil?’

Henry said, ‘I was... rather the
worse for wear. You know, more vodka martinis than was good for me. I was just
– well, letting my imagination run away with me.’

Salvador very slowly shook his head
from side to side. Henry noticed how neatly clipped his fingernails were. ‘I
don’t think you were drunk, Henry,’ said Salvador. ‘And I certainly don’t think
that Ms Sczaniecka was drunk. Yet she said the same thing.

Destroy it. It’s the spawn of the
Devil. Now, what did you both mean by that?’

‘ Well, spawn of the Devil, that’ s
a figure of speech. Just like calling somebody an s. o. b. I guess we both felt
that what that creature had done to that poor dead girl on the beach – well,
you know. I guess we both felt disgusted. We wanted to see it destroyed, the
same way that anybody would want to see a mad dog destroyed, if it killed a
child.’

Salvador leaned back on the sofa and
laced his hands behind his head.’ Really, Henry, this is very weak. You are the
kind of man who always says what he means.

If you say spawn of the Devil, you
mean spawn of the Devil. What I want from you now is some kind of a clear explanation
of what that means. You said it loud. You
shouted
it.
Why won’t you talk about it now?’

‘If I told you, Salvador, you
wouldn’t believe me.’

‘You can always try me.’

Henry stood up, and went across to
the window. He drew back the curtains and stood staring at the ocean. It was
glittering again now; it had lost the ageing wrinkles that it had revealed at
dawn.

Henry said, ‘There’s a legend about
the Devil. It goes back hundreds of years.

Apparently, if the Devil wants to
reproduce , it appears to young women in the night and impregnates them. The
Devil’s sperm grow like eels. They eat the mother, and then they escape into
the outside world, where they find themselves a burrow or a hidey-hole, and
grow. ‘And you believe that what we have discovered on the beach is a Devil...
a growing Devil?’

Henry didn’t answer, but kept on
staring at the sea.

‘Who told you this legend?’ asked
Salvador.