Ghostlands

THIRTY-FIVE

“Last stop on the way,” Goldie said to Cal. “Man, you sure kept me hopping.”

Despite her ire at Goldman, Colleen found herself smiling broadly.

“Hey, Mr. Bluesman.” She clapped Enid on the shoulder. “How’s life down on the Preserve?”

“Plenty quiet, compared to where I hear we gonna be goin’.”

Colleen had last seen the remarkable young blues player at Magritte’s funeral pyre in Chicago, just after the ordeal of their battle with Primal; in act, Enid had been the whole reason for that battle.

Colleen and her companions had first met Enid along the banks of a peaceful river valley as they’d traveled out of West Virginia, had discovered that the siren call of his music could both draw people to him and protect them from the Source (while the flare Magritte in turn protected him)-until such time as Enid could lead them to a portal that opened onto the Neverland of Mary McCrae’s Preserve.

Cal had hoped to employ Enid’s talent to shield his group as they journeyed to the heart of the Source; had hoped it might give them a chance to save Tina and perhaps change the world back to the way it had been.

But they soon learned there was a terrible cost to Enid’s gift. Due to the terms of a demonically transformed contract Primal held the rights to, whenever Enid utilized his music to good purpose, it also twisted and distorted other souls, rendered them into tortured beings of smoke and flame, and sharded the landscape into bizarre crystalline shapes.

So with the assistance of Enid’s former manager-turned-grunter Howard Russo, they had plunged into Primal’s black fortress, had ultimately destroyed that insane dark being (whom they only later learned was once Clayton Devine, security chief of the Source Project). They had brought Primal’s tower crashing down, liberating the countless flares Devine held captive there and removing Enid’s curse in the process…but at the cost of Magritte’s life.

Enid had taken it upon himself to conduct the surviving flares to the Preserve, to safeguard those who were not beyond aid, to honor what Magritte had sacrificed her life for.

But now he was back, his engine fine-tuned and humming.

Enid looked considerably healthier than the last time Colleen had seen him. His skin was darkly vibrant, no longer the sickly gray that marked how his Pied Piper gift had drained him prior to their extricating his contract from Primal. She noted, too, that he’d brought along his guitar and harmonica-the weapons he used, along with that remarkable velvet-gravel voice of his, to shield those near and dear to him from the loving attentions of the Source Consciousness.

Which damn well better include our little scouting party very shortly, or it’s gonna be a mighty short trip….

Howard Russo bulled up to her, and she saw he was outfitted in a screamingly loud yellow checked suit and matching fedora that had been tailored to fit his dwarfish frame. He grinned from beneath mirrored Ray-Bans. “Not bad, huh? I’d say I got my look pretty well nailed.”

“You put Goldman to shame, Howie.” Colleen didn’t add, And if someone ran you down, it wouldn’t be by accident.

“Here’s the rest of the boodle.” Goldie handed Cal a battered leather portfolio, tied with a string. “Better be worth it, my head’s spinning from all the time zones.”

Cal opened the portfolio and studied its contents. It didn’t look like much of anything, as far as Colleen could see. Some scribbled notes in Goldman’s chicken scratch, a handful of dog-eared snapshots.

“What’s all that?” she asked Cal.

“Maybe nothing,” he murmured, sliding the papers back into the portfolio and stashing it inside his jacket.

Rafe Dahlquist looked up from his position by a bank of computer screens, where he was monitoring the power. “We’re optimal. Just give me the high sign when you’re ready.”

Cal nodded. A low hum of electricity, of turbines whirring along with increasing power, vibrated through the room and through all of them, like the steady pulse of a giant.

Cal glanced at his watch, then at the big steel front door. Colleen could detect his impatience, the pregame tension in him, which they all felt one way or another. But she knew that he wouldn’t set things rolling until he had this one last piece in place.

He didn’t have long to wait, as a moment later the door swung open and Doc entered, rolling in a dolly with a big cardboard box strapped to it. He set it upright and released the strap, easing the box to the floor. Crouching, he opened the flaps.

Everyone gathered around, acutely curious, because even though Doc had prepped them on exactly what he was doing, hearing about it was one thing and seeing quite another.

“You will have to excuse the workmanship,” Doc said by way of apology. “My needlework is usually confined to stitching up incisions.”

He withdrew the bulky pieces, and a number of the onlookers gasped. Their surface was blackly iridescent, roughly pebbled and ridged, bespeaking power, even put to this new purpose.

Colleen found the padded shapes oddly familiar, and in a rush it came to her. “Don’t tell me, you raided the athletic department.”

Doc nodded. “I utilized shoulder pads and other protective pieces for the framework. As for the rest…”

He didn’t need to finish; they all knew.

The thick leather garments were from the skin of a dragon-the dragon that Cal had killed, Arcott had brought here at their request, and Doc had autopsied-fashioned now into body armor and visored helmets.

“Sadly enough, there was only sufficient, um”-Doc searched for a delicately appropriate euphemism-“raw material to provide three full ensembles.” He glanced inquiringly at Cal, who drew near the box.

Cal lifted out a helmet, tunic and pants. “Mr. Shango?”

Shango approached and took them, eased his big frame into them.

“Goldie?” Cal said, proffering the next set.

“Thanks, but I’m uncomfortable enough in my own skin.”

Cal nodded acceptance, then glanced inquiringly at Enid Blindman, who sat cross-legged on the floor nearby, tuning up his jumbo maple guitar, limbering up his harmonica.

“’Preciate the offer,” Enid piped up, and Colleen was struck again by how even his speaking voice was musical. “But I need to keep loose, so’s I can spin my own kinda shell.”

“Right,” Cal agreed. Colleen knew as well as Cal that Enid’s ability to weave a musical cloak about them, to shield them from being detected by whatever dwelt at the Source, might be their most vital armor of all.

Cal turned to Colleen, raising the garments.

“Uh-uh, no way,” she said, backing. “Only two more sets, I know which of my favorite bookends are gonna be in them.”

Cal moved to speak, but Doc cut him off, took Colleen aside.

“Don’t give me that kindly Russian doctor act, Viktor. I mean it.”

Ignoring this, he said, “We both know that you are by far the better fighter, Colleen, and in any skirmish you will be on the front lines, no matter what any might command to the contrary.” He stepped close, peering at her with those gray eyes that had seen so much anguish and retained such compassion. “It would ease my mind greatly.”

Dammit, trust him not to fight fair…. She felt her resolve melt like an Eskimo Pie shot into the sun.

Scowling with extremely bad grace, she stalked back to Cal. “Gimme that,” she said, snatching up the grotesque rig.

She slid her arms into the loose-fitting tunic-which smelled thickly of musk and other loathsome things that made her want to lose last year’s lunch-and pulled it on. Christ, she felt lost in this thing; it made her feel like a little girl wearing Daddy’s clothes. She pushed the thought away, subdued her rising gorge. Seeing that the sides had leather laces (she didn’t even want to think about what part they came from), she tightened the garment until it fit better and allowed a proper range of motion.

She saw that Doc was holding the remaining suit of armor toward Cal. “No arguments, Calvin. We both know what is required here.”

“Gandhi only wore a loincloth,” Cal said.

“Yes, and look what happened to him.”

Cal sighed and took the armor.

“Spacibo,” Doc said.

Cal gave Dahlquist the thumbs-up.

As soon as Rafe Dahlquist keyed in the initiating sequence, the gemstones encrusting the Spirit Radio took on a numinous glow, a largeness and purity of light like the clarified essences of color produced by a prism. And like a wall dissolving to reveal an unknown territory beyond, the blue crystal faded from sight, replaced by a glowing fog…a fog that stayed bound within the parameters of Mama Diamond’s gems.

It no longer looked anything like a blue crystal, Mama Diamond mused as she stared into the hypnotic, swirling mists writhing voluptuously within the flashing circle of gems. If she had to describe it (and she was grateful she would never be called upon to do so), she supposed the closest she could come would be to say it looked like every light on the Vegas Strip as seen through her milky bad eye (her formerly bad eye, she corrected herself; since the tete-a-tete with Stern at her shop, she was seeing just fine through it, thank you very much), if someone at the same time were slowly flipping her ass-over-teakettle so everything in her field of vision did a languorous three-sixty.

“The field’s holding steady, we’ve got it contained,” Rafe Dahlquist reported to Cal. “But I wouldn’t trust it longer than twenty minutes, not at this point.”

“Okay, so the meter’s running.” In his rough-hewn black armor and helmet, Cal Griffin looked incongruously like some slightly undersized biker from hell or mountain man who skinned and tanned his own duds-certainly not like the modest young man who’d been surreptitiously practicing his sword moves on top of the dorm building so no one might see him being so lethally beautiful in his movements.

Cal nodded toward Colleen Brooks and Doc Lysenko, Herman Goldman, Shango, Howard Russo and Enid Blindman. Howie had a ruby-glittered, Tech Nine automatic stuck in his belt, while the others sported gem-encrusted rifles slung over their backs, plus their usual weapon of choice-machetes, sledgehammers, crossbows and the like. In addition, Enid was outfitted with his big guitar and the Hohner Meisterklasse harmonica he favored. Larry Shango carried the heavy-duty bag Mama Diamond had seen him load up with the homemade explosives he and Krystee Cott had been cooking up in the chemistry lab.

But of course, there was no telling whether old-style explosives would work on the other side, Mama Diamond knew; that they did so here was certainly no guarantee.

And if there was one thing Ely Stern’s unheralded arrival in Burnt Stick had taught her-and nothing along the way had dissuaded her since-it was that the best course of action was to expect the unexpected, and rely on nothing.

The seven of them approached the roiling portal, its van Gogh palette of lights playing over them, making them look as though they were adorned in living war paint.

“Now, you remember, Enid,” Howard Russo said, dogging the bluesman as he sauntered toward the rainbow font, “anything grabs you by the short and curlies, you cut and run. No heroics. You don’t want to live on in your music-you want to live on in your body.”

“’Spect you to do the same it comes to that, Howie,” Enid responded.

“You can take that to the bank,” Russo muttered.

Colleen Brooks made a preemptive move to step through the portal, but Cal restrained her.

“You threw me a party, this one’s mine. I test the water, then you can dive in.”

“Cal-”

“No, Colleen.”

She ran an exasperated hand through her short, spiky hair. “How do we know it’s a transporter device, and you’re not walking right into the disintegration chamber? I mean, I think I can confidently say we all saw that Star Trek episode.”

“Uno momento,” Goldie said. He moved closer to the misty wall of light, turned an ear toward it. “I can hear voices on the other side. Plus I’m getting a murky picture…nothing clear, just a feeling of elbow room. There’s considerable real estate over there.”

“Well, that certainly reassures me,” Colleen grumbled. But she relented, stepping aside to let Cal take point.

Concentrating, Mama Diamond felt she too could hear the sounds on the other side, dimly. The noise was an impasto of voices too thick to be comprehensible, but each layered syllable was somehow distinct, embodied, solid. Mama Diamond imagined that if she closed her eyes she would see a legion of ghosts crowding around her. Which was why she kept her eyes firmly open.

Cal turned to Dahlquist. “If something starts to go south, if it heads toward meltdown, kill it, shut it down. Don’t worry about us.” Mama Diamond read the uncertainty in Dahlquist’s eyes, but he nodded his agreement.

Cal addressed Krystee Cott, whom he had delegated to command those left standing guard. “Keep everything cool, no one in or out.” He shot a glance at Jeff Arcott, glowering but silent against the wall. Arcott deliberately ignored him.

As for Theo Siegel and Melissa Wade, Mama Diamond saw each was staring into the portal as though hearing a music being sung only to them-and perhaps, she realized, that was the case.

Cal turned back toward the portal, was about to step through. It’s now or never, Mama Diamond thought urgently. Three quick strides brought her up to him.

“Forget something, Mr. Griffin?” she asked pointedly. She might also have said someone, given the promise he’d made her on the roof of the dormitory building. Up close now, she could see that blue sprites of static electricity danced in his hair.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Cal said, not unkindly. “But we’re going to have to take a rain check on that.”

“Well, that’s all right, dear,” she replied demurely. “I suppose you’d know best about that.”

Mama Diamond caught Larry Shango’s eye. Did she detect amusement there, or just imagine it? More like he had been there before, and knew her better than that now.

She stepped back. Cal Griffin gave her a shy smile-ah, there was that boy on the roof again-and walked into nothingness.

In an instant, Colleen Brooks, Herman Goldman and Doc Lysenko followed him, then Larry Shango and Enid Blindman and Howard Russo were gone into the mist.

The hum of the massive generators rose up, and Mama Diamond became aware of a sharp metallic smell in the air. It brought to mind the electric Fender guitar Arnie Sproule used to play from time to time; his old tube amp smelled like that when he turned it on after lengthy disuse. Only this was about a thousand times more intense.

Mama Diamond’s heart was pounding like the hammer on her rusty old alarm clock, like John Henry’s sledge right toward the end before he dropped; she could hear it in her ears, feel it in the veins in her temples.

It was talking to her, had been talking to her since she had first seen Mr. Shango standing over her on that train platform in Burnt Stick, since she’d encountered Griffin and his friends as she had crouched beside that fear projector in the night-kissed outskirts of Atherton.

Staring into the shifting curtain of light, ringed by her own glowing treasure, Mama Diamond knew with surety those young ones would need her, desperately and soon.

Better to ask pardon than permission, Mama Diamond thought, and leapt through the portal of the Spirit Radio.