Demons (39 page)

It was only a short drive to the Iranian border, but here they stopped. There were four guards at the checkpoint in a glass-walled booth by the gate across the highway, playing a game with odd-looking dice. Two of them grumpily got up from their game and made Melissa, Nyerza, and Araha get out of the truck and stand in the chill drizzle as they peered in the back at Marcus and Ira, who mumbled in his delirium. Once again most of the guards stared at Nyerza; but a fat lieutenant in a turban and uniform, tugging at his pointed beard, gave his attention mostly to Melissa. His eyes were so small in the heavy folds of his face she could barely see them.

“You look back boldly,” he said in English. She dropped her eyes, and he snorted. “She is American or British,” he said flatly to Araha. “You will all be arrested, if you please.”

“How could it ‘please’ us?” Araha asked mildly. “I have something around my neck to show you. Perhaps it will change your point of view . . . perhaps it will touch your heart.” He said something else in Turkic.

Melissa despaired. She knew that around his neck, on a thong, he wore a silver nine-pointed geometrical symbol with a cross superimposed over it and on either side of the cross the crescent moon and star of Islam. Just an esoteric medallion, representing his syncretistic sect. Did he really think this man would respond? Or did Araha suppose this man was a dervish, a member of his order?

Not this man,
she thought. He emanated lust and greed and self-satisfaction.

Araha drew out the medallion and a leather bag, also on the thong. He opened the bag and produced a roll of bills. She saw one of the colorful new American twenty-dollar bills—red, white, and blue with a green border.

Araha whispered something in what sounded like Turkish; perhaps,
How much do you want?

The man snorted, and laughed, and said something that must’ve meant,
All of it, of course!

Araha looked convincingly exasperated, made a few noises of protest, and nodded in reluctant agreement. As if suddenly realizing this stranger with the drooping white mustaches was an old friend, the fat lieutenant moved to embrace Araha. When he got close, he took the money with a practiced swipe of his hand, like a raccoon fishing. His girth hid the exchange from the other guards. The money vanished into his uniform. The lieutenant gestured to a corporal, who threw a switch, causing the gate to creak open.

Almost high with relief, Melissa climbed into the back of the truck to sit with Ira and Marcus. They trundled through the gate, and into Iran.

Later, when they had arrived at the little airstrip where the plane was waiting, Melissa asked Araha how much money he’d surrendered—hoping she could reimburse him somehow.

He laughed. “Not so much. Twenty on top, the rest all ones. He didn’t look closely. Most of my money is in my boot. I always keep dollars ready for this day.”

South San Francisco

The bodyguard, standing behind Stephen, breathed loudly through his mouth as if he suffered from asthma. The sound dominated the elevator as they rode up to Jonquil’s room. Winderson was scowling at the spotless floor of the elevator, his hands thrust into the pockets of his trench coat. “They call it cancer, a tumor. I call it an attack, myself. I mean—it’s cancer, but . . .”

“An attack?” Stephen asked, overwhelmed, his voice hoarse. “You mean—like a relapse? She was sick before?”

“Hm? No, she wasn’t. It was an attack like— I’ll explain later. Here’s the floor. I’m making arrangements to have a room set up for her at headquarters, like George’s private hospice, with her own doctors. But this was all very sudden, so for now . . .”

Stephen followed Winderson down a hall. How many West Wind people were tucked away in secret little hospice rooms—and why?

The room Jonquil was in, however, was the best in the hospital: large and sunny, gushing with get-well flowers and untouched baskets of fruit clasped by transparent Inimicalene. It was almost a suite, overlooking the freeway and San Francisco Bay beyond. There was an entertainment center near the foot of Jonquil’s hospital bed, the wide-screen TV turned on but muted, a sardonic daytime talk show host waving his arms wildly at an audience of clapping people with painted faces.

The bodyguard waited at the door, watching the hall, as Stephen and Winderson approached Jonquil’s bed.

She gazed out the window at an enormous cargo ship on the bay, the freighter’s decks stacked with interlocked metal bins, easing toward Oakland. “That ship,” she said, her voice weak, “it’s like a skyscraper lying on its side, floating along. . . . It’s so big. I never thought about how big those ships are before. It’s funny the things you notice when you . . . when you’re sick.” She pressed a button, raising the head of her bed so she was almost sitting up. She was wearing a satiny blue low-cut nightgown; her skin was very pale, the orbs of her cleavage like twin moons. Her blue eyes had lost some of their luster; there was a smudge around them; her lips showed the faintest blue tinge of cyanosis.

She turned a stalwart smile to Stephen and her uncle. Her long hair, looking redder than usual in this light, was spread across the luxuriant silk pillow, as if arranged by a photographer.

“Hi,” Stephen began, not sure quite what was expected of him. “You . . . well, I guess it’s stupid to say you look good, since of course you don’t feel good. This all happened so fast. Just a day or two ago . . . well, you seemed fine.”

“She was,” Winderson said bitterly, slowly pacing the length of the room. “She was fine.” He took a few steps, picking up magazines from a coffee table at the sofa, putting them down, picking up a knickknack, not really looking at it as he spoke. “Our enemies have attacked her, you see. That’s the only way something so serious could happen so suddenly to someone in such good health.”

“We don’t know that, Uncle Dale,” Jonquil said in a small voice. “The doctor said sometimes it happens this way.”

So this is it,
Stephen thought.

This is why she was crying; this is why he hadn’t heard from her. She’d gone almost immediately into the hospital.

“You keep saying ‘attacked,’ ” Stephen said. “You mean—like poisoned?”

“In a way,” Winderson muttered. Then he looked at Stephen sharply. “Psychically poisoned. I think she was psychically attacked. You see, we’re not the only ones with psychonomics. There are others who use it—competitors. Evil, sick, unscrupulous people. Oh, you’re not in any danger. People like you, with natural abilities, you’re protected. It’s like you have a psychic immune system. But Jonquil here . . .” He shook his head.

Stephen felt dizzy.
This talk of being attacked, of enemies—it has to be bullshit. It sounds like bullshit.

But what if it’s not. Then I might . . .

In a way, Jonquil completed the thought. “If it’s true . . . what Uncle Dale says—” her eyes glimmering with unshed tears as she looked at him “—you could help me. But, Uncle Dale says that you’re leaving? Quitting? I mean—it isn’t because of me, is it? Because I didn’t get back in touch after we . . .”

“No!” Stephen swallowed. He badly wanted another drink. “It’s just . . . maybe I do have the ability to . . . under certain conditions, to, uh . . . well, to do what I did. But that doesn’t mean it’s something I
want
to do. I mean, to use a corny example, if I had a talent for being a sumo wrestler, I wouldn’t necessarily want to spend my life bashing sweaty people on a mat. I might be good at this, but I don’t think I’m cut out for it.”

“Stephen,” Winderson said, looking at him with a kind of amazed disbelief, “don’t you get it? You
succeeded!
You were a great success! No one else has done so well! The man you were sent to influence did just what he was supposed to do—within minutes! Totally reversing his earlier position! It can’t be a coincidence.”

Stephen looked from Winderson to Jonquil. “You know about all this?”

She nodded slowly, looking a little puzzled. “Ye-es. Some of it. Enough. It’s like advertising—or salesmanship. But psychic. Psychic influence on economics.” She winced and pressed a button for a nurse. “I need some morphine.”

“My boy,” Winderson went on in a hushed voice, his hand on Stephen’s shoulder, “you succeeded—and that meant so much to us. We’ve been searching for someone with the gift, the ability to succeed at this, for a long, long while. The last one—well, now that you’ve succeeded at this—there’s something so much more important we need you to do. Something that will change the world, and save Jonquil’s life.”

A young male nurse with a crew cut came in. “Can I help you, miss?” he asked.

“I need a little more medication—the pain.”

“Sure, I’ll—I’ll get that. I mean, I’ll get the doctor. He can . . . do that.”

He hurried out, glancing at the bodyguard. There was something odd about the nurse. Stephen shook his head.

Then Jonquil took his hand, and the touch sent a shock of lurid electricity into him right down to his groin. “Stephen—I don’t know if I’m being attacked, but I know there’s something you can do to help me.”

“I—I’d like to. Of course. But I don’t see what I can do.”

“You can go there, to the invisible world . . . find the right place in the spiritual ecology.”

“Spiritual ecology?”

“A sort of technical term,” Winderson interrupted hastily, glancing at her. “From psychonomics.”

Jonquil licked her lips and went on. “I need your help—in that world. There’s a thing called the Black Pearl. . . .”

“The Black Pearl . . . ?”

“I know it sounds weird . . . but this thing—this object—is a kind of mirror that can show me how to get well. And to get to it you have to go there. You have the gift that’ll take you there. We haven’t got anyone else talented enough. You are our retriever.”

“But, that world, real or not—it’s all a mental place. You can’t bring an object
back
. Objects there don’t exist in the same way, from what I can tell.”

Winderson nodded. “That’s true, but this thing won’t be an object here. Not in the usual way. Nevertheless, you can make it
appear
here.”

Stephen stared out the window. There was the freighter, still coasting slowly by. It was made of metal, and it was real. There was San Francisco Bay. It was cold, and you could drown in it. It was all
real
. “I . . . don’t know if I can keep my sanity if I go there again.”

She squeezed his hand and drew him closer; her lips parting as she looked directly up into his eyes. She looked at him that way for a moment, panting almost imperceptibly. Then, heavy lidded, she said, “You’re
strong
, stronger than you know. I can feel it. I felt it from the moment we met.” She looked away, embarrassed.

“There are some things uncles aren’t meant to hear,” Winderson said. “Maybe I should . . .”

“No, it’s okay,” Jonquil said. “The doctor will be here in a second anyway. I have to rest. I don’t know how long I have, Stephen.”

Stephen remembered the journey through the telescope, through the multicolored sea. He shivered, feeling again the terror of falling toward a living maze crawling with demons like a wound with maggots.

But Jonquil was dying, and there was a way, they said, to save her. This was his chance to be a hero, like Horatio Hornblower. To sail into unknown realms and bring back the prize. He was, after all, in love with her.

Wasn’t he?

He wondered where Glyneth was. He found himself wishing he could ask her about all this.

“We need your decision now, Stephen,” Winderson said gently but firmly.

Jonquil squeezed his hand, drawing his gaze back to her. She looked at him, lips compressed in a way that betrayed her hope, though she managed not to seem like she was imploring him. “Will you help me, Stephen?”

No pressure,
he thought and almost laughed aloud. But when he looked in her eyes, he couldn’t look away. Finally he said, “I’ll do what I can.”

“We’ll need to take my chopper back to Bald Peak immediately,” Winderson said, looking at his watch.

As if to seal a pact, Jonquil pulled Stephen close and kissed him. Then she whispered, “When I’m well . . . I want you. The two of us, again . . .”

“I—I’ll be there. Just whistle.”

He straightened up, and she lay back, as if the conversation had exhausted her, and closed her eyes.

In a daze, Stephen followed Winderson out into the corridor, the bodyguard trailing behind. They went down the hall, up a series of stairways, to a helipad on the roof of the hospital. A small gold-and-black West Wind chopper was waiting, a pilot already seated in the cockpit.