Hang Wire (36 page)

Nezha, the Last Magician, Chinese trickster god, had been murdered by the circus ringmaster under Joel’s control, the power of his death causing the Thing Beneath to stir. But Nezha wasn’t dead, not really. Killing a god was difficult to do. He was still alive, in part,
inside
Ted. Like Tangun was inside Benny. But how much of Nezha was left was a mystery.

Bob called out. “Nezha! We’re at the source. We can stop this, here, now!”

Ted – Highwire – stared out into nothing. Did he hear? Was he even listening? Had Nezha’s power finally burned out Ted’s body, leaving nothing but a shell, as empty as Alison’s collapsed golem?

Joel laughed. The ground shook again, and this time it didn’t stop.

It was starting.

It
was waking up.

The golems closed around Bob. He crouched down, hands over his head, unwilling to fight. The golems weren’t alive. They were just made of earth and ash and fire, animated by the life force of The Thing Beneath. Destroying them wasn’t the problem; there would be no death to feed off. But Bob had already stretched his powers much farther than he had ever wanted to. That’d he’d been able to control himself so far meant nothing; he knew that with every flex, every push at the world, he took a step closer to becoming the monster he knew he really was. He had to get out, get away, remove himself from temptation.

Bob turned on the ground, ready to take to the sky, to fly away, out of reach, away from it all. But even as he summoned the power to leave the ground the golems piled on top of him, pushing him back against the earth. He got a final glimpse of the platform, of Joel laughing.

Of Highwire wrenching his bonds apart, of Highwire jumping forward, onto the platform. Then Bob was surrounded by darkness and the stench of hot earth and ash.

Highwire hits Joel, pulling him off the platform. The pair falls, hits the ground. Highwire sees the gold coin Joel holds go flying into the air. It shines with a light all of its own, like a falling star, like a comet.

Joel turns on the ground. He snarls, his white eye glowing red, the earth bucking, crumbling beneath him. Cracks appear in the dirt, and they open and close, open and close, like a fish gasping on land. His hands grab at Highwire, pulling him closer. Highwire gasps, and Joel pulls himself up until his face is in Highwire’s.

“Give it to me! Give me my freedom!”

Highwire pulls free, pushes Joel off. He feels the power surge within him and he feels the presence at his shoulder – Nezha – working with him. He somersaults backward, out of reach. But the ground buckles, and he loses his footing as he lands. He crashes to his knees, to his hands, and when he goes to stand, he finds he can’t move.

He looks down. The ground is holding him. It moves, like there’s something under the surface, the ground undulating rhythmically. Highwire thinks of octopi, of squid, of monsters with many tentacles, many heads.

He looks up and sees Joel running toward him. He tries to get out of the way, but he can’t move. The ground holds him and pulls him down. He is sinking, being dragged under.

Joel grabs Highwire by the collar of the brown jacket he is wearing. He pulls against the ground, but the earth bucks and Joel falls to his knees, still holding the jacket.

“Give me my freedom!”

Highwire shoves with his upper body, and Joel falls backward. He hits the ground on his back and does not rise, although he tries. Highwire watches as the earth moves around Joel, the cracks opening, the dirt eating his hands, eating his legs. He pulls and struggles and cries out, but he is held fast, flat on his back, as the earth drags him down.

Nezha says
NOW!
in his ear and Highwire yells out and tears himself from the ground, sending a shower of earth skyward. He rolls forward and grabs Joel’s arms. He pulls, trying to free him from the ground. The ground fights back, pulling even harder. There is pain in his legs, feet. Highwire looks down, and sees the earth is trying to swallow him too.

Joel screams. He is almost under. Highwire pulls, afraid he will break Joel in two. Then a shaft of earth – an arm, blackened, as hard as stone – shoots out of the ground. The hand grabs Highwire’s neck, as strong as steel cable, and squeezes.

And then Highwire sees…

…
Emerald robes and Chinese logographs and a man with a long beard and fireworks shooting from the tips of his fingers as he stands in the warehouse and laughs, and laughs…

Bob’s black prison squeezed in, the space becoming smaller and smaller, the golems pushing together, fusing into one form, a dome of black stone and hot earth.

The earth rumbled, cracks opening beneath him. The golems wouldn’t crush him; they were merely holding him in place so the Thing Beneath could come up and consume him.

Bob was a god. Gods had power. And if the Thing Beneath could get just a fraction of that, then it would awaken fully in an instant. The Cold Dark would wrestle with the unleashed monster, but it was strong, and it would win. Together they would consume the world. Build and spread. Build and spread.

Bob had no choice. He had to use his power, flex his muscles, become Kanaloa once more. He knew he wouldn’t be able to resist the power. When he had been a god, millennia before, he had been content to rule over his island and over the seas. He was worshipped, and while he had the power to swallow the world, there were other gods walking the Earth, many more powerful than he. This had kept him in check, because to go out into the world would mean meeting the other gods, his brothers and sisters. They would have stopped him.

So he had been content to rule over his domain.

But now there was nobody else. The gods had gone, abandoned the Earth, abandoned humanity. He’d stayed behind, disavowing his powers and nature to live among the people he had once ruled. Some had come back, now and again – like Nezha had – but they didn’t care, not anymore.

And now he was alone, and he was Kanaloa, and he would rule the world. And all he had to do was–

There was a knock on the black rock above him, like someone had struck it with a hammer. Bob looked up, and saw light. There was a hole in the canopy, jagged and fresh, the lights of the carnival shining through.

And there was light from the ground. Bob looked down and saw a large gold coin sitting on the earth. The ground smoked around it, flames flickered around its edge. The coin seemed to be glowing – not red, not like it was hot, but
white
, like it was reflecting the light of the sun on a brilliant summer’s day.

Joel’s coin. The totem of the thing that had controlled him for so long.

Bob had his answer.

The rock canopy shrank further and the ground roiled.

He reached forward, picked up the coin in his fingers, and he saw:

…
Darkness and light in equal measure, the black of space, the blaze of a billion stars. He was blind, swimming in nothing, swimming in space and…

Bob smashed through the stone canopy on a column of roaring water. It bounced under his feet, carrying him into the air. The salt water sprayed against his bare skin, soaked his jeans, saturated his hair. Bob felt alive, the power surging through him as he commanded the sea

But not his power. He raised his hand and uncurled his fingers from around Joel’s coin, the totem. He used the power of the stars, of the Cold Dark. The more power Bob channeled through the coin, the colder the coin got, siphoning the power from some dark corner of the universe.

Bob smiled and the crest of water dropped. He stepped onto the ground. The earth was hot and cracked, but still. The night was quiet. The lights of the carnival were on but there was no movement. The machines were still.

“Ted?” Then Bob saw him. He rushed forward, past the platform to where Ted lay in front of the Ferris wheel, half buried in the ground. He fell to his knees, shook the wet hair from his face, spraying Ted with water.

“Come on, brah, don’t make me bring you back to life.” He leaned over and began breaking great chunks of burned earth off him. As he worked, seawater ran off his hair onto Ted’s face. Ted spluttered, then coughed, and tried to sit up. Bob broke the last of the dirt free and helped him up. Bob peered at him.

“What?” asked Ted, rubbing his head.

“Is that Ted, or is that Highwire? Or am I talking to Nezha?”

Ted shook his head. “It’s me. Ted. I think, anyway.” He looked around. “What the hell happened?”

They were alone among the carnival machines. The earth dome formed by the fused golems was half-collapsed. Around it half of the wooden soldiers were standing, the rest lying on the ground, lifeless.

“I don’t think the powers that be liked what Joel had in mind.”

Ted crouched on the ground. He ran his fingers over the cracked earth, but there was nothing there. Joel had been swallowed up. Nearby lay his black stovepipe hat.

“He was trapped,” said Ted. “Stuck between a power from the stars and a power from the earth. Wasn’t there any way we could have released him?”

Bob knelt down next to Ted and stared at the ground. “I don’t know, brah. Maybe. Maybe not. He’d been following the power a long time.”

The pair stood, looked around. And then the earth shook.

“What was that?” asked Ted.

Bob shook his head. He squeezed the coin in his hand and floated up off the ground. He turned in the air, looking out over the circus, and then rose higher so he could see into the city proper.

“There’s some fires in the city,” he said. “But we stopped it. I guess we’ll get aftershocks for a while yet. But look, I need to get back to Benny. I lost my grip on her soul.

“Alison!” Ted looked up at Bob expectantly. Bob nodded.

“Alison too. Gotta make sure they’re safe.”

Then Ted swore in Chinese. Bob floated to the ground and grabbed Ted’s shoulder as he knelt down. Ted had his eyes screwed shut, like he was listening to something far, far away.

“Ted?”

Ted shook his head. “There’s something coming. Nezha says… says it isn’t safe. Not yet.”

The ground shook, throwing the pair sideways. Bob squeezed hard on the coin. He couldn’t let that fall out of his hands, not now. He rolled and pulled himself to his feet immediately. Shaking the dirt off him, he looked around.

The carnival was moving, every machine. The carousel began to spin, the whine of the pipe organ building. And the laugh of the monkey: hollow, metallic, like something trapped at the bottom of a well. Its eyes shone red.

The machines dragged themselves out of the ground. They twisted into shapes that could crawl, corner by corner, edge by edge, over the shaking ground. Machines touched, swung toward each other, crunched together, forming new shapes in twisted metal. Lights shattered, neon flickered as panels bent, were torn, were fused together.

The ground shook. Bob rode the movement. Ted reached out and Bob pulled him up, then yanked him to one side just as the ground opened and fell away where he had been lying.

The carnival was one single mass now, twisted and rattling, a frame of mashed metal and rippling canvas. The construct heaved and creaked, and then unfolded upward. It stood, teetering, on two legs. The thing was shaped like a person, thirty feet high, a mangled sculpture of scrap. The only thing missing was the head.

As Bob watched, the construct took two giant steps toward the carousel, now spinning so fast the pipe organ and carved monkey were clearly visible in the center, the animal rides just a blur. The construct reached down, unfolded two gigantic arms, and picked the carousel up.

The Victorian machine was huge, a circular structure twenty feet in diameter. As it was lifted, it continued to spin, the construct carrying it into the air like a gyroscope. With a crunch it placed the carousel on its shoulders. It stood tall, carousel spinning, the makeshift head absurdly large.

Ted and Bob looked up at the teetering machine. “This is bad,” said Bob.

The voice blasted from the carousel – a cacophony of high and low notes from the pipe organ. It was mournful, wailing, like the death of a church organ.

WE ARE BELENUS, said the construct. WE DEMAND THE HEART OF THE WORLD.

— XLII —

The smell woke her. Rich, strong, bitter as anything. Hot steam tickled her nose, and she blinked.

“Drink this.” Benny held the cup of coffee in front of Alison’s nose. She took the cup and took a big gulp from it. It was hot, hot enough that she had to gasp afterward, a cloud of steam puffing out of her mouth.