Man Made Boy (28 page)

But finally, with less than a quarter tank of gas and almost zero patience between us, we got to the place Mozart had marked on the map. Except there was nothing there.

Claire was behind the wheel again. She pulled the car over onto the dusty shoulder and cut the engine. We both stared through the dirty windshield at the rugged, dry land dotted with scrub brush.

“That daft old wolf,” she muttered.

“Maybe it’s just off the road a bit.” I climbed out of the car.

“Or maybe the local humans got wise, killed them all, and burned the place to the ground.” Claire climbed out, too.

I looked around at the miles of barren wasteland around us.

“What local humans?” I asked.

The wind pushed the hot, dry air in our faces and tugged at our clothes.

“Unbelievable,” Claire muttered under her breath, then sat on the hood of the car. “Ah, shite that’s hot!” She stood up immediately, rubbing her butt. “Great, just fucking great.” She shaded her eyes with her hand as she scanned the desert horizon. “Stranded in the bloody desert with a scorned, AI stalker chick about to descend on us with a horde of brainwashed humans.”

“Would you chill?” I said. “This is the perfect place to hide from her. I bet there’s not even a cell signal out here. No tech, no VI.”

“So this is your plan, then?” she said. “Avoid computers and cell phones? Just how long do you think you can keep that up?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I want to ask the Sphinx for advice. Maybe we can stay here for a while….”

“We can’t even
find
here!” she said. “It probably doesn’t even exist anymore.”

“Let’s just walk for a little bit.” I grabbed the big jug of water we’d been sharing. “Maybe it’s all underground, and they have a hidden entrance or something.”

“Oh, right,” she said and rolled her eyes.

“You got a better idea? I’m pretty sure we don’t have enough gas to get us to the next town, so we’d better hope we can find
something
out here.” I slung the jug over my shoulder and started walking. A minute later I heard her heavy footsteps crunching behind me.

We walked for a while, Claire grumbling quietly to herself. Eventually, we saw what looked like a small mountain up ahead.

“Maybe there’s a cave or something there,” I said.

Claire looked over to where the sun was beginning to slip down below the horizon. “It’s starting to get late. Maybe we should head back to the car, catch some sleep, and come back in the morning.”

“And walk this whole thing all over again? Come on, we’re already more than halfway there.”

“I don’t know…I think it’s farther than it looks. And anyway, once the sun sets it’s going to get cold.”

“That’s a bad thing? I’m dying in this heat.”

She didn’t say anything, just chewed her lip and continued to stare at the slowly setting sun. Her anger from earlier seemed to have disappeared, replaced by something I hadn’t seen in her before.

“What is it?” I asked. “You’re getting a little weird on me.”

She shrugged. “I guess I just feel out of my element. I’m not really a nature person.”

“I thought you loved country stuff.”

“I love to enjoy the ambiance from a comfortable booth, preferably with a coffee.”

“Well, I’m not exactly a nature person, either. But really, the last thing I want to do right now is get back in the car.”

“Yeah,” she admitted.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked. “We’ve still got plenty of water, so we’re not going to die of thirst. So we sleep out on the ground under the stars for a night. That actually sounds kind of cool.”

“I guess so.”

“Plus, once it gets dark, we’ll know for sure if there are people out there because we’ll probably be able to see lights.”

“Fine,” she said. “But if I hear something that sounds even remotely like a rattlesnake, I’m out.”

The sun turned an angry blood red as it began to drop behind the horizon. We walked on for a while longer, but the mountain didn’t seem to get any closer. Night fell fast, the sky shifting from red to a dark purple. There were no streetlights or business signs out here. Nothing but faint starlight and a sickly sliver of moon. I started to get the sense of just how dark it would be once the sun set completely, and I wondered if sleeping out in the open desert wasn’t such a great idea after all.

Suddenly, Claire stopped.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

“What?”

“Shhh!”

At first, I didn’t hear anything except the wind whistling through the scrub brush. Then, I picked out something else underneath. At first, it was so faint that I thought I might be imagining it. But as the last light of the sun disappeared and the sky went completely black, it got louder.

“Is that…” I whispered. “Is that someone
crying
?”

The darkness was so thick that I could only see a few feet in any direction. The crying gradually got more intense until it drowned out the hissing night wind.

“Boy!” Claire hissed, and stabbed her finger at the air in front of us.

About ten feet ahead I saw a shape that I knew hadn’t been there a moment before. It looked like a woman. She stood with her head bowed so that her long, dark hair fell in her face. Her
arms hung loosely at her sides. It was impossible to tell in the darkness, but her hands appeared to be covered with something like dark paint. And she was crying. Not a gentle weeping but thick, choking sobs that shook her whole body.

I looked at Claire for some idea what we should do, but she just stared at the crying woman, her eyes wide.

I turned back to the woman. “Are you okay?” My voice sounded higher than normal.

Her sobs quieted somewhat, but her head was still bowed and her shoulders shook even harder, like she was fighting to keep it inside.

“Miss?” I tried again. “Do…you need help?”

Slowly, her head began to rise. Her long, dark hair parted to reveal a pale, beautiful face streaked with tears of blood. Her luminous white eyes quivered in their sockets, showing only pinpoint black pupils.

“H-h-h-h…” she choked between sobs. “He-he-he-he…”

She lifted her hands up in front of her and I could tell now it wasn’t paint on them. They were covered in blood.

“Boy…” said Claire, her voice on the edge of panic.

“Hel-hel-hel-hel,” said the woman. Then her face shifted suddenly from misery to fury and she screamed, “HEEEEEEEEELLLLLP!”

The sound ripped through me like electricity. Every muscle in my body seized up. I couldn’t move, or speak, or even breathe. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Claire tip over like a plank of wood. Then my vision narrowed and spots floated in front of my eyes. I saw, more than felt, my own body begin to tip forward. The last thing I remembered was the weeping woman’s blood-drenched hands reaching out for me. Then there was only darkness.

I WOKE UP. That was a surprise right there. I really thought this was it.

Although when I tried to move, for a moment I wished I
was
dead. My entire body felt like one giant sore muscle.

“Oh, shit,” I wheezed.

“No, you did that already,” came a clear, piercing voice.

I tried to open my eyes, then realized they were already open.

“I can’t see!” I shouted.

“Your sight will return soon,” said the same voice, sounding a little bored.

It felt like I was lying in a cot, those metal-framed canvas ones you see in old movies with scenes in military hospitals. A thin, wool blanket covered me, which was good because I was completely naked.

“What the hell happened to my clothes?” I asked.

“I just told you,” said the voice. “You shit all over yourself. Don’t feel bad. That’s typical for
La Llorona’s
victims. Whoever created you did a fine job with your construction. A lesser-made flesh golem would have torn himself apart during the seizures.”

“Flesh golem? What’s that?”

There was an audible sigh, like the speaker couldn’t believe he had to even explain it. “Why,
you
of course.”

“The only ‘golem’ I’ve ever heard of was that Jewish guy in Prague. And he was made of mud and powered by the name of God or something. That’s not what makes me go.” My vision was starting to come back a little. Instead of a big, black blob, the person in front of me was now a big, gray blob with a few black blobs floating in it.

“The method is hardly the point here,” said the speaker. “Neither is the material of construction, for that matter. A golem can be made out of almost anything—mud, flesh, metal, wood. I even saw one made of solid gold once, although that was impractical to the point of being downright tragic. Gold looks nice, but it’s far too soft and heavy. The poor thing was utterly useless. And a golem can be animated by any number of means. This is, of course, not to imply that they are easy to construct. At least, not ones that last. And you, my boy, may be the finest construction I’ve ever seen. You took the shock of
La Llorona’s
voice most manfully.” The speaker paused for a second, and there was a strange clicking sound. Then, “That’s merely a figure of speech, of course. There are no literal men around here.”

“
La Llorona
?” My vision was clearing more. I could make out shapes and color now. Although I still couldn’t quite make out what kind of person I was talking to.

“Yes,
La Llorona
. The creature you met at the gates last night. A word of advice, my boy. It’s generally not wise to startle a banshee.”

“A banshee? I guess that explains it. We were just trying to help, that’s all.”

“Banshees rarely are interested in things like that, and
La Llorona
even less so. She is a special case. And quite mad since she murdered her children, I’m afraid. Although she does make an excellent sentry, as you and your companion discovered.”

“My companion? Claire!” I sat up, then I winced as pain flashed through my body. “Is she okay?”

“The human?” the speaker asked, a tinge of disgust in the voice. “She’ll live.”

“She’s not human.”

“No? She certainly
looks
human.”

“Trust me. She’s not. And I hope you guys didn’t treat her bad. Because she’s kind of—”

There was a sudden, loud crash, followed by cursing and yelling.

“That would be Claire.” I tried to get up, but a clawed hand held me in place. It felt like bird talons, only a lot bigger.

“You’re not fully recovered yet. And I’m sure they have the situation well in hand.”

“You don’t know Claire. You really have to let me go talk her down before she flips out.”

“Believe me, we can handle just about anything.”

Then all at once, my vision slipped into place. In front of me stood a full-sized gryphon, with the body of a lion, and the head, front legs, and wings of a gigantic eagle. He lounged next to my cot with his lion hind legs curled up under him, and his eagle eyes gazed down at me without any expression I could read.

“Whoa,” I said.

“Indeed,” said the gryphon, still eyeing me coldly. “My name is Knossos. Welcome to The Commune.”

There was another crash, and more cursing and yelling.

“Let me go to her. Please. She’s probably totally freaked out right now. I know I could calm her down in no time. Why put her through this if you don’t have to?”

Knossos sighed, clacking his curved beak as he preened his feathers. Then he slowly stood up, shook himself, and walked toward an oversized open doorway. “Let’s go then, before she breaks anything else. Glass isn’t easy to make by hand, you know.”

He passed through the doorway, then paused and turned his head over his furry shoulder to fix me with his eagle eyes. “I mean that colloquially, of course. Few of us at The Commune actually have hands.”

I stood up, cinching my blanket around my waist like a sarong. As I followed him through the doorway and into the off-white stucco hallway, I felt small. Literally. Because the doorway we had passed through was about the size of a barn door, and the hallway we entered was even bigger. The ceiling was about twenty-five feet high and the hallway was about thirty or forty feet across. Obviously, things would need to be bigger than a regular human building to accommodate a gryphon. But not
this
much bigger. I wondered what creature lived here that needed that much space. I also wondered how they were hiding all of this out here in this flat, barren desert. Assuming that’s where we still were. I hadn’t seen a single window yet.

We heard more cursing and banging down the hall. It seemed to be coming from a couple doors down.

“And you choose to travel with this person?” asked Knossos.

“She isn’t always like this. She’s…sort of a shape-shifter.” I wasn’t sure if I should go around telling people exactly who she was, especially if her psycho brother was out there somewhere looking for her.

“What does form have to do with it?”

“Uh, her identity changes with her form.”

“I see,” he said, although it didn’t sound like he was all that interested.

As we walked past an open doorway, I glanced in, mostly looking for windows. In the room was a creature that looked like something between a lizard and a kangaroo, but with a panther face, sitting at a big, old-fashioned sewing loom.