Midnight Lamp (43 page)

‘Did you bring me any clothes beside the party frock?’

‘Yep,’ said Ax, ‘We did. You really think we’re idiots, don’t you.’

‘Bra and pants?’

‘Socks and boots, even. I used to run a country, you know.’

Predictably, the underwear was not what Fiorinda would have chosen for being a fugitive in the desert, but never mind. The cave was neither deep nor dark, light came in through cracks. She found her washbag, brushed her teeth and splashed her face, frugal with the water: eyes welling-up at the thought of them bringing Fiorinda’s toothbrush on their desperate mission. The cowgirl hat they’d bought for her, though charming, settled roomily on the bridge of her nose, without the masses of her hair to bulk out her skull. She borrowed a cowboy bandanna, and tried to tie it so it could not be mistaken for
hejab
.

Sage was frying eggs. Ax had clearly been up to the brim of their hollow to reconnoitre: he was coming back, a pair of binoculars round his neck, looking thoughtful. By the fire she found glazed cinammon buns, laid out on a clean square of brown paper from a grocery bag. Sage smiled enigmatically, set the pan of eggs on a stone and popped a tin of self-heating refritos. Memories, camp grounds, wild days, poured through the fabric of the moment—

‘Our tech’s still working,’ remarked Ax. ‘I just checked my headset.’

‘They did say Friday. What’s happening out there?’

‘I can’t see Lavoisier, but they must have the fire under control, or I’d see the smoke. Nothing moving around here. How about your damage?’

‘Got the button out. ‘I have a bizarre headache, sinus feels horrible, fine shiner, and a field defect here’ He circled a finger above and in front of his left eye.

‘Have you taken anything for it?’

‘Nah, it’s not pain exactly. Better not; it’ll clear.’

‘The suicide warriors won’t come after us,’ said Fiorinda.

She took a sip of hot coffee and bit into her bun, very aware of the two male animals paying close attention: of the atavistic ritual in these gifts of food. The bun was rather stale, but God,
delicious
.

‘What are you going to do about the FBI raid?’

Ax sat beside Sage, with a saddle for a backrest, and the pan of eggs between them. He took up a fork. ‘Nothing, that I can think of. What do you think we should do? Do you feel like telling us your side of the story yet?’

Sage and Ax had babbled in the night, about the Committee and Harry, the Few’s forebearance, their misdeeds. Fiorinda had not yet given her report.

‘Oh, boy…’

‘We know about the fertility clinic.’

Fiorinda ducked her head, remembered that she had no hair to hide behind and laughed. As if waking from a nightmare (and how long had she been dreaming?), astonished and grateful to find none of it had been real—

‘All right, a summary. On my way back I stopped at Silverlode to eat an ice cream, symbol of good faith. I was in the Silver Mule, and I realised that it was where Lazarus had meant us to come; where we were expected. So I went and told you I was going off on a little holiday, made contact and went off with them. They handed me on, and I ended up here. That’s basically it. It all seemed rational at the time: I was the only one who could handle the Fat Boy candidate, and I
had to do it,
or I would never be sane and never be able to have my baby… I left you like that to protect you, but also because I knew I was in no fit state to convince you of the truth. I was hallucinating, I was completely bonkers. I didn’t really know what was happening to me, in the Silver Mule, whether I was infiltrating the enemy or, or raving in a padded cell.’

‘That was my fault!’ broke in Sage, distressed. ‘If I hadn’t been smothering you, you’d have let me help you, you would never have—’

‘Knock it off. There was nothing you could have done. We went to Carlsbad, and then my new pals grew some fangs. They took my clothes, they took my ring. I didn’t realise why, I never meant you to think I was dead—Oh, shit, but the Rugrat was okay?’

‘It lost some working memory in police custody, that’s all.’

‘I was afraid they’d find it and kill it. I was so worried about that. When I made contact, I thought Sage’s good friend Laz had put us in touch with people who’d tried to get near us but been foiled by the studio. I was dead wrong, they only wanted me, because I’m Rufus’s daughter. Sage is an evil Babylonian labrat, and you’ve said very mean things about Green Nazis, Ax. I kept telling them I had no occult powers, I thought they couldn’t find out different, as far as I thought anything coherent. But when I got to Lavoisier they sheared me like a sheep, and they
scanned my brain
the bastards. Then they decided they had to keep me shackled in iron, and I was trapped. There was no way I could reach you. Believe me, I did
try
telepathy—’

This seemed to strike a nerve, especially with Sage.

‘We weren’t in a very receptive mode.’

‘Telepathy
sucks
. It’s uncontrollable and confusing.’

‘Never mind. Do the FBI know what Lavoisier is?’

‘They seem to have known about it for a while. Lavoisier is the stronghold of a group called The Invisible People, and a training camp for occult terrorists. For some reason this didn’t strike anyone as actionable, until you disappeared.’

‘Hm. Well, the Invisible People are not here. I don’t know who the Invisible People are…’ She frowned. ‘But I do know that there’s a
big
network, famous names like your Laz included. Lavoisier’s the lunatic fringe or the pure hard core, depending on your opinion. This is where the Fat Boy candidate sacrifices are run from. You didn’t see the half of it. They do a lot of very weird and gross things, underground, in the hope of boosting vaguely “psychic” wannabes to the point where they can make a hex stick.’

‘Are they getting anywhere?’, asked Ax, affecting only mild concern.

‘Not a flicker, thank God. Everything real comes from the candidate, who of course has never been near this place. Vestigal ability stays crap no matter what, and if they wanted to, they don’t have an idea how to rewire normal brains. That would be
lab-work
, anathema. Some of them even think the scanners are a terrible mistake: which added splendidly to the confliction in camp, when they only had the evil Babylonian scans to “prove” I was magic.’

She paused for thought.

‘Very conflicted. They longed to worship me, because I was their Holy Grail, and they can’t play with their
own
Holy Grail, because the candidate’s identity has to be protected. But I was the candidate’s rival, and so expendable, so they longed to cut me open too… They told me they’d faked my suicide, and that was a blow. I was trying to think of a cunning plan, so I could escape without commiting magic, but, I
would
have thought of something—’

‘Sure you would,’ said Ax. ‘I knew that. Peter Pan here just got whiney, and scared of being left alone, so we had to come and fetch you.’

Sage did not protest. The world turned, the three of them just breathing watching the jack rabbits; glad to have survived, one more time.

‘It was when we saw the body that we knew you were alive,’ said Ax.

‘Yes… The volunteer wasn’t the best match. They went with her because the willingness is all. They had my hair, they hadh my DNA, (the famous imprinting didn’t seem to bother them), they cooked it all up with pan-occultist ritual. But it was the candidate who made it work, in so far as it did… They’re a broad church, did I mention? The Pagans and Satanists share power, because they have the numbers, but there’s all sorts. Digital based new religions; Celtics of course. I didn’t have to meet my proxy, I am glad to say. I only know about all that because Elaine insisted I had to “preside”over the church meetings. I gathered it hadn’t been a total success, but the real hard core didn’t care. Whatever happened was the right thing to happen, because we’re in the endgame now.’

Ax stared. ‘The dead woman in your dress had
volunteered
?’

‘All the victims were volunteers,’ said Fiorinda.

‘My God.’

‘I really believe they were: or thought they were. Dying in agony for love of Gaia. They’d have been tanked to the eyeballs, I hope.’

‘Who did the killing?’ asked Sage, quietly.

‘Other members of the suicide squad.’

‘And Billy the Whizz?’

She hesitated, something going on that Ax didn’t quite follow. ‘I don’t know Sage… She chatted you up at parties. I thought she was okay, but I never talked to her. I don’t know if she was secretly, deep down, a suicidal eco-warrior. But I’ve a bad feeling that she wasn’t. I think Billy was the exception.’

Sage nodded, and stared at the fire, his beautiful mouth downturned.

‘What if none of us had thought of turning up at the Silver Mule?’ wondered Ax. ‘Weren’t they leaving a lot to chance, there?’

‘No, Ax,’ said Fiorinda, patiently. ‘They were leaving it to magic.’

‘
Does
iron block it? I know it’s a persistent tradition.’

‘Nah, it’s nonsense. But I wasn’t going to do any tricks for them, so it blocked
me
all right… Well, where was I? Oh yes. Two, no, three nights ago, I had a strange dream, involving a techno wizard and a guitar man, and some kind of dsigraceful, hired orchestra, groovilicious, stadium rock farrago—’

Sage came out of his bleak moment, and laughed.

‘Don’t look at me,’ said Ax. ‘It was all his idea.’

‘What happened here?’ asked the mad scientist, clearly been burning to know.

‘I’m not sure. I
may
have vanished, briefly. There were some funny looks.’

‘Only for milliseconds.’

‘And I came back, from wherever I went on the way to get to you two on stage, knowing who the Fat Boy had to be.’

Sage nodded.

Ax sighed. ‘Are you two going to tell me?’

Fiorinda looked into the fire, thin flames, almost invisible in the morning sun. ‘Not right now. Just believe me, I can do what I have to do; if I have to. It’s strange. All the time since Baja I was thinking, how can I win another boss fight, if I’m also crazy? But it was a loop. Because of the Fat Boy I
had to
sort myself out, which I’d been frantically avoiding… I still don’t like magic, sorry I mean mind/matter manipulation, what a relief to have a technical term. Other than “Zen Self”, which was never me… I think it will unravel civilisation. But I’ve found my
guai-yi
, Sage. I can live with being me.’

‘Very Californian,’ said Sage. ‘See. I knew this place would suit you.’

‘Nyah—’

They pulled faces and giggled, while Ax took to heart the things Fiorinda wasn’t saying, including details about the Countercultural Underground. She had to get away from us to heal herself, he thought, and we’ll have to live with that. He wondered if he could work out the identity of the Fat Boy candidate. Maybe it would come to him when he put the inferences together.

‘There was a third man.’

‘Yes,’ said Fiorinda. ‘That was me.’

He had hardly needed to be told. After what she’d done in the church, he understood what the ghost of Rufus had meant, all along. Why does she do that? She does it because in a sense
that’s Rufus O’Niall
, the unstoppable magician, sitting opposite me, looking like a grey-eyed girl… But these aren’t things to talk about. Let them be. In his present state of mind, he wasn’t worried. Fiorinda and Sage were on the case. Hey, why am I not touching them? He shifted the frying pan, moved over and kissed the big cat: his soft mouth, his eyes, his golden brows. ‘I lost my mask,’ Sage recalled, piteously, ‘
Ax
, I lost my
mask
.’

‘You’ve got it on file, haven’t you?’

‘Yeah, but I haven’t updated it in years—’

‘Look on the bright side. You can be a living skull who doesn’t look a day over twenty-five. Shall we talk about the baby? Is this the right time?’

‘Let’s tell her, anyway.’

They faced her, nervously. ‘Fiorinda,’ said Ax, ‘Maybe. We…er, you should know, we’re very, very happy about—’

‘Oh.’ Fiorinda coloured up, carmine through the gold. Her eyes shone, her mouth trembled. ‘Oh, but you don’t know the worst. You don’t know that horrible woman said I couldn’t come back until I’m
monstrously
overweight.’

‘Better get going on the ice cream then, soon as we’re through with this.’

The horses stood quietly. The jackrabbits had retreated; a lizard with a very long tail stalked out from under a rock. Ax went to seek his jacket in the cave, took Fiorinda’s hand, slipped the braided ring onto her finger and kissed it. He sat down and started rolling up a spliff, into which he shook a fine powder from a twist of feed-sack paper.

‘What’s going in there?’ asked Sage.

‘Peyote, I think.’

‘Where’d you get that?’

‘Stu’s ranch: from Cheyne, the horse-lady.’ His eyes were wet, he wiped them with the side of his hand. ‘I thought, fuck, think positive. We three might want to do some mindbending drugs, under the desert sun. And here we are.’

The fire burned to white ash. They sat around it at the points of a triangle, smoked the spliff; and then one more for luck. The sky, above the undulating rim of the red bowl, was a dome so transparent you could see the pinpricks of stars. Fiorinda said, ‘Shouldn’t you put the horses away, or, er, tie them up?’

‘There’s water and feed in the cave,’ said Ax. ‘They know they can retire in there. They seem fairly fixed on us, I don’t think they’ll wander off.’

The men took on their animal shapes, and lay watching her. Their eyes, blue and brown, fused into a steady, greenish gold: the pupils were gleaming vertical slits through which something unknown looked out. The tiger and the wolf, blended into one, with wonderfully soft barred and brindled fur, were a very beautiful creature. She could still see them both, but the mingled beast was dominant. When she looked up its muzzle was leaning down, covering the sky like the limb of a giant planet, to take her in its mouth and carry her. The unknown thing that looked through its eyes was now overwhelmingly huge. She spread her thighs and took it inside, all the fifteen dimensions, a web, an atom; and swelled up like a balloon, a thin but unbreakable membrane, interpenetrated by galaxies. I am the thing behind their eyes she realised, and shrank into her body again, like a hermit crab.