MORTAL COILS (15 page)

Eliot
looked at his sister, who stared back at him, her mouth open.

The
old man licked the grease off his fingertips. “Which brings us back to the
events of today: you two should be proud of yourselves, rescuing your friend
from the fire.”

“It
wasn’t a fire,” Fiona muttered, and her gaze dropped to the street.

“He
wasn’t exactly our friend, either,” Eliot said.

“All
the more reason for congratulations.” The old man wiped his nose. “Even
seasoned doctors sometimes cannot stand the smell and the sight of skin
sloughing off like a rotten sweater sleeve.” He smiled, showing yellow teeth
and gooey dough.

Fiona
made a tiny strangled noise. She moved to Eliot and said, “Let’s go. This guy
is weird.”

He
was weird. And he scared Eliot, too. But the old man fascinated him as well. He
didn’t seem like the same broken man they’d seen every day on their way to
work. Something had brought him back to life.

“Your
music,” he said to the man. “The tune you played this morning.” Eliot crept
closer to him.

Fiona
hissed a sigh of exasperation.

The
man focused on Eliot and his grotesque smile faded. “You remember that?”

“Remember?
Yeah!” To actually have someone play music. For him. That was the best birthday
present anyone had ever given him.

Eliot
hummed the tune. His hand tapped the rhythm on his pant leg, mimicking the
finger action along a pretend violin, even with little vibrato motions as if he
were actually playing. It was silly. He wasn’t really playing. He’d never
played a musical instrument in his entire life.

Eliot
expected the old man to laugh, but he didn’t.

The
old man’s eyes widened as he scrutinized Eliot’s playing motions. “Most cannot
remember. I mean, it’s such a trivial tune—in and out of one’s head like a
noble sentiment.” The man snapped his fingers and narrowed his gaze at Eliot.
“But, indeed, you do remember . . . and more.”

The
man considered Eliot a long moment, seeming to decide something, then said,
“The song was a child’s song. It is called ‘Mortal’s Coil.’ ” He glanced at
Fiona. “Did you enjoy the song as well?”

She
shrugged. “It was okay.” Fiona looked past them to the entrance of the alley.

Eliot
looked, too.

A
dog stood there sniffing the air. It was tall like a Great Dane but as hefty as
a rottweiler. Its brown fur bristled, and its giant head cast back and forth
along the asphalt, snorting and sniffing. It wore a collar studded with green
rhinestones.10, 11

Eliot
imagined that dog grabbing him and shaking him like a squeaky toy until the
stuffing fell out. Something instinctive told him to run. Now.

That
was stupid. The dog was after the leftovers in the trash. That’s all.

The
old man took two steps forward, placing himself between Eliot and the dog. He
held one hand back to warn Eliot to stay behind. With his other hand he reached
into his coat and pulled out a scrap of newsprint, holding it toward the
animal.

Eliot
craned his head to see.

Printed
on the paper was a design that looked like a dozen geometric

10.
“Benedictine monk Kay Allenso dug at the Oracle of the Dead’s shrine at Cumae
looking for an entrance to the underworld and the riches of the dead. Find it
he did, but barring the way were three hounds. One black as pitch; one golden
as flax and snorting fire; and the largest bristled chestnut fur and wore a
collar of green stones. This beast beheld him with eyes dull that drowned his
soul. Allenso escaped, but he was a man be-damned.” Father Sildas Pious, “The
Damned Monk’s Tale,” Mythica Improbiba (translated version), c. thirteenth
century.

11.
“Dogs of sins chase man of cloth / bite and shake for what he ’roth / Beg for
mercy, none do hear / dragged and torn to bits, my dear.” Translated (Greek)
handwritten annotation in the Beezle edition of Mythica Improbiba (Taylor
Institution Library Rare Book Collection, Oxford University), Victor Golden,
Golden’s Guide to Extraordinary Books (Oxford: 1958).

proofs—all
overlaid upon one another. The harder he stared, the more layers appeared.
There were tiny symbols as well; Eliot recognized Greek letters, cuneiform, and
others unknown to him that floated in a swarm of elusive meaning.

Maybe
it was a hologram, having the illusion of depth when you held it just right,
but really only two-dimensional.

Eliot
blinked and pulsing afterimages swam across his vision.

The
dog’s head snapped up and it glared at the paper. It sniffed more vigorously
than ever; a trickle of snot ran from one nostril. Then it shook its head and
wandered away.

“Dogs,”
the old man muttered. “One can never be too careful with them. Personally, I’m
more of a cat person.”

He
wadded the scrap of paper and tossed it away, but not before Eliot saw that the
design he thought he had seen was gone.

The
old man turned his attention back to them. “Now, what were we talking about?
Pizza? Or music?”

Fiona
sidled closer to Eliot, nudging him with her sharp elbow, and jerking her head
back toward Ringo’s.

Eliot
saw the shadows in the alley were long. The sky overhead was already the lead
gray of afternoon as the coastal clouds covered Del Sombra like a blanket.

He
shook his head, clearing the cobwebs; he felt disoriented. It must be the shock
of everything that had happened today. He felt dirty, too; his clothes were
still soaked with sweat and grease and a burnt scent that he never wanted to
smell again.

“We
better go,” he told the old man. “Sorry, our grandmother will—”

Fiona
tugged him along as she headed for the door.

Eliot
saw curiosity and shock register upon the old man’s face.

“Pass
along my regards,” he said, giving them a short bow, then returned to the
Dumpster. “We will meet again, no doubt.”

Eliot
hoped so. And he hoped next time the man had his violin.

Fiona
and Eliot moved quickly through the kitchen. Puddles and smears of congealed
grease covered the floor. Eliot noted palm prints frozen in the stuff where
Mike had thrashed about . . . and he felt a sharp pang of guilt.

Fiona
continued without pause and he followed.

The
dining room was deserted, which never happened this late in the afternoon. With
the tables half-cleared, it felt haunted.

Johnny
was at the front, locking the door.

“See
you tomorrow,” Fiona said.

“Sure,”
Johnny said, and shook his head.

Eliot
wanted to tell him again that it wasn’t his fault, that Mike had slipped; it
was a simple, stupid accident.

Johnny
seemed to sense this and tousled Eliot’s hair. “Go home, amigo. No worries,
huh? Everything will be okay. You’ll see.”

Eliot
nodded and gave him a little wave as he and Fiona walked away. He didn’t
believe everything was going to be okay. Sure, what happened was really an
accident. But people got blamed all the time for things that weren’t their
fault. Eliot was intimately aware of how that worked.

They
turned onto Midway Avenue. The oil in Eliot’s sneakers made a squishing noise
as he hurried to keep up with his sister.

He
only now noticed that she still wore the heavy apron and T-shirt over her pink
birthday dress. Probably because everything she had on was saturated with
grease, too. It would be a race for the shower when they got home.

The
sun broke through the clouds and lemon-gold shafts played a game of tag up and
down the street.

“You
think . . . ,” Eliot started.

“Yeah,”
Fiona said, “we got the arm cooled down before the burn went too deep.” She
slowed almost to a stop. “There’ll be scars, though. Up to the elbow.” She had
a faraway look in her eyes, probably seeing Mike struggle and writhe, holding
his tortured arm out in agony.

“Kind
of weird,” Eliot whispered.

“What’s
weird?” Her voice had a defensive edge. She turned to face him, concern
wrinkling her forehead.

“Just
everything today. Those books from Grandmother. The music that guy played. What
happened at Ringo’s.”

Fiona
chewed on her thumbnail. “Did you . . . I mean, I wanted something bad to
happen to Mike, you know?”

Eliot
nodded. “Same here. But we didn’t do anything wrong. He slipped. That’s all.”

“But
it was his right hand.” She took her finger from her mouth and fidgeted her
hands.

Eliot
saw Mike’s arm in his mind; it had been burned up to the exact spot where he
had grabbed Fiona. Chill bumps popped over his skin.

“So
what?” Eliot told her. “He’s right-handed. Makes sense he would hold out that hand
to brace a fall.”

The
faraway look in Fiona’s eyes remained. “This is the worst birthday ever.” Her
gaze dropped to the sidewalk. “Grandmother’s going to do something when we get
home, I bet. Extra homework for being late. Some new rule for ruining our
clothes. It’s so unfair.”

Eliot
felt it, too: a sense of their impending doom. He could imagine a double load
of geometry and essays tonight. And the worse thing was they’d have to go back
to work tomorrow. He’d have to spend the day in the kitchen, smelling the same
scorched scents.

If
this was how fifteen was going to start, he wished his birthday had never
arrived.

Not
knowing how to lighten their mood, Eliot decided to try to annoy his sister. It
might distract them both at least. He opened his mouth to call Fiona an
Orycteropus afer—because of her long face. She’d know it, of course;
Orycteropus afer, or the common aardvark, started almost every dictionary
they’d ever read. But before he could speak, he sensed the light change behind
him; he turned and halted midsyllable.

A
shadow slinked around the corner of Midway and Vine, half a block back. It was
that dog, the same monstrous canine that had been in the alley.

Fiona
looked and saw it, too.

The
dog’s nose huffed over the concrete, leaving smears of drool as it advanced.

“Come
on,” Fiona said, and walked briskly away from the animal. “Don’t run. That’ll
just make it chase.”

Eliot
fell in next to her.

A
beam of sunlight appeared and disappeared through the clouds; the dog cast
multiple shadows, angled this way and that, seeming to have a dozen shadow
heads.12

Whomever
that dog belonged to should have kept it tied up. An animal that big could hurt
someone. Eliot again had that vision of the thing grabbing him in its jaws and
shaking.

The
dog looked up and saw them, started trotting, still sniffing, but now with its
head up, catching the scents on the air.

12.
Cerberus, or “demon of the pit” in the original Greek, is the iconic
three-headed canine reputed to guard the entrance to hell. Of note are
variations on this beast having fifty, or as many as one hundred, heads. The
myth lives on in modern times, transmuted into a similar dull brown or black
dog, albeit with a single head, who appears as a harbinger of death and
misfortune to all who see him. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century,
Volume 6: Modern Myths, 8th ed. (Zypheron Press Ltd.).