Throne (11 page)

Maribel took a deep breath, a sudden weight lifting from her, and for a moment she felt almost dizzy. Then she smiled, a broken smile, the best she could manage and nodded her head, unable to speak, to convey her gratitude. Isobel laughed and came forward, off the couch, to hug Maribel tight, and after an awkward moment of indecision, Maribel hugged her back, feeling the psychic’s wet hair against the side of her face, the fresh smell of her shampoo. Looking up, she felt her stomach suddenly clench at the sight of the phooka standing in the hallway, watching them both, great horns curling just below the ceiling, a knowing smile on its saturnine face. Maribel stiffened, and after a moment Isobel pulled back, searching her features. Maribel tore her eyes away from the phooka even as it stepped back into the shadows of the hall and gave Isobel a tight smile.

“Ok,” said Isobel, sitting down on the rug before Maribel and crossing her legs “Well, just because I’m helping you doesn’t mean this isn’t crazy. Where are we going to start? What are we going to do when we find it? Do you have a plan?”

Maribel reached up to wipe her face dry once more and nodded, “Yes. All you have to do is find the way in. I’ll do all the rest.” She felt a flicker of hesitation as she thought of telling her about the phooka, and then discarded the idea. “Can you do that? Find the way in?”

“A couple of days ago I would have probably told you no, but now? Maybe. Just thinking about that thing makes me feel uneasy, so maybe if I focus on that unease, I’ll get a sense of where to go?” Isobel paused. “But… what’s your plan when we’re down there? It’s… this thing is terrifying. It’s not something you can intimidate, or talk to. It’s just a raw, physical, emotional need. A hunger. How are you going to force it to do what you want?”

Maribel pursed her lips grimly, “Leave that to me. I’ll take care of that when we get there.”

Isobel shook her head, “Alright. I can’t believe we’re doing this, but fine.”

“Thank you,” said Maribel, reaching out to take Isobel’s rough hands in her own, “I can’t say that enough. How much should I—what do you want to charge for all this?”

“If helping you stops the nightmares, I’ll do it for free,” said Isobel with a grin. “However, let’s leave talk of money till later. When do you want to start?”

Maribel nodded, and with sudden energy stood. “Now, of course.”

The psychic gave her a lop-sided smile, “How did I know you were going to say that?”

Half an hour later they both stepped out into the cold. The haze that had so engulfed the city these past few days had grown thicker, so that the far end of the block was barely discernible. A yellow taxi hove into view, and then faded away as it drove off, the red brake lights floating eerily for a moment after the main body of the car had become obscured. Maribel pulled the broad belt around her jacket tight about her waist, and slipped her hands into the fur-lined pockets. Isobel gave her a nervous look, and then settled her shoulders, raised her chin.

“Okay, be quiet for a bit, I’ve got to concentrate.” She closed her eyes, then allowed them to half open so that her irises were but a glimmer of darkness between her thick lashes. A couple of deep breaths, and then she nodded. “I can feel it. It’s faint. And awful, but there. All right. This way. I’m just going to walk in the direction that feels most wrong.”

They walked. Isobel moved ahead at first with hesitation, but then with growing determination, taking corners and heading deeper into the West Village. At one point she paused, the sound of a bar close by flooding the murky air with 80’s music, a crowd of teenagers laughing and shoving each other as they swarmed past the pair of them. An old man was pushing a wheelbarrow in which a large viola rested, and across the street, a number of men were shouting at each other as they unloaded a U-Haul truck.

“This way,” said Isobel, shaking her head. They ducked down a side street, residential and still. Ivy snaked up the brick walls of the townhouses, each sporting a distinctive front door at the top of five or six shallow steps. Close to her own apartment, Maribel realized. Black lacquer, bright red, ornate and pensive green. Windows were lit and shone with yellow light; looking up into them as they walked past Maribel saw libraries, kitchens, living rooms. Angles of bookshelves, the top corner of a flat screen affixed to the wall, pots and pans hanging from hooks attached to white ceilings. Glimpses of lives going about their business, far removed from her own.

The street was short, elbow shaped and soon they reached the other end. Isobel stopped again, frowned. “I’m losing it. Here, let’s try again.” They walked back, slower this time, and two thirds of the way through Isobel slowed to a stop once more. She turned to Maribel, and gave her a shrug. “I’m sorry. It’s here somewhere, but I can’t pinpoint it.”

Maribel looked about, trying to spot what Isobel was missing. The townhouses presented a solid, unbroken wall of brick facades. There wasn’t much to miss. Looking down the street, she saw the phooka. It was but a dark silhouette in the haze, horns rising up regally above its head. Maribel stilled, and the phooka approached. Isobel was speaking, but at the phooka’s approach she, too, stilled, as if sensing it for the first time. Long strides brought the phooka closer, hirsute and terrible, and then it paused by an iron gate, overrun with ivy and easily seven feet tall, leading into a small alley between the townhouses.

It hadn’t been there before.

“Look,” said Maribel quietly, and pointed.

Isobel gave a start. “That’s… that’s right. That’s it.”

They both approached, Isobel staring blindly through the tall, sallow skinned impossibility that pushed open the gate and stepped inside, holding it open for them. As the gate swung open, seemingly by itself to reveal a narrow passage shrouded in shadow, Isobel slowed.

“Something’s not right,” she said. “Something is going on here.”

“Don’t worry,” said Maribel. She placed a reassuring hand on Isobel’s shoulder, gave it a squeeze and stepped past her, past the phooka, into the alley. “It’s all right. Come on.”

Isobel hesitated. The alley was dark, but clean; if anything it seemed dusty, unused, the walls rising up without windows, the bricks mortared with cement that oozed out between them like jam from between two slices of bread. The phooka had disappeared again, but then Maribel saw him at the end of the alley. A dead-end, the far wall engulfed in ivy so dark it seemed black.

“Maribel,” said the psychic, “That alley wasn’t there a minute ago.”

“I know,” said Maribel, “But it’s here now. The way will open before us as you lead us along it. You’re going to have to let go of your certainties and accept things as they come.”

Still, Isobel hesitated, reaching out with one hand to touch the newly appeared iron gate. She looked up and down the street, and then back to Maribel. “God, what am I getting into,” she said to herself, and with a sudden deep breath, pulled the gate open a little wider and came in after. Maribel waited for her to reach her side, and then reached out and cupped Isobel’s cheek, only realizing as she did it that she was mirroring the psychic’s earlier gesture. Her skin was smooth and warm against her palm, and for a moment Isobel leaned her face into her hand, eyes large, vulnerable. Maribel gave her a brilliant, reckless smile and then turned and walked forward. The sound of uncertain steps followed her. The phooka stepped aside, inclining his head as if she were nobility, and pulled aside the ivy as if it were a curtain to reveal a door that had been hidden behind it. It was tall and arched, made of heavy boards of wood bound by what looked like copper or bronze. Maribel pressed her hands against the wood, felt the age in the cold fibrous surface, weathered and hardened near to stone.

“We’re not alone, are we?” asked Isobel quietly behind her. “Something else is here. What is it? Maribel, what have you done?”

Maribel looked over her shoulder, smiled. “You’re taking me to Kubu,” she said. “That’s all. This door will lead us below.”

“You haven’t been honest with me,” said Isobel, taking a step back. “You haven’t told me everything. What is going on here?”

Maribel closed her fingers around the smooth wooden grip of the door handle. It was stiff, old, and she had to use both hands to pull it down. Then, setting her feet firmly on the cobbles, she pushed, and with a groan of protest, the door opened inwards. She looked back, framed by the darkness beyond. “I need you, Isobel, to take me down there. I need you now like I have never needed anybody else. Will you help me?”

“I…” said Isobel, slowly shaking her head, “I mean, this
is
the way. But… “

Maribel ignored her faltering words. She understood the helplessness in Isobel’s eyes, understood that, despite her protests, she would follow, committed now by a desire of her own. There was no need to reason with her. Instead, she reached out and took her hand, and with a sad smile drew her in through the door.

Maya stumbled, almost fell. A terrible cold wrapped around her, and she let out a cry as both her parents winked out of existence. Nothing there, just stunted grass, an undulating slope that rose quickly into a stubby hill. Turning around, she saw that the path was gone, Guillaume was gone, only broken trees and the coagulated sky, the gray wind sawing about her legs and the deep pounding of her heart.

“
Mãe
!” she cried, cupping her hands about her mouth. “
Pae
!” Nothing. Nothing. Had they even been there? A trick. Cold certainty like a basket of dead snails in her gut. She had been tricked. She had left the path, despite all Guillaume’s warnings. Fear and adrenaline coursed through her, helped her fight off the fatigue. She hadn’t slept in what felt like weeks. But right now, trembling and shivering with fear and brittle energy, she felt like she could run forever if given cause.

“Guillaume!” she yelled, turning in a slow circle. Where was he? Why hadn’t he followed her off the path? He was a fairy, or a ghost fox, or whatever—surely he wasn’t constrained by the same limits? Was he upset? His pride? “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I left the path, please!”

A growl. No, not a growl; this was to a growl what the rotting carcass of a dead bull is to a steak. Deep throated, clotted, a sound of distilled menace and danger. Maya froze. She felt every hair along her arms and on the back of her neck stand stiff as if an electric current had just run through her. Slowly, she turned around.

The man. The man that had frightened her before, had tried to shock her off the path. Tommy Rawhead.
Rawhead and Bloody Bones
, a voice whispered in her mind. He was about ten yards away, hunched over, nursing something in his over-large hands. His face was crude, harsh, made a caricature by its brutality. Hawk nose, a wounded slash for a mouth, battered cheekbones over which his leathery skin was stretched tight. Eyes large and jet black like the eyes of a bird. Stringy hair grew from around the sides of his skull and hung to his shoulders. No hair on top. Just glistening red flesh. Raw and wounded, scalped.

Maya took a step back. He was large, would have stood at over seven feet if he straightened up. But he stood hunched, legs bandied, broad shoulders pulled forward. He was smiling at her, the dumb smile of an idiot, blank and cunning and pleased. Long teeth, yellowed, almost tusks. Their edges broken. Dressed in rough, homespun clothing, an overly small jacket that made him appear all the more terrible for being ridiculous.

Tommy Rawhead extended what he was holding in his hands for her to see, unfurling his long fingers slowly. A straight razor, rusted or covered with dry blood. It lay across his palms like a gift, but lest she get the wrong idea he carefully took it up, his smile growing wider, and pulled it through the air slowly as if slitting the wind.

Maya took a second step back. She wasn’t thinking any longer, couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything but stare at the blade, the demented face behind it. Tommy Rawhead leapt forwards, Maya screamed and stumbled back, but he stopped, grin growing wider at the sound of her terror. A feint. He was toying with her.

“Please,” said Maya, knowing it was useless. His grin grew even wider, impossibly wide now. More teeth in his mouth than were possible. Maya took a deep breath. She wouldn’t beg. Wouldn’t plead. Reaching slowly into her purse, she closed her fingers around a small tube.

“Suh-suh-suh,” said Tommy Rawhead, trying to choke out a word through his smile. “Suh-suh-weet and—“ He stopped. Maya had taken a step forward. Though everything in her mind screamed for her to run, to run and never stop, she forced her foot forward as if pulling it out of wet, sucking mud. Tommy cocked his head to one side, sidled closer.

“Come here,
caralho
,” said Maya breathlessly. “Come here.”

Tommy Rawhead paused, sensing something awry. Eyed her, but then his grin resumed its awful vitality and he surged forward, bandied legs propelling him across the dead grass with shocking speed. Maya tore the canister from her purse, pressed the button at the top, and shot a hissing spray of Mace right at his face.

The chemical splashed across his teeth, his great nose, over both berry black eyes. Hissed over his shoulders and back again as she waved it to and fro, and then he was screaming and raking at his eyes, running his sleeve over his face.

Maya didn’t stop to watch. Didn’t question the efficacy of the weapon. She simply turned and ran. Forced her legs to stretch and tear her away, almost flying over the ground. Even as she ran, she pictured him racing after her in leaps and bounds, razor blade swinging.

Where the path had led, she could no longer tell, but the hills were shallow and perhaps from the top of the closest one she would be able to see something, a place to flee to, or maybe the path in the distance, something. Sobbing and gasping, she raced up the slope of the closest hill, past a tottering trunk, sparing a glance over her shoulder. He was after her, but not rushing. His smile was back, and he was loping along, easily keeping up. Enjoying the sight of her running.

Her breaths were being torn up her throat by the time she reached the top of the hill. Scrabbling over the final rise, she staggered upright and moved forward, turning in a desperate circle, trying to spot something. A great forest to her left, a graveyard for trees, gray spines of dead trunks grouped together to form an endless black ocean of rotting timber. More hills all around. The sky, so low and close she felt she could reach up and touch the sullen clouds.