Chapter 31 #2
He felt ill at heart at the sight. “We can’t stop him. King Sorrow. But we think maybe—if you run—if you go very far away—he
might not be able to follow you.”
Jayne repeated the name with something like reverence. “King Sorrow.”
“Yes.” It was Colin now. “If he draws his power from us, he should have an effective range. On the other hand, if he existed
before us, and all we did was open a door to him . . . then it probably doesn’t matter where you go. I’m interested to see which
it is.” Then he said something else, something none of them expected. “There’s another possible defense . . . just a little thing. It probably won’t work, but if I was in your position, I’d want to try everything.”
“What?” Jayne asked.
Colin shook his head. “I’ll tell you, but first you have to do a favor for us. In a week, Arthur’s mother has a parole hearing.
By the time that happens, someone at Black Cricket has to take credit for planting a shiv in her cell. Clear her name and
I’ll share the other thing I know.”
“You can’t hold out on me,” Jayne said. “You can’t. Yesterday afternoon—he was under the bed. I was trying to take a nap and
he woke me with a claw on my ankle. I thought my heart was going to stop. I felt it stop for a moment—seize up like I was going into vapor lock.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Colin said mildly. “People dying of fear. Terrible. Help us. So I can help you. Get Arthur’s mother
off the hook and I’ll share the other piece of what I know. Could be a game changer.”
“What the fuck are you all talking about?” Ronnie shouted. Maybe he wanted to sound threatening, but his voice was the adenoidal squeak of a twelve-year-old going through puberty. “Are you all high on crack? There’s no dragon. There’s no fucking dragon.”
“Who said King Sorrow is a dragon?” Allie asked. “I don’t believe any of us mentioned that.”
“I guess ol’ Ronnie has been seeing him too,” Van said. “And don’t want to admit it.”
Ronnie shook his head, a gesture that seemed to indicate panic more than disagreement. His eyes rolled, showing the whites,
like a terrified horse.
“Sure, Ronnie’s seen him,” Jayne said. “King Sorrow was in the sky tonight. He followed us here.”
“You shut up, bitch,” Ronnie said, his voice piping and small.
“The dragon passed in front of the moon,” Jayne said. “And I saw him in the passenger-side mirror. He was . . . huge. There
for a moment and gone. And you saw him too, Ronnie. I know you did. You just about jumped out of your skin and your ciggy
fell in your lap and nearly burned your prick off.” Jayne swiveled her head to face Arthur. Her eyes were enormous in her
gaunt face. “Call it off. Call it off and I’ll suck your dick. I’ll do it right now.” She laughed harshly. “And Ronnie can
suck off your friends, if that’s what you want. Just call it off.”
“We can’t,” Arthur said. “All you can do now is run. I’m sorry.”
Allie said, “Give her gun back, Donna.”
Donna looked as if Allie had suggested a group hug. “The fuck would I do that?”
“We’re under King Sorrow’s protection,” Allie said. She plucked the gun out of Donna’s hand—Donna was too amazed to stop her—and
tossed it at Ronnie. Ronnie caught it with one hand and clapped it to his chest with a yelp. The barrel was pointing straight
down, and Arthur twitched at a sudden vision of the gun spouting flame and putting a bullet into Ronnie’s nuts. Self-inflicted crotch wounds are surprisingly common. “There you go. You can’t use it on us. Our dragon will eat you if you try.”
Ronnie looked up at them, grinning—or grimacing—with bloody teeth. “You’re crazy! You’re all fucking crazy!” Then he looked at Allie with a violent satisfaction. “And you most of all if you think I won’t kill every fucking one of you.” He lifted the gun and pointed it at Arthur’s face.
There was a gunshot crack and Arthur’s insides bunched up painfully in shock for the second time in five minutes. But it wasn’t
the pistol going off. It was the sodium-vapor bulb in that faux-nineteenth-century streetlamp. It erupted in a shower of yellowish-white
sparks, which fell sizzling to the pavement. Ronnie twisted at the waist with a cry, looking around at the suddenly darkened
corner of the lot. But it was Jayne who screamed.
“Her eyes!” Jayne shrieked. “Look at her eyes, Ronnie!”
Ronnie didn’t—Ronnie ignored her completely—but Arthur looked. Allie’s right hand had slipped under her fuzzy cardigan. She
was not quite touching her heart, but Arthur thought her fingers were stroking the edge of the serpent tattoo upon her breast . . .
and her eyes had filmed over with the white nictating membrane of a snake. Van’s eyes had been just the same, when he was
coming out of his King Sorrow trance in the smoky kitchen. Somehow he’s inside us now, Arthur thought. Incubating.
Steel groaned. The top of the streetlamp began to bend, as if some great weight was pressing down upon it. The brushed steel creaked and buckled.
“What’s happening?” Ronnie screamed. “What the fuck is happening?”
“Shoot it!” Jayne screamed. “Shoot the fucking thing!”
“I don’t see anything!”
“There!” she screamed and pointed her finger into the stars, into the sky, at nothing. She was pointing at the darkness directly
above the streetlamp. “There! How do you not see it?”
The streetlamp strained and deformed, sinking lower, the top bending into a hook.
“There’s nothing there!” Ronnie cried.
Arthur didn’t see anything either—not exactly. But it seemed to him the shadows above the buckling streetlamp had thickened into the vague shape of a dragon, a bit larger than a full-grown gorilla. The darkest part of the darkness was folded on itself in a way that brought to mind bat-like wings.
“Oh, God, Arthur,” Gwen said, and Arthur felt her hand on his arm. “What did we do?”
The streetlamp was wrenched steadily downward until it formed a question mark. Ronnie screamed wordlessly and pointed his
nine and squeezed the trigger. The action clapped down with a dry click. He pulled again and again, producing a whole series
of those dry clicks.
“It’s not loaded, asshole,” Donna said, holding up the magazine. “How dumb do you think I am?”
“Her eyes, Ronnie!” Jayne shrieked, pointing at Allie, and at last Ronnie looked wildly around. When he saw Allie standing
there, eyes white and blind, he sobbed.
Allie’s eyes moved behind that wet, white, terrible membrane, and she smiled dreamily. “His eyes,” she said, ever so softly. “His eyes now, Jayne.”
The membrane slid back. The eyes behind them were crimson, shot with threads of gold, the pupils vertical slits.
“FUCK THIS!” Ronnie screamed. “I’M NOT PART OF THIS! I WAS NEVER PART OF IT! IT WAS ALL HER IDEA! TAKE HER! TAKE HER AND LEAVE ME OUT OF IT!” He yanked himself into the Ranchero and began to back up without even closing the driver’s-side
door. Backing away and leaving Jayne behind.
“Wait!” Jayne cried. “Don’t leave me!”
Arthur thought he would’ve though, if he hadn’t backed straight into the dumpster on the far side of the lot, colliding with
a thunderous clang. Arthur saw Ronnie’s head bounce off the steering wheel. The impact stunned the gangly stoner and he sat
there for a moment, blank eyed, hand to his forehead . . . long enough for Jayne to reach the passenger side of the Ranchero.
Her door was still hanging open and she scrambled in while Ronnie dumbly shut his own door. Arthur wondered if he would try
to push her out of the car, but the steering wheel had knocked the fight out of him. He merely put the car into drive and
took off.
The tires rumbled and threw rocks as the car slewed around in the parking lot.
Jayne thudded her door shut as they passed under another streetlamp.
As they headed for the street, Arthur glimpsed that word gouged into the rear window again.
The letters glinted and flashed as if dusted with diamonds. Easter.
The Ranchero bounced as it hit the street. The bumper struck the blacktop and threw sparks. It was gone from sight a moment
later, although Arthur could hear its tires shrieking on Ballard Street as it raced away.
Arthur glanced around in time to see Allie’s hand fall to her side, out from under her sweater. She was blinking rapidly and
smiling in a dazed sort of way, swaying slightly. Her eyes were her own again. Her cheeks were flushed and there was a pretty
strand of hair stuck to her brow. Donna reached over, in an affectionate, sisterly sort of way, to peel it free.
“Wow,” Allie said. “They really couldn’t touch us. It worked. I wasn’t sure it would work. Turns out it’s good to be friends
with the King.”
I don’t think we’re his friends, Arthur wanted to say, but his throat was dry, and he was short of breath, and he couldn’t get it out.
“That’s impossible,” Donna said, staring at the mangled streetlamp.
Van flicked one hand at the iron question mark on the far side of the lot. The darkness above it seemed perfectly ordinary
now, nothing dragon-shaped about it. “Don’t gimme that. I hate the part in movies when someone sees something crazy and then
everyone argues about whether they imagined it. We can skip that shit. Look at it. I mean—just look at it.” Then he pointed
a scowl at Colin. “What’s this other thing you figured out? You said you know something else Jayne and Ronnie can do to protect
themselves from King Sorrow?”
“Hm?” Colin asked, pulling his gaze away from the deformed streetlamp with some effort.
“What? Oh. I was shitting her. There isn’t anything.
I’ll have to make something up. I just wanted to make sure Arthur’s mom has a fair chance in her parole hearing.
I told you there was something to be gained from this meeting, whether we’re able to save them or not.
” He lowered his eyes and seemed to quietly reflect for a moment.
“Maybe I’ll tell her to wear a necklace made out of garlic.
Like what you do for a vampire. If she’s going to be King Sorrow’s dinner, she might as well smell like it. ”
The gang stared at him in shocked, silent disbelief . . . and then Donna snorted, a rumble of amusement, and put her head
on Allie’s shoulder. Van looked away and laughed wearily and rubbed the back of his neck.
Arthur felt Gwen’s small hand stealing into his. He squeezed it gently. They stood together, staring at the ruined lamppost.
The air smelled sharply of ozone and superheated copper wire. Something shorted inside the lamp and it vomited another burst
of bright sparks—a final blazing shower before the light died out for good.