After the Dog's Bridge, there was no sense in airplanes, no sense left in any of her plans, and when the doctor was finished, she told Marvin to find them a hotel with a view of the bay. After that yawning abyss of flame and smoke, she needed to see water, the cold comfort of the Pacific lapping patiently at the ragged edge of the continent.

"I know she's f.u.c.king Alex," Niki says.

"What?" Marvin asks, and she can tell how hard he's trying to sound surprised, like that's the very last thing in the whole world he ever expected her to say. "Niki, what the h.e.l.l are you talking about? That's not true."

"Yes, it is. I've known for a long time."

"You're just angry-"

"No. I'm not angry, Marvin. I'm not angry at all," and that's the truth. She might have been angry about Daria and the Brit guitar player, a long time back, months ago, when she thought there was still hope for her and Daria.

But now it only makes her a little sad, and she's tired of pretending she doesn't know what's going on.

She opens her eyes, and the little boat's just a speck in the darkness.

"She loves you, Niki," Marvin says, and she stops tapping at the gla.s.s.

"Yeah. I know she does. That's the worst part of it, I think. It would be easier if she didn't."

"But you still love her."

137.

"Do I?" Niki asks, asking herself more than she's asking him. "I thought I did. Just a few hours ago, I was pretty sure I did. But now-"

"Now you're tired and confused and need to get some sleep."

Niki turns around in her chair and stares at Marvin for a moment. His eyes are bloodshot, and there's stubble on his cheeks. He probably hasn't slept since Sat.u.r.day morning, and now it's Monday night, and he's still trying to stay awake because someone has to watch her.

"I'm not confused," she says. "I'm very tired, and my hand hurts, but I'm not confused. I'm crazy, Marvin, but I'm not a child. And I'm not stupid, either."

Marvin sighs and rubs his eyes.

"Let's both get some sleep, and then we'll talk about this, okay? I can't even think straight anymore."

Niki glances back at the window, but there's no sign of the little boat now. For all she knows, the bay has opened up and swallowed it whole.

"I'm sorry I've been such a b.i.t.c.h to you," Niki says.

"Come lie down," he says, and switches off the television with the remote control, so there's only the restless sound of the traffic outside, the murmur of people on the street, the wind pressing itself against the walls of the hotel. "Lie down, and we'll talk about it in the morning. Your meds are on the bathroom counter by the sink."

"That girl who saw the wolves, that wasn't your fault, what happened to her."

"No," he says, then sighs and switches the TV on again.

"Of course not. I know that," and the box springs squeak, like a handful of captured mice, so she knows without having to look that he's sitting up.

"You did everything you could," she whispers, then begins tapping her finger against the window again. "Everything anyone could have done."

"Niki, what are you trying to say?" he asks, but then his cell phone starts ringing, and she doesn't have to think of a way not to answer the question.

138.

When Niki finally reached the far side of the Dog's Bridge, there was someone waiting for her, the same someone who waits for anyone who crosses the span. He sat on his haunches, crouched at the base of one of the great stone piers, where the intricate weave of bone and wire was anch.o.r.ed forever to the inconstant, volcanic earth. When he saw her coming, the creature stood up, joints popping loudly, stretching his long arms and legs like he must have been sitting in that same spot for a very long time. Standing up straight, he was at least a couple of feet taller than Niki. The creature yawned once, showing off sharp eyeteeth the color of clotted milk, scratched his chin, then blinked his crimson eyes at her. In the dim, shifting light from the soot and ash sky, his smooth skin glistened black as coal; he was naked, save for a battered derby perched crookedly on his narrow skull.

"You certainly took your own sweet time," he growled and licked his thin lips.

"It was a long way," Niki said, wishing there'd been no one at all on this side of the bridge, except maybe Spyder, but certainly not this scowling, ribsy creature with its red, pupilless eyes. "I came as fast as I could."

"Are you kidding? No one ever crosses that bridge as fast as they can," he replied. "They pick their way across, inch by G.o.dd.a.m.ned inch, as though their lives depend on every single step. They dawdle, and they gawk, and-"

"I didn't dawdle," Niki protested.

"Oh, yes, you did, sweetheart. I watched you. I listened.

You're no different than all the rest of them."

"I never said I was."

"You didn't have to," the black thing grunted and sat down again. "By now, every thistle and scorpion and grub-worm on the hub knows your name. Round these parts, you're the new It girl and the black guard has your number. But personally," he sneered, "I don't see what all the fuss is about. You wouldn't make a decent mouthful for a starving rat."

139.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I was at the hospital, and I went to take a p.i.s.s-"

"Yeah. Sure, sure, sure. I read the papers, child. I got the skinny. But the only thing matters to me is how you're mucking everything up by starting at the end, when you haven't the foggiest where the beginning's at. Do you have any idea the sort of ripples that causes?"

Niki turned and looked back at the bridge, the tops of its high, misshapen towers lost in the low clouds.

"Spyder sent me across," she said and swallowed, her mouth as dry as sand, dry as dust, and thought how good a gla.s.s of Marvin's limeade would be.

"Of course she did. That one, she does whatever the h.e.l.l she likes and protocol be d.a.m.ned. But, you mark my word, the black guard's gonna catch up with her a.s.s one day, too.

Way things are headed, maybe one day real soon."

"What's the black guard?" Niki asked, not really wanting to know and starting to wonder if maybe she should have stayed on the other side, and she sat down on the rocky ground in front of the tall thing.

"Oh, you'll find out soon enough. Those cheeky, conniv-ing f.u.c.kers. They come skulking round here, making me promises, offering-" and he paused and sniffed at the sulfurous air a moment. Behind them, the sea of fire belched and heaved and bubbled, and the Dog's Bridge creaked in the scorched and parching furnace wind.

"-offering me things, " he continued. "Sweet things.

Things I haven't tasted in centuries, mind you. And all I have to do is hand them your pretty head on a pike."

"Is that what happens next?" Niki asked. "Are you going to kill me and cut off my head?"

The tall thing looked offended, rolled its red eyes and snorted. "This is still my bridge, Hierophant. My f.u.c.king bridge, and my rules, and as long as you know how many steps it took you to get across, I got no beef with you. I'm a bridge keeper, not a merchant. I don't make deals."

"Your bridge?"

"d.a.m.n straight, girlie. My bridge, for as long as it's been 140 standing, and it'll be my bridge until those fires finally burn themselves out, or I get bored with it, whichever comes first."

"Then you're the dog?"

"Do I look like a G.o.dd.a.m.n dog?"

"You don't look much like anything I've ever seen," Niki replied, and the creature rolled its eyes again.

"I didn't name the stinking bridge," he said, and licked his lips. "And I'll wager there's a whole lot of things you ain't seen yet. Way I hear it, though, that's all gonna change, moppet. Way I hear it-"

"I don't care. My hand hurts, and I'm tired of listening to you." She got up and dusted off the seat of her jeans with her good hand.

"Then give me the number, and f.u.c.k off to wherever it is you're bound," the creature snarled and leaned back against the pier. "You think I don't have better things to do than sit here yacking with rabble like you all day long?"

"The number?" Niki asked, and the bridge keeper leaned forward, perking his ears, grinned wide and smiled an eager, hungry smile.

"How many steps, girlie. That side to this side. The number. Else I get something sweet, after all. Surely, she must have told you-"

"Yeah, she told me," Niki said quickly and took a couple of steps back from the black and grinning thing, caught one heel on a piece of slate and almost tripped. "My hand hurts, and I'm thirsty, that's all. I just forgot for a second. I didn't know what you meant."

"So stop wasting my time," the bridge keeper said. "Stop getting my hopes up. Spit it out."

"What happens then? Do you send me back?"

"I don't send n.o.body nowhere, lady. I watch this here bridge. That's all. Do you have the number or not?"

Niki opened her mouth to tell him, "Four thous-" but then he sprang to his feet, faster than she would have guessed, and one hand clamped tight across her mouth. His skin tasted as bad as the air smelled.

141.

"Geekus crow!" he growled and glanced anxiously over his shoulder. "You don't go saying it out loud, you little ninny. Anything at all might be listening. The number's mine, and n.o.body hears it but me."

He looked back at her, then, stared deep inside her with those blazing crimson eyes, his gaze to push apart the most secret convolutions of her mind, her spirit, her heart, and in an instant, the bridge keeper had s.n.a.t.c.hed the number from her head.

"Now get out of here," he snarled and sat back down.

"I'm sick of your ugly face."

And worlds parted for her, and time, and the s.p.a.ce between worlds and time and the things that aren't quite either, and she felt the cold restroom tiles beneath her.

"Don't move," Marvin said. "Someone's coming."

"I'm sorry," Daria says again, the third or fourth or fifth time since Marvin handed the phone to Niki. The words so easy from her lips, and Niki thinks it might be easier to believe had she said it only once. "I should have called. I promised you I would, and I should have called. Things have been crazy ever since the plane landed."

"It's okay," Niki tells her, and she knows those words come too easily, as well. "I know you're busy."

"I'm not too busy to keep my promises."

Marvin is sitting on one corner of his bed, watching Niki expectantly, his eyes asking urgent questions that will have to wait. She turns her back on him, facing the window and the bay again.

"What are you doing in a hotel?" Daria asks. "Why aren't you at home?"

"I didn't want to be at home anymore. It's creepy there alone."

"But you're not alone, baby. Marvin's there. That's why he's there, so you won't be alone."

"I like hotels," Niki says, and takes a step nearer the window. "I like those little bottles of shampoo."

There's a moment or two of nothing but static over the 142 line then, not silence, but no one saying anything, either, and Niki wonders if she has the courage to pa.s.s the phone back to Marvin or, better yet, the courage to just hang up.

I don't want to talk to you, she says inside her head. I don't want to talk to you and I don't want to hear you. I don't think we matter anymore.

"So, why did you decide to call?" she asks instead, and that almost seems bold enough, a halfway decent compro-mise, if she doesn't have the b.a.l.l.s to go all the way.

"I was worried about you-"

"I'm fine," Niki replies quickly, cutting Daria off. "Me and Marvin are just sitting here watching television. It's Harvey, you know, with Jimmy Stewart and the pooka."

"I got a strange phone call," Daria says. "It scared me, that's all. I needed to hear your voice. I needed to know that you're all right."

"The hospital, " Marvin whispers behind her. "You have to tell her, Niki."

Niki ignores him. "What kind of phone call?"

"I don't know," Daria says and coughs. "It was probably just some a.s.shole who got my number somehow, someone trying to mess with my head. I guess I shouldn't have let it get to me. It freaked me out."

"You shouldn't smoke so much," Niki says. "It makes you cough. It's bad for your voice."

"If you don't tell her, Niki, I will. I'll have to. It would be better if you did."

"Was that Marvin?" Daria asks. "Did he say something?"

"No," Niki says. "It was just the television. The volume's turned up too loud. Marvin, turn the TV down. I can't hear Daria."

Marvin shakes his head, makes his exasperated-with-Niki face, and lies down on the bed.

"What kind of phone call was it, Dar? What did they say?"

More static, the sound of Daria looking for the right words, filtering, deciding what is fit for Niki to hear and 143.

what isn't; Niki sits down in the chair beside the window and waits for Daria to figure it out. She's learned better than to push, that pushing usually only leads to Daria telling her less, or nothing at all.

"I'm thinking about coming home," Daria says, finally. "I shouldn't have left you there."