Would I tell you lies?

"I want to leave . . . please.'

You're in safe hands.

"Please."

He stumbled forward, confused as to which way the door was. In front, or behind? Arms spread before him like a blind man on a cliff edge, he reeled, looking for some point of security. This wasn't the adventure he'd thought it would be; it was nothing. Nothing is essential. Once stepped into, this boundless nowhere had neither distance nor depth, north nor south. And everything outside it-the stairs, the landing, the stairs below that, the hallway, Carys-all of it was like a fabrication. A dream of palpability, not a true place. There was no true place but here. All he'd lived and experienced, all he'd taken joy in, taken pain in, it was insubstantial. Pa.s.sion was dust. Optimism, self-deception. He doubted now even the memory of senses: the textures, the temperatures. Color, form, pattern. All diversions-games the mind had invented to disguise this unbearable zero. And why not? Looking too long into the abyss would madden a man.

Not mad, surely? said the room, savoring the thought.

Always, even in his blackest moments (lying on a bunk in a hothouse cell, listening to the man in the bed below sob in his sleep) there had been something to look forward to: a letter, a dawn, release; some glimpse of meaning.

But here, meaning was dead. Future and past were dead. Love and life were dead. Even death was dead, because anything that excited emotion was unwelcome here. Only nothing: once and for all, nothing.

"Help me," he said, like a lost child.

Go to h.e.l.l, the room respectfully replied; and for the first time in his life, he knew exactly what that meant.

On the second landing, Carys stopped. She could hear voices; not, now she listened more closely, plural, but the same voice-Marty's voice-speaking and answering itself. It was difficult to know where the exchange was coming from; the words seemed to be everywhere and nowhere. She glanced into her room, then into Breer's. Finally, steeling herself for a repeat of her nightmare, she looked into the bathroom. He was in none of them. There was no avoiding the unpalatable conclusion. He'd gone upstairs, back to Mamoulian's room.

Even as she crossed the landing to the flight of stairs that led up to the top story, another sound caught her attention: somewhere below a blade was hacking wood. She knew at once it was the Razor-Eater. He was up and itching to come for her. What a house this is, she thought, for all its bland facade. It would take another Dante to describe its depths and heights: dead children, Razor-Eaters, addicts, madmen and all. Surely the stars that hung at its zenith squirmed in their settings; in the earth beneath it, the magma curdled.

In the European's room, Marty cried out, a bewildered plea. Calling his name in answer, and hoping to G.o.d he heard her, she scrambled to the top of the stairs and crossed, heart in mouth, toward the door.He had fallen to his knees; what was left of his self-preservation was a tattered and hopeless thought, gray on gray. Even the voice had stopped now. It was bored with the banter. Besides, it had taught its lesson well. Nothing is essential, it had said, and shown him the why and how; or rather dug up that part of him that had known all along. Now he would just wait for the progenitor of this elegant syllogism to come and dispatch him. He lay down, not certain if he was alive or dead, if the man who would presently come would kill him or resurrect him: only certain that to lie down was easiest, in this, the emptiest of all possible worlds.Carys had been in this Nowhere before. She'd tasted its flat, futile air. But in the past few hours she had glimpsed something beyond its aridity. There had been victories today; not large, perhaps, but victories nevertheless. She thought of the way Marty had come, his eyes with more than l.u.s.t in them. That was a victory, wasn't it? She'd won that feeling out of him, earned it in some incalculable way. She would not be beaten by this last oppressor, this stale beast that smothered her senses. It was only the European's residue, after all. His sloughings, left to decorate his bower. Scurf; dross. It and he were contemptible.

"Marty," she said. "Where are you?"

"Nowhere . . ." came a voice.

She followed it, stumbling. Desolation pressed in, insisting on her.

Breer paused for a moment. A long way off, he heard voices. He couldn't make out the words, but the sense was academic. They hadn't escaped yet, that was the important thing. He had plans for them once he got out: especially the man. He would divide him into tiny pieces, until not even his loved ones could tell which part was his finger, which his face.

He began to hack at the wood with renewed fervor. Under his relentless attack the door finally began to splinter.Carys followed Marty's voice through the fog, but he eluded her. Either he was moving around or else the room was somehow deceiving her, echoing his voice off the walls, or even impersonating him. Then his voice called her name, close by. She turned in the murk, utterly without bearings. There was no sign of the door she'd entered by-it had disappeared, as had the windows. The pieces of her resolve began to unglue. Doubt seeped in, smirking.

Well, well. And who are you? somebody asked. Perhaps herself.

"I know my name," she breathed. It wasn't going to unseat her that way. "I know my name."

She was a pragmatist, d.a.m.n it! She wasn't p.r.o.ne to believing that the world was all in the mind. That's why she'd gone to H: the world was too real. Now here was this vapor in her ears, telling her she was nothing, everything was nothing; nameless muck.

"s.h.i.t," she told it. "You're s.h.i.t. His s.h.i.t!"

It didn't deign to reply; she took the advantage while she had it.

"Marty. Can you hear me?" There was no answer. "It's just a room, Marty. Can you hear me? That's all it is! Just a room."

You've been in me before, the voice in her head pointed out. Remember?

Oh, yes; she remembered. There was a tree in this fog somewhere; she'd seen it in the sauna. It was a blossom-laden freak of a tree, and under it she'd glimpsed such horrid sights. Was that where Marty had gone? Was he hanging from it even now: new fruit?

d.a.m.n it, no! She mustn't give in to such thoughts. It was just a room. She could find the walls if she concentrated, even find the window maybe.

Careless of what she might stumble over, she turned to her right, and walked four paces, five, until her outstretched hands. .h.i.t the wall: it was shockingly, splendidly solid. Ha! she thought, f.u.c.k you and your tree! Look what I've found. She put her palms flat on the wall. Now; left or right? She threw up an imaginary coin. It came down heads, and she started to edge along to her left.

No you don't, the room whispered.

"Try stopping me."

Nowhere to go, it spat back, just round and round. You've always gone round and round, haven't you? Weak, lazy, ridiculous woman.

"You call me ridiculous. You. A talking fog."

The wall she was moving steadily along seemed to stretch on and on. After half a dozen paces she began to doubt the theory she was testing. Perhaps this was a manipulable s.p.a.ce after all. Perhaps she was moving away from Marty along some new Wall of China. But she clung to the cold surface as tenaciously as a climber to a sheer cliff. If necessary she would make her way around the entire room until she found the door, Marty, or both.

Pure c.u.n.t, the room said. That's all you are. Can't even find your way out of a little maze like this. Better just lie down and take what's coming to you, the way good c.u.n.ts should.

Did she sense a note of desperation in this fresh a.s.sault?

Despair? said the room. I thrive on it. c.u.n.t.

She had reached a corner of the room. Now she turned along the next wall.

No you don't, said the room.

Yes I do, she thought.

I wouldn't go that way. Oh, no. Really I wouldn't. The Razor-Eater's up here with you. Can't you hear him? He's just a few inches ahead of you. No, don't! Oh, please don't! I hate the smell of blood.

Pure histrionics; that was all it could muster. The more the room panicked, the more her spirits rose.

Stop! For your own sake! Stop!

Even as it shouted in her head her hands found the window. This was what it was so frightened she'd discover.

c.u.n.t! it shrieked. You'll be sorry. I promise you. Oh, yes.

There were no curtains or shutters; the window had been entirely boarded up so that nothing could spoil this perfect nullity. Her fingers scrabbled for purchase on one of the planks: it was time she let some outside world in. The wood had been very firmly nailed in place, however. Though she tugged, there was little or no give.

"Shift, d.a.m.n you!"

The plank creaked, splinters sprang off it. "Yes," she coaxed, "here we are." Light, a fractured, all-too-uncertain thread of it, filtered between the planks. "Come on," she cajoled, pulling harder. The top joints of her fingers were bent back in her effort to wrest the wood from its place, but the thread of light had now widened to a beam. It fell on her, and through a veil of dirty air she began to make out the shape of her own hands.

It wasn't daylight that spilled between the planks. Just the glimmer of streetlamps and car headlights, of starlight perhaps, of televisions blazing in a dozen houses along Caliban Street. It was sufficient, though. With every inch the gap increased, more certainty invaded the room; edge and substance.

Elsewhere in the room, Marty too felt the light. It irritated him, like someone throwing open spring-morning curtains on a dying man. He crabbed his way across the floor, trying to bury himself in the fog before it dispersed, seeking out the rea.s.suring voice that would tell him nothing was essential. But it had gone. He was deserted, and the light was falling in broader and yet broader strokes. He could see a woman outlined against the window. She had wrenched off one plank and thrown it down. Now she was pulling at a second. "Come to Mama," she was saying, and the light came, defining her within ever more nauseating detail. He wanted none of it; it was a burden, this being business. He exhaled a little whistle of pain and exasperation.

She turned to him. "There you are," she said, crossing to him and pulling him to his feet. "We've got to be quick."

Marty was staring at the room, which was now revealed in all its ba.n.a.lity. A mattress on the floor; an upturned porcelain cup; beside it, a water jug.

"Wake up," Carys said, shaking him.

No need to go, he thought; nothing to lose if I stay here and the gray comes again.

"For Christ's sake, Marty!" she yelled at him. From below came the sound of wood shrieking. He's coming, ready or not, she thought.

"Marty," she shouted at him. "Can you hear? It's Breer."

The name awoke horrors. A cold girl, sitting at her table laid with her own meat. His terrible, unspeakable joke. The image slapped the fog from Marty's head. The thing that had performed that horror was downstairs; he remembered now, all too well. He looked at Carys with clear, if tearful, eyes.

"What happened?"

"No time," she said.

He limped after her toward the door. She was still carrying one of the planks she'd pulled from the window, its nails still in place. The noise from below mounted still, the din of unhinged door and mind.

The pain in Marty's torn leg, which the room had so skillfully dulled, now raged up again. He needed support from Carys to make his way down the first flight of stairs. They made the descent together, his hand, b.l.o.o.d.y from touching the wound, marking their pa.s.sage on the wall.

Halfway down the second flight of stairs, the cacophony from the cellar stopped.

They stood still, waiting for Breer's next move. From below there came a thin creak as the Razor-Eater pushed the cellar door wide. Other than the dim light from the kitchen, which had several corners to round before it reached the hallway, there was nothing to illuminate the scene. Hunter and prey, both camouflaged by darkness, hung on to this tenuous moment, neither knowing if the next would bring catastrophe. Carys left Marty behind and slipped down the remaining steps to the bottom of the stairs. Her feet were all but silent on the carpetless stairs, but after the sense deprivation of Mamoulian's room Marty heard her every heartbeat.

Nothing moved in the hallway; she beckoned Marty down after her. The pa.s.sageway was still, and apparently empty. Breer was near, she knew: but where? He was large and c.u.mbersome: hiding places would be difficult to find. Perhaps, she prayed, he hadn't escaped after all, merely given up, exhausted. She stepped forward.

Without warning, the Razor-Eater emerged from the door of the front room, roaring. The carving knife descended in a swooping stroke. She succeeded in sidestepping the blow, but in doing so all but lost her balance. It was Marty's hand that caught her arm, and dragged her out of the way of Breer's second slash. The force of the Razor-Eater's charge propelled him past her. He slammed against the front door; the gla.s.s rattled.

"Out!" Marty said, seeing the way clear along the pa.s.sage. But this time Carys had no intention of running. There was a time for running and a time for confrontation; she might never have another opportunity to thank Breer for his many humiliations. She shrugged Marty's hold off and took the wooden club she still carried in a two-handed grasp.

The Razor-Eater had righted himself, the knife still in his hand, and now he took a raging step toward her. She preempted his attack, however. She raised the plank and ran at him, delivering a blow to the side of his head. His neck, already fractured by his fall, snapped. The nails in the plank pierced his skull, and she was obliged to relinquish her weapon, leaving it fixed like a fifth limb to the side of Breer's head. He fell to his knees. His twitching hand dropped the knife while the other scrabbled for the plank and wrenched it from his head. She was glad of the darkness; the slosh of blood and the tattoo his feet beat on the bare boards were more than enough to appall. He knelt upright for several moments, then pitched forward, pressing the cutlery in his belly all the way home.

She was satisfied. This time, when Marty pulled at her, she went with him.

As they made their way along the corridor there was a sharp rapping on the wall. They stopped. What now? More possessing spirits?

"What is it?" he asked.

The rapping ceased, then began again, this time accompanied by a voice.

"Be quiet, will you? There's people trying to sleep in here."

"Next door," she said. The thought of their complaints struck her as funny, and by the time they'd made their way out of the house, past the wreckage of the cellar door and Breer's cooling camomile, they were both laughing.

They slipped away down the darkened alleyway behind the house to the car, where they sat for several minutes, tears and laughter coming on them in alternating waves; two mad people, the Calibanese might have guessed; or else adulterers, amused by a night of adventures.

XI

Kingdom Come

56

Chad Schuckman and Tom Loomis had been bringing the message of the Church of the Resurrected Saints to the populace of London for three weeks now, and they were sick to the back teeth of it. "Some way to spend a vacation," Tom grumbled daily as they planned their day's route. Memphis seemed a long way off, and they were both homesick for it. Besides, the whole campaign was proving a failure. The sinners they encountered on the doorsteps of this G.o.dforsaken city were as indifferent to the Reverend's message of imminent Apocalypse as they were to his promise of Deliverance.

Despite the weather (or maybe because of it), sin wasn't hot news in England these days. Chad was contemptuous: "They don't know what they've got coming," he kept telling Tom, who knew all the descriptions of the Deluge by heart but also knew they sounded better from the lips of a golden boy like Chad than from himself. He even suspected that those few people who did stop to listen did so more because Chad had the looks of a corn-fed angel than because they wanted to hear the Reverend's inspired word. Most simply slammed their doors.

But Chad was adamant. "There's sin here," he a.s.sured Tom, "and where there's sin there's guilt. And where there's guilt there's money for the Lord's Work." It was a simple equation: and if Tom had some doubts about its ethics he kept them to himself. Better his silence than Chad's disapprobation; all they had was each other in this foreign city, and Tom wasn't about to lose his guiding light.

Sometimes, though, it was difficult to keep your faith intact. Especially on blistering days like this, when your polyester suit was itching at the back of your neck and the Lord, if He was in His Heaven, was keeping well out of sight. Not a hint of a breeze to cool your face; not a rain cloud in sight.

"Isn't this from something?" Tom asked Chad.

"What's that?" Chad was counting the pamphlets they still had left to distribute today.

"The name of the street," Tom said. "Caliban. It's from something."

"That so?" Chad had finished counting. "We only got rid of five pamphlets."

He handed the armful of literature to Tom and fished for a comb in the inside pocket of his jacket. Despite the heat, he looked cool and unruffled. By comparison, Tom felt shabby, overheated and, he feared, easily tempted from the path of righteousness. By what, he wasn't certain, but he was open to suggestions. Chad put the comb through his hair, restoring in one elegant sweep the perfect sheen of his halo. It was important, the Reverend taught, to look your best. "You're agents of the Lord," he'd said. "He wants you to be clean and tidy; to shine through every nook and cranny."

"Here," Chad said, exchanging the comb for the pamphlets. "Your hair's a mess."

Tom took the comb; its teeth had gold in them. He made a desultory attempt to control his c.o.xcomb, while Chad looked on. Tom's hair wouldn't lie flat the way Chad's did. The Lord probably tutted at that: He wouldn't like it at all. But then what did the Lord like? He disapproved of smoking, drinking, fornication, tea, coffee, Pepsi, roller coasters, masturbation. And for those weak creatures who indulged in any or, G.o.d help them, all of the above the Deluge hovered.

Tom just prayed that the waters, when they came, would be cool.

The guy in the dark suit who answered the door of Number Eighty-two Caliban Street reminded both Tom and Chad of the Reverend. Not physically, of course. Bliss was a tanned, glutinous man, while this dude was thin and sallow. But there was the same implicit authority about them both; the same seriousness of purpose. He was drawn to the pamphlets too, the first real interest they'd had all morning. He even quoted Deuteronomy at them-a text they were unfamiliar with-and then, offering them both a drink, invited them into the house.

It was like home from home. The bare walls and floors; the smell of disinfectant and incense, as though something had just been cleaned up. Truth to tell, Tom thought this guy had taken the asceticism to extremes. The back room he led them into boasted two chairs, no more.

"My name is Mamoulian."

"How do you do? I'm Chad Schuckman, this is Thomas Loomis."

"Both saints, eh?" The young men looked mystified. "Your names. Both names of saints."

"Saint Chad?" the blond one ventured.