Black House (Page 161)

"No," Parkus agrees as they top the nearest rise. "Wouldn’t do to leave him beside that tent after dark. That wouldn’t do at all."

There’s more foliage in the declivity on the far side of the rise — even a little ribbon of creek, presumably on its way to the river Jack can hear in the distance — but it still looks more like northern Nevada than western Wisconsin. Yet in a way, Jack thinks, that makes sense. The last one had been no ordinary flip. He feels like a stone that has been skipped all the way across a lake, and as for poor Wendell —

To the right of where they descend the far side of the draw, a horse has been tethered in the shade of what Jack thinks is a Joshua tree. About twenty yards down the draw to the left is a circle of eroded stones. Inside it a fire, not yet lit, has been carefully laid. Jack doesn’t like the look of the place much — the stones remind him of ancient teeth. Nor is he alone in his dislike. Sophie stops, her grip on his fingers tightening.

"Parkus, do we have to go in there? Please say we don’t."

Parkus turns to her with a kindly smile Jack knows well: a Speedy Parker smile for sure.

"The Speaking Demon’s been gone from this circle many the long age, darling," he says. "And you know that such as yon are best for stories."

"Yet — "

"Now’s no time to give in to the willies," Parkus tells her. He speaks with a trace of impatience, and "willies" isn’t precisely the word he uses, but only how Jack’s mind translates it. "You waited for him to come in the Little Sisters’ hospital tent — "

"Only because she was there on the other side — "

" — and now I want you to come along." All at once he seems taller to Jack. His eyes flash. Jack thinks: A gunslinger. Yes, I suppose he could be a gunslinger. Like in one of Mom’s old movies, only for real.

"All right," she says, low. "If we must." Then she looks at Jack. "I wonder if you’d put your arm around me?"

Jack, we may be sure, is happy to oblige.

As they step between two of the stones, Jack seems to hear an ugly twist of whispered words. Among them, one voice is momentarily clear, seeming to leave a trail of slime behind it as it enters his ear: Drudge drudge drudge, oho the bledding foodzies, soon he cummz, my good friend Mun-shun, and such a prize I have for him, oho, oho — 

Jack looks at his old friend as Parkus hunkers by a tow sack and loosens the drawstring at the top. "He’s close, isn’t he? The Fisherman. And Black House, that’s close, too."

"Yep," Parkus says, and from the sack he spills the gutted corpses of a dozen plump dead birds.

Thoughts of Irma Freneau reenter Jack’s head at the sight of the grouse, and he thinks he won’t be able to eat. Watching as Parkus and Sophie skewer the birds on greensticks reinforces this idea. But after the fire is lit and the birds begin to brown, his stomach weighs in, insisting that the grouse smell wonderful and will probably taste even better. Over here, he remembers, everything always does.

"And here we are, in the speaking circle," Parkus says. His smiles have been put away for the nonce. He looks at Jack and Sophie, who sit side by side and still holding hands, with somber gravity. His guitar has been propped against a nearby rock. Beside it, Sacred and Profane sleeps with its two heads tucked into its feathers, dreaming its no doubt bifurcated dreams. "The Demon may be long gone, but the legends say such things leave a residue that may lighten the tongue."

"Like kissing the Blarney Stone, maybe," Jack suggests.

Parkus shakes his head. "No blarney today."

Jack says, "If only we were dealing with an ordinary scumbag. That I could handle."

Sophie looks at him, puzzled.

"He means a dust-off artist," Parkus tells her. "A hardcase." He looks at Jack. "And in one way, that is what you’re dealing with. Carl Bier-stone isn’t much — an ordinary monster, let’s say. Which is not to say he couldn’t do with a spot of killing. But as for what’s going on in French Landing, he has been used. Possessed, you’d say in your world, Jack. Taken by the spirits, we’d say in the Territories — "

"Or brought low by pigs," Sophie adds.

"Yes." Parkus is nodding. "In the world just beyond this borderland — Mid-World — they would say he has been infested by a demon. But a demon far greater than the poor, tattered spirit that once lived in this circle of stones."

Jack hardly hears that. His eyes are glowing. It sounded something like beer stein, George Potter told him last night, a thousand years ago. That’s not it, but it’s close.

"Carl Bierstone," he says. He raises a clenched fist, then shakes it in triumph. "That was his name in Chicago. Burnside here in French Landing. Case closed, game over, zip up your fly. Where is he, Speedy? Save me some time h — "

"Shut . . . up," Parkus says.

The tone is low and almost deadly. Jack can feel Sophie shrink against him. He does a little shrinking himself. This sounds nothing like his old friend, nothing at all. You have to stop thinking of him as Speedy, Jack tells himself. That’s not who he is or ever was. That was just a character he played, someone who could both soothe and charm a scared kid on the run with his mother.

Parkus turns the birds, which are now browned nicely on one side and spitting juice into the fire.

"I’m sorry to speak harsh to you, Jack, but you have to realize that your Fisherman is pretty small fry compared to what’s really going on."

Why don’t you tell Tansy Freneau he’s small fry? Why don’t you tell Beezer St. Pierre?

Jack thinks these things, but doesn’t say them out loud. He’s more than a little afraid of the light he saw in Parkus’s eyes.