The creaking sound stopped on the other side of the curtain. Mary’s blood pounded against her ears.
“Who… who?” she croaked like an owl.
The curtain opened very slowly and the dark was filled with a golden glow. Mary White let out a small cry of happiness.
“I knew you’d come!”
John Hobbes moved to the foot of the old woman’s bed. His shirt was gone, and she gazed at the black ink of the symbols rippling against the glow of his skin. Why was he not rushing to embrace her? Had she grown so old that he was repulsed by her? But her form, her visage, was only a shell; they were joined in spirit. Soon, he’d make her his queen, his Lady Sun! He had come back to her, just as he’d said he would.
“I’ve been faithful, as I promised. The old house kept.”
Silence from him. Nothing but the tap-tap-tap of the rain, the banshee wail of the wind. Lightning sparked outside her bedroom window, lighting the side of his face. His eyes. There was something not right about his eyes.
“Johnny. Johnny, my love…” Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. “It’s been so long. Let me look at you.”
Still he said nothing. Mary was angry. Hadn’t she kept her end of the bargain all these years?
“ ‘Behold and the Beast was made flesh, and when he spake it was as tongues of fire, and the heavens trembled at the sound.’ ”
Mary White made a small, strangled cry of joy. His voice! After all these years, still so resonant. Still so magnificent.
“Yes, yes, my love… Speak to me, your humble servant….”
“I need you to write a note, Mary.”
“Yes, love. Anything.”
The paper appeared as if by magic under her hands. The pen, too. He told her what to write, told her to tuck it into her pocket, where it could be found.
“Found? I don’t understand, Johnny….”
“ ‘At the lamentation of the widow, every tongue was stilled and the heavens opened at her cries….’ ”
No. That couldn’t be right. Not the tenth offering. He meant the eleventh: the Marriage of the Beast and the Woman Clothed in the Sun. She was his Lady Sun. They would be joined. She would be made immortal, like him. They would be…
“And thus was the tenth offering made.”
“John. John!”
“Look upon my new form and be amazed.”
All the love she’d felt before turned to a cold fear. In the pulses of lightning, he emerged: A wing. A talon. Tips of teeth sharp as razors. And the eyes, the burning, bottomless eyes, the windows of the soul, but there was no soul in those twin pools of flame. In them, she saw the sham of her life laid out like a book, the foolish belief that she, that anyone, could escape the consequences of this world, could flee from death. That was the deceit. The true serpent in the garden. And dust you shall eat all the days of your life….
“Look at me.”
Mary White looked and was amazed and could not tear her gaze away from the sight of him, could not stop the dry catch of breath in her throat as her scream died there before it could reach her tongue.
Along the shore, the wind swirled sand into small hills and broke them down again, carrying the grains on. The sideshow workers packed up their cards and dice. A dog barked and was rewarded with hot-dog scraps. The bearded lady sighed at her window; her lover was late. The globe of the world spun and wobbled, set in motion by some invisible finger. A thin cloak of gray clouds passed in the night sky; the moon ducked behind them and hid its face for grief.
SERGEANT LEONARD
Jericho pulled himself to a sitting position and hissed with pain. He was sore and his shirt was off. The faded scar, which snaked down the front of his broad chest, was now partially hidden by a layer of soft down. There was a new wound—a stitched hole above his left pectoral muscle—and Jericho remembered being surrounded in the woods, remembered the gun going off and the impact. He pieced together what must have happened and realized with growing horror that Evie must know everything now. But there she was on the other bed, asleep in her clothes, her shoes still on. She’d stayed with him, he realized. She’d found out and chosen to stay.
Jericho lay back down on his side, watching her breathe just an arm’s length from him. She was not beautiful while she slept; her mouth hung open and she snored very lightly, and this, despite everything that had happened, made him smile. Dreaming, she stirred and stretched, and he looked away. The first glimmerings of dawn showed through the window. The tiny tin clock on the bedside table read ten minutes past five. Evie’s eyes fluttered open, and Jericho quickly pulled the sheet up to cover his scars.