Vicious Circle

Meanwhile, three miles away at the Scrubs, St. Michael’s Church was invaded by some entity so powerful that just being close to it poisoned the minds and souls of everyone in the goddamn building, sending them off on murderous trajectories that had sliced through the city like so many loops of piano wire through a ripe cheese.

And something else. Something I was missing.

Pen’s voice, low and urgent, was coming from out in the hall. Nobody else’s voice, just hers. I turned and saw her through the doorway, standing at the foot of the stairs, all by herself, talking away fifteen to the dozen. She was on her mobile, of course, but right then it seemed to me that there must be some spectral figure standing next to her, silent and invisible, as though she were reporting in to heaven, because there was a blaze of light around her head like a halo. But no, that was just the sun streaming in through the skylight over the front door. It was a beautiful day. About time. Way past time. But if the sunlight knew what the fuck it was shining on, would it bother to make the trip?

Pen came back into the room, stood over me looking irresolute. “I’ve got to go, Fix,” she said. “Rafi’s seeing a psychiatrist this morning for a preliminary status hearing. I don’t want him to face that all by himself. I called Dylan and asked him to come and have a look at you, but he’s on call so he can’t. He’s going to send someone else, though—a friend. You just—you just stay here until he comes, all right?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” She knelt down and gave me a quick, awkward hug. “Get better. I’ll give Rafi your love.”

And as she straightened up again, a thought was zigzagging across my brain, trying to find an intact neuron it could connect to. Pen was still talking, but I didn’t hear a word over the ringing in my ears.

Something about Pen? Or about Rafi? I should be there for him. I had been there for him. That was the problem. That was why he was so fucked up now.

The door slammed, startling me out of a half doze. I tried to get up, but I didn’t manage it. I opened my mouth to say “I’m coming with you,” but Pen wasn’t there anymore. Of course, that was why the door had slammed. She’d left already.

But that wasn’t the issue, was it? Pen was fine, because she was going to visit Rafi, and Asmodeus—most of Asmodeus—was somewhere else. So what was the problem? Why did I feel like there was something I hadn’t done, that I had to do right then without wasting any more time? And given that feeling of urgency, why was I still half-sitting, half-lying on the couch with my head hanging like a weight from my shoulders, staring at the floor?

This time I managed to get upright, even though the floor was lurching in every direction at once, trying to throw me down again. I groped in my pocket for Matt’s car keys. Yeah, they were still there. I had to see someone. Juliet. I had to see Juliet, and tell her where to find Rafi on a Saturday night.

Out into the hall. Which way now? Had to be either left or right, because there weren’t any other directions. Except I was forgetting down: there was an unreasonable prejudice against down. Down was amazing. Once you’d tried it, it was hard to get up again.

I was stretched out on the stairs, diagonally crucified on dusty carpet that didn’t have a pattern anymore because the sun had bleached the threads to a uniform pale gold. It smelled of must and very faintly of tarragon: not the recipe I would have used. I couldn’t even remember deciding to go upstairs, so I levered myself upright, leaned backward as far as I could and fell down them again. You have to be decisive at times of crisis or people will walk all over you.

Lying on my back in the hallway, I saw the door open and a pair of shiny black shoes advancing toward me, apparently walking on the ceiling. A man’s voice said a single word. Ship? Shit? Shirt? Then a huge face heaved itself into my field of vision like the moon rising in the middle of the day. It was a nice face, but it wasn’t one I knew.

“Does anything hurt?” his lips said. A second or so later, the sound broke over me like a sluggish wave. I shook my head, infinitesimally.

“Then is there any part of you that you can’t move?”

That would have made me laugh, if I could remember how laughing worked. There wasn’t anything I could move right then. Maybe a finger, if I tried hard enough.

The guy moved on to a lot of inappropriate touching, feeling my neck and my cheeks, pulling my eyelids down so that he could peer into my eyes, finally opening my mouth and looking down my throat with the aid of a flashlight: not a doctor’s flashlight, either—a Maglite about a foot and a half long that he must have found under Pen’s sink or somewhere similarly insalubrious.