Tom O'Bedlam Part 30

He squeezed hard until he heard a little hoa.r.s.e yoiking gagging sound.

"Let go," Jaspin said. "Just take your hands off her."

The man nodded. He let go and Jaspin swung him around and heaved, sending him reeling off in the other direction. Jill dashed up the steps and into the bus, Jaspin right behind her.

The interior of the bus was an island of weird tranquility in the maelstrom of chaos.

Dark and silent, smelling of sour incense. Flickering candles. The heavy draperies seemed to filter out the drumming of the rain and the booming cries of the mob.

Cautiously Jaspin and Jill moved to the rear of the antechamber and pulled back the brocaded curtains that concealed the middle section of the bus, Senhor Papamacer's chapel.

"Look, there he is," Jill whispered. "Oh, thank G.o.d! Is he all right, do you think?"

The Senhor appeared to be in a trance. He sat immobile in his familiar lotus pose, face to the wall, staring rigidly at an image of Chungira-He-Will-Come. Around his neck was the enormous golden breastplate, studded with emeralds and rubies, that he wore only on the most solemn occasions. Plainly he was off on some other world. Jaspin started to go over to him; but then he heard a sound like a panicky whimpering cry coming from the farthest room, the living quarters of the Senhor and the Senhora. A woman, crying out in some unknown language - an unmistakable plea for help - Jill turned to him. "The Senhora's in there, Barry -"

"Yeah." He took a deep breath and lifted the curtain.

On the far side, the innermost kingdom of the Senhor, everything was in disarray. The draperies were dangling, the wooden images of Maguali-ga and Chungira-He-Will- Come had been knocked over, and the Senhor's storage cabinets were overturned. The contents of the cabinets had been spilled out helter-skelter onto the floor - ceremonial robes, ornate helmets and sashes and boots, all the flamboyant regalia of the tumbonde rites.

In the rear corner of the bus Senhora Aglaibahi stood backed up against the wall. Just in front of her was the stocky red-headed scratcher, the one whom Jill had seen clambering into the side window of the bus. The Senhora's white sari was ripped down the front and her heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, gleaming with sweat, had tumbled into view. Her eyes were bright with terror. The scratcher was holding her by one wrist and was trying to get hold of the other. Probably he had come into the bus with burglary in mind, but there must not have been anything here that he considered worth taking, so he was turning his attention now to rape.

"Leave her alone, you son of a b.i.t.c.h," Jill said in a voice of such ferocity that Jaspin was momentarily astounded by it.

The scratcher whirled around. His eyes went from Jill to Jaspin and back to Jill. It was the look of a cornered beast. "Watch it," Jaspin said. "He's going to come right at us."

"Stay back," the little man said. He was still gripping Senhora Aglaibahi by the wrist.

"Get over there, by the wall. I'm getting out of here and you aren't going to try to stop me."

Jaspin now saw a weapon in his other hand, one of those things they called spikes, deadly little things that delivered lethal electrical charges.

"Careful," he said quietly to Jill. "He's a killer."

"But the Senhora -"

"You stay back," the little man said again. He tugged at the Senhora's arm. "Come on, lady. Let's you and me get off the bus, okay? You and me. Let's go."

Jaspin watched, not daring to move.

The Senhora began to wail and howl. It was a high keening unearthly cry that might have been the song of Maguali-ga himself, an intense rising-and-falling screech, a terrifying sound that very likely could be heard all the way to San Francisco. The red- haired man shook her arm fiercely and said, "Cut that out!"

Then things began to happen very fast.

The curtain lifted and the Senhor appeared in the doorway, looking dazed, as though he were still at least in part deep in his trance. For a long moment he stared in amazement at what was going on; then the awesome deep-freeze look came into his eyes, and he raised both his arms like Moses about to smash the tablets of the Ten Commandments, and he cried out unintelligible words in a colossal voice, as if trying to knock the intruder over by sheer decibel impact alone. In the same instant Jill sprang forward and attempted to pry the Senhora loose. The scratcher turned to her and in one quick unhesitating movement drew his spike across Jill's ribcage from side to side. There was a little flash of blue light and Jill went cras.h.i.+ng back against the wall. Then the scratcher released Senhora Aglaibahi and lunged forward, trying to get past the Senhor. As he came up alongside him he paused, as if noticing for the first time the jeweled breastplate the Senhor was wearing. The scratcher yanked at it but the clasp held firm. The scratcher did not let go. He started up the middle of the bus toward the front exit, dragging the Senhor along by the breastplate. Jaspin looked back at Jill. She lay crumpled and motionless, her arms and legs twisted into knots. The Senhora was in a heap on the other side of the bus, trembling, sobbing convulsively. The scratcher, pulling Senhor Papamacer with him, was halfway across the chapel now, heading toward the antechamber. Jaspin looked around for a weapon.

The best thing he could find was the little statue of Maguali-ga. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and ran toward the other end of the bus.

The Senhor and the scratcher had reached the driver's compartment of the bus. As Jaspin came toward them they stepped outside, onto the little platform that led down to ground level. There they halted, still struggling, the scratcher yanking and pulling on the breastplate, Senhor Papamacer booming out curses and pounding the scratcher with his fists, both of them in full view of the astonished crowd of the Senhor's followers.

Jaspin peered out into the surging rain-drenched mob. There was real hysteria out there now. He could hear them yelling, "Papamacer! Papamacer!" But no one went to the Senhor's aid. Jesus, Jaspin thought, where's the Host? They must see what's going on.

Why don't they come help the Senhor? Then he realized that it was impossible for anyone around the bus to move, they were all so tightly jammed. A human gridlock out there.

Then it's up to me, Jaspin told himself.

He lifted the statue of Maguali-ga like a club and maneuvered for an opening, trying to get into position to bring it down on the arm that held the spike. But the two of them were thras.h.i.+ng too wildly for him to be able to get a clear shot at the weapon.

Maybe now - now - Jaspin swung the statue with all his force. It came down hard, but on the wrong arm, the one with which the scratcher was trying to pull Senhor Papamacer's breastplate loose.

The scratcher grunted sharply and let go of the Senhor, who was slammed by his own momentum against the open door of the bus. Jaspin tried to push him back inside, but to his amazement Senhor Papamacer shook his head and rushed forward, seizing the scratcher by both his shoulders, pulling him around, shaking him furiously, showering him with what sounded like Brazilian obscenities. All the monstrous intensity of Senhor Papamacer's soul was pouring forth in a frenzied attack on this grubby stranger who had dared to violate the holy sanctuary. The scratcher, blinking and gaping, did not seem to know what to do in the face of such an insane onslaught.

A couple of members of the Host were getting through the crowd, now. Jaspin saw them down below, ten, fifteen meters from the steps of the bus.

The scratcher saw them too. He brought his spike up in a sudden desperate swipe and jammed it against Senhor Papamacer's chest. There was another puff of blue light and the Senhor, arms and legs convulsing, sprang high into the air, fell back, dropped heavily to the ground. The scratcher, without pausing, jumped down beside him, made one last unsuccessful grab at the breastplate, then darted off to the left, disappearing into the crowd just as Bacalhau and Johnny Espingarda came running up. Bacalhau knelt beside the Senhor. With trembling hands he touched the Senhor's cheek, his forehead, his throat, then looked up, and his face was the face of someone who had seen the end of the world.

"He is dead," Bacalhau cried in a voice like thunder. "Is dead, the Senhor."

And then everything went wild.

6.

ELSZABETrealized that somehow she had crossed from the dormitory to the gymnasium, though she had no recollection of having done it. Now she stood just at the edge of the little rose garden outside the gym, numb, watching in disbelief as the mob of tumbonde people tore the Center apart.

It was very much like a dream. Not a s.p.a.ce dream, but the ordinary sort of anxiety dream, she thought, the kind in which it's the opening day of cla.s.ses and you don't know where the course you've registered for is supposed to meet, or the kind in which you're trying to get from one side of a crowded room to the other to speak to someone important, and the air is thick as mola.s.ses, and you swim and swim and swim and can't get anywhere.

These people, these cultists, were going to destroy everything. And there was nothing at all she could do about it. She knew what she had to do: round up the patients, get them to a safe place, if there was any such thing left. And find Tom before he carried out any more Crossings. But she was frozen where she stood. She felt paralyzed. She had tried to protect the Center and she had failed, and now it seemed too late to do anything.

Except stand and watch.

It was getting very crazy out there now.

It had been bad enough at the beginning, when they were simply pouring in with their cars and vans and parking them all over the place, banging up against one another in a great screech of crumpling metal, and then getting out and running round and round until there was no room for anybody to move. But now it was much worse; now it had entered an entirely different and more frenzied phase.

The real trouble had started after that little black man in the strange costume had been killed on the steps of that multicolored bus right in the middle of everything. He must have been their leader, their prophet, Elszabet decided. She had seen the whole thing, just as she was coming out of the dorm to go in search of Tom. The little black man and the other one, the red-headed hoodlum who had accosted her earlier, coming out of the bus and fighting just outside it. The third man coming out of the bus waving that heavy wooden statuette around, trying to club the scratcher with it. And then the scratcher hitting the cult leader with his spike - that was when things had gone truly berserk.

In their grief the tumbonde people were ripping everything apart. They surged back and forth like the tides of a human ocean, cras.h.i.+ng into cabins and knocking them off their foundations, pulling up bushes and shrubs, overturning their own vans. The craziness was feeding on itself: the rioters appeared to be trying to outdo each other in displays of rage and sorrow, and it looked as though even those who had no idea what had touched off the upsurge of violence were joining the rampage.

From her vantage point at the edge of the Center Elszabet had a view of almost everything that was happening. The GHQ building seemed to be on fire, black smoke rising from it in the rain. Down the other way the pick cabins were being smashed to splinters - all that intricate and costly equipment, Elszabet thought sadly, everything so painstakingly matched and calibrated, and all the files, all the records - and beyond them she could just make out the staff cabins, her own cabin, nestling in the woods, people swarming all over them, hurling things out the windows, kicking in the walls, even tearing up the ferns on the hillside just outside. Her books, her cubes, her records, the little journal that she sometimes kept - everything out in the mud by now, she supposed, trampled underfoot - There was nothing she could do but watch. In ghostly calmness she scanned the scene from north to south, from south to north, strangely calm, paralyzed by shock and despair, watching. Watching.

Then she caught sight of Tom. That was Tom over there, surely. Yes. Appearing out of nowhere a little way uphill, drifting past the far side of the dormitory building, going around to the left. Down toward the middle of the madness.

Like everybody else he was flecked with mud and soaked to the skin, clothing sticking to his spare fleshless body. And yet he seemed uncaring of that, invulnerable to the weather, as if he were surrounded by some invisible sphere of protection. He was walking slowly, almost casually. He had a sort of entourage with him: Father Christie, Alleluia, April, Tomas Menendez. They were all holding hands, as though they were frolicking off to a picnic in the forest, and they all seemed extraordinarily serene.

I've got to go to them, Elszabet thought. April and the others are in no shape to be left wandering around on their own in this riot. And I've got to get him away from them too.

Before he helps any more of them make the Crossing. Find them a safe place, she thought. And then take Tom and put him somewhere safe too, where he can't harm anyone and no one can do any harm to him.

But she made no move to leave the rose garden. Taking so much as a single step seemed impossible.

"Elszabet?" someone called.

She turned slowly. Bill Waldstein, flushed-looking, big smears of black mud all over his white clinical jacket.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked.

"Watching it. It's worse even than we imagined it could be."

"For Christ's sake, Elszabet. You look absolutely stupefied, do you know that? Where's April?" Elszabet pointed vaguely toward the middle of the lawn.

"I left her with you," Waldstein said. "I was just going over to the infirmary to get a sedative for her. How could you leave her alone? Why did you come out here? What's the matter with you, Elszabet?"

She shrugged. "Look at what's going on."

"Come on, snap out of it. We need to round up the patients before they get hurt. And we need to find Tom and seal him away somewhere so he can't -"

"Tom?" she said. "Tom's right over there."

Waldstein peered into the dimness. "Jesus, yes. And April's with him, and Menendez, and Father Christie -" He stared at her. "You're just letting him waltz away with them like that? You know what he's likely to do to them?" Suddenly Waldstein looked as berserk as any of the tumbonde people. "I'm going to kill him, Elszabet. He's brought all this insanity down on us, with plenty more to come. He's got to be stopped. I'm going to kill him -"

"Bill, for G.o.d's sake -"

But Waldstein had already broken into a run. She watched him run across the swampy lawn, fall, scramble to his feet, fall again, scramble up. With agility he sidestepped a group of tumbonde people who were carrying what looked like pipes torn from some building's heating system, waving them around like baseball bats. He ran up toward Tom, shouting and gesturing. Elszabet saw Tom turn toward Waldstein with a benign smile. She saw Waldstein leap at Tom and both men go sprawling. Then she saw Alleluia pluck Waldstein free of Tom the way one might pluck an insect from one's arm, and hurl him at least fifteen or twenty meters through the air, sending him cras.h.i.+ng into the trunk of a towering pine.

Even at this distance, Elszabet plainly heard the sound of the impact as Waldstein struck the tree head first. He dropped without a quiver and lay without moving.

Dante Corelli came around the side of the gymnasium at a fast jog just at that moment and pulled up next to Elszabet. Elszabet turned to her and said almost in a conversational tone, "That was Bill, did you see? He jumped on Tom and Alleluia simply picked him up and -"

"Elszabet, we've got to get out of here. We're all going to get trampled to death."

"I think Bill must be dead, Dante. I heard the way his head hit the tree -"

"Dan's on his way down from GHQ. He'll be here in a minute and then the three of us are going to run for the woods, do you hear me, Elszabet? Look, there's a whole new mob charging up the hill right now. You see them coming? Holy Christ, do you see them?" Elszabet nodded. Confusions gripped her spirit. She knew she was sinking deeper into that strange paralysis of the will. Simply paying attention to what was happening was an effort. A mob, Dante had said? Where? Yes. Oh, yes. There. They were streaming up out of the central chaos like some unstoppable torrent, overrunning everything in their way. They were heading toward the place where Tom and his little band of followers stood. "Oh, G.o.d," Elszabet murmured. "Tom.Tom! "

Father Christie went running forward to meet the tumbonde people, waving his arms, crying out to them. Offering a blessing, perhaps. The comfort of the Church in a time of chaos. They swept up and over him and he disappeared beneath their feet. Alleluia was next. She planted herself squarely in the path of the advancing mob and with astonis.h.i.+ng energy that seemed almost diabolical began scooping them up and flinging them against the trees, one, five, a dozen of them, tossing them to their deaths, until she too was pulled down and was lost to view.

"Tom," Elszabet said quietly. She could no longer see him, or April, or Menendez.

She heard Dante saying to someone, "It's like she's gone out of her mind. She just stands here, watching."

"Hey. Elszabet." It was Dan Robinson. He touched her arm. "We have to get out while we still can, Elszabet. The Center's in ruins. The mob's completely out of control. We'll slip off into the forest and take the rhododendron trail, okay? We should be able to get deep enough in so they won't bother us there and -"

"I have to find Tom," Elszabet said.

"Tom's probably dead by now."

"Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. But if he's alive we have to find him. And find out what he is. There are things we have to know about him, about what he's doing, don't you see that? Please, Dan. Do you think I'm crazy? Yes, you do, both of you. I can see that. But I tell you, I've got to find Tom. Then we can leave. Not until then. Please try to understand. Please."

7.

TOMheld the fat woman with one hand and the Mexican man with the other and stood his ground calmly while the crazy people went rus.h.i.+ng by. He knew they wouldn't hurt him. Not now, not while the Crossing was actually under way. He was safe because he was the chosen vehicle of the star people, and surely everyone knew that.

It was too bad, he thought, losing the priest and the artificial woman. Now they would never have a chance to make the Crossing. But even without them, it would still be possible for him to invoke the power. It was getting easier. With each new one he sent, his strength grew. A great tranquility was on his soul, a sense of the divine righteousness of his mission.

"Here," Tom said. "This is the next one that we'll send." "Double Rainbow," the Mexican man said. "Yes, he is a good one. We will give him to Maguali-ga."

This one was an Indian. Tom realized that right away. He had seen a lot of Indians in his time. This one was a thick-bodied flat-nosed man with dark glossy hair, maybe a Navaho, maybe something else, but certainly an Indian. The Indian was standing with his back to a burning building, hurling clods of mud at the rioters as they ran by and calling out things to them in a language Tom didn't understand. The Mexican went up to the Indian and said something to him, and the Indian's eyebrows lifted and he laughed; and the Mexican said something else and the two men clapped each other on the back, and the Indian came striding over to Tom.

"Where you going to send me?" he asked.

"The Nine Suns. You will walk with the Sapiil."

"Will my fathers be there?"

"Your new fathers will welcome you into their number," said Tom.

"The Sapiil," said the Indian. "What tribe is that?"

"Yours," said Tom. "From this moment on."

"You will go to Maguali-ga," said the Mexican. "You will never know pain again, or sorrow, or the emptiness in the heart. Go with G.o.d, friend Nick. It is the happiest moment for you, now."

"Stand close around him," Tom said. "Everybody join hands."

"Maguali-ga, Maguali-ga," the Mexican said. The Indian nodded and smiled. There were tears in the comers of his eyes.

"Now," Tom said.

It was quick, a fast sudden surge and the big man slid easily to the ground and was gone.

Easier and easier all the time, Tom thought.

He led the fat woman and the Mexican past a place where a small building had been all broken up into slats, and started to go down toward the center of things, toward the bus that was sitting right in the middle. He thought he might sit on the steps of the bus and use that as a kind of platform for performing the Crossings. But he had gone only a few steps when a man and a woman came up to him. They looked pale and uneasy, and they were holding hands as if their lives depended on staying together. The woman was small and good-looking, with curling red hair and a pretty face. The man, who was slender and dark, had a bookish look about him. The man pointed toward the Indian, who was lying in the mud with the smile of the Crossing on his face. "What did you do to him?"

"He has gone to Maguali-ga," Menendez said. "This man, he holds the power of the G.o.ds in his hands."

The man and the red-haired woman looked at each other.