Imajica Part 83

"There's a morbid sense in that, I suppose," Clem said.

"And how's Celestine?" Gentle asked the boy.

"She's in the car, all wrapped up and not saying very much. I don't think she likes the sun."

"After two hundred years in the dark, I'm not surprised. We'll make her comfortable once we get to Gamut Street. She's a great lady, gentlemen. She's also my mother."

"So that's where you get your b.l.o.o.d.y-mindedness from," Tay remarked.

"How safe is this house we're going to?" Monday asked.

"If you mean how do we stop Sartori getting in, I don't think we can."

They'd reached the foyer, which was as sun-filled as ever.

"So what do you think the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's going to do?" Clem wondered.

"He won't come back here, I'm sure of that," Gentle said. "I think he'll wander the city for a while. But sooner or later he'll be driven back to where he belongs."

"Which is where?"

Gentle opened his arms. "Here," he said.

52

There was surely no more haunted thoroughfare in London that blistering afternoon than Gamut Street. Neither those locations in the city famous for their phantoms, nor those anonymous spots-known only to psychics and children-where revenants gathered, boasted more souls eager to debate events in the place of their decease as that backwater in Clerkenwell. While few human eyes, even those ready for the marvelous (and the car that turned into Gamut Street at a little past four o'clock contained several such eyes), could see the phantoms as solid ent.i.ties, their presence was clear enough, marked by the cold, still places in the s.h.i.+mmering haze rising off the road and by the stray dogs that gathered in such numbers at the corners, drawn by the high whistle some of the dead were wont to make. Thus Gamut Street cooked in a heat of its own, its stew potent with spirits.

Gentle had warned them all that there was no comfort to be had at the house. It was without furniture, water, or electricity. But the past was there, he said, and it would be a comfort to them all, after their time in the enemy's tower.

"I remember this house," Jude said as she emerged from the car.

"We should both be careful," Gentle warned, as he climbed the steps. "Sartori left one of his Oviates inside, and it nearly drove me crazy. I want to get rid of it before we all go in."

"I'm coming with you," Jude said, following him to the door.

"I don't think that's wise," he said. "Let me deal with Little Ease first."

"That's Sartori's beast?"

"Yes."

"Then I'd like to see it. Don't worry, it's not going to hurt me. I've got a little of its Maestro right here, remember?" She laid her hand upon her belly. "I'm safe."

Gentle made no objection but stood aside to let Monday force the door, which he did with the efficiency of a practiced thief. Before the boy had even retreated down the steps again, Jude was over the threshold, braving the stale, cold air.

"Wait up," Gentle said, following her into the hallway.

"What does this creature look like?" she wanted to know.

"Like an ape. Or a baby. I don't know. It talks a lot, I'm certain of that much."

"Little Ease..."

"That's right."

"Perfect name for a place like this."

She'd reached the bottom of the stairs and was staring up towards the Meditation Room.

"Be careful," Gentle said.

"I heard you the first time."

"I don't think you quite understand how powerful-"

"I was born up there, wasn't I?" she said, her tone as chilly as the air. He didn't reply; not until she swung around and asked him again. "Wasn't I?"

"Yes."

Nodding, she returned to her study of the stairs. "You said the past was waiting here," she said.

"Yes."

"My past too?"

"I don't know. Probably."

"I don't feel anything. It's like a b.l.o.o.d.y graveyard. A few vague recollections, that's all."

"They'll come."

"You're very certain."

"We have to be whole, Jude."

"What do you mean by that?"

"We have to be... reconciled... with everything we ever were before we can go on."

"Suppose I don't want to be reconciled? Suppose I want to invent myself all over again, starting now?"

"You can't do it," he said simply. "We have to be whole before we can get home."

"If that's home," she said, nodding in the direction of the Meditation Room, "you can keep it."

"I don't mean the cradle."

"What then?"

"The place before the cradle. Heaven."

"f.u.c.k Heaven. I haven't got Earth sorted out yet."

"You don't need to."

"Let me be the judge of that. I haven't even had a life I could call my own, and you're ready to slot me into the grand design. Well, I don't think I want to go. I want to be my own design."

"You can be. As part of-"

"Part of nothing. I want to be me. A law unto myself."

"That isn't you talking. It's Sartori."

"What if it is?"

"You know what he's done," Gentle replied. "The atrocities. What are you doing taking lessons from him?"

"When I should be taking them from you, you mean? Since when were you so d.a.m.n perfect?" He made no reply, and she took his silence as further sign of his new high-mindedness. "Oh, so you're not going to stoop to mudslinging, is that it?"

"We'll debate it later," he said.

"Debate it?" she mocked. "What are you going to give us, Maestro, an ethics lesson? I want to know what makes you so d.a.m.n rare."

"I'm Celestine's son," he said quietly.

She stared at him, agog. "You're what?"

"Celestine's son. She was taken from the Fifth-"

"I know where she was taken. Dowd did it. I thought he'd told me the whole story."

"Not this part?"

"Not this part."

"There were kinder ways to tell you. I'm sorry I didn't find one."

"No..." she said. "Where better?"

Her gaze went back up the stairs. When she spoke again, which was not for a little time, it was in a whisper.

"You're lucky," she said. "Home and Heaven are the same place."

"Maybe that's true for us all," he murmured.

"I doubt it."

A long silence followed, punctuated only by Monday's forlorn attempts to whistle on the step outside.

At last, Jude said, "I can see now why you're so desperate to get all this right. You're... how does it go?... you're about your Father's business."

"I hadn't thought of it quite like that..."

"But you are."

"I suppose I am. I just hope I'm equal to it, that's all. One minute I feel it's all possible. The next..."

He studied her, while outside Monday attempted the tune afresh.

"Tell me what you're thinking," he said.

"I'm thinking I wish I'd kept your love-letters," she replied.

There was another aching pause; then she turned from him and wandered off towards the back of the house. He lingered at the bottom of the stairs, thinking he should probably go with her, in case Sartori's agent was hiding there, but he was afraid to bruise her further with his scrutiny. He glanced back towards the open door and the sunlight on the step. Safety wasn't far from her, if she needed it.

"How's it going?" he called to Monday.

"Hot," came the reply. "Clem's gone to fetch some food and beer. Lots of beer. We should have a party, boss. We f.u.c.kin' deserve it, don't we?"

"We do. How's Celestine?"

"She's asleep. Is it okay to come in yet?"

"Just a little while longer," Gentle replied. "But keep up the whistling, will you? There's a tune in there somewhere."

Monday laughed, and the sound, which was utterly commonplace of course, yet as unlikely as whale song, pleased him. If Little Ease was still in the house, Gentle thought, his malice could do no great harm on a day as miraculous as this. Comforted, he set off up the stairs, wondering as he went if perhaps the daylight had shooed all the memories into hiding. But before he was halfway up the flight, he had proof that they hadn't. The phantom form of Lucius Cobbitt, conjured in his mind's eye, appeared beside him, snotty, tearful, and desperate for wisdom. Moments later, the sound of his own voice, offering the advice he'd given the boy that last, terrible night.

"Study nothing except in the knowledge that you already knew it. Wors.h.i.+p nothing..."

But before he'd completed the second dictum, the phrase was taken up by a mellifluous voice from above.

"... except in adoration of your true self. And fear nothing..."

The figment of Lucius Cobbitt faded as Gentle continued to climb, but the voice became louder.

"... except in the certainty that you are your enemy's begetter and its only hope of healing."

And with the voice came the realization that the wisdom he'd bestowed on Lucius had not been his at all. It had originated with the mystif. The door to the Meditation Room was open, and Pie was perched on the sill, smiling out of the past.

"When did you invent that?" the Maestro asked.