this cop we know, he’s on his way to take a look.”
“It’s Al North, isn’t it? General North?”
“He’s in rather iffy shape,” Wylie said. “But I’m not gonna go killin’ people without the cops say it’s okay. If you get my drift.”
“Could we question him?” Trevor asked.
“Sure, waterboard the fucker, for all I care.” He sucked on the cigar, pulled it out of his mouth. “Use this on his eyes. Make ’im chatty as hell, be my guest.”
Trevor took the thing from him, held it. “How would we?”
Nick laughed.
Wylie said, “Waterboarding is a form of torture, makes the chappie you’re curious about think he’s drowning. And as far as that cigar you’re holding is concerned, boy, you stick the business end of that thing in the sore eyesocket General Al is nursing, my guess is he’ll tell you more than his address.”
Trevor thrust the thing away from himself.
Wylie caught it before it could touch the floor. “Cuban, remember?” He sucked it, made a great cloud of smoke. “A thing of beauty.” He got up and strode across the room and into the kitchen.
Martin reflected that he might be a writer by trade, but he had the speed and power of a soldier about him. The boy did, too, and with her hard-set lips, the woman looked as if she could kill a man as soon as look at him. Only the little girl seemed vulnerable, or perhaps that was just because her cuddle toy was also called Bearish, and Winnie had been such a gentle child.
Wylie opened a trapdoor. “Howya doin’ down there, General? We’re gonna torture you in a min’, just wanted to let you know.” He closed the trap. “It’s called softening ’em up.”
“He’s not playing with a full deck, Dad,” Nick said.
“Always remember this son, if they’re just playing with a half a deck it don’t matter as long as it’s your half, or even one card, if it’s the card you need.”
“We have no idea how to deal with Al North,” Nick said. “And neither do they.”
Silence followed. It was true enough.
Wylie opened his cell phone, dialed. “Where in fuck’s name are you, Matthew? I just finished your last Partagas, incidentally.” He listened. “Well, I’m telling you, the weirdness index up here has just shot through the roof. You need to put the fricking donut back in the fricking box and get your ass moving.” He hung up. “You know, I’m not saying a whole lot on the phone, so he thinks I’m bullshitting him some way, but I gotta tell you—” He stopped. Suddenly the bravado blew away like so much sea foam. He closed his eyes. Shook his head. “I saved my family,” he said softly, “me and my boy did.” Then he sat down. He took a long drag on the cigar.
A truck came bounding up to the house, its gears grinding as it negotiated the steep driveway. It came to a stop. “Ah, wait until the gentleman of the law does his body count.”
A tall man in a police uniform opened the front door and came in, using the same striding, aggressive walk that, it seemed to Martin, characterized them all.
“What in hell kind of a Hummer is that,” he said as he entered. Then he sniffed the air. He looked toward Brooke. “He dope you up or something?”
“He’s getting a reward for saving our lives.”
“From what? Some drug dealer’s fancy Hummer? Man, that’s a U.S. Army vehicle, full scale. You don’t see many of those puppies around. And in limo paint, no less.” He looked at Wylie. “Don’t tell me you purchased that thing? Buddy, that is gonna piss me off.”
“Matt, I want you to turn around and look at that man standing in front of the fireplace trying not to wet his pants. I want you to look into his eyes and tell me what you see there.”
The lean, narrow-faced man turned, and as he did, Martin saw that he did not carry a small firearm like Bobby, but a gun almost as big as the family’s hand cannon. Martin looked to the pistol and the great ham of a hand dangling beside it, then, reluctantly, up to the face. He let Matt look into his eyes.
“What happened to you?”
“I—it’s—”
“It’s a rapid evolutionary change induced by extreme species stress,” Wylie said. “That would be correct, wouldn’t it, Martin?”
“I would say so.”
“But, uh, excuse me, I don’t think we’ve been introduced.” He thrust out his hand. “I’m Matt. Uh, hi.”
“Hi.”
“You—” He motioned with his chin, an expressive gesture.
“That’s right, we’re from over there. This is my son, Trevor.”
“So you’re the one lost Lindy and Winnie. Oh, Jesus, you poor guy.”
“Matt, I would recommend a very stiff scotch, but we don’t have time. What we do have is one of his compadres tied up in our crawl space. A very weird, very altered piece of work that used to be a general over there in their version of the U.S. Air Force, but is now a sort of monster designed to be able to function freely in both universes, apparently by being made into a cut-up mess. You wouldn’t believe it. I mean—you remember the guy downstate with the mutilated face?”
“Nunnally. Sure do.”
“The missing pieces have been sewn onto this man.”
“What?”
“Sewn onto him to provide a physical connection with our universe. Give him greater freedom of action. The theory. In fact, bullshit. It’s the seraph who have trouble moving around in our universe, not people. And he’s people. Was.”
“Okay, I’m getting an occasional word. There is a man in your crawl space that has—Nunnally—Nunnally’s body parts—”
“In a misbegotten attempt to enable him to function more freely in our universe.”
“And this is Martin and his kid.”
“Yessir.”
Matt looked at them again. He held out his hand. Martin shook it. “Wow,” Matt said. “You sure this is for real, Wylie?”
“Oh, yes, and what we need is for Frankenstein down in the cellar to tell these people something—what, Martin? What might he know that would help you?”
“If we could stop the seraph coming through, that would help us. If we could understand how to close their gateways, that would help us. Anything at all.”
“You’ve read the part about Samson’s journey to Abaddon?” Wylie asked. “Do you see a vulnerability there anywhere?”
“They’re in a hurry. So we need to slow them down,” Martin replied.
“Thing is, I also keep seeing an ending to my book, and in it I see these filthy huge cities full of starving seraph, and they are in your world. I do not see New York and Washington and London. Sorry, fellas, but I just don’t. What I see there is open ocean. Right now, looks like you lose.”
“Can this man extract information? Does he know these techniques?” Martin asked.
“He knows ’em, Martin,” Wylie said. “He’s served in the Mideast in his time.”
“So you’ll torture General North for us?” Martin asked.
“I can’t do that!” Matt burst out.
“You gotta, buddy,” Wylie said. “Because once the seraph finish with these guys, we’re next.”
“We’ll cut their hearts out,” Matt muttered.
“What we’ve been through here, believe me, it will be mutual. No, we don’t wanna have them show up here, believe me. And this North cat is the key. So you are gonna help us. You are gonna devote five minutes to this effort.”
“It’s totally illegal!”
“He doesn’t exist in this universe, therefore has no legal standing. Therefore, Nick, go get your skateboard. I think we can do this with a skateboard and a towel.”
“I am not going to waterboard a goddamn general in any goddamn air force!”
“Yeah, you are.” Wylie pulled the trapdoor open. A stench of urine and blood rose from the crawl space. He
