on its whereabouts.' That could be done, even if the device were currently inactive. 'I have her backpack, too, with some school dung in it. Books and such. There was room enough inside that maybe she brought a change of clothes with her. But even so, why leave her school uniform with Brat?'
'But the doll.'
'He said she didn't have her own kawaii-doll when she came over. But yeah, that's the only thing she took with her when she left, apparently-the kawaii-doll she stole from that other girl.'
'So last time Brat saw her, they were both in bed.'
'Right. They were lying around naked, you know. Lovey-dovey, pillow talk. She picked up the doll and hugged it, all giggly, he said, trying to be cute. Brat couldn't stand the touch of it, himself. Anyway, somewhere in there he fell asleep.'
Stake got up from the edge of the bed and turned to survey it again. The sheets were still in disarray, as they must have appeared to Brat on the day he had awakened from a deep, post-coital and maybe post-alcoholic slumber to find his young girlfriend no longer beside him.
Observing the hired detective, Gentile said, 'Christ-o-mighty, man, now you're starting to look like me a little bit. Or what it would look like if Javier and me had a love child.' He snorted again. 'You doing that on purpose?'
'No,' Stake said. 'Mind of its own.'
Gentile's gaze shifted to sweep the room as Stake's had, but with more melancholy. 'I wish I'd come back from the in-laws' place as soon as he called, but how was I to know what would happen? I figured the little she- beast was just playing games with the poor kid. He didn't call me again, and when I came home he was gone. I thought he must be with his crew, but when he didn't show up I went out looking for the Snarlers and I couldn't find any of them, either. That's when I got the chills, man, deep chills.'
'I have to say,' Stake agreed, flipping up the pillows to peek under them, 'it's very disturbing. I can see Tableau coming after your brother, but I don't know what to make of the whole gang going missing.'
'I'm trying not to think so negative,' Gentile said. 'Maybe the Snarlers have gone underground with Brat to protect him from Tableau. Maybe they're all okay.'
'That does sound like a strong possibility,' Stake reassured him. But as for Krimson, he thought the odds were less in her favor. Seeing her Ouija phone had reminded him of Caren Bistro hearing the missing girl on hers.
He got down on hands and knees next and looked under Brat's bed. A sock, a porn magazine, dust bunnies. On the far side of the bed, though, he noticed something more interesting. He rose, walked to the foot of the bed and started pulling it away from the wall. Gentile came over to help him. 'What?' he said.
Stake pointed down to a square hole in the wall at floor level. A grille partially covered it. Only partially, because the grille had been pulled out of its frame at one corner and bent upwards. 'That an air duct?'
'Yeah. And before you ask… no, I didn't know it looked like that. But there's no way Smirk could have fit through there, if that's what you're thinking.'
Stake stared at the air vent. 'That's not exactly what I was thinking,' he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
running to stand still
Floor Three. Then, the button for the basement again, before the door could open. Sometimes when they briefly stopped before ascending or descending yet again, they heard fists pounding on the outer security door. Thank God the things didn't think to try the elevator keyboards on each floor. Thank God the elevator's mechanism had not given out and trapped them somewhere between floors. Javier had visions of the Blank People shimmying up the cable from below. Or worse, dropping down the shaft from above onto the top of their carriage, and prying open the hatch above their heads.
The elevator had to keep moving and moving, like a shark that will die if it stops passing water through its gills.
Javier looked at Patryk, who leaned his tall body in the corner, playing around on Nhu's wrist comp.
He felt a fondness and a bittersweet pride. The last of the Folger Street Snarlers besides himself. Quietly strong, loyal and calm, with an unquestioning faith in his leader. But Javier felt no less fondness for the others, despite the flaws that might have led to their deaths. How could he have outlived them? He was twenty-five. Some of the others had been teenagers. He had passed through more fires in his life on the streets than they had, but had still come out the other side where they had not. So far.
He took in the last of the Tin Town Terata. Barbie had fallen asleep, hunkered down near Patryk's feet with her arms around her knees. Her two cognizant faces had closed their eyes, but the largest of the five faces flicked its eyes back and forth madly as if in a panic. REMs, Javier realized. For the sake of room inside the cramped elevator, Satin had folded up and collapsed the limbs of his mechanical body as best he could. He glowered at something only he could see, but occasionally roused from his distanced fury to glance around at his remaining comrades as Javier was doing.
And Mira. She had fallen asleep, too, curled on her side like a child at his feet. He wanted to kneel down close to her and touch her hair, her face, her shoulder, but was too self-conscious in the presence of the others. Why was he so attracted to her? Had this circumstance drawn the two of them together only because they needed each other? He had heard that the nearness of death brought out the instinct to fuck, to procreate, to continue the species. Could that impulse have found a more tender manifestation in the both of them? If he had met Mira on the street would he have done anything except maybe crack a joke behind her back to Mott or Hollis? He had had beautiful women of all races. Whole women. Mutants were to be scoffed at, shunned, or at best pitied. Maybe she had used her gift, he kidded himself. Got inside his brain and twisted it like a balloon animal into the shape of love.
Whatever the case, whatever the cause, that was what he felt when he lowered his eyes to her again. He felt love.
The elevator had reached the basement level. Javier was quick to poke the button for Floor Three. They began to rise up smoothly through the body of Steward Gardens again.
Javier noticed Satin's eyes were on him. They had an angry look, but then they always did. He realized the mutant had been waiting to say something to him. Maybe waiting for quite a while.
'You like our little girl, huh?' he grumbled.
Ha, Javier thought. Maybe Satin had a touch of a gift, himself. 'Yeah,' he said. 'I like her.'
'Yeah, well, she likes you, too.' Satin turned his eyes away. 'Can't blame her. She needs a man with those extra touches-like arms and legs. Real arms and legs. Not much someone like me could do for her.'
Javier understood a lot then; not that he hadn't suspected it before. 'Hey. I seen you fight those Blank People. If it wasn't for you, you most of all, none of you Terata would be alive right now. Mira wouldn't be here right now.' The gang leader chuckled. 'I know I wouldn't want to go up against you, man.'
Satin returned his gaze to Javier. And smiled. 'Uhh,' Mira said.
Javier flicked his eyes back to her, saw that she was shivering violently. Her strong features were clenched in an expression like pain. No longer caring what the others thought, he crouched down beside her and gripped her shoulder, leaning his face in close to hers. 'Mira! Mira, wake up!'
'Javier,' she murmured, as if talking in her sleep. But he could tell it wasn't quite that. 'Something in the basement. Somebody. Something.'
'What is it? What do you see?'
The purple veins at her temples stood out engorged and throbbing. Their branches were spread wider than he remembered them, touching the ends of her eyebrows and the tops of her cheekbones like cracks in the porcelain head of a doll. 'Javier, there's something in the basement now.' She spoke clearly but her eyes were still crunched shut. Awake but not. 'It's swallowed the brain. The encephalon. Merged with it. It's sitting down there, getting bigger. Stronger.'
'What is it? What are you talking about?'
'Dai-oo-ika.' Then she gave a shudder, and seemed to change her mind. 'Outsider. Dai-oo-ika. Outsider. The Spawn of Ugghiutu. Outsiders. the
'Okay, that's enough-wake up.' He shook her.
