“He won’t harm me,” Pope was saying to himself, “not with you. Always had a weakness for children.” He pushed Karney ahead of him. “Just get the papers… then away.
Karney scarcely knew if he was alive or dead. He had no strength left to fight Pope off. He just went with the old man, half crawling much of the time, until they reached Pope’s destination: a car which was buried behind a heap of rusted vehicles. It bad no wheels. A bush which had grown through the chassis occupied the driver’s seat. Pope opened the back door, muttering his satisfaction, and bent into the interior, leaving Karney slumped against the wing. Unconsciousness was a teasing moment away; Karney longed for it. But Pope had use for him yet. Retrieving a small book from its niche beneath the passenger seat, Pope whispered: “Now we must go. We’ve got business.” Karney groaned as he was pressed forward.
“Close your mouth,” Pope said, embracing him, “my brother has ears.”
“Brother?” Karney murmured, trying to make sense of what Pope had let slip.
“Spellbound,” Pope said, “until you.”
“Beasts,” Karney muttered, the mingled images of reptiles and apes assailing him.
“Human,” Pope replied. “Evolution’s the knot, boy.”
“Human,” Karney said and as the syllables left him his aching eyes caught sight of a gleaming form on the car at his tormentor’s back. Yes, it was human. Still wet from its rebirth, its body running with inherited wounds, but triumphantly human. Pope saw the recognition in Karney’s eyes. He seized hold of him and was about to use the limp body as a shield when his brother intervened. The rediscovered man reached down from the height of the roof and caught hold of Pope by his narrow neck. The old man shrieked and tore himself loose, darting away across the cinders, but the other gave howling chase, pursuing him out of Karney’s range.
From a long way off, Karney heard Pope’s last plea as his brother overtook him, and then the words curved up into a scream Karney hoped never to hear the equal of again. After that, silence. The sibling did not return; for which, curiosity notwithstanding, Karney was grateful.
When, several minutes later, he mustered sufficient energy to make his way out of the yard-the light burned at the gate again, a beacon to the perplexed-he found Pope lying facedown on the gravel. Even if he had possessed the strength, which he did not, a small fortune could not have persuaded Karney to turn the body over. Enough to see how the dead man’s hands had dug into the ground in his torment, and how the bright coils of innards, once so neatly looped in his abdomen, spilled out from beneath him. The book Pope had been at such pains to retrieve lay at his side. Karney stooped, head spinning, to pick it up. It was, he felt, small recompense for the night of terrors he had endured. The near future would bring questions he could never hope to answer, accusations he had pitifully little’ defense against. But, by the light of the gateside lamp, he found the stained pages more rewarding than he’d anticipated. Here, copied out in a meticulous hand, and accompanied by elaborate diagrams, were the theorems of Pope’s forgotten science: the designs of knots for the securing of love and the winning of status; hitches to divide souls and bind them; for the making of fortunes and children; for the world’s ruin.
After a brief perusal, he scaled the gate and clambered over onto the street. It was, at such an hour, deserted. A few lights burned in the housing project opposite; rooms where the sick waited out the hours until morning. Rather than ask any more of his exhausted limbs Karney decided to wait where he was until he could flag down a vehicle to take him where he might tell his story. He had plenty to occupy him. Although his body was numb and his head woozy, he felt more lucid than he ever had. He came to the mysteries on the pages of Pope’s forbidden book as to an oasis. Drinking deeply, he looked forward with rare exhilaration to the pilgrimage ahead.