“She meant to kill me. And I’m afraid … she has. She knew in the end I’d sided with you. And that meant I’d betrayed her.”
“You didn’t — ”
“Yes, I did. I knew the last thing she wanted was that the ghosts get in.” He shook his head, his eyes sliding closed. “But I had to. It was the right thing.” He opened his eyes again, and looked down at the blood. “And her killing me, that was right, too.”
“Christ, no … ”
“It’s all … ended up … the way it should.”
“Don’t say that,” Tammy murmured. “It’s not over yet.” She pushed herself up onto her knees, then grabbed hold of the edge of one of the alcoves, and hauled herself to her feet. The numbness was passing from her hands. Now they simply tingled, as though they’d been trapped under her while she slept.
From outside, she heard the sound of footsteps, and she looked round to see Maxine stumbling up the steps from the garden, in a state of total disarray. In any other circumstance, Tammy might have found the sight funny; Maxine’s clothes were torn, her face scratched and grimy. But right now she was just one more victim: of Katya, of the house, of the Canyon.
“My God,” she said, seeing Todd sitting there, the blood pooling on the floor. “What the hell happened?”
“Katya.” Tammy said. It was all the explanation she had energy for.
Once over the threshold, Maxine closed the door and locked it, her hands trembling.
“There’s things out there — ”
“Yes, I know.”
“They killed Sawyer.”
For a moment it looked as though she was going to succumb to tears, but she fought them off, and came along the passageway, her expression turning from one of imminent tears to shock.
“Wait … ” she said. “Is that Todd?”
Was he that unrecognizable? Tammy thought. It seemed he was. In the hours since Maxine had last set eyes on him Todd taken a hell of a beating. By the sea, by Eppstadt, by Katya. Now he looked like a boxer who’d gone twenty rounds with a man twice his strength: both his eyes puffed up, his lower lip was swollen and jutting, his whole face a mass of colors, bruises old and new, cuts old and new, all spattered with dried mud.
Looking at him afresh, with Maxine’s appalled gaze, Tammy realized that she could have shown this poor broken face to a thousand members of the Todd Pickett Appreciation Society and not a single one would have known who they were looking at; and that probably included herself. How far they’d all fallen; the Gods and their admirers both.
“We have to get an ambulance up here,” Maxine said. She bent down to speak to Todd. “We’re getting an ambulance.”
“No,” he said weakly, lifting his hand, “Stay with me.”
Maxine looked at Tammy, who gave her a small nod. Maxine took hold of Todd’s hand.
“What happened to Eppstadt?” Maxine asked.
“Last time I saw him he was in Hell,” Tammy replied.
There was something rather satisfying about being able to say that, even if she didn’t really know what they’d all experienced behind that door downstairs. Whatever it was, it was real. Her breast still tingled from the goat-boy’s suckling.
“And the woman? Katya?”
“I don’t know where she went. But if you’ll take care of Todd, I’d like to find out.”
Todd gave his own, misshapen reply to this suggestion. “Be … careful.”
As he spoke he raised his free hand in Tammy’s direction. It was impossible to interpret the expression on his face, but the fact that he was afraid for her spoke volumes. And she in her turn was afraid; afraid that if she didn’t find some excuse to leave now, she’d be left here watching him die.
She pressed his fingers, and he returned the pressure, “It’s good,” he said. “Better see. That bitch.”
She nodded, and headed off back down the passageway. As she went she heard Maxine dialing 911 on her portable phone, which had apparently survived the traumas of her journey through the wilderness behind the house.