Страница 40 из 166
“See it?”
“I see it,” Barb lied. She shielded her eyes and groped around until she found the bat.
“I don’t see it.”
Re
It had probably knocked the toilet seat over, numb little fart.
The tail twitched in that spastic way that a
She tried to block it with her foot, but the cat executed a tight dodge and zipped under the dresser, way ahead of her. There followed an un-seen, brief and violent encounter that sounded pretty awful, though nei-ther Barb nor Re
The cat’s tail whapped Barb in the chest. The cat was no longer con-nected to it. Tufts of calico fur followed, held together mostly by blood.
Barb began making cave-person noises and wedged herself into the combat zone, dealing short, blind strokes with the bat. The bureau be-gan to scoot with each hit, bunching the area rug.
The intruder darted out from the far side. It looked like a hand.
“Barb, it’s a hand.”
“What!” Barb backed off, frantic and hollow-eyed. “What! What! A hand? I don’t care! It hurt my cat!”
“Barb, it ran under the bed.” Re
Hot for combat, Barb spun. “It hurt Rumplecatskin!” The kill light was in her eyes.
She swept aside the dust ruffle. Two eyes returned her gaze from about a foot in. Then it charged, before she could bring the bat into play, and got a tight grip on her throat.
It was Victor’s hand, all right. He’d grabbed her throat enough times for her to make a lightning ID. Whatever else had befallen Victor’s mor-tal parts, his right hand was still strong and mean as ever. Barb’s wind was cut and in seconds she’d see the purple spots. Victor knew exactly how to throttle her.
She collapsed into a heavy, spread-legged sit-down as Re
Goddamn it, but this was getting to be much more trouble than any-thing was worth.
Barb’s face had shaded to mauve. Re
Shouldn’t he just let it polish Barb off? Would this all be over then?
Nope, he thought as he levered the middle finger out of the flesh of her neck. No way he was going to be beaten and humiliated by disorganized body parts. He cocked the finger away savagely and smiled when he heard it snap.
There were eyeballs on the back of the hand, and they swivelled a full one-eighty to glare at Re
Re
The thumb and ring finger could not hang on alone; apparently Barb had smashed the pinky, a lucky hit with the bat; it jutted crookedly, alienated from the choking operation. Re
Barb stumbled over and started stomping on it. She got gook all over her heel, slipped and nearly fell again. This enraged her enough to bash the hand with the bat until it didn’t move anymore.
Both of them squatted down at a safe distance and got their first really clear look at it.
Apart from the killer hand and about four inches of forearm, there were Victor’s eyes. Eyes that had always been the color of pastel blue enamel, opaque eyes that did not deal in emotional shades, with the hair-trigger flecks of silver buried deep like vague rumors of madness. The eyes were seated across the first three knuckles on the back of the hand, and looked roped down by strings of muscle and threads of optic nerve. One eyeball had just been imploded by Barb’s death-dance. At last, Re
“That’s his heart.”
The whole assemblage reminded Re
“His heart.” This was not the sort of news Barb was eager to hear. “His heart, oh godddd…how could it be his heart, they took it out, you beat him to pieces, didn’t you break his hand? Last time?”
Re
“I mean…he didn’t have no head, Re
As they watched, the heart-end caved in, voiding blood in a final death-spurt. It made a large, wet, wide stain on the finished wood of the now-exposed floor.
It appeared to Re
She began slapping him. The blows were openhanded and basically harmless. “Re
Barb was a pace and a half from an asylum. Her tirade petered out and left her sobbing. Re
“Okay, okay. Sorry I’m such a jerk.”
Pangs of selfishness could occasionally make Re
Victor had been slabbed and gutted…and had come walking back. He’d had all his bones busted and he’d come blobbing back. And Re
“Look, babe-I know what this thing needs. I’ll make sure there ain’t nothin left this time.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” Barb had regained enough of her equilibrium to peek at herself in the bureau mirror to ensure she didn’t look too messed up.
Re
“You got any charcoal starter out back?”
It stank. Truly. It sizzled when it burned, a roundly unappetizing spectacle that Barb forced herself to witness. They both watched it cook down and Re
Barb plodded back inside to take her third shower in twenty-four hours. There was just no washing Victor off her life.
Re
He rubbed the smoke from his reddened eyes and finished up, not really wanting to enter the house again. He no longer wanted to play bed games with Barb. He just wanted to get some sleep.