no no.” He whined and drummed his heels and stared in outrage at the dying boy-thing.
“Do you think,” Paul said—while “what? what’s happening? what?” the Tattoo kept saying—“that I would work with you?” Paul pulled the scissors from Subby’s neck, pushed them back again. Subby looked from side to side and closed his eyes. Goss screamed and bubbled and kicked and drooled sudden smoke and could not stand. Screamed.
“Do you think I would let you come anywhere near me?” Paul said to him. “Did you think I’d collaborate with you? Do you think I’d let you be the muscle for this purebred scum evil motherfucker on my back? Did you think I wouldn’t kill you?” Paul spat at the dying Goss. Spat at the ground in front of him. “You’ve got this flesh basket to hold what makes you tick, and you think that’ll stop me? Goss, stop up your noise. It is time for you to go to hell and take your poor fucking empty little life-carrier with you.”
Subby was immobile. The blood was coming out of him slower. Goss wheezed and gurgled and looked as if he was trying to level some good-bye curse, but as Subby died with closing eyes, he died too. His last breath went without smoke.
And whatever else was happening—
in times and places all over—
unmentionably many—
that going out—
that finishedness—
rippled—
was very felt—
and every one of London’s bullied and terrified were for a metamoment, from 1065 to 2006, all in their own instants and entangled for a blink, in every awful situation, every little room where they were head-flushed, thumbscrewed, decried, name-debased, taunted, punched, sneered at, the foil of brutality, for a moment just then, for one instant, which might not save them but which would at the very least be a tiny comfort, for always, felt better—
felt joy.
PAUL WATCHED GOSS GO.
“What’s happening? What’s happening? What? What?” the Tattoo said. Paul ignored it. Marge ignored it.
She watched without motion, holding her head where Goss had hurt her. When Subby died—as if he was a “he,” as if it were more than a box with a face—he mouldered away. He crumbled into a disgustingness, and then that crumbled too, into nothing, leaving only a heart, a man’s unbeating heart too big for Subby’s chest.
Goss did not crumble. Goss lay there like the dead man he was.
“I’m sorry,” Paul said to her, at last.
“I needed him to trust me,” Paul said. “He never would have left Subby alone otherwise.” They stared at each other. The Tattoo screamed, forced to stare into the parking lot darkness where nothing was happening.
“What did you do?” the Tattoo said.
“I knew they’d find me,” Paul said. “And I could never take him. This was all I could think to do. I knew they’d hear what we said if we sent it from here, and I needed them to listen in and come. Can you help me cover him? Him.” He raised his arms. “The Tattoo.”
He said, “I didn’t mean that to happen to Wati. I’m sorry. I thought Goss and Subby would get here first. Well, they did, but I didn’t think they’d hide and wait. I tried to persuade him to leave.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Anything.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. Let me tell you what I can.”
Chapter Seventy-Two
THEY KNEW—PAUL EXPLICITLY, MARGE BY THE INSTINCTS SHE was accruing—that that was hardly the end of it as far as London went. For them, though, it had been an epoch-ending execution. They sat where they had fallen, talking a little, but often just sitting and breathing in Goss-and-Subbyless air. Paul kicked Goss’s heart across the concrete.
When Goss died, the lights in the garage had dimmed twice and gone up again in a hip-hip-hooray, in object joy. Colours changed and shadows moved as emissaries from various courts—seelie, unseelie, abseelie, paraseelie—passed through to check out the spreading rumour. A few ghosts that Marge did not see but felt as movements of sad warmth. With a squee, a pigness passed her. It was not long after that that they heard a car.
Without a siren but with lights whirling a police car bumped down the ramp and to them. Three officers emerged, their batons out, pepper spray and Tasers out, their hands overfull of weapons. Their terror was quite obvious. After a pause, out of the car in a smart sweep, her clothes and hair jouncing, leaking smoke from one corner of her mouth, a cigarette bobbing from the other, her eyes narrow and turning her head a little, splendid