White Apples (24 page)

One of the primal sounds of the world was twenty steps away outside. It was the first time any of them had ever heard it. And that was because it was a sound the world rarely heard. The animals were gathering.

A male lion charged through the door followed immediately by a large flock of low-flying pigeons. All of them attacked the children. The lion, not breaking stride, leapt at them. Four of the kids ef•fortlessly caught it in midair and snapped its thick neck in an instant. They dropped its body and the sound of it hitting the concrete floor was like that of a heavy rug being dropped.

The pigeons were next. Astonished as he was by what was happening, Ettrich still had the presence of mind to wonder what can birds do?

Eyes. They could fly straight at the children's faces and, because there were so many of them, pluck out eyes with their sharp beaks. For some time it even seemed this would work, that it would stop them. Screaming through fingers covered now with their own blood, most of the kids bent toward the ground and put their hands up to protect their faces as the birds pecked at them.

Separately a family of four badgers scuttled in the door and went straight for the children's legs. Never friends to man, these brothers and sisters were eager to put their claws and teeth to savage work.

More and more animals came. Strange and unexpected ones too—a zebra, an ostrich, two anteaters with claws longer than the badgers', mandrills that bit and fought with ferocious speed and agility. How could they not win? Each creature that entered the cage knew its strength and its task. None of them hesitated.

Chaos is stubborn but it is not stupid. In time it realized this would not work. Its children, no matter how strong and vicious, were no match for a zoo full of enraged animals. So chaos broke another rule that had existed since the beginning of time on earth.

Before the eyes of Ettrich and the others, the children meta•morphosed into the animals that were attacking them. Four badgers became five. But that new fifth had the ferocity and strength of the other four combined. One moment they were having a joyous time tearing a child's short legs to pieces. Then the child became a badger turning on the one closest and biting all the way through its snout. The others instinctively leapt back but it was already on them, using their tricks and moves, snapping, slashing its claws into the belly of one and across the exposed throat of another. It killed them using their shock and disbelief to its great advantage.

All of this happened so fast.

Without doubt animals sometimes turn on one of their own. A deformed baby is born in a litter and instinctively the mother de•stroys it. If necessary, alpha males fight to the death for control of a herd or a brood. Or sometimes madness prevails and one is driven to kill another.

But not like this, not every single one of them. All of the animals that had come to defend these human beings were now being slaughtered by their own. It was beyond sacrilege.

Ettrich pulled on Isabelle's arm and this time she didn't resist. They hurried out of the cage into the exercise yard, which at the moment was empty and quiet. The obscenity of sounds coming from indoors made the contrast even greater.

"Where is Coco?"

"I don't know—still inside, I guess."

"Shit." He ran a hand across the top of his head. "Stay here."

He pointed to the ground as if where they were standing was safe.

Now it was Isabelle's turn to hold on to his hand when he tried to pull it away. "What are you going to do, Vincent?"

"Try and get her out of there." He didn't add that he had remembered something. In the midst of the bedlam, a realization had come to him. Ettrich was fairly certain it was true this time and could help them now. "Jesus, look at that!"

On the other side of the yard five animals stood next to each other, staring at them: a llama, an oryx, a panther, a Humboldt penguin, and a rare Saruvian green crane. If it could be said that animals have facial expressions then these all wore the same one— sadness.

All of them knew they must now enter the cage and join the battle. They also knew they would die fighting. They had already sacrificed their freedom to come and live in this dreadful, false place. But even that was being taken from them now.

Their lives had been spent in cages although each of them knew how to escape whenever they chose. All of these animals had sat for thousands of interminable days on cement, tree stumps, or ugly bare earth, doing nothing else but eating the same food in the same amount, talking among themselves, and sleeping. Forever bored, they watched and waited through the tedium for something like this to happen. That was what they lived for, that was why they were here. But they had always been told there would be a chance of surviving. Now they knew there was none. It was as

simple as that—they would die.

Ettrich felt their courage and their sadness in equal measure. It was unbearable. He freed his hand from Isabelle's and gently touched her cheek. He did not know that Anjo had told her to let him go, that she must.

Still she couldn't help saying, "But what can you do against
that?
What could anyone do?"

He wanted to say something to her but his mind was blank because he was very frightened. "Just wait here." He started back across the yard toward the door. As he got closer he was able to see more and more of what was happening inside. The horror of it made him want to run away. Steeling himself, Ettrich did what had come clear to him before: He spoke to his dead self.

Not some giant rat wearing lipstick this time, but the other half of Vincent Ettrich. The half of his being that was born the moment
this
self died in the hospital months before. It was one of the only things he knew now beyond doubt: There was a living self and a dead self. Both were essential to taking us through the complete human experience and back to the mosaic.

He spoke out loud to it. "What can I do?"

It answered immediately. "Nothing.
You
can't do anything to help her. But I can." Something spoke to him but Ettrich wasn't sure if he heard or imagined the voice. It spoke again. "There is no chaos in death, so it cannot perceive me. Take out your knife."

Without hesitating Ettrich reached into his pocket and found the "Lile Lock" folding knife he had carried for years.

It was short and fat with a beautiful staghorn inlay. He' loved touching it when his hands were bored. He'd always thought of it as a kind of talisman despite the fact he rarely used it for anything other than opening letters or cutting an apple in half.

"You are going to enter your knife and then I am going to take over your body. That way, chaos will not be able to see you when you go back in there and you will be safe. I will do whatever I can for Coco. But you and I can never be separated and that takes precedence over everything else. I will have that knife with me the whole time."

"How do you do that? How do you... put me into it?"

There was a wild flurry of strange and violent noises from inside the cage. The animals on the far side of the yard started moving toward it. Isabelle shouted for Ettrich to come back, come back.

"I don't do it—only you can. You move your numen from your body into the knife. You can do it with any object." "How?"

Isabelle did not understand what Vincent was doing. He wouldn't come back when she called. Now he stood unmoving thirty feet away, holding something in his hand she couldn't see. The five animals brushed past as if she were invisible on their way to the building.

The beautiful green bird was the last because it was so slow on its big flat feet. It waddled comically after the others like some silly movie sidekick. Passing Ettrich, it jerked its long head around to look at him. Flapping its wings, it lifted off the ground and flew away screeching. But from what Isabelle saw, Vincent hadn't done anything to disturb it. He hadn't even moved.

His knees suddenly buckled and whatever he held fell out of his hand. But then he moved so quickly to catch it that Isabelle didn't have a chance to see what the object was. He put it back in his pocket and walked toward the cage.

Once inside the building, the other Ettrich surveyed the carnage in there with detachment. All of the real animals were either dead or dying. The chaos animals were finishing them off with cool assur•ance. Some distance away Coco lay on her stomach near the lion. What had been done to her was unimaginable.

As the chaos animals worked on, unaware of his presence, Et•trich took the knife out of his pocket and opened it.

He started to walk through the place, touching bodies with the tip of the blade. He did not wait to see what happened—he only bent down, touched whatever was left, and quickly moved on. As he had said, none of the chaos animals sensed he was there although he was close by them at all times. While he moved, it grew quieter and quieter in there as the last animals gave whimpers and died. After touching perhaps thirty of the corpses he straightened up, carefully folded the blade closed, and dropped the knife in his pocket. He had not gone anywhere near Coco's body. Twice while moving he looked over and smiled as if he knew something about it that was reassuring.

One by one the chaos animals stopped and began to clean them•selves as any animal might after such dirty work.

This new Ettrich watched them a while. He brought his right hand up to eye level and, looking closely, turned it back and forth, noticing every detail. He brought it to his nose, smelled it, and then the rest of the arm up to the elbow.

It held the faintest fragrance, something citrusy and nice—soap. He rubbed his palms together and felt the friction-heat grow between them. He had never expe•rienced any of these sensations and they were pleasant.

When he brought his hands apart, he saw the spirit rise from the first animal he had touched. It came out of the massive leg of the dead mother elephant. Looking like a long white string, it broad•ened until it was full size. Others were rising now too, one after the other. He had been told about these things but had never wit•nessed them personally. From an ear, a severed wing, the still-shiny eye of a dead badger they emerged and grew to their proper size. The chaos animals were inches away but sensed nothing. They con•tinued to lick their paws and bellies. With closed contented eyes they rubbed their paws across their faces, knowing the job was done. When the spirits of the dead animals, the
Pemmagast,
had risen, there were some seconds of almost-stillness that this other Ettrich reveled in. He looked from one side of the great cage to the other. It was full of beings that, like him, did not belong on earth and never should have been permitted to come here. He smelled his hand again, the lemon there, a moment, two. Then he said only their name,
"Pemmagast,"
and the slaughter began.

"She's dead."

"She can't be dead—it's Coco. She's—" "Fizz, she's dead. She's gone, believe me."

Isabelle put her hands up into her armpits as if she were very cold. "Okay, she's dead. So then what are we supposed to do? What protection do we have now?"

"For now we're all right."

"What do you mean we're all right? That doesn't sound very reassuring. How do you know?" "We're protected. For now it's all right."

"Stop being so cryptic. Don't talk to me like this, Vincent. I want to know what you know. It's not right to shut me out. I'm in the middle of this, and maybe even more than you." She pointed to her stomach.

"You're right. The Pëmmagast are protecting us now: the spirits of the dead animals I told you about. They're what saved us back there. It had never been done before. They were like a surprise attack and chaos had no defense against them. But I don't know how long their power will last. Chaos is smart—it figures things out."

Isabelle's voice trembled. She hated that but she couldn't control it. "So maybe they can't protect us. Maybe they won't be able to do anything when it comes back."

Ettrich hesitated and then sighed. "Maybe. But it's all we've got now until we can find something better. Anjo is the key to every•thing. Chaos wants him because he's a direct threat to it. But I know something else now that I didn't before—once Anjo is born, chaos can't touch him. He'll be protected and there's no way it will ever be able to harm him."

"How do you know?"

Ettrich lowered his voice and said, "He told me."

Isabelle knew that "he" was the other Ettrich. "It's the truth, Vincent? You're not just saying it to make me feel better?"

"It's the truth. But there's something else just as important, Fizz. Even though he'll be protected in his life, there's no guarantee Anjo will learn how to do what's necessary."

"What do you mean?"

"If we don't raise him correctly, he won't be equipped to do the things they need him to do when he's older." "Who cares, Vincent? Fuck
them!
Anjo is our child, not theirs. If he grows up just wanting to play basketball and

look at girls, then that's fine with me." "No, it's not that simple."

She slapped the dashboard with both hands. "Oh yes, for me it is that simple."

They were sitting in his car in the parking lot of the restaurant where they'd eaten the night before.

"Isabelle, you should understand this better than anyone. Your unborn child talks to you. They permitted me to return from the dead. And you've seen what's been happening since you arrived here. Every one of those things is impossible, but they've happened to us. Anjo is not just another kid."

Both of them shuddered when Ettrich's cell phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and looked at the telephone number on the screen to see who was calling. He didn't recognize it. Pressing the connect button, he brought the phone to his ear and said slowly, "Hello?"

"Vincent, it's Bruno Mann."

Ettrich's body slumped against the seat. "Hey, Bruno." "Where are you?"

"In my car. What's up?"

"Did you bring your son home yet?"

Ettrich straightened up again. No more, he thought. Please, no more right now. Not Jack. Not that. "Yes, I took him home. Why?"