The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [103]
The vehicle waiting in the lane was a rickety hooded chaise harnessed to a skin-and-bones nag whose ill condition was typical of Sheol's cab horses. Vali and Gwynn were too busy seating Mona comfortably inside to notice Siegfried positioning himself to get aboard. When he squeezed himself in next to Vali, she felt herself at a loss. Gwynn ignored him, evidently regarding him as her guest and her problem. Merely telling the kid to leave seemed a weak reaction to his bizarre effrontery, and if he refused to go, what could she do? To forcibly remove him would likely rebound in publicity of the least desirable kind. She could imagine the tabloid headlines ― Former Hero's Brawl Shame. Vali resigned herself to accepting it as yet another strange and uncomfortable situation to be endured, and gathered up her dignity.
"Magnolia Terrace, river end," she ordered the driver of the chaise, a bent and leathery old woman wearing a battered tricorn and a voluminous cloak.
The beldam cracked her whip and the horse lurched off at a trot, taking them down a lane to the left and into the traffic and crowds that filled Sycamore Street from sidewalk to sidewalk despite it being the middle of a cold autumn night.
It was crowded on the seat under the canvas hood. Vali and Gwynn had twisted sideways to give Mona more room. Siegfried found himself poked by scabbards and gun butts wherever he tried to sit. He abandoned the seat and stood on the footboard, and from there began an impromptu interview. Mona being still unconscious, he questioned the other two.
How many people had they each killed? Did they enjoy their work? In their respective views, what was the duellist's role in society? What did they do in their spare time? How were their homes decorated? What did they think of Mona's dance with death? The youth fired questions and chased answers with relentless zeal, in seeming oblivion to the peril he would be in should one or both of his captive subjects lose patience. Or, if he did understand, he was stimulated by the danger.
Vali responded with monosyllables or morose silence. Gwynn gave their interrogator better satisfaction, responding with answers which, whether true or not, would make good copy. Siegfried filled pages with shorthand notes. Vali suspected Gwynn of slightly enjoying the attention. However, her mood was too grim and grieving to allow her to feel any amusement.
To Vali, their progress took on the confused, uncontrollable quality of a dream. She started feeling that she had slid sideways into an alternative, stupidly surreal existence which was crammed full of details that were irritating, strange and boring all at once. Crowds of late-night shoppers and partygoers surged under green and red silk lanterns hanging on wires across the streets, hurrying as if on missions of great and secret importance. The hag put the whip to the horse, which panted like a demon-beast in front of them, white breath steaming from its nostrils and bones moving like pistons under its skin. Mona's lovely head lolled, saliva pooling in the corners of her mouth.
They passed an open yard where a religious lynch-mob was holding an auto-da-fe. Several thousand faces, screaming in rapturous hysteria, were washed in orange light from the scaffold where a human shape was visible at the centre of a blaze. A procession of hooded penitents started across the road, each pair lashing the shoulders of the pair in front of them, forcing the through-traffic to stop while they passed. The old woman and half a dozen other drivers yelled imprecations, to no effect on the lashers, who kept to their shuffling ritual pace.
The noise woke Mona. Her eyes opened wide and she grabbed Vali's arm. "I'm dying!" she gasped. "I saw it! I saw Death. I've been dreaming. Don't take me to the house, Vali. Take me to the necropolis. I want to die there, where it's quiet." She looked around deliriously. "Where am I? Vali, are you here too?"
Vali stroked Mona's hair, trying to soothe her. "Don't fret," she murmured. "We'll be home soon."
Mona clutched