Read Online Tapping the Dream Tree by Charles De Lint - Free Book Online Page B

to her feet. The freaks are closing in on us, but there’s still room for what I’ve got in mind. I tell Christina to make a run for it, I’ll be right behind her, but I can see it in her eyes, she’s not buying it. She knows I plan to do the hero thing and from the way she squares her shoulders, it’s plain she’s going to stick with me. I appreciate the gesture, but what’s the point of both of us dying if the uglies might be satisfied with only one?
    â€œJust go,” I tell her.
    We have to breathe through our mouths, the reek’s so bad, a combination of the Dumpster and the monster boys coming for us.
    Christina shakes her head. “Sing,” she says.
    I look at her like she’s gone insane. The freaks have got us boxed in now, a semicircle of greasy long faces, eyes glittering with this weird inner glow. The smell of them is almost overpowering. It’s too late for either of us to make a break. Too late for anything.
    â€œSing?” I say.
    She nods. “Maybe we can get them going.”
    I try to keep myself between her and the freaks. I can see the pleasure grow in them as they savor the moment. I remember the last couple of photos on that damn roll of film I was stupid enough to pick up and get developed. They’re going to have some fun with us tonight.
    â€œYou’re not making sense,” I tell her.
    â€œIt’s like your friend the priest said.”
    Ex-priest, I think. And he’s not my friend. He’s just some old drunk who could have done a better job of convincing me these monsters are real.
    â€œHe said a lot of stuff …” I start to say, but Christina’s not listening.
    She starts in with the drawn-out refrain from “Gloria.” Her singing voice is high and sweet and it breaks my heart that these freaks are going to silence it forever. But something strange happens with the monsters. They cock their heads and listen. Oh great, I think. Good choice. A hymn to their old boss. That’ll win them over. But they start to sing along with her, first one, the others falling in with harmonies, and the sound is unbelievable. It’s like sunrise, a cathedral sound filled with light and mystery and the great swelling feeling you get in your chest when something’s just too beautiful for words.
    Then I realize what Christina meant. Sully’s wingless angels. Get them singing, he told me, and they’ll get all maudlin and homesick. And maybe too distracted to pull us to pieces.
    Christina falls silent, her own pretty singing shamed before these celestial voices. Damned if tears don’t come to my eyes as their voices wash over us, echoing and bouncing throughout the alley until it sounds like a choir of thousands. I know we should be trying to slip away, but it’s just too mesmerizing. Christina’s crying beside me. Hell, even the uglies have tears streaming down their cheeks.
    I don’t know how long we stand there listening, but finally I stir. I take Christina’s hand and lead her past the freaks with their honey gold voices, my heartbeat drumming wildly as we approach, then pass in between two of them. But they keep right on singing, faces lifted to the sky, tears flowing, and we just head off down the alley, walk around to the front of the hotel and walk inside. We get a hard stare from the concierge, and I can’t blame him. I know how bad we look, Christina in that dress, both of us disheveled and shaky like a pair of junkies. But I give him as hard a stare back that tells him in no uncertain terms that I’ll bust him in the head if he even thinks of kicking us out. He gets real busy with some papers behind his counter.
    â€œDon’t take it out on him,” Christina said. “What happened to us wasn’t his fault.”
    I realize she’s right. Maybe he’s an officious little prick, maybe he’s just doing his job. But I can’t take it out on him, my