“Where are they going? What are they up to?” I wondered.
“If we follow them, we draw attention to ourselves,” Sparky said. “No element of surprise. Six wormheads, just three of us. You can bet their briefcases contain something nastier than paperwork.”
Passing in front of our Buick, three of the Screamers turned their heads toward us, those gaping maws working as if they might be lined with olfactory receptors, in which case the same organ gave them the sense of smell and the sense of taste. The apparent absence of eyes reminded me of what I’d once read about scallops, which are covered with scores of eyes so tiny that we don’t recognize them as such. Perhaps these creatures were equipped in the same manner; the flesh around the always-open always-questing mouth might be prickled with numerous eyes as small as pencil points, presenting them with a strange view of the world that conceivably conveyed more data than our eyes brought us. Or maybe the human form in which the parasite concealed itself wasn’t merely a disguise but also a functioning avatar with which it perceived the world through the same five senses that we do.
Of the three whose attention we’d drawn, two glanced at us and then moved on. However, the third came to a stop in front of our car and stared at us through the windshield. Lacking features, the face of its hidden nature produced no expressions that could be read. However, the face of its human disguise, which I saw alternately come into focus and fade, expressed puzzlement verging on suspicion, as if the creature sensed something wrong with us, a wrongness to which it was unable to apply a name.
Although the light had not yet changed, I said, “Blow the horn, get him to move.”
“Not rude enough,” Sparky said. “Show it that you’re number one, Bridget.”
She put a hand to the windshield and favored the beast with her middle finger.
The Screamer remained inscrutable, but the puzzlement on its human face dissolved into a sneer. It turned from us and hurried to catch up with the others in its group.
“Why did that work?” I asked.
From behind me, Sparky said. “Misdirection. If they’re the essence of evil and suspect that guardians like you and Bridget are in the world . . . then they won’t expect you to be crude, obscene.”
“Guardians?” I said. The word unsettled me no less than had being scrutinized by the Screamer. “Guardians of what?”
The traffic light changed to green, and Bridget motored on.
When neither she nor Sparky answered my question, I repeated it. “Guardians of what?”
“Maybe of everything,” she said.
“‘Everything’ as in . . . ?”
“Everything as in everything,” she said. “Now isn’t the time to discuss our theory of all this, Quinn.”
“When will it be time?”
“It’ll be time when it’s time, sweetheart.”
“When will I know it’s time?”
“When I tell you.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.”
She smiled at me. “Maybe you’re becoming psychic yourself.”
After we traveled awhile in silence, I said, “‘Guardians’ sounds like a full-time lifetime job. Maybe we’re not guardians. Maybe instead we’re just being sent on a quest.”
“We’re guardians,” Bridget said.
I didn’t want to give up on the idea of a limited commitment. “I mean like a great and noble quest, the kind knights in medieval romances set out upon. They traveled far, into strange lands, until they found the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant or whatever, and then they went home and spent a few years drinking mead, eating roast haunch of wild boar, competing in lance-throwing contests.”
“We’re guardians,” Sparky said.
“Well, maybe,” I said, “or maybe not. I guess we’ll see.”
At last we arrived in an eclectic neighborhood of bland stucco houses standing next door to charming craftsman-style bungalows and across the street from mid-century-modern travesties. Bridget slowed almost to a stop. She peered beyond me, out of the passenger-side window, as we coasted past a dark residence that looked as if it should have been on the hill above the Bates Motel.
“It’s a Nottingham,” she said cryptically.
“Doesn’t look much like one,” Sparky said.
“The pull is strong.”
“What’s a Nottingham?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” she said as she pulled to the curb and parked two doors away from the house that intrigued her. “You and I will go in together. Grandpa will be our getaway driver if we need one. He’s a maniac behind the wheel when he needs to be.”