Man? The snarl of anger and surprise, when the heels of both of his boots struck the shoulder of the driver, sounded inhuman, a grumbling, growling, feral sound that came echoing up from the pits of hell.
The van swerved out of control and skidded across loose gravel.
Mike heard Lovechio curse seconds before the crash.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ben Saunders was carefully steering his police cruiser down the gravel road, approximately halfway between the Sunrise Ridge site and the highway, when approaching headlights on the road ahead suddenly began swerving madly.
The vehicle skidded off the road and pitched nose-first into the drainage culvert that ran along the road.
Ben flipped on his rooftop flashers and brought the cruiser to a stop when he came to the scene.
He had decided to make one extra, last minute patrol through the construction site even though Lovechio had assured him about thirty minutes earlier by cell phone that the Sunrise Ridge site had been evacuated. As it was, he cruised through and saw no one, and he doubted if the workers had needed much prompting to leave work early.
The night sky pulsated, angry and red, and the mouth of the canyon, beyond the abandoned earth-movers and dump-trucks, was a wall of searing flame, one hundred feet high at least, sending a hot wind ahead of it. Fireballs were leaping from tree to tree, and the sound was like the sustained thunder of a 747 in flight.
Two P-3 Orion air tankers had flown by, their prop engine noises not penetrating the thunder of the wildfire. The planes bore down on the fire's flank, showering it with several thousand gallons of blood-red retardant.
Like pissing on a fire, thought Ben. The Sunrise Ridge site was going to burn to the ground within the next thirty minutes.
The condos along the unfinished golf course would go first, then the uncompleted main lodge, and everything else in its path would become kindling. It was a damn shame. Though he'd had reservations about the resort's impact on his community from the beginning, this was no way for it to end.
As he'd been driving away from the site, away from the fire, he thought about his visit to the site that morning, with Mike Landware. He wondered where Jeff Lovechio had been calling from when he'd reported the site evacuation.
He wondered how Robin and Mike were doing. Their personal lives were in crisis, it seemed. It had saddened him to see Mike in the condition he'd found the guy in that afternoon when he and Robin and gone about sobering Mike up. He wondered where Mike was tonight. Mike should have been covering the fire, yet he hadn't seen Mike at any time during the hours he'd put in, assisting the firefighting element in getting up and running on this explosive natural catastrophe.
Direct firefighting efforts were ineffective in the rugged terrain where this fire was thought to have originated. Under these conditions, firefighters would be using roads, streams and other barriers to control the wildfire. At this early stage, the fire was only ten percent contained, meaning one-tenth of its perimeter was not at risk of expanding. Hotshot crews were being sent in to clear trees and brush, thinning vegetation, cutting and blazing fuel breaks to deprive the fire of fuel.
Ben had received a briefing from the Incident Commander at a retardant dip site being readied at the town's miniscule airfield, from which helicopters were shuttling crews to cut fire lines. In addition to the air tankers, a dozen engine-based crews were already at work or in transit from Las Cruces and as far away as Albuquerque. Their only real hope, though, according to the IC's briefing, was an act of God: a favorable shift in the winds, rain. . . .
Ben had been about to advise the dispatcher that he was taking a meal break, when he intended trying to reach Mike on his cell phone. That's when the headlights had swerved off the road and plowed into the culvert.
A red van was pinned in the cruiser's headlights and did not look badly damaged except for the angle at which it was slanted into the ditch. One tire was not even touching the ground.
He was starting to get out of the cruiser when the van's passenger door opened, the side facing Ben.
Jeff Lovechio climbed out, looking dazed. There was a contusion on his forehead, just below the skin line.
Ben rested his palm on his holstered sidearm, a .44 Magnum with a six-inch barrel. This hardly seemed necessary at an accident scene, but he thought he sensed movement. Nothing more than the hint of shifting shadows beyond the headlamps, but he couldn't be sure. He reached in through the open window and shut down the flasher lights, leaving only the headlights on, spotlighting Lovechio. Ben thought, He could have been driving and, dazed from his bump on the bead, be easing himself from the passenger's side. Or was someone else driving? Then he thought, I'm getting too old for this. End of this year, I'm retiring.
He said, "Mr. Lovechio, looks like you've got a problem." Lovechio recognized the voice and that jerked him out of his daze. He raised an arm to shield his eyes from the headlights. "That you, Chief? Well, uh, er, yeah, looks like I did take a wrong turn into that ditch, don't it?" His sneer was sickly.
"Are you alone, sir?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure, I'm alone. Everything's okay here, Chief Saunders."
Something in the guy's voice intensified the cop-sense quiver in Ben's gut. He said, "It doesn't look like everything's okay."
One of the rear-end doors of the van was violently knocked outward and a figure tumbled out, clearly visible in the headlight beams.
Mike Landware's wrists were tied behind his back. He struggled to his feet.
He cried, "Ben, watch out! He's not alone!"
Ben unleathered the .44, assuming a combat stance, his every sense flaring. But he was one heartbeat too late. He heard the breathy heat and the slightest rustle of movement from behind him, and he knew he'd been taken.
Lovechio was lying. There had been another person with him, the driver, and that had been the shifting of movement Ben thought he'd seen.
Hands that felt like claws grabbed him and jerked him around. Ben fought to resist, trying to see his assailant as they struggled, but he could see nothing, as if he were under attack by some supernatural force. Then panic filled him because the hand that guided his hand was raising the gun and turning it, lifting it up to Ben's face. He cried out but the panic was stifled when the gun barrel broke teeth as it was shoved into his mouth.
For some reason, he relaxed then. He thought, It's finally over: I'm going home.
He never heard the muffled report that blew the top of his head off.
Mike averted his eyes a moment too late. It was as if the night itself had shifted and enveloped Ben, and the sagging of his body to the ground squeezed at Mike's heart even as the anger spread through him like the wildfire that was making the night sky red.
Lovechio remained in the headlight beams, which made his stunned features white as paste. "Holy shit, what have you done, Domino?" There was panic in his voice. "You've killed a cop! Oh, my Christ, you just shot a frigging cop!"
Mike rose, shifting his arms frantically to break free of the tape around his wrists, knowing it was futile to try. He was squinting and began to discern the charcoal-dark figure that crouched—like a half-man, half-beast—over his kill.
Domino dipped an index finger into Ben's blood, and traced traditional war paint lines upon his face.
Lovechio watched this, slack-jawed. "Domino, talk to me, goddamn you."
Domino's eyes swung about, glaring over his shoulder. Not human eyes, but glowing orbs of inner fire that burned, and the guttural, brutal, otherworldly voice intoned, "I am Ataka!"
Chapter Thirty-Two
Robin rode on the passenger's side.
It was as if the Subaru was driving into the fires of hell, racing up the highway from town to the Sunrise Ridge turnoff, beyond which the sky glowed red. From behind the ridges between the highway and the resort, golden flames kissed the fiery sky.
Dry, hot night wind poured in through her open window. Her mind and body were numb, as if she was apart from the interior of the Subar
u, removed as if she could see herself. That's the way her mind was working, but at least it was working, she told herself. And she was aware of her body, the way her muscles bunched, ready to flee or attack, as warranted. But the enormity of this shift in reality had immobilized her. How can the mind react when it cannot conceive of what the eyes and ears are relaying to it?
But in the short time that had passed since they'd left home, the enormity of this had started to register. She could not deny what she was hearing and seeing, which in itself was enough to flip the rational mind over like a frying egg in a sizzling hot pan.
They sped through the night. There was no traffic because road conditions were terrible. The Subaru's headlight beams bounced back upon themselves, reflected by the nearly impenetrable shroud of gray that made the throat raspy and rubbed at eyes like sandpaper.
Paul's fourteen-year-old frame was hunched forward, close to the steering wheel as he drove, guiding the Subaru skillfully around each bend in the road. Twice during the short drive, the Subaru passed firefighting and other emergency vehicles that were feeling their way with some caution through the smoky night, their flashing red lights pulsing the fog and gloom like the throbbing of an exposed heart.
Glancing furtively at her son, she wondered again: how can I deny my eyes and ears? An Indian spirit possessed Paul! And the only bridge between what she saw and heard, and accepted as reality, was the knowledge that she had encountered this ageless Native American shaman, this tribal magic man, during her ordeal in these same mountains two years ago.
Gray Wolf was an ancient, mystical presence that she did not need to understand in order to believe. Two years earlier, he first appeared in their lives as a wrinkled, ancient entity who had then shed his mortal being and whose ashes had blown away on the night wind . . . until his return as a gray wolf.
She believed then as she believed now. What remained of her rational mind told her that there could be no other explanation.
And yet Gray Wolf now existed through all of Paul's physical and mental skills. Her son was much too young to drive and, as far as she knew, he had never driven a car. Of course, he had been a passenger in this gutsy little Subaru for untold thousands of miles with her, and he wasn't a kid who missed much.
In their front yard, minutes earlier, after she had at first been rendered numb and speechless at the sight and sound of her little baby, her angel, he had proceeded to get in the car. She'd left the keys in the ignition, and she realized that he was neither going to request nor command her to accompany him. That in itself was catalyst enough to made her bolt and literally throw herself into the Subaru as the "fourteen-year-old boy" behind the wheel sent them hurtling off into the night.
Stupidly, she had said, "Paul? Paul, honey, this will be all right if you'll just talk to me."
He drove without responding; his eyes glowed like embers from a harsh, stoic expression that probed the haze ahead like the headlights as they sped through the night.
Yes, she accepted it. The trouble was dealing with it!
"What about my son?" she cried. "Gray Wolf, what have you done with him?"
The deep, otherworldly voice intoned, "I will be careful with him. He serves me. It must be so."
"But I need him! He's my child! Gray Wolf . . . why?"
"The one who has brought devastation must be stopped. Ataka summons the fires of his dark spirit world. He would fulfill his prophecy."
"But surely there's some other way! Please, give my son back to me." She turned sideways in her car seat and shook his muscular young arm: so strong, such well-defined musculature from gymnastics and soccer. She said, "Paul," in what she tried to make a reasonable voice, but it came out sounding like a brittle plea. "You're just in a trance, baby. Wake up. Oh Paul, please wake up!"
"The soul of your son is asleep," said the voice from Paul's mouth, from his harsh countenance. "It is I who command this body."
"But why?"
"Chief Ataka must not stand unopposed. He has unleashed horror and he will not stop here. Of our tribes, of the old ways, he and I remain. Our spirits are eternal. He has taken human form. Chief Ataka walks the earth again. I must do the same. This can only end in a fight to the death between us."
"But why my son?"
"His physical strength. The purity of his essence. And others must not know of these. He is of the circle."
"Circle? Gray Wolf, tell me that Chief Ataka has not taken the form of a man named Lovechio."
"No, the one of that name is too weak. Ataka needs physical strength and power to deliver his vengeance."
"Then who—"
"His name is Domino. Ataka possesses him as I possess this form. I, for the light and the power of the spirit gods. Evil will not rule this land. Ataka is evil incarnate."
There were patches of clearing where the Subaru's headlights cut through the haze. They caught the access road to the resort site without slowing. Spinning tires hurled a cloud of gravel behind as the tires gained traction and the Subaru continued speeding up the winding incline road.
Robin sank back against the upholstery, feeling defeat press down upon her, as if to squeeze the life from her. "This doesn't make any sense to me."
"It is because you are the boy's mother."
"But he's only fourteen! He's too young—"
"He is a warrior. A brave, as I was at his age many, many moons ago."
"This is so unbelievable."
"And yet you believe, do you not?"
"Yes, Gray Wolf. I believe. But I'm so afraid. This is so confusing. Are you saying that an ancient war chief caused this forest fire? But how can you . . . how can you and Paul . . . possibly stop that?"
"As the beaver builds his dam to stop the flow of the river, it is the river's nature to flow. There are prophecies beyond that which Ataka has invoked. Evil will not rule this night. I come with the power of light and peace. Did you think there was a wall between my world and yours?"
"Yes," said Robin in a small voice. "Yes, I did. . . ."
"Our worlds are one."
Paul—or was it Gray Wolf? God, she was losing her mind!—began pumping the brakes, which sent the Subaru into a slowing, sideways swerve. She glanced through the thinning haze to see what he had seen in the road ahead.
This close to the blaze, at ground level, the smoke on the ground had thinned to wispy tendrils of smoke that only partly obscured the tableau revealed in the Subaru's headlights, a tableau that sent her senses reeling once again.
Against the backdrop of fire-red night sky, two men, wearing uniforms, each with a rifle slung over his shoulder, were carrying a man who also wore a khaki uniform, near a van that was lodged, nose-first, in a culvert.
They turned and paused at the car's approach to stand there, holding the body between them, one with his arms under the man's arms, the other facing forward, holding the ankles.
The Subaru skidded to a halt some fifty feet away, rocking on its shock absorbers from the sudden stop.
Robin saw who they were carrying. The Subaru's headlights exposed the back of Ben Saunders' head as an obscene, pulpy horror.
She gasped and tasted bile rising in at the back of her throat. "Oh no, they've killed Ben!"
The men dropped the body as if they were discarding a bag of trash. They swung their rifles around swiftly from their shoulders, and aimed the rifles at the Subaru.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The abrupt silence after the Subaru had skidded to a stop was complete except for the crunch-crunch-crunch of the men's boots as they advanced.
The night air was hot with the massive heat of the approaching fire that was now just beyond the ridge that separated this stretch of road from the construction area. And yet Robin felt cold goosebumps, making her flesh crawl at the sight of these two grim-faced men approaching, one to either side of the vehicle.
In the headlight beams, she could make out the Security stitched on the nearest man's baseball cap.
The one nearest to her
said, "Get the hell out of the vehicle." From his side, the other one laughed. "Hey, it's just a kid driving."
The chill she felt was close to freezing her into immobility, like earlier, but she couldn't seem to fight it. "You . . . you killed Ben!"
"The dead cop? Not us, lady. That was Domino "
The name came to her like a slap across the face.
Next to her, Gray Wolf said, "Domino," in that sepulchral tone like an echo from inside a tomb.
The man on his side said, "Him and Lovechio took the cruiser and the guy they had up to the site, the crazy fools." Another verbal slap. She said, "Jeff—"
"We were told to clean up the mess, lady, and that includes the both of you, looks like. Now get out of the car."
"What . . . guy did they have?"
"Ah, that punkass newspaper guy. Wouldn't surprise me if all three of those guys don't fry, with the fire moving in like it is. Now I'm only telling you one more time, bitch. Get out of the—"
Paul/Gray Wolf blurred into action before the man could finish the sentence. His left arm whipped and snared the barrel of the rifle held by the man on his side of the car; then he reached out with his right arm with equal swiftness and wrapped a hand around the rifle stock and yanked forward. The rifle fired off a sharp, loud blast and a spitting tongue of saffron along the side of the car as the man was jerked off his feet and onto his knees beside the Subaru. Paul flung away the rifle as if it was a plastic toy, and with both hands he gripped the man's throat and began throttling him.
The man on Robin's side of the vehicle was then pressing the muzzle of his rifle against her right ear so hard that it hurt.
"Whoa there, sonny," he said to Paul. "Let my boy Tupper go, or I blow your mama's brains all over you."
Paul/Gray Wolf released the man without pausing to consider, shoving him away from the Subaru.
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