Slightly below window height near the top of the back seat, the light landed on three white blobs, instantly recognizable as the form inside every human head: skulls. Thankfully, the size of the opening in the window prevented Caitlin or her phone from seeing too much definition, but the closest skull, still loosely attached to a mass of long gray hair, told Caitlin she’d seen enough. What once had been a forehead was now a forgotten woman’s last testament. The dark gape in the center of the white bone was too perfect and intentional to be anything but a bullet hole. She turned the camera left toward the front seats, where two other huddled masses had been left to rot.
Caitlin stopped the camera, stumbled away from the opening, and folded over at the waist, trying to breathe or think or just live. Less than a week before, she’d been able to handle the toothless corpse in the medical examiner’s office. Minutes before, she’d brushed past Stupid Tom’s cooling body without a second thought, even when he’d fallen on top of her.
This was different.
This was malice aforethought, planning and execution, cold-blooded murder, conspiracy, and the reduction of five lives to nothing more than a verse in a religious ceremony and a detour sign.
Caitlin had found the Five after all.
Looking up at the ash-filled sky, she wasn’t sure if the information would help or hurt her, or if she was missing some last cosmic warning to turn and run. All she knew was a hot fire had started inside her, and it wasn’t going to go out until she kicked somebody’s ass.
CHAPTER
57
EDGING AROUND THE side of a sheet-metal building blackened by a recent fire, Johnny motioned Gunner toward the next structure.
“What?” Gunner whispered. “You see somebody?”
Maybe Stupid Tom wasn’t the only one who needed a nickname. “This,” Johnny whispered back, repeating the motion, “means you go that way. I’ll cover you.”
“Oh yeah, right, like ninjas.”
“Like in the military, dumbass.”
“Yeah, cool. Do it again.”
“Do what again?”
“The ninja thing.”
Johnny shook his head and repeated the gesture a third time.
Gunner broke into a sprint toward the next sheet-metal building, then turned and threw his back up against the wall. The only remotely ninja-like aspect of his approach was that his impact made the same sound as a gong knocked off its pedestal. Gunner threw his hands up like it couldn’t have been helped.
Johnny swore under his breath, then ran past Gunner to a dark opening in the next building, sweeping his AR around what appeared to be a machine shop. Plenty of tools, nobody working them at four in the morning. He advanced toward the moonlight pouring in through a window.
“Gunner, get in here.”
Gunner joined him at the window, looking out over a long field leading to a series of cabins.
“Shit, John. This place is bigger than I thought. Where do you think they’ve got Promise?”
“No idea. We go house to house.”
“Cool.” Gunner started toward a door leading to the field.
“Gunner.”
“What?”
“Try being fucking quiet this time.”
Gunner opened the door. “Like a ninja.”
He ran full speed, stopping at the edge of the field behind a row of tomato plants. Johnny started to follow, then stopped. A red metal gas can sat next to an industrial generator. He grabbed the can, felt enough liquid sloshing around to cause some trouble, unscrewed the cap, and poured a trail from the generator to the door.
“Gunner,” he whispered. “Another insurance plan.”
He pointed to the tree line at the far left of the fields. “Meet me there.”
Gunner nodded, then started running.
Johnny poured a ten-foot trail out the door, then jogged right, away from both the building and Gunner, leaving a trail of gasoline through the grass behind him.
Once the can was empty, he went toward the tree line, catching up with Gunner behind a clump of trees.
“You want to light the place up?” Gunner said, offering a cigarette lighter.
“Not yet. First we find Promise, then we hit that line with a tracer, cut off their road out of here. You and I will hump back down the trail the opposite way.” He pointed toward the main buildings. “Here on out, stay in the trees, but keep your eyes up the field. We ought to be able to sneak past.”
Johnny started running; Gunner followed. They stopped just past the end of the fields, not far from the clump of cabins.
No one sounded an alarm. Not one light came on in the cabins.
Gunner put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “You think they’re gone or something?”
Johnny shook him off, jogged over to the closest cabin, sidled up to a shaded window, and peered through a gap in the curtains. Four beds, but no one home. He looked back at Gunner, shook his head, and pointed to the next cabin. Gunner repeated the process, got the same result. They stopped taking turns and split up, meeting on the other side of the cabins.
Gunner tilted his goggles up. “Maybe they evacuated ’cause of the fire we started out in Powers.”
Johnny looked up toward the main row house. The only lights in the compound came from the four spotlights near the three-story roof line, but beyond the building, up to the right, the gray sky glowed brighter. All the running had his heart pounding, but Johnny heard something.
“Do you hear music?”
Gunner nodded. “Sounds like singing.”
He pointed to a neon-green motocross bike left on the steps of the main compound. “What do you think about that?”
Johnny looked back across the empty fields. “Let’s go see.”
The closer Johnny got to the top of the hill, the less he needed the night-vision goggles. He tilted the rig back and wiped sweat away from his eyes.
This close, the singing they’d heard from the cabins came through full volume, forty or fifty voices, all singing the same words:
The fire is dying, so come let me build
A light that can shine through to heaven above
Johnny left the path, climbing rocks to a clump of bushes that looked down on a clearing.
So he’ll see me trying, and doing his will
Building my fire with light and with love
From his vantage point, he could see a large semicircle of women moving back and forth around a towering fire, but that didn’t mean he understood what his eyes were taking in.
Gunner joined him seconds later. “Holy shit, John. They’re all naked.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said, trying to make out faces.
The circling women changed directions and started a new verse.
The world here is ending, the story come true
We’ll all join the Spirit on this night
But don’t worry Daughters, there’s nothing to fear
You’ve earned the gift of the Light
Gunner nudged him with an elbow. “And they’re not all old. You think they do this every night? ’Cause I’ll come back with a camera.”
“Shut up and look for Promise so we can get the fuck out of here.”
“Cool, but I might have to rub one out.”
Johnny pointed to a woman at the far end of the circle, still in a red smock, holding an assault rifle every bit as deadly as their own. “Keep your head in the game.”
He brought up his own rifle and eyed the circle through his scope. A full-bodied brunette with a bowl cut wearing nothing but a beaded necklace climbed onto a platform at the edge of the fire pit.
The singing stopped and the women broke the circle, gathering to face the speaker, their bare backsides to Johnny and Gunner.
“Daughters,” the woman said. “The night has come. An hour ago, fires had reached the south side of the Coquille River. Our time approaches. Even now, Desmond prepares in silent reflection. Soon he will come to shepherd us into the Light.”
“As it wa
s told,” the women answered, “so shall it be.”
Gunner looked over at Johnny. “What the fuck is this?”
Johnny shook his head. The best he could do: “Cult shit.”
The woman pointed over to a table, where another naked woman poured liquid from a large silver decanter into a single chalice. “Now, one by one, oldest to youngest, each will step forward and take the Calm.”
“Stop.”
The crowd of women turned all at once, looking off to their right at whoever had just yelled. Every woman there broke out in a scream of joy.
The big woman stepped down from the pedestal and followed the swarm of women to the opposite side of the fire, shouting, “Magda’s alive, Magda’s alive.”
Johnny put the scope back up to his eye as the new guest brought the crowd toward the pedestal. A fully clothed woman holding an assault rifle pushed through the clinging hands.
“Holy shit,” Johnny said. “It’s her.”
Gunner strained to see. “Who?”
“The bitch that took Promise.”
“The reporter’s mom? Do you see her too?”
Johnny held out his hand. There was no sign of Caitlin Bergman, but she’d be here. They’d run from the casino in Bergman’s rental truck, then the Dayan shop in Bandon. Last thing he’d heard from Tom was that he’d passed the truck on the road leading to the compound’s back entrance hours earlier.
The Bitch and the big woman were talking, and the Bitch didn’t like what she was hearing.
“Where?” she yelled.
The big woman pointed down the hill toward the main house, and the Bitch pushed through to the downhill path, then ran down the steps.
A few started to follow, but the big woman called out to the crowd. “Daughters, rejoice. Magda has returned in time for the Light. Come now, line up for the Calm so we are ready when she and Desmond return for the calling of the names.”
The crowd, some crying, others smiling ear to ear, turned away from Magda’s departure and formed a line near the silver decanter.
“Damn, John. What the hell are they doing?”
Johnny got up into a crouch. “You stay here and keep watch. I’m going to find Promise. Anything goes wrong or you think I’m in trouble, run back to the field and light this place on fire. I’ll meet you at the trucks.”
“What if I see that reporter? The one that got you busted in the first place?”
Johnny pat Gunner on the shoulder. “I’ll give you an extra ten grand if Caitlin Bergman catches lead poisoning.”
CHAPTER
58
DESMOND WATCHED THE young woman’s finger trace the brush marks of Linda’s largest painting, the four-by-eight canvas that had built God’s Hill: The Cataclysm. As paintings went, it truly was striking.
“It’s really happening,” Promise said, lost in the scene.
As a prophecy, Desmond would have preferred to have Linda dream of a tropical island with loose tax laws and looser extradition treaties.
He tented his fingers in front of him and nodded. “Yes, my child. The time is upon us.”
On her solemn look of acceptance, he returned to his work at hand. Daya had always made the Calm in the past, but Desmond knew the recipe well enough, including Daya’s plan for administering the last batch.
The key ingredients of the standard recipe: chamomile, lemon balm, and prescription Valium pills, crushed into a fine dust. The batch he’d sent up the hill had double the Valium and a generous portion of Walmart-brand rat poison. Plus sugar.
He looked up at the teenager. “How much do you weigh, darling?”
“Ninety-eight pounds,” she said. “But I’ve been running a lot. Does that matter?”
Her eyes shifted back and forth, unable to directly return his gaze. He knew the look well. Even now, at the end of the world, the young woman needed approval from someone, anyone who would tell her how special she was in the scope of things, how consequential.
He couldn’t resist.
“It does matter,” he said, his face solemn, his eyes fixed on her flawless face.
Her hands went together near her waist, fingers twisting fingertips, hips shifting slightly side to side. The agony of sitting under judgment, the need for release.
He knew the girl’s damage, the abuse she’d faced at her father’s hands. He could drive an empty vessel like Promise Larsen as long and as far as he wanted, but he didn’t have time to mess around.
He blinked once, then broke into a smile. “It’s the perfect weight. You truly are a Daughter of God.”
Her body went loose, hands down to her sides, chest raised, the relief of inclusion apparent.
Desmond crushed two Valium and added the dust to the shaker. One would calm her down, two might put her to sleep. Even at his age, he could handle her frame.
Ninety-eight pounds.
Only ten pounds lighter than Daya had been the night they’d met at a strip club outside Reno. Daya had known the art of the tease, the agony and release, and she’d seen his bullshit coming a mile away. If it hadn’t been for her one hundred and eight pounds of cunning, he never would have approached Linda Sperry, and God’s Hill would have stayed the fever dream of a guilt-ridden defense contractor’s widow.
“My crazy aunt thinks she talks to God,” she’d said, grinding away, “and she’s got more money than sense.”
“Maybe what she needs is to meet God face to face,” he’d answered, fondling Daya under her G-string, neither of them even slightly concerned about breaking the strip club’s no-contact policy, the first of many rules they’d break together.
Now lost without Daya’s guidance, Desmond’s hand hovered over the box of powder beneath the counter as he weighed the ultimate question: send the girl up the hill with the rest, or find a use for her?
“It’s time for the Calm,” he said, omitting the poison and emptying the shaker into a paper cup.
He stepped out from behind the counter and met the girl at the dais. She looked up at him, hopeful but trembling.
“And I’ll be with Magda?”
He held the cup out in front for her communion. “Magda’s spirit waits for you in the Light.”
The girl raised the cup to her lips and drank, eyes closed.
He placed his hands on her shoulders and walked her behind his throne, directing her to sit up against the wood, facing the windows.
“Come, my child, let us prepare you.”
He had enough cloth napkins under the counter to fashion a blindfold. Once the Valium kicked in, he could direct her to the Jeep. A willing teenage servant would be useful when police were on the lookout for a silver-haired man named Desmond.
An angry female voice called from the entrance. “Desmond, we’ve been betrayed.”
Magda.
Desmond whipped around toward the door, not because he didn’t recognize the voice but because he didn’t believe she could still be alive. That meant the body in the morgue had been Daya all along. But where had Magda been? Working with her daughter? Protecting Promise Larsen? And why had she come back now?
He moved beside the chair, fell to his knees, and threw his arms up to the sky. “Now, at our final hour, my Magda has returned, as the Spirit said it would be.”
Magda entered, gun slung around her shoulder, moving fast, determined, like he’d seen her so many times over the years. She stopped feet from the dais. “The Daughters are at Ceremony Peak drinking the Calm. Why, Desmond?”
Desmond’s mind raced. Magda seemed furious, but not necessarily at him. “You know why, my miracle of miracles, for the Light has come this time. Have you seen the news out in the world?”
Magda shook her head. “I’ve been hiding, keeping Promise safe from her family.”
Of course she had. Knowing of her own father’s abuse, he should have foreseen that Magda would never let a girl return to that kind of life.
Promise stood up from behind the chair. “Magda?”
The girl stumbled slightly, th
en jogged down the dais toward Magda, collapsing into her arms. The Valium had kicked in.
“Why are you here?” Magda squeezed the young woman.
Promise buried her head in Magda’s chest. “To be with you at the end.”
Magda looked Promise in the eyes. “Sweet girl, this isn’t the end.”
“But the Cataclysm—”
“Is upon us,” Desmond said, stepping down toward them. He didn’t know what Magda wanted, but she’d always needed the Light. Maybe he could turn this. “We are surrounded by fire, as Linda foretold, and Daya in her place. The world has fallen to nuclear war.”
“But Daya was false.”
Desmond turned to hide his surprise. He’d expected an accusation, but not at Daya’s expense. “Daya ascended, my love. As we soon will.”
Magda shook her head. “Daya didn’t ascend, and she never will. She corrupted the Daughters.”
“Corrupted? How so?”
“It’s hard for me to tell you, my guide, my heart, my teacher, but Daya’s been stealing money, cashing checks that should have gone to the families of the Five.”
“Magda, you can’t know—”
“I have proof. Files she kept in her office.”
Desmond stepped back. Caitlin Bergman hadn’t stolen the files from Daya’s suite after all. Magda had—and she still wasn’t linking him to any of it.
“This is all so disturbing,” he said, not completely a lie.
“There’s more,” she continued. “When you said to send Promise away, back to her family, Daya tried to sell her back to Johnny Larsen, knowing damned well what he’d been doing to the girl. It’s why the Larsens are attacking us.”
“I don’t believe it,” Desmond said, stepping back onto the dais, raising both hands.
“Believe it, asshole.”
Following Desmond’s eyes, Magda spun around toward the door.
A man in camo gear, body armor, and night-vision goggles stood in the doorway. Unlike Magda, his gun was very much in his hands. “So where’s my five grand?”
CHAPTER
Sins of the Mother Page 26