A Haunting in the SWATS (The Savannah Swan Files Book 1)
Page 35
Savannah crashed into the ground, but the vermin, still clinging to her, took the brunt of the fall. Their frail bones pulverized; their flesh flattened. Savannah struggled to her feet then stumbled toward the dais.
With each step, she felt stronger. She felt alive, burning with the power of opposing forces struggling to control her. The power of the mayor and the power of the vermin god filled Savannah, strengthening her, but neither side could seize the reins of her body while the other remained. At that moment, she had all their strength and none of their liabilities. She was free for as long as they battled within her soul.
Savannah could feel the last pieces of her desperate plan fall into place. She made it to her daughter before the abominable vermin god regained its senses. She leaned over Lashey.
“Mama?” Lashey inquired, her voice hollow and echoing within the hood. “Can I rest yet?”
Savannah shook her head. “Not just yet, li’l mama.”
Lashey looked at Savannah with wonder in her eyes, but there was fear there, too. “I’m sorry, Mama. I did somethin’ bad. I’m holdin’ that thing against its will, like a There Road witch.”
Savannah nodded. Decades of conditioning herself to hate those who walked the There Road surged inside her like a knot of barbed wire in her belly.
Things are always black and white until your back is against the wall, she thought.
She had been through hell, and now that she was almost out the other side of it she found her strict interpretation of the Road Law broadening. “Sometimes, you gotta do bad to do good, baby. You hang onto that thing for just a little longer.”
Lashey stared at her mother, but she did not refuse. “I’ll try.”
The vermin god staggered toward them, slowed by its injuries, its bristling back scraping the ceiling; its crumpled wings scattering its dazed followers who had been too slow or too stupid to take cover.
Savannah walked toward the creature, revolver raised.
The monster stared at Savannah. “Ee-you-oo—”
Savannah took aim at the raging god. She felt the weight of the weapon’s history ground her. It was an artifact of righteous vengeance; a weapon that had held many forms through the ages. Savannah’s mother had once told her that it started life as a simple sling and stone in the hands of a cattle herdsman in Zululand.
She drew on the mayor’s strength, sucking it down through her soul and into the revolver. She pulled on the vermin god’s power, as well, turning it back on itself. Runes glowed along the gun’s barrel; ancient wards against the primal evil flared to life.
In the confines of her skull, Savannah could feel the vermin god try to escape; to rip back the power it had given to her then dive back into its own reality. Try as it might, the creature could not get loose.
Lashey had the monster trapped by the very link it had forged between them. She held onto the vermin god even though she knew holding spirits against their will was wrong, even if they were monsters. She held onto it to save her mother.
Savannah held on, too, clinging to that piece of the vermin god that was hooked into her soul.
For the first time in years, Savannah prayed. Her words were not a formula meant to wring small favors from an uncaring, distant deity, but a plea for justice. “Gods of my mothers, deliver this evil unto my hands that I might kill the bastard!”
Raw, furious power roared out of the revolver – a focused cone of silver fire plowed through the roof of the vermin god’s gaping maw, blasting its front fangs down its throat.
The great creature swayed, tremors rippling up its body as the flame burned through its brain. The damage was tremendous, but Savannah could already see the edges of the wound healing, and new fangs dropping down.
Long seconds passed. Savannah worried she had missed her mark, that the vermin god might laugh last. Her prayer had not been answered, after all. She turned then ran back toward the dais. Time to get the hell out of there.
Blood leaked out from around the edges of Lashey’s mask, the strain of her battle with the vermin god was taking its toll. She stared, sightless, past her mother, her eyes rolling up to show bloodshot whites that tracked the monster’s every move.
Savannah lunged, reaching for her daughter, rushing to get her away from the vermin god before it was too late.
The monster was faster. It swept one wing forward. The barbed talon on the wing harpooned Savannah’s shoulder, lifting her off her feet. The creature hurled her onto the dais.
Savannah slid across the milky stone, then smashed into the altar, blood spraying from her wound. Something was torn up inside her. She could feel a froth of bubbles rising up the back of her throat with each breath. She tried to get up, but could not rise farther than her hands and knees.
The vermin god stomped forward. A wicked grin peeled its lips back to reveal a snout full of blackened, splintered teeth peeking out through a mass of grasping tentacles. Smoke leaked out between the teeth; Savannah’s last shot still burned in the roof of its mouth.
Savannah used her good arm to drag herself up onto the altar, doing her best to protect Lashey one final time. “Time to rest, baby girl,” Savannah whispered. She covered her daughter with her body then waited for the end.
The dark god opened its mouth, preparing to lunge.
Savannah closed her eyes.
The last flickers of silver fire reached Savannah’s backpack where it had lodged in the monster’s brain. The leather blackened and parted. The flames licked against the three sticks of dynamite Savannah had brought with her from home.
The vermin god’s skull blew apart. Steaming globs of burnt brain and jagged hunks of ivory sailed into the cavern’s shadowed recesses. The creature’s mammoth body swayed and fell, crashing down, smashing apart a handful of crystalline columns and crushing dozens of adherents who were too slow or too dazed to escape.
The creature’s corpse lay smoking on the stone floor, its body coming apart, disintegrating into a foul sludge. Cyclopean serpents lashed out from the shattered columns, shrieking as they came apart, their flesh shredded by the harsh demands of the world they had been exposed to before the stars were right for their appearance in this place.
Savannah clung to the altar, covering Lashey with her body as the burning shrapnel of a dead god rained down around them.
She felt her little girl’s breath on her cheek. “Did I do good, Mama?”
“Yeah, li’l mama,” Savannah whispered. “You did real good!”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Savannah woke with blood bubbling in the back of her throat. The combined power of the mayor and the remnants of the vermin god kept her from the grave despite her injuries, but Savannah was not sure how long that would last. She could feel the two entities at war in her soul. The parts they had lodged within Savannah were too evenly matched for either to be victorious over the other. For the moment, at least, she had access to their combined power. Her insane plan had worked.
She watched the surviving adherents crawl out of their hidey holes then shuffle out of the darkened tunnels. More had survived the battle and the explosion of their depraved god than she thought. Some of the vermin god’s most devout followers slinked away, disappearing into the deepest abyssal reaches of the caverns they called home. Savannah hoped she never had to see them again, but knew her luck was never that good. Many of the less-deformed stumbled away, heading back to the surface. With their god dead, their madness receded, and they were left confused, disoriented, and afraid.
A pack of more-or-less normal molly-heads walked up then stood before the dais. They stared at Savannah, then at the charred ashes that were all that was left of their god, then back to Savannah. They seemed unsure if they should worship her or try to kill her.
Savannah was not sure anything she said or did would make them jump one way or the other. They were just followers – men and women swept up in something bigger than themselves; fools who had latched onto whatever dismal version of hope they could find. Sa
vannah got tired of their cow-eyed staring in short order.
“Go home,” she said, then raised her voice to make sure they all heard her. “Get your dumb asses out of here! Think over what happened!”
One of the adherents – some kind of leader, judging by the number of antler knives he had shoved in his belt and the string of mole rat skulls around his neck – approached Savannah. “So, we’re good? I mean, you ain’t gon’ show up on our doorsteps with that heat?”
Savannah stared at the man then sighed. Part of her wanted to kill every one of them before they could get up to any future mischief, but another part of her wanted to help them find their way back to the Here Road. “Shawty, you think y’all can find your way out of here without calling up anymore mole rat gods?”
“I’ll kill ya,” a screeching voice sliced through the air. “I’ll carve out yo’ heart and stew it in a bowl made o’ yo’ skull!”
Pigmeat Porter, blood streaking his face, hurled himself at Savannah – an antler-handled knife in each hand; murder in his eyes.
Savannah did not have the strength to do anything but watch as death came for her. She was too tired to fight anymore. This whole crappy mess would end the way it started – with the actions of one crazy old man.
A streak of silver flashed through the air. Pigmeat stumbled, blades falling from his hands. He fell to one knee, hands clasped around the knife blade sprouting from his throat. Blood bubbled out between his fingers then his mouth flapped open, closed, open, closed, like a landed catfish.
He flopped onto his face then lay still.
The adherent tossed one of his knives over into his left hand, shoved it back into his belt, then shrugged. “Them Porters—” he began.
Savannah cut him off with a head shake. “You hear of them, or anyone else, getting up to any stupid shit, maybe you should come talk to me.” Savannah did her best to keep her tone neutral. She was trying something new here, and every word she spoke felt like a trap she could fall into. “Maybe we can figure out a better way to get what folks around here need without opening any gates to hell.”
“Maybe so,” the man said through rotted teeth. He shrugged. “I guess… yeah, we’ll be going.”
Savannah watched them leave. She was too tired to head up to the surface just yet. Some of them, she knew, were going to be fine. They would get over this and go back to their sad lives; maybe figure out a way to make things a little better for themselves and their neighbors.
Others would never forget the call of the There Road. Savannah reckoned there would be a rise in suicides in the SWATS; maybe even a rise in murders and other assorted craziness in the coming months. Savannah did not plan on putting her guns away. Some people always needed a little rough justice to remind them of where the line was drawn.
Savannah looked down at Lashey. Her hood was off. She looked so much smaller than she had been when she brought the girl down there. The spikes stuck into her were dark now, the light washed out of them. Rashad could fix this; she was sure of that. “You’re gonna be all right, li’l mama.”
The power she had stolen from the vermin god burned as it tried to patch her back together. She could feel the mayor’s confusion, as well; the uncertainty about what had happened; what was going to happen. There was something missing, too; something that had been so long a part of her Savannah had not realized she could feel it until it was gone.
Later, when she could no longer taste her own blood in the back of her throat, Savannah picked Lashey up with her good arm then carried her out of the cave and into the light.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Rashad and Carter waited for Savannah at the mouth of the well, staring out the windows of the Ford Country Squire as the sun hauled itself into the morning sky. Rashad held his son’s hand, clinging to it as if he could protect the last of his family through the strength of his grip alone. He had let go of his daughter and wife, and now, as far as he knew, they were both dead.
“She’s fine,” Carter said. “The dogs would know if she was dead.”
The bloodhounds raised their heads as if they could hear Carter’s low voice, then lowered them back to their paws. They watched the well, but did not seem concerned about whatever was happening down there.
Rashad wanted to believe, but he could not push his worries away. On their way out to the old Porter place, following the animals that Carter swore would find Savannah no matter where she had gone, something had changed. Rashad felt it like the drop in air pressure before a storm, but he did not know what it meant. The world was different now, and he wished he knew how.
So he waited, and he watched, and he hoped.
The dogs roused themselves when the first of the adherents clambered up out of the well. They growled when the junkies, scorched and battered and splattered with blood and gore from a dead god, staggered away from the hole in the ground. The bear stood on its hind legs at the front of the station wagon and the honey badgers watched from the Country Squire’s roof. As the wounded departed, the animals growled, but did not give chase. They went back to waiting and watching.
The adherents gave the Ford Country Squire and its animal guard a wide berth.
Rashad could not find it in himself to approach them. He could see the pain and horror in their eyes and knew there was nothing they could tell him. He would have to wait for his answers.
The exodus went on until the sun was high overhead, until only a handful of shirtless, filth-streaked men stood around the well, their bare feet scuffing at the ashes on the ground.
Something stirred in the well, and the men went into action. A trio grabbed the rope that ran down into the ground and pulled on it, backing away from the well, hauling its cargo into the light.
Rashad watched as the rest of the men gathered around the mouth of the well and helped someone up and out of the hole. They shied away from the person as soon as they were on their feet, as if unsure of what he or she might do to them.
Rashad’s lips trembled as Savannah straightened up, raising her face to the sun. She was pallid and gaunt and her eyes sank back into her skull. She was covered in blood and streaked with soot. But she was alive, and she held Lashey in her arms.
Rashad rolled down the station wagon’s window. A cool autumn breeze caressed his face and dried the tears he shed as Savannah walked toward him.
Rashad reached his unbroken arm through the car’s window. Savannah eased their daughter through it. Rashad cried as he held his injured daughter.
Lashey gave her daddy a kiss and told him she was going to be fine.
“You done here?” Rashad whispered to his wife.
Savannah nodded then leaned in close. Something stirred between them, but it was not the hate she had learned to fear. She brushed her lips against his, then drew back and grinned.
“It’s gone?” Rashad whispered. “It’s really gone?”
Savannah closed her eyes as Rashad brushed her cheek with his fingertips. “Yeah.”
Rashad frowned. “I know we need to talk.”
Savannah waved his concerns away. “I’ve been wrong. About you. About what you do. But there’s something else. I have to go up to the Briarcliff.”
“Now?”
Savannah nodded then patted the side of the Ford Country Squire. “I think it has to be now.”
Savannah sauntered off, hauled herself behind the wheel of her SUV, then drove away.
The bloodhounds howled as Savannah drove out of sight, their voices quavering and plaintive.
Carter shifted next to Rashad. “We have to go after her. She’s gonna get herself killed!”
Rashad shook his head. There was something different about Savannah now, something stretched and frayed. She had changed down in that hole; become a woman so different that even the curse his mama had put on her could not keep hold of her soul.
“We can’t go,” Lashey murmured, half asleep. “She’s gone to meet her destiny, and cain’t nobody else follow where she’s goin’.”
CHAPTER SIXTY
By the time Savannah got to the Briarcliff, the sun had fully risen. It shined on her, and she could feel its kiss against the top of her head. She was glad she had lost her hat. She would buy a new one soon, though. Wearing hats made Savannah feel badass.
The Briarcliff’s doors were still open, hanging loose on their hinges. The black dogs were back; facing toward the house this time, as if they were holding something within its walls.
Savannah left her guns behind – pistols crossed over the revolver on the SUV’s front passenger seat. She did not think she would need them. She was mostly healed from her time in Plummer’s Crack; just a large scab on her back and a bone-deep exhaustion remained. The power she had taken, from both powerful beings, remained, too.
She found the mayor sitting in his crooked chair, his hands clasped in his lap.
“The prodigal returns,” he said.
“Don’t see any fat calves on the grill,” Savannah said, pouring herself a glass of crème liqueur from the bar. “Not happy to see me this morning?”