by Harvey Click
Or maybe it was already too late for that.
Jack Roamer was seventy years old, too old for the fight he saw ahead of him, but when he was younger and had more to live for he probably wouldn’t have been willing to take the risk. Two years ago his wife had died of cancer, and since then his life didn’t hold a great deal of value to him. And that was good, because he had a hunch he wouldn’t be living it much longer.
***
Sheriff Roamer drove up the long dusty driveway and parked beside one of the long adobe buildings. A dozen other vehicles were parked there but unfortunately no dark blue Tahoe.
Like most of the townspeople, he had driven past the church more than once, but this was his first close look, and for the first time he noticed that the windows were shuttered from the inside with what appeared to be steel plates. Not just the few small windows in the one-story adobe buildings, but also the three stories of windows in the big circular building made of stone.
The only windows not shuttered were the ones in the circular room in the center of the big building’s roof, and through them he could see three men looking down at him. They were holding rifles.
The four adobe buildings looked like dormitories. Each one had a powerful air conditioner chugging away beside it, and he saw two industrial-sized units beside the big building.
The property stretched away as far as he could see in every direction except the road, but he saw nobody walking about on it. Just dry dusty flat desert with plenty of rocks, yellow grass, scrubby brush, and some yuccas with a few trees scattered here and there.
The front door of the big stone building was at least six feet wide and eight feet high, made of heavy wood painted black with heavy iron bands at all four edges and two more iron bands across its face like a big cross. There was no doorbell or knocker, and when he tried pounding with a fist the wood proved to be so thick that his fist made no more noise than it would pounding a granite cliff.
The door opened nevertheless, and a woman smiled at him. She was probably less than thirty years old and unusually beautiful with long red hair, hazel eyes, and wide voluptuous lips. She was wearing a long white robe tied by a sash at the waist. It appeared to be made of thin silk, thin enough that it was clear she wasn’t wearing much of anything beneath it.
She smiled and said, “Sheriff Roamer, my, my, what a pleasure. We were wondering how soon you’d pay us a visit. Please come in.”
He took off his Stetson and stepped into a cool foyer lit by a large number of electric candles held by wrought-iron candelabras jutting from the stone walls. To him they looked cheesy, not the sort of thing he’d want in his house.
The room was oddly shaped, the outside wall following the curvature of the building and the other three walls flat but not quite square. On the far wall there were two shut doors and between them an arched alcove with a spiral stone stairwell inside it that disappeared from view as it twisted its way up. There were a few chairs and a settee in the room, all made of wrought iron.
The woman shut the massive door behind him, and the silence nearly made his ears ring. Outside there’d been little sound except the chugging hum of the air conditioners, but inside there was perfect silence except for the faint rustle of the woman’s silk robe.
She came up close to him, her body nearly touching his, and her perfume smelled sweet and spicy with the kind of spices you don’t find at a grocery store. Though her skin was smooth it was unusually pale, as if she spent her whole life indoors and was anemic besides.
“How can I help you?” she asked.
“I was hopin’ to have a word with Jeshua Godson,” Roamer said, and his deep voice seemed to echo faintly off the stone walls of the cool, silent foyer.
The woman smiled and said, “I’m Godson. And what sort of word would you like to have? A long word with many syllables or just a quickie?”
“I was under the impression that Jeshua Godson is a man,” he said.
“Ah. Well, I can easily prove that I’m not.”
She untied the sash and her robe fell open.
“You law enforcement types always like solid proof, don’t you?” she said. “The kind you can reach out and touch.”
He realized that his eyes had strayed down from her lovely breasts and past her smooth belly to the bright red patch of hair beneath it. He forced himself to look back at her face, which was silently laughing at him. He fidgeted with the brim of his hat.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” she said. “We’re all completely natural about nudity around here. You can take your own clothes off if you want. In fact, we can go upstairs and lie down if you want and have a little napsy-wapsy.”
Though Roamer was seventy, his libido had never caught onto that fact, and it was difficult for him to back away and say, “No thank you, ma’am, and if it’s all the same to you I’d be much obliged if you’d close your robe. I came out here to get acquainted, but not in that sort of way. I’d like to establish a business relationship, if you follow my meaning.”
The woman sighed and said, “All business and no pleasure, what a shame.” She sat down on the iron settee facing him, her robe still open as well as her legs. “Well then, start talking.”
“I want the same sort of terms you had with Candy, no more and no less,” he said.
“Is that so?” she said. “And yet you seem nothing like Candy. I’ll tell you what, I don’t enjoy talking business, but I’ll send somebody around to have a word with you. Maybe I’ll send a female. Yes, I think you enjoy females much more than you like to admit.”
“When can I expect her?” he asked, but she didn’t answer. Her sleeve had ridden up a bit, and he saw three track marks on her arm. So apparently she was a junkie—no wonder she looked so pale.
“It looks like a nice facility you got here,” he said. “I was hopin’ maybe I could have a look around.”
“You’re allowed to look at anything in this room,” she said.
He tried not to look down, but it was hard not to. She was playing with herself.
“Well then, I guess I’ll be going,” he said.
She didn’t get up, so he turned the heavy steel door lever and let himself out. He hadn’t realized how cool it was in the room until he felt himself sweating in the hot desert air.
As he was walking to his car he heard some strange noises coming from one of the long huts, like the snarling of cats fighting or maybe in heat, and this was followed by some deep guttural noises that sounded like no beasts he’d ever heard before.
Chapter 9
“Why can’t we stay here tonight?” Amy asked.
“I don’t want the FBI knowing where we are right now,” Shane said. “Just in case they change their minds about arresting you.”
“I think I trust Bradford,” she said. “I think we got lucky with him. I think he’s actually interested in going after the Lost Society.”
Shane didn’t want to dampen her spirits, so he said, “Yeah, I think he’s all right.”
In fact he wasn’t sure what he thought of Bradford. Maybe it seemed too good to be true, finding an FBI agent who was an enemy of their own enemy.
There was little to pack and nothing but plastic bags to pack it in, but Shane hurried. The one o’clock check-out time he’d asked for was just a few minutes away, and he didn’t want to be charged for another night because money was already becoming tight. It felt wrong to worry about money while his daughter was missing, but money didn’t care about things like that.
While they were eating lunch at the same restaurant, Amy said, “I want to drive around that area where those circles intersect on the map.”
“Bad idea,” Shane said. “They’re desperate to kidnap you, so we’re going to drive right past their house?”
“I have to know where she is.”
They were speaking quietly so other diners wouldn’t hear, but for some reason speaking quietly seemed to make the tension in their voices even louder.
“Isn’t that why we cont
acted the FBI?” Shane said. “They’re trained to do this, they have surveillance equipment, they can even send out drones if they want to.”
Amy didn’t reply, but he saw a flash of anger in her eyes and knew she was near a breaking point. He knew he’d need to be very careful with his words and tone or her anxiety might erupt into something that would make matters even worse.
They drove for half an hour looking for another motel, and Amy stared out the passenger window without speaking. It was worse after they booked their room and moved in their few things. Now there was nothing to do.
“If you won’t let us drive out there, I’m going to do my own kind of surveillance,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Spirit-travel.”
“Amy, we’re at least forty miles away from that area. Have you ever traveled that far from your body?”
“No, but if Emily’s out there somewhere I’m sure I can do it.”
“But is it safe?” he asked. “I mean, what if your spirit gets lost and can’t find its way back?”
She shot him a fiery glare and said, “I’m a big girl. I can make my own decisions.”
Shane sat down on the bed and stared at his hands. He knew if he said one more word her tension would explode into hot anger—and maybe his would too.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to sound like that. I’ll be safe.”
She removed her shoes, lay down on the bed, shut her eyes, and began to chant quietly. The chant sounded ancient, eerie, mournful, and yet somehow soothing, but Shane didn’t feel soothed.
Amy stopped chanting and her whole body relaxed into the mattress as if every muscle had lost every iota of its strength. The color drained from her face, and though he could just barely discern a faint sign of breathing, it was so slow and shallow it scarcely deserved to be called breathing. She appeared to be an inch away from death.
Shane had never seen her spirit-travel before, and he stared at her with awe and terror. He put his thumb on the vein at her wrist and it seemed to take forever before he felt the mere ghost of a pulse. He desperately wanted to wake her but was afraid that would be dangerous, that it would scare away the tiny bit of life left in her body.
He sat there in agony, holding her wrist and scarcely breathing himself. He couldn’t bear to imagine the world without Amy; it had been livable though incomplete before he loved her, but he didn’t believe it would ever again be livable without her.
She lay there lifeless for fifteen minutes or more, and just when Shane decided he was going to try to revive her, her eyelids snapped open and she drew a deep, gasping breath. She sat up, and he held her tightly.
“I couldn’t do it,” she said. “I just kept circling around this motel and couldn’t get more than a mile or two away.”
“I’m glad you’re back,” he said. “You were gone a long time.”
“When I was with Neoma it was different,” she said. “The moment the traveling began, my spirit would already be far away from my body. Usually it would be at Billy’s house, but later at some other places. Neoma said that was because it had left its natural home, my body, and so it sought a place that seemed like home. I don’t know why it wants to circle around this damn motel. This place sure doesn’t seem like home.”
“Maybe PTSD has made your spirit more cautious,” Shane said.
“Emily’s gone, and I’m too damn frightened to go look for her, is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m just glad you came back,” he said. “I was very frightened. I don’t ever want to lose you.”
Amy lay on the bed and cried for a while, and he held her and couldn’t think of anything to say except “Everything’s all right,” even though he knew it wasn’t, and “We’ll find her,” even though he was far from sure they would. He was relieved when his prepaid phone rang.
“Me and Nyx have been driving around all day buying ingredients,” Bloody Joe said. “She found a knife maker on the internet, and I’m down here looking at his stuff. He makes some swords too, and I found a couple that look pretty good. You want me to pick them up for you?”
“Yeah. I’ll draw out some cash to pay you.”
“They’re a hundred and fifty dollars apiece,” Joe said. “He wanted more but I talked him down, and he’s gonna throw in a couple cheap scabbards. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, but Amy probably won’t be able to afford a gun.”
“I think Lucky’s got a couple extras. Maybe he can loan her something. Okay, I’ll go back in and buy the swords.”
“Thanks,” Shane said. He hung up and felt even more useless. The others were out there doing something while he was sitting on a bed in a motel room.
They went out for dinner around 7:00, and while they were eating Joe called again.
“How soon can you get to my motel?” he asked.
“Maybe forty-five minutes.”
“Okay. Make sure you’re not followed and don’t pull into the motel lot. Go to the gas station across the road and call me. When you see me pull out of the motel, follow me but don’t stay too close.”
“What’s going on?”
“You’ll find out. I don’t trust phones. Pack up your stuff and bring it, and if you don’t have any sleeping bags you better steal all the blankets from your motel.”
“What did he want?” Amy asked.
“God only knows. I think Joe’s even more paranoid than I am.”
They bought two cheap sleeping bags, packed their things again, and turned in the motel key. He didn’t know where they’d be sleeping tonight, but he wasn’t sorry to leave the place. It had taken on a sad and miserable feel.
He didn’t need to call Joe. As soon as he pulled into the gas station he saw the Santa Fe in the motel lot flash its headlights and pull out onto the road. He followed it for maybe half an hour down several roads that grew progressively narrower and rougher.
Finally Joe turned off a dusty dirt road into a dirt driveway with a tiny adobe house at the end of it. There were no lights on in the house, and it looked as if no one lived there and no one would want to.
They parked in a flat desert area behind the house. Lucky’s gold SUV was parked there, and he and Nyx were sitting around a bonfire. A tent was pitched behind them and behind that the sun was setting like a hellish inferno.
“What is this place?” Amy asked when they got out.
“It’s our campground,” Joe said. “Lucky rented it.”
“I got stuck with the task because I’m the only one with any plausible IDs,” Lucky said. “The owner doesn’t have my real name of course, but when you pay a cash deposit nobody asks very many questions. According to my roadmap we’re outside the thirty-mile demon range.”
“Only by a couple miles maybe,” Joe said. “But that will keep us wary. Warriors need to be wary.”
“How much did you pay?” Shane asked. “We’ll chip in.”
“How are you doing on pocket change these days?” Lucky asked.
“Not so good. I won’t be working again until this is over, and family leave doesn’t pay anything. And I’m not expecting any insurance settlement anytime soon. They’re investigating for arson.”
“The rent’s on me,” Lucky said. “Back there in El Paso I was blessed with some pretty good cards.”
Nyx snickered and said, “Marked cards is more like it. Besides nobody would pay you any rent for this dump anyway. That house is a shithole.”
“The house don’t amount to much,” Joe agreed. “No running water in there, but there’s a good well out back and an outhouse.”
“That house is full of spiders,” Nyx said. “I’ve never seen so damn many spiders in my whole life. They could lift you up and carry you away.”
“So we buy a couple cans of Raid,” Joe said. “Besides, we shouldn’t be sleeping in a house anyway. We got to become warriors now, and sleeping under the stars will be good for us. It will make us wary.”
“Speak for yourself,�
�� Nyx said.
“That tent’s for you and Amy,” Joe told Shane. “The rest of us are gonna sleep out here under the stars.”
“Like hell,” Nyx said. “I got dibs on that tent.”
“The house don’t matter,” Joe said. “What matters is this backyard. Plenty of land with no neighbors.”
“Twenty-five acres of prime desert wasteland,” Lucky said. “An old Navajo woman lived here, and now that she’s dead her son doesn’t know what to do with it.”
“If I had some kerosene and a book of matches I know what I’d do,” Nyx said.
“Tomorrow we’ll set up some targets and sharpen up our skills,” Joe said. “We’ve all gotten soft with the easy life. We gotta become warriors again now.”
They sat in a circle around the fire and listened to it crackle. Some rocks were in the fire as well as five sword blades and a wire cage containing arrowheads.
“I soaked them for two hours in a special potion of incense and herbs,” Joe said. “Now they gotta sit in the fire all night to purify them. And in a little while we’re gonna purify ourselves.”
He pointed to a small tin shed behind the house and said, “Sweat lodge. I already dug a pit inside it for the hot rocks. We’ve probably picked up some unclean spirits since we left Blackwood, and they attract demons. We gotta sweat them out.”
“Neoma would say we also need to whip them out,” Lucky said, and he grinned at Nyx to make it clear which one of them he wanted to whip.
“Anybody that tries whipping me’s gonna end up eating some teeth for dinner,” she said. “And that goes double for you, asshole.”
“Whipping is white people crap,” Joe said. “Lucky, tell Shane and Amy your news.”
“I bought a lot of drinks today in a valiant effort to loosen lips,” Lucky said, “but it was money well spent. Everybody around here seems to be scared out of their undies by something called the Church of Love and Serenity. It’s some kind of nutty religious cult with a big compound in the desert about twenty-five miles southeast of Silver Stone, which puts it very neatly inside the intersection of the three circles I drew on my roadmap.