“This wasn’t my dream,” Constance said. “We were racing in the deep desert, full gallop.”
“Yep,” Jim said. “You’re right. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this was … well, this was great, Constance. But it wasn’t what I saw either.”
“I’m kind of glad,” Constance said. “This is ending much better than my dream did.”
“May I ask how it ends?” Jim said.
Constance sighed and decided that maybe sometimes lies were better.
“You try to kiss me and I have to punch you in the breadbasket,” she said, smiling.
An odd look came over Jim’s face.
“What?” Constance said.
“Nothing,” Jim said. “That’s two…”
“Two what?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Jim said. “All right, let’s pack up and get you home. I really enjoyed this, Constance.”
“Me too,” she said, folding up the blanket. “Can we do this again?”
Jim’s face lit up.
“Sure!” he said, “you say the word. I really like that.”
“Did you mean what you said about me seeming important?” Constance said, not meeting Jim’s gaze.
“Yeah,” Jim said, “very.”
They rode down Argent. Both were quiet and Constance rested her head against his back. It felt good. She hated lying to Jim, it felt wrong, a mistake, but how could she tell him, how could she tell him that her strange dreams always came true, that they had never been wrong. How could she tell Jim that her dream of them galloping across the desert ended with his death?
The World (Reversed)
Bick escorted Emily out of the Paradise Falls and down Main Street toward the Imperial for lunch. It was warm and bright out, but not overly hot today. Bick with his flat-brimmed Stetson, smoked glasses to avoid the desert glare, and silver-headed walking stick took the young girl’s arm and led her along the street, interposing himself between the filth, dust and bustle of the main thoroughfare and his charge.
“I’d like to spend Thanksgiving with you,” Emily said. “I’ve never really had a family to spend it with before.”
Bick smiled and nodded. He squeezed her arm gently.
“I’d enjoy that very much,” Bick said.
The faces that passed them endeavored to be polite enough, but Emily noted almost at once that it was a thinly veiled attempt.
“Mr. Bick, good day, sir,” Egypt Whitehurst, one of the stage hands at Professor Mephisto’s Playhouse, said and doffed his hat as he passed. Others walked by without a spoken word, but their eyes shouted murder. A few whispered and hissed behind their backs as they passed.
“These people hate you,” Emily said when they had a moment between the streams of humanity passing by. “I can feel it coming off of them like heat. Why?”
“They always have, to one degree or another,” Bick said. “Either fear or hate, or a charming combination of the two. Fear is useful; hate tends to be counterproductive unless you can aim it just so. They hate me because I own this place, own the land, the water, the houses, the mine, their businesses. I own them. And you always hate someone who controls your destiny without your say-so.”
“That … that must be lonely,” she said.
Bick shook his head.
“No, millions of years of solitude, far from home, is lonely. Crowded hatred is quite cozy after all that.
“They have every right to hate me, Emily. I’ve used and manipulated them, played on their weaknesses and misfortunes, and I own them lock, stock and barrel because of that. They all know it, too, and they all wouldn’t shed a tear if I died tomorrow, most likely they would have a party. But the world will endure and they will all be alive to hate me, and that will suffice.”
“A charming sentiment, Biqa.” The man’s voice was warmer than the sun in the sky. “Ever the noble, stoic sentinel, aren’t we? How amazingly boring.”
Bick stopped; he moved to interpose himself between Emily and the man blocking their way. The afternoon sun was behind him, so all Emily could see of the stranger was a vague silhouette wreathed in brilliant light.
“Hello, Ray,” Bick said. “Why are you here?”
“You know exactly why I’m here,” Ray Zeal said, stepping forward and blocking the sun so Emily could see him. He was slender, golden and handsome. Emily stepped back instinctively, though, because of the emotions she received from this man: pure, undiluted anger, cruelty and malice, wrapped in beauty and geniality—like a needle buried in a perfect apple.
“I’m here for the skull,” Zeal said. “Where is it?”
“Safe from you,” Bick said.
“Oh, Malachi,” Zeal said, laughing. “If there is one thing I have learned about this big, wide, wonderful world, it’s that there is no place that is safe.” He looked past Bick to Emily. “Well, hello there, you sweet little thing. What’s your name, darling?”
“She’s no one,” Bick said. “She’s lost and I’m escorting her back to her hotel.”
Zeal sniffed the air. He stepped into Bick, crowding him, and reached to Emily’s hair. He lifted a few locks with his fingers, pulled them close to his nose and inhaled deeply. His smile broadened. He leaned to Bick’s ear and whispered as he looked into Emily’s widening eyes.
“A family reunion. How sweet.”
“Stay away from her,” Bick said. He pushed, hard, and Zeal flew backward, away from him and from Emily. Zeal crashed into a few of the folks moving around them on the street, knocking some of them over. There was shouting, cursing, and a crowd began to form.
“Watch where the hell you’re going!” a burly miner shouted to Zeal as he climbed back to his feet. “You damned brick-footed…”
Zeal, smiling, lifted the man off the ground with one hand by the throat. He began to crush the man’s windpipe. Bick put his hand on Zeal’s forearm. The two angels locked gazes.
“Put … him … down,” Bick said. Zeal’s smiled slid away and he squeezed harder. There was a snapping, crunching sound like twigs breaking, and the miner’s body stopped struggling and hung limp. Zeal tossed the body. It flew across the wide, busy street, with people shouting, ducking and diving for cover. It crashed into the window of Geoff Aggerby’s barbershop and dentist practice. Bick tightened his grip and spun Zeal around. He led him farther onto Main Street and away from the crowds on both sides watching the altercation. He raised his walking stick to strike the golden angel.
“Yeah, Malachi,” Zeal said, the smirk back on his face. His hand dropped to his saber at his belt. “Let’s do it, Biqa! Let’s open the ball, right now. Do it, come on! Think how good it will feel to not have to walk on eggshells in this fragile little china shop of a world, to not hold so much of ourselves in any longer, for fear of breaking the props. We can flatten this shithole of a town in a single flutter of a fly’s wing.… Come on, it will be fun. You might even win.”
Bick lowered his stick and let Zeal go. “Get out of my town, Ray, now, or by the Radiant Arch, I will put you down.”
“Give me the skull and I’ll consider it.”
“No,” Bick said. “Why do you want it so badly now, after all this time?”
“Because I cyphered it all out and it’s a beautiful, horrible jest,” Zeal said. “But the joke is just for me and God. You wouldn’t get it, Biqa. Guess it’s the hard way then, suit yourself. Got a little matter to take up with that pet sheriff of yours too. That fucker went and killed my boy, Nikos. I think I’m going to eat that bastard while he’s still living.”
“No,” Bick said again. “I won’t allow that.”
“You keep saying that,” Ray said. “But ‘no’ don’t mean shit, unless you got the sand to back it up. I’m going to tear your little kingdom apart until I find that skull and I’m going to carve up your sheriff and you can’t do a thing about it, Malachi.”
Emily ran up to stand beside Bick.
“Get back!” Bick said.
“Oh, the love of a daughter for her daddy,” Zea
l said. “Tell me, my dear, did your stalwart father tell you what he did to you and to your mother?”
“Stop it,” Bick said.
Zeal laughed. “Poor Malachi, so used to being able to order the sheep about, it’s hard to deal with a bigger wolf than yourself, isn’t it? I feel a certain obligation to the girl; after all, I’m practically her uncle.”
Zeal stepped back, blocking more of Main Street. Traffic was stopped in both directions. While people couldn’t hear what was being said, everyone seemed very interested in the conflict. More than a few were hoping the stranger would pull out his pistol and shoot Bick. “You see, my dear, your father here fucked your mother, and here’s the funny part—bearing one of our children? Well, it always kills the mother. Always, without fail.”
“Ray, swear to…”
“To whom, exactly?” Zeal said. “Swear to whom, Biqa? If the Almighty gave a shit, how would I even be here, doing all this? Surely He’d stop his own creation and come to his loyal servant’s aid? Unless I’m His loyal servant and you’re the freak.” Zeal laughed. Bick looked at Emily. Her eyes were wet.
“Emily…,” he said.
“Is it true?” Emily said. “Is it? If I mean anything to you at all, please, please, tell me the truth now. Don’t lie. Is it true?”
“Yes,” Bick said, lowering his eyes from hers. “It’s true.”
“You knew,” she said. “You knew it would kill her, and you just did it anyway. I grew up an orphan, in a nightmare, because of you … your selfish need.”
“Yes,” Bick said. “I was selfish … and I knew.”
Emily ran, disappearing into the crowd. Zeal laughed and clapped. Bick grabbed him again and pulled him off his feet, their faces inches apart. There was a rumble of distant heat thunder and the sky darkened.
“Oh, good, you’re finally angry,” Zeal said. “All I did was be a good little angel and tell your sweet innocent girl the truth. That sets you free, right, the truth?”
Bick tightened his grip on the golden angel’s collar.
“You know, Biqa, I’m tired of you putting your hands on me and not doing anything except hurting my feelings. That stops now,” Zeal said quietly, so only Bick could hear. “I didn’t come into town alone. I have snipers up on the roofs, enough to turn this street into a slaughterhouse. Now, you will not resist what I’m going to do next in any way, or all these precious townsfolk will die.”
Zeal drove a fist into Bick’s stomach. The dark angel flew back and fell into the mud and shit in the middle of the road. Zeal walked over and kicked Bick viciously in the face with his boot. Bick rolled over, driven by the force of it. When he looked up, he saw the glint of a rifle barrel reflected by the sun. The shooter was on top of town hall. Zeal grabbed him and picked him up with one hand and began pounding him in the face again and again and again. At first there were only a few shouts from the crowd, a murmur of approval, but when blood flew from Bick’s smashed nose and mouth, there was a cheer all down Main Street.
“Kill that son of a bitch!” one voice shouted.
“Rich bastard done bled us all dry, fuck ’im up!” another screamed.
“How you like that, Miiiiisssssttttteeeerrrr Bick!” a mocking voice called out to derisive laughter and more hooting and cheering.
“Bully! Bully!” a voice called out. “Give that codfish aristocracy a sound thrashing! Thought himself above the law for far too many years, you ask me!”
“Make him bleed more!” another voice, shrill with rage, shouted.
Bick was aware, and the pain was real; he wished he could pass out, but he couldn’t. A few fat drops of rain began to fall. Zeal stopped punching him and pulled him close.
“These are the pieces of cosmic garbage you are protecting, Biqa. These are the worthless motes of finite shit that you just took a beating to save. And where is our boss? Where is the being you are continuing to serve when it can’t get any more evident He doesn’t give a fuck about you or your loyal service or any of these meat puppets? Cogitate on that and wait for me to come back here and kill every single one of them.”
Zeal tossed him on his back into the muck of the street again and the sky roared almost as loudly as the crowd did. Zeal turned slowly, rotating to address the entire crowd, his voice seeming to grow louder as to be heard over the thunder and the rowdy assembly.
“Good people of Golgotha,” Zeal bellowed, smiling. “My name is Ray Zeal and I am a very bad man to cross. This villain, this Malachi Bick, has cabbaged something from me and I intend to get it back. Now, I’m going to ride in here in two days with my crew, and we are going to take this walking shit-stain Bick apart until he gives me back my property. I got no grudge with any of you upstanding folks and your kin, so you just go about your business and maybe enjoy the show.”
Laughter arose from the crowd. Bick, his face swollen and bloody, crouched in the mud, still and silent. The rain was falling harder now, running down his hair and his torn cheeks. He had tracked at least three snipers on rooftops and knew there were surely more gunmen in the crowds. Zeal pointed to him and smiled.
“Now, if anyone cares to line up, to stand with this man, and take up arms to defend him, well, then me and mine will have a problem with you. And I swear, anyone who helps this man will get the same treatment he gets tenfold. I hope I’ve made myself real clear. Go about your business and good day to you all now.”
A cheer went up from the crowd and some whoops of joy and excitement. Zeal walked past Bick, looking down at him as he passed by.
“Two days, Biqa. Then my worshipers and I will be back. You had best crawl out to meet me on your belly with the skull in hand. If you do that, I will give these rubes a quick, painless death. If you resist me, then I will turn this place into Hell on Earth. Remember to say your prayers tonight.”
Zeal stepped away, disappearing into the rain.
Biqa, Malachi Bick, remained kneeling and tried to find the face of God in the ruin of the road.
The Three of Swords
In the summer of 1870, Elijah Barrows began hunting the pampered and secreted mistresses of the congressmen of the District of Columbia. A tailor by trade, Barrows was guided by faceless forces that drove him to savagely murder and mutilate five women in the deepest precincts of power in the young nation.
His fifth victim died in a suite of the Willard Hotel at the corner Pennsylvania and Sixteenth. He sewed her eyes shut, as he did with all of his victims. The fifth woman was also his muse, for in her blood he was compelled to write his destination far to the west, a place that called to him, screamed to him with promises of blood and fantasy fulfilled and sweet, sweet release. His was number ten.
Barrows wrote the destination of all those chosen to possess one of the thirty-two. The place they were being driven to, like a pack of hungry wolves. Driven by silent, waking dreams, bright, vivid fantasies that long ago failed to supplant the visceral reality found in the warm splash of blood and the rich, coppery taste of human flesh. Murderers, poisoners, rapists, torturers, wanderers, trap-door spiders, hunters, predators, sadists, the mad. All bound together by their secret, bloody god and by their possession of one of the thirty-two.
And all bound for the same destination.
And in distant Golgotha, Nevada, the killer and mutilator of prostitutes, who had claimed three victims, smiled in anticipation. Three down, two to go.
The Magician
They rode north the rest of the night and into early morning before they came to the camp. Mutt had changed clothes before leaving and grabbed his guns and knife. He left a note under Jim’s door at the boardinghouse explaining where he was going and to tell Jonathan that he would be back as soon as he could.
Mutt recognized the garb of the men who rode out to meet them—two of them were Goshute, the other Shoshone. All carried rifles and all wore a single black feather in their headbands, just as his escorts from Golgotha did.
“Behne,” the lead rider said in greeting. “So this is the famous s
pirit man, the one that stood alone against the Nimerigar—the man-eater monsters with their poisoned arrows? Who drove them back to their cave cities over forty seasons ago? The two-world walker? The one that owns no name. I thought you’d be less pretty.”
“I take it your name,” Mutt said in his best Shoshone, “is Talks-Through-Asshole.”
The men all laughed, even the one Mutt had insulted. “This way,” the Shoshone said. “He’s been expecting you.”
The inside of the tent was still cool, compared to the rising heat of the late morning on the badlands. Mutt entered, along with the leader of the party that had found him in Golgotha, a man named Mahkah. The tent reminded Mutt of his youth and his late mother. There were blankets and skins arranged on the floor for sitting and sleeping. A simple cook pot hung from a metal spit and a few saddlebags and a small, ornate wooden box were propped in one corner with a rifle and a belt of shells resting on it. The tent smelled of worn leather and rich tobacco. The sole occupant of the tent was sitting cross-legged, drinking from a tin cup of water. He was an Indian. It was difficult to determine his exact age, but his hair fell to his shoulders and was silver. His eyes were as old and dark as the void between the stars. He smiled at his guests with every part of him, not just his face, and Mutt felt his power and presence shine out of him.
“Hawthorne Wodziwob,” Mutt said, removing his hat. “Maiku.”
“Maiku, my friend,” Wodziwob replied in Numa, the ancient Paiute language—Mutt’s native tongue. “Thank you for coming. I hoped you would.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you over the last few years,” Mutt said. “I wanted to see if you were the real deal, like everyone said.”
Wodziwob laughed. “I’m curious, what is ‘the real deal’ exactly?”
“They say you can heal the sick and they say you have walked in the land of the dead,” Mutt said. “They say you claim to carry a message back from the dead to the living.”
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