Jake glanced away at the sheriff and his men, looked at Dolarhyde and the riders behind him: They outnumbered the sheriff’s men by two or three to one.
He met Dolarhyde’s gaze, thinking fast. “Why don’t you get me outta here? We can talk about it.” He smiled, making it a dare.
He figured a man who’d looked at him the way Dolarhyde had probably would torture him to death, just like Percy’d said—for information he didn’t have a clue about. Or he could try, anyway. . . .
“All right, that’s enough.” Taggart’s voice cut the invisible cord of tension between them. He said to Dolarhyde, “You can handle it with Judge Bristol. I’m gonna escort Percy myself, make sure he’s treated fair.”
“I ain’t talkin’ about him!” Dolarhyde snarled. “Lonergan ain’t worth nothing to me hangin’ from a rope. Either you give him to me now—” His voice lit the fuse on an ultimatum. “Or I’ll take him!”
“What about me?” Percy whined.
“I said shut up, boy!” Dolarhyde gestured with the pistol that was suddenly in his hand.
The sheriff responded by letting his own hand drop toward his holster. The deputies, following his lead, turned their rifles on Dolarhyde.
“Turn your men around and go home, Wood-row,” Taggart said. “You’re not an outlaw.”
“No, I am not,” Dolarhyde responded, looking indignant, although nothing Jake had seen proved he had good reason. “But I am a man who’ll protect what’s his.”
Suddenly the metal bracelet on Jake’s wrist lit up with a patch of blue light . . . blue light . . . and began to make high beeping noises. Now what—? Jake gripped the window lattice with his free hand, trying to see more of the street.
Dolarhyde peered in at him, at the flashing bracelet; he looked as surprised as Jake felt. But behind him his men were beginning to mutter, turning their horses, looking away. Dolarhyde looked away, too, toward the end of the street, and his face said he was seeing something even stranger now.
Jake pressed his face against the window bars, straining to get a better look.
He could barely make out what they were all staring at: On the far side of a hill, something was glowing like a brushfire . . . except there was no hill, and the burning line was getting closer to town with every heartbeat. . . . Now it looked like an iron bar hurled out of a forge, still glowing red and gold.
“What the hell . . . ?” Dolarhyde muttered. He urged his horse away from the coach, riding to the head of his vigilante band like a military man.
Jake looked down at his unwanted bracelet: The light was flashing faster now. He felt his hands start to sweat as he looked out again and saw the wind rising, kicking up dust in the street, making the torches of Dolarhyde’s men gutter. Across the street he saw Ella and the dog, watching the sky like everyone else. Ella didn’t look frightened—she looked like she knew exactly what she was seeing and didn’t like it. The dog began to bark. The riders in the street were struggling to keep their horses under control, as the animals wheeled and collided in panic.
The glowing band of light was almost at the edge of town when suddenly it vanished. Jake held his breath, gaping like everyone else. Percy was yammering panic-stricken questions, tugging on the chain, not able to see anything. Nothing he did even registered in Jake’s mind now.
Jake remembered to take another breath, just as lightning out of nowhere split the sky over the buildings at street’s end. An invisible storm swept down the street toward him, whirling the dust into choking clouds, shaking the ground and buildings with explosions like deep thunder. Bolts of lightning struck one building after another, starting fires everywhere.
A different kind of light—a brilliant actinic blue—dropped out of the sky in sweeping cones, rolling over the streets and buildings, illuminating clouds of dust and smoke; silhouetting the people and animals running blindly through the whirlwind, seeking escape where there wasn’t any.
Streaks of darkness began to lick down through the cones of light like whips—no, bolas, with weighted strands at their ends spreading open like fingers. He saw them close around human bodies to jerk them off a horse’s back or off the ground like lassoed steers.
But the bolas carried their helpless victims screaming into the sky, into . . . something.
Through the clouds of dust and the barred window, Jake couldn’t make out what was up there in the night. The light on his metal bracelet was now glowing steadily.
The coach shuddered into abrupt motion as its brake gave way, and the horses hitched to it bolted. Whoever was up in the driver’s seat obviously hadn’t been expecting that, any more than he could’ve imagined anything else that was happening now.
The prison wagon careened out of control down the street and around a corner, and then slammed into a pile of debris from a fallen building. The coach landed on its side as the team of horses broke loose and galloped away into the night.
Jake shook himself out, cursing and shoving as he tried to keep Percy from giving him more bruises than he’d gotten in the last half a minute, while they’d been tossed around like dice. Nothing felt broken on him—yet—but if that jackass didn’t quit hanging on the manacles, his wrist was going to snap.
“Stop pulling, and gimme your hand—!” Jake said, yanking Percy forward.
“—the hell for—?” Percy pulled away from him.
“—I can get us free!” Jake shouted. “Gimme your damn hand!”
Percy’s face filled with sudden eagerness, and he stuck out his hand. Jake grabbed him by the wrist, and bent his fingers back until something snapped. Percy shrieked, in real agony this time, as Jake kicked him hard against the wall, forcing Percy’s hand out of the cuff. Percy crumpled to the floor in the corner, sobbing and cursing.
Jake was free of Percy, but not of Percy’s presence, and they were both still trapped in this goddamn prison. . . . He shouted for the coach’s driver, but there was so much noise outside that he could hardly even hear himself. There was only one accessible door, now—and it was in the roof. If the driver didn’t show soon to unlock it . . . he glanced back at Percy, his hand making a fist.
One of the circling cones of light struck the prison wagon; the light hovered overhead, filling the inside of the coach with cold brilliance through the window above their heads. Jake caught hold of the lattice, trying to see what could make such bright light, or where so much light could be coming from. The brightness was blinding; all he could see, gazing up, was blue light. There was something about blue light . . . he remembered something. . . .
As the light struck the flashing metal band on his wrist, the thing suddenly changed again. Jake let go of the lattice to stare at it, forgetting everything else, even Percy, who forgot to keep screaming.
As if it was answering the light from above, the band lit up in a pattern of brighter blue all over. He watched in disbelief as what had been solid metal stronger than stone unfurled like a mechanical plant, growing and changing as it wrapped itself further up his arm, forming a brace, and down around his hand where it fused into a single piece across his palm. Long, slender tubes emerged from its surface; every one of them shone like a lit candle, filled to overflowing with blue light.
Something flashed on in the air just above his wrist—a small arc of light, with strange markings inside it that changed as Jake moved his hand. It reminded him of something else . . . something familiar: A gun sight. Like a gun sight from God.
Suddenly he understood: He knew a weapon when he saw one. And he knew what it was meant to do. . . . But how the hell did it—
“How’d you do that?” Percy’s voice shook; he looked like somebody penned up with a mad dog.
Jake ignored him, watching the weapon shimmer as he moved his arm, shook it, tightened his fist experimentally. How the hell did the thing work? What could it really do? If he could only get out of here—
There was an explosion as the thing on his wrist blasted the rear wall of the iron-plated prison wagon to smithereens. T
he recoil knocked Jake back against the other end of the coach.
Swearing with shock and awe, he pulled himself upright, staring at the hole the weapon had just blown in the back of the wagon . . . smelling hope in the burning dust and wind. Now he was free. . . .
Percy stared at the hole, too, and cowered in his corner; he’d finally stopped making any sound at all. Jake moved past him toward the gaping hole in the coach, not even bothering to look back.
There was nothing outside that Jake could see except wreckage. He climbed through into the open, glancing around. Even when he was standing in the street, a free man, Absolution still looked like Hell on Earth. The blue spotlight had moved on, but everywhere he turned buildings were on fire. In the flickering light, he saw dead or injured people and horses lying on the ground all around him. The air was filled with choking smoke and dust, and the crazy lights circled overhead, searching for more victims.
Jake picked his way through the ruins of the building that had foundered the prison wagon, searching for the coach’s driver. He found the man’s body without much trouble. It lay where it had landed when the coach overturned.
It hadn’t been a clean landing; but at least it’d been quick. Jake grimaced. Sometimes that was the best you could hope for.
And sometimes one man’s death was another man’s luck. He kneeled down, searching the driver’s pockets until he found the one with a ring of keys in it. He unlocked the manacle that was still around his wrist; shook out his hand as the heavy shackles and chain dropped to the ground.
He’d gotten rid of Percy, and even gotten free of the coach on his own; but it would’ve taken a lot more time and effort than he could afford right now to get those damned irons off. He glanced at his other wrist, where the strange weapon was still open and glowing, almost like it was waiting, eager, to kill and destroy. Somehow he’d come to possess a weapon out of his worst nightmares; but he had no idea how it worked . . . and he didn’t like that.
He took the driver’s gun belt and cinched it around his waist; drew the pistol, checked it, and held onto it. With those shackles hanging from his gun hand, he couldn’t have used any weapon he actually knew. A pistol could take care of almost any problem he ran into. Anything but Hell on Earth.
He looked at the strange weapon again: but maybe this was exactly the thing that could . . .
Horses suddenly emerged from the clouds of smoke and dust—with men on their backs, coming his way. The first human being Jake recognized was Woodrow Dolarhyde—followed by the few of his men who were still fighting back against the invisible attackers, uselessly firing at targets they couldn’t see. Jake glanced over his shoulder at the prison wagon, realizing that Dolarhyde must be looking for his son.
Or maybe not—
As Dolarhyde saw Jake standing by the coach, he dug in his spurs and charged at him like he meant to ride him down.
Jake took cover in the wreckage beside the coach, losing himself in the shadows. Looking out from there, he saw the blue lightning and fire circling around back over the town, heading his way. This time he could actually make out shadowy forms silhouetted against the night . . . Demons?
Demons out of Hell. That was all he could think of that could be so huge, with so much power . . . that could fly, darting back and forth after human victims like bats catching insects.
Demons . . . sucking people into the sky, and eating them alive.
Dolarhyde and his men pulled their horses up short, staring at the sky like he was. But then Dolarhyde dismounted, and started toward the coach with his pistol in his hand.
He stopped as he saw the hole Jake’s weapon had blown in the back of the coach. He shouted Percy’s name and ran forward again; Percy was still inside, hiding like a frightened child. His voice answered faintly from inside. Dolarhyde holstered his gun and climbed through the hole into the prison wagon. Dolarhyde caught his son by the arms and dragged him out, as oblivious to Percy’s cry of pain and protest as he seemed to be to the boy’s broken hand. Watching from the shadows, Jake saw the old man shake his son, calling him a coward in front of all the riders who were still around him.
Dolarhyde raised his hand. Jake wondered whether it was a signal, or whether he was about to slap the kid, too.
He never got to find out, as a cone of blue light swept over the two of them, and a black rope dropped out of the sky, twining bola fingers around Percy, jerking him off his feet, into the air.
Jake saw Percy’s terrified face, saw the boy fling his arms out to his father. Dolarhyde lunged after him, shouting his name. But the demons moved too fast; Percy disappeared into the night before his father could grab so much as his boot.
Jake saw Dolarhyde’s face then, lit by the fires of destruction, as he lost his son to demons. He saw fury, dread . . . confusion . . . disbelief . . . as Dolarhyde stood staring up into the night, as stupefied by what had just happened as Jake had felt waking up in the desert.
Nat Colorado dismounted and ran to where Dolarhyde stood staring at the sky. Incredulous, Jake saw Nat actually put a steadying arm around the old man’s shoulders, his face full of what looked like concern as he guided Dolarhyde out of the middle of the street, toward the relative shelter of the nearest building that was still in one piece. The rest of the Dolarhyde crew sat on their horses, watching and waiting.
Jake shook his head. This was Hell on Earth, all right . . . he’d just seen both the Dolarhydes get exactly what they deserved. He moved on, staying close to the cover of buildings until Dolarhyde’s vigilantes were well behind him.
His instincts were telling him it was past time for him to find a horse and get the hell out of town—before he found out what it was, exactly, that he really deserved. But instead he kept walking toward the heart of the chaos . . . searching the sky, glancing down at the thing on his wrist: It was still a weapon, and the ring of glowing blue tubes reminded him again that it had only turned into one when the blue light hit it, while he’d been trapped in the coach.
Blue light. . . . Just the sight of it made his gut knot up; it filled him with raw hatred and a hunger for bloody vengeance he didn’t understand.
And yet, some part of his mind realized now exactly what the weapon was telling him—and it wasn’t something his instincts wanted to hear. It was telling him not to go. That he didn’t need to run . . . that if those things were demons, he was a demon hunter, the only one in town. That he wanted to do this—and what the hell did he have left to lose?
He looked on along the firelit street, not seeing just dead horses, but seeing the human beings lying dead or injured everywhere around him—old and young, men, women, and children. Seeing the ones who were still alive fighting to stay that way, as demons tore their lives and homes apart.
He heard someone scream—saw the woman who’d given him free whiskey at the bar dragged from her husband’s side by another bola. The demon-tongue snatched her up through a hole in the walkway roof, as Doc leaped after her and fell back, shouting, “Maria!”
“Jesus God!” He heard Preacher Meacham’s voice; saw him standing in the street, holding a rifle and staring upward helplessly, blinded by a kind of light that had nothing at all to do with angels or Heaven.
Trying to see what really lay behind the light, Jake pushed himself to move, coughing as he inhaled more dust and smoke. He dodged panic-stricken citizens, hoping he didn’t get hit by random gunfire. Runaway horses came at him out of nowhere, not even giving him time to catch one, only to dodge aside, before they were gone again.
He stepped onto the boardwalk and looked for another glimpse of the demons, but they were too well hidden by their powers over wind, earth, and fire as they continued to tear the town apart.
Just as he was getting close to the sheriff’s office, a racketing noise made him look down: It sounded like something huge was ripping apart a picket fence. He leaped off the walkway into the street as he saw the walkway’s floor planks rippling like piano keys, flying away into the clouds and light.
>
“Emmett!”
Jake recognized Sheriff Taggart’s voice, just as he spotted the jail. He saw Taggart lean down to haul his grandson up from the ground where the boardwalk the boy had been hiding under had all been torn away.
“I told you to get inside!” Taggart shouted.
“I just wanted to see . . . What’s happening?” Emmett cried.
“Stay by my side.” Taggart lifted the boy to his feet and held onto his hand. “You’re gonna be oka—”
A blue spotlight fell across them; a bola cord spun down, whipping around Taggart’s body. It snapped taut and jerked him out of Emmett’s grip, up into the blinding, blue-black night.
“Grandpa . . . !” Emmett stood alone and completely vulnerable in the middle of the street, staring up at the sky as the light swept on, hunting more prey.
Oh, shit . . . Jake broke into a run, compelled by an urge he couldn’t explain to get the boy out of harm’s way. If the weapon on his wrist had only warned him, he could have nailed the demon before it got Taggart . . . but the damn gun wasn’t working like he’d figured.
Ella suddenly crossed his line of sight as she ran to the boy and caught hold of him, pulling him back into a safe hiding place between two buildings. Jake heard the boy shouting, “They took him! Lemme go!” as she fought to keep him there.
Jake stopped, turning away again . . . relieved, startled, and furious all at once. Goddamn it. He glared up at the hallucination that had replaced the sky; his empty left hand made a fist. Why wasn’t this deadly piece of crap he wore doing the job it was meant to do? If he only knew how to use the demon-killer, instead of letting it use him—
He realized suddenly that he was thinking about a gun, a piece of metal, like it was alive. But it had seemed alive, the way it opened up; and now it was acting like it had a mind of its own. However he’d gotten it—whether it had fallen out of the sky, or crawled out of the Pit—using him was exactly what the demon gun was doing.
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