The Telling

by Mike Duran

  Little Weaver seemed neither humored nor mystified by the reference. His features remained resolute, fixed on Annie.

  “I showed them to Easy Dolan,” Annie continued. “He said he thought the documents were Fergus’s father’s, that he’d been part of that military project.”

  “Fergus?” Tamra said with surprise. “The night shift guy at Marvale?”

  Annie nodded.

  “And these documents,” Little Weaver said. “Are they still with Mr. Dolan?”

  “No. They’re back at my apartment.”

  The Indian’s gaze dropped to the floor. “They are not safe. Follow me.”

  He led them through the backstage area to a section of rooms that Zeph surmised had been used as dressing rooms. Little Weaver flipped a switch, and two large overhead lamps flooded the space with light.

  Large tables arrayed with glass tubes and stainless steel instruments stood between cluttered aisles. Two large cages were in one corner, objects of similar size draped with sheets, and nearby, more gunnysacks. An apparatus of some sort with pulleys and gears hung from the ceiling. Either Little Weaver was a Native American incarnation of Doctor Frankenstein or he was the most incognito scientist in North America.

  They followed Little Weaver past the workbench. A large javelin with an ornate wooden grip hung above shears, goggles, and a long thin blade. What kind of research was this man doing? Zeph stopped to gaze at a tin of perfectly round polished balls, about the size of marbles but made of a strange material. He picked one up and let it rest in his palm.

  Little Weaver had stopped to watch him. “Wood from Sacred Tree. It will stop a dark angel in its tracks.”

  Zeph peered at Little Weaver. “Who are you?”

  “Ha! Such a tale would take ages.” The Indian turned on the heel of his boot. He led them to a dull metal table. Setting his crossbow aside, he emptied the contents of the sack. The carcass of the soul eater thudded in a moist, grotesque heap.

  Zeph kept his distance, and Annie and Tamra clung to each other, gaping. A thick, rancid odor struck them. Little Weaver switched on a surgical light and swung its arm over the corpse, where he fixed the blazing beam on the hideous form.

  Zeph stood there, enthralled and repulsed.

  The upper torso was fleshy and quite human in appearance. Its limbs, however, were now little more than casings devoid of meat, charred papery husks that dangled from the table. The head turned their way, its scarred mouth and lifeless face a haunting effigy. And trailing from its back, now hanging limp, were leathery appendages. As one who’d spent his life enjoying fictional worlds of island castaways, hobbits, and talking animals, the entity lying before him was unlike anything Zeph Walker had ever imagined.

  Little Weaver studied the remains.

  Zeph swallowed. “And this is an angel?”

  “A dark angel,” Little Weaver said. “Banished from the First Column.”

  “First Column?” Zeph did not conceal his annoyance. “Do you only talk in riddles?”

  “To the hard of hearing, all truth is riddle.” Little Weaver’s eyes sparkled with a mischievous delight. “Brother Walker, ancient theologians believed that the universe consisted of three pillars, three parallel columns: heaven, earth, and hell. Existing side by side, but separate, distinct. Closer than we can ever imagine, but infinitely distant.”

  “And you’re saying that thing,” Tamra pointed to the dark angel with a grimace, “was banished from heaven?”

  “The First Column. Indeed! Myriads of such beings live there—powers, principalities, thrones, dominions. It was believed that Lucifer, the greatest of all angels, was once a cherub. Ah, the saddest of all tales.”

  “Angels …” Annie peered at the thing on the table. “Here in Endurance? Looking like that? How is this possible?”

  “And what does it have to do with me?” Zeph asked.

  “Aha! Another tale!”

  “Great,” Zeph said sarcastically. “Do we really have time for more riddles?”

  Little Weaver scowled. “Aren’t you a storyteller, Brother Walker?”

  “Me?” Zeph felt his skin flush. “I–I guess I was. Once.”

  “And you stopped?” Little Weaver shook his head. “Friends, we should mourn such an admission.”

  Zeph wanted to ask the man who he was again, but the effort would be futile.

  “They came, just like the miners,” Little Weaver began. “But instead of picks and shovels, they wielded equations and theories. They had charted a vortex—pools of electromagnetic energy in the hills. At the Rift.”

  “I knew it,” Annie said. “It’s where they’re coming from, isn’t it?”

  Little Weaver nodded grimly.

  “Otta’s Rift?” Zeph said, unbelieving. “A magnetic vortex?”

  “An unstable field of energy.” Little Weaver spread his arms with dramatic flare. “It affects all things within its reach. Gravity and light, plants and animals. The ancients feared the place. As well they should! They believed it was a gateway to the underworld, the place of the dead. A portal to hell.”

  The three listened, spellbound at the Indian’s tale. Zeph had long ago dismissed the legend as simple folklore. Silverton was nothing more than one of many ghost towns strewn throughout the American West. And the old mine was just a convenient way for wackos to explain the city’s abandonment. Nevertheless, as he looked at the moldering remains of the winged creature that bore his face, his mind swirled with fantastical, horrific possibilities.

  “Such areas are considered highly sacred,” Little Weaver continued. “The Great Pyramid. Stonehenge. Superstition Mountain. The men of science believed they could harness its power.”

  “It’s paganism,” Annie exclaimed. “Good Lord! Our own military was invoking the dark side.”

  “Such is the quest for knowledge, Annie Lane. NOVEM theorized that the Madness had a scientific explanation. They believed it was contact with this vortex that produced changes in people. Drove them mad. Soon they came to believe another irregularity was occurring.”

  “An irregularity?” Zeph looked away from the dark angel. “What does that mean?”

  “A spatial tear,” Little Weaver said. “A wormhole.”

  “You mean,” Zeph squinted skeptically, “a passage between dimensions?”

  “Don’t discount such wonders, Brother Walker.”

  Tamra’s eyes were riveted on the Indian. “You’re saying that … there’s a dimensional gateway of some sort in Otta’s Rift? A portal to hell?”

  Little Weaver nodded.

  “And the United States government knows about it? They’ve done experiments? And that these things,” she pointed at the creature, “these dark angels are being released?”

  “The breaching of the columns.” Little Weaver slashed his hand through the air, as if demonstrating. “Summoned from the Third Column, seeking embodiment in your plane.”

  “Summoned?” Zeph asked. “By whom?”

  “Long after the military left,” Little Weaver said, “the great shaman returned—Father Coyne. Fergus’s father. He lives in Laurel House now, an invalid. He returned with great sorrow. He sought to exploit the Rift for his purposes, to summon from the underworld someone who had passed away, someone lost in grief.”

  “His wife!” Annie gasped. “She committed suicide.”

  “Yes.” Little Weaver nodded.

  Zeph wondered aloud. “And he believed he could use a dimensional gateway to call her back from the dead …”

  Little Weaver arched his eyebrows. “Perhaps there is hope for you, Brother Walker.”

  “Perhaps,” Zeph deadpanned.

  “Ha!” Little Weaver stepped toward him and slapped Zeph playfully on the shoulder, sending him stumbling into a nearby table. “Father Coyne peered into other dimensions, such places forbidden for men to see. Intelligences lived there, cool, filled with malice. They watched, yearning for this place. Yearning to possess what you have.” Little Weaver turned and spat at t
he corpse. “Father Coyne knew the power to summon such entities was within the realm of the possible. The soul eaters had waited for such a time.”

  The silence of the vast, dark theater encroached upon them. Dark angels peering into their world, waiting to be called forth. The thought sent chills deep into Zeph’s marrow. He shifted uncomfortably and unraveled his thoughts.

  “You’re saying that this scientist, this old man in the convalescent home, is summoning dark angels from,” Zeph glanced at Tamra and Annie, “from Otta’s Rift? How is that possible?”

  “All tribes have the belief in ones so gifted,” Little Weaver said. “Mediators between the two worlds. Shamans. Prophets. Those gifted with words.”

  Little Weaver cast a long gaze at Zeph.

  “Wait a second.” Zeph held up both hands. “Just like I told them, I hung up the robe and sandals a long time ago.”

  “You underestimate yourself, Brother Walker. Father Coyne knew it was not one of machines, but metaphysics. The military eschewed such nonsense and promptly terminated him and NOVEM. Yet so great was his grief that he returned. Relentless. He believed that words spoken in the proper order could alter the fabric of the world—a formula, if you will. He sought such an incantation. And a seer. Father Coyne discovered that his son, Moon Dancer, was gifted with the wild magic.”

  “You mean,” Zeph said, “there’s another prophet?”

  Annie placed her hand over mouth in surprise. “Fergus.”

  “Moon Dancer,” Little Weaver said. “He has learned the incantations that rouse the soul eaters, that summon the dark angels from their prison. He now holds sway over the Third Column. And the one who controls this gateway has great power.”

  Zeph stood numb. His mouth was dry, and for a brief second he thought he might pass out. Or get sick. He could see where this was going. The footsteps Zeph heard in his head was destiny barreling toward him. He licked his lips and muttered, “What kind of power?”

  “The dark angels have one purpose,” Little Weaver said. “To create symmetry. To fuse the columns. To bring hell to earth. Even now they plot their way, moving amongst us in the shadows. Friends. Neighbors. Kin. They know no boundaries. Gorging on human souls and swapping out the remains. If Fergus is assimilated by the dark angels, there will be symmetry. Something from that dimension—a great shaman, a being of inexplicable might and majesty—will cross over and stand as a conductor between hell and earth. The columns will be fused.”

  Zeph closed his eyes and massaged his temples. The nausea had taken hold of him. He looked for a place to sit.

  “You have that power, Brother Walker.” Little Weaver approached him, commanding his attention. “Call it what you will—prophecy, forth-telling. The ancients called it wild magic because it cannot be harnessed. Unless you close the Rift, speak the dark angels back to their place, it’s only a matter of time before you are consumed by hell. It is your silence, Brother Walker, that keeps the portal open.”

  Little Weaver’s words were like an intoxicant, driving Zeph toward inevitable delirium. He lifted his eyes to the Indian, knowing full well the implications.

  “This is why they seek you, Brother Walker.” Little Weaver stepped back and motioned to the dark angel. “You are the only one who stands in their way.”

  Chapter 42

  Irish whiskey was the best.

  Fergus drained the pint, drawing his tongue across the rim of the bottle for good measure. He winced as the liquid fire seared his throat. Then he lobbed the bottle into his locker and tossed his wadded apron in behind it.

  The throbbing in his head resumed, spikes of white-hot metal piercing his temples on a beeline to his brain. Fergus stumbled forward and slammed into the metal lockers, writhing against the deluge of pain in his cranium.

  The night was waiting. He could feel it. The fetch were calling him, beckoning him into their cool, dark clefts. A forest of limbs and minds, waiting for his command, yearning only for escape.

  Be with us, they moaned. Come stay and be our king.

  Fergus clawed at his ears. If only he could rip the thoughts from his head.

  “Leave me alone!” He flung himself into the center of the custodial room, where he stood panting. From behind the picture’s shattered glass Jesus watched him.

  “I’m s–sorry,” Fergus whimpered, staring into the image’s placid blue eyes. “I just c–can’t stop ’em.”

  But there was no response to his plea, only the dull thud of blood behind his ears.

  Fergus drew his hand across his clammy forehead. He had to move. Get away from there. The fetch would be calling, and once they did, he knew he would never come back. But even if he ran, could he ever escape their grip upon him? How could you run from the voices in your head?

  Either way he had to try. He had lost the spellbook. If the authorities found those documents, they would surely trace it back to Pops, and Fergus’s secret would be out. All that blood. All those bodies. He whimpered at the thought.

  The clock read 10:57 p.m. His shift was over. He would go down to Laurel House and start packing Pops’s stuff. They couldn’t take much, just whatever he could fit in the camper shell. But how would he care for his father? Medication. Diapers. Wheelchair. Oxygen. It sent Fergus’s mind into a tailspin. How would they manage?

  He was biting his greasy nails again.

  Fergus spat a shredded cuticle and forced the details out of his mind. He touched the pistol grip positioned underneath his flannel. It bolstered his confidence. If worse came to worse, they would go together, him and Pops. One bullet in each brain. That would show them.

  Then, maybe then, they would finally see Mum.

  Fergus left the custodial area and hurried toward Laurel House. A cool breeze whispered through the bristlecone needles, and somewhere in the foothills a coyote yelped. The stars shimmered behind pockets of stray clouds. This time of night the facilities were slowing down. The night nurses were making their rounds, and the slumber of death coiled its tentacles around all who tread here.

  “Hey, Fergus.”

  The custodian lurched as the figure emerged from the shadows near the back door of Laurel House. It was Jared, one of the night nurses, grinding a cigarette out under his tennis shoes.

  “D’you hear about—” Jared stopped and gaped at Fergus. “Dude, you don’t look so good.”

  Fergus wobbled forward and steadied himself. “They ain’t s–started, have they?”

  Jared shook his head, looking pale. “Naw, they ain’t started the night rounds yet. Man, you been drinkin’? And your face … it’s, like, swollen.”

  Fergus reached up and felt drool trailing down his jaw. He wiped it away, mumbled something, and hurried through the entrance of Laurel House, leaving the nurse staring.

  It was shift change, so the nurses should be at their stations. Hopefully he could begin packing some of Pops’s stuff without interruption from those busybodies. His footsteps echoed down the corridor. The rooms were alive with shadows. There were more than just withered bodies and tired souls in there. Something was watching them, dining off the stench of death and regret. He could feel them—the fetch. Wherever there was darkness and dying, they made their home. Longing, waiting. Cursing the light.

  Fergus hurried on, refusing to look into those portals of death. He arrived at Pops’s room. Weltz lay in his usual spot, wrapped up like a mummy with his bony spine peeking out from the sheets. Pops lay on his back, snoring gently with his mouth open. A nightlight near the bedstand illuminated his spindly arms resting limp at his sides. How would Fergus ever manage to care for his father? The old man was so frail. They might scrounge up enough money to find an apartment in Reno. Maybe get as far as Montana. Then what?

  Fergus stood gnawing his nails.

  He had to try. It was the least Fergus could do. Pops hadn’t gotten a fair shake. Between Mum killing herself and NOVEM kicking him to the curb, the old man was devastated. Fergus had the gift. He was special. At least that’s what Pops
always told him. If only Fergus could use the second sight to save both of them.

  He slid open the drawer of the nightstand and removed Pops’s wristwatch, which had long since died; some fingernail clippers; and a bib. He would gather a few of his father’s belongings tonight and start loading his truck. No one would suspect. Then tomorrow they would leave, never to be seen again. The plan was doable and brought temporary hope into Fergus’s otherwise gloomy imaginings.

  “Fergus.” A voice from the shadows.

  Fergus spun about, sending the objects on the nightstand clattering across the floor. Roth leaned against the far wall in his trench coat, wire-rimmed glasses glinting in the night light.

  “Ghaww!” Fergus growled.

  “The spellbook,” Roth said, seemingly unflustered by Fergus’s rage. “You’ve kept it safe?”

  Hate welled inside Fergus like molten rage. “I thought I told ya to leave him be.”

  “Leave him? Robert is one of our trophies. A man of genius—far ahead of his time. He served his country well, Fergus. You should be proud.”

  “Yeah? Then why’d you do him like that? Everything you learned, you learned ’cuz of him.”

  “It wasn’t him, Fergus.” Roth stepped out of the shadows, a sleazy grin on his face. “It was you. You were the real one we wanted. You were the gifted one. Your father knew that; that’s why he brought you back with him. He couldn’t have done it without you.”

  The thought snatched the rage right out of him.

  Roth was right. It was Fergus’s gift, the second sight, that had changed things. Once Fergus discovered the rune, learned the words that opened the Rift, everything was different. That’s when they knew Fergus was special. He was the key to NOVEM’s success, not his father.

  But Pops wouldn’t use him, not like NOVEM had used them. Pops would never do that.

  “You’re the lore master,” Roth droned. “You’re the chosen one. Not everyone can summon the fetch. Why, you’re special, Fergus. That’s why we left the book with you. You knew its value. You could unlock its secrets.”

  Fergus squinted. “You didn’t leave the book with me. Pops kept it. He hid it from you. The secret was ours!”