by Mike Duran
“Speak not those dread words, Brother Walker.”
“They’re just words,” Tamra said defensively. “You scared the heck outta me.”
“Just words?” Little Weaver mused. “Just words. Ha! Was it just words that formed your world, brought light from darkness? Was it just words that awakened the Great Serpent? Is it just words that loose the soul to forgiveness or bind it to perpetual grief? No, Warrior Soul. There is no such thing as just words.”
Tamra glanced rather ashamedly at Zeph. After his encounter before the Rift, he wondered if a scolding wasn’t appropriate for both of them.
Little Weaver turned back to the documents. His tone was stern. “These are more than just words. Hewed from darkness by Father Coyne. Dictated by the seraphim, it is the rune to open the ninth gate of hell.”
Zeph could not hide the incredulity in his tone. “You’re saying that those words, those documents, were dictated by angels?”
“It is the script of the seraphim,” Little Weaver said. “Dark angels. They made contact with the other side, just as Father Coyne predicted. A code for unlocking the Third Column.”
“Can’t we just destroy it?” Zeph asked. “Burn it or something?”
“Indeed. Such texts deserve burning. But it cannot stop what has begun. The formula is found. And the Teller of it grows strong. Those who have deciphered this and possess its secrets wield untold might. More than they imagine.” Little Weaver grew still. “The dark angels walk among us. They prepare the way for a great one—a being of such might, were it to cross, no one could stop it.” Little Weaver leafed through the papers, located one, and laid it before them. “A black cherub—the most insidious of all entities.”
Zeph took the sketch and studied it. “Annie warned us about this.”
“One of the mightiest of all angels,” Little Weaver intoned. “The cherubim were guardians of the throne of the Almighty. But some turned. Now they seek to obtain symmetry, to merge the two columns and so control the worlds. The black cherub could harness such power. All the seraphim need to complete their plan is one so gifted—a shaman, a prophet. When he is found, the black cherub will emerge.”
After a long pause Zeph said, “That prophet has been found. Hasn’t he?”
Little Weaver nodded. “The Rift has remained open because of him. He holds sway over the land.”
Zeph stared blankly. He sensed what was coming.
“Ha!” shouted Little Weaver. “There is time for this tale, Brother Walker!”
“Go for it,” Zeph sighed.
“A man once had a dream,” Little Weaver began. “In his dream the man was carried away by a great eagle, far into the future. They arrived at an island—a violent, flaming volcano. The man asked, ‘What is this thing?’ And the eagle responded, ‘This is a word you once spoke, gone out into eternity and crystallized in this form.’ And then the eagle snatched up the man and flew on for a great distance until they arrived at another island, this one cool and green, covered with fountains and fruit trees. And the man again asked, ‘What is this thing?’ The eagle replied, ‘This too is a word you once spoke, which has gone out into eternity and crystallized in this form.’ And the dreamer awoke.”
Zeph looked long and hard at Little Weaver. Finally, he said. “So this is my fault, isn’t it? This is my volcano?”
Tamra scowled. “Why’re you always so hard on yourself? How could this be your fault?”
But Little Weaver was honed in on him. “Go on.”
“The wound festers,” Zeph recited the words. “The land awaits. And between them lies my darker self.”
Tamra’s annoyance appeared to be growing. “What’re you talking about, Zeph?”
“When this all started,” Zeph said, “I received a word. That word. It was the Telling. It’d been years—”
“A prophecy?” Tamra said. “About all this?”
“Yeah. That’s the day the detectives came, showed me that thing at the morgue. The same day you came. Then I went to Meridian, like your grandmother said. There’s a cave painting up there. It shows a person with …” He swallowed hard. “With a mark on their face.”
“The Branded One,” Little Weaver said. “He will heal the wound and save the land.”
Tamra’s incredulity was obvious. “And you believe it’s about you?”
“I have no other choice. I came back to Endurance eight years ago. I–I didn’t know it then. I thought it was just … coincidence.
I was wrong. It was all foretold. But instead of coming back to do something good, I went to my mother’s graveside and renounced everything—my calling, my gift. I cursed heaven, Tamra.” Then he said to Little Weaver, “And that word has crystallized, hasn’t it?”
The Indian nodded.
“Now people are dying,” Zeph said. “And hell is feeding off my inaction.”
Tamra reached out to touch him, but Zeph shrank back.
“You were there, weren’t you?” Zeph pointed at the Indian. “Way back then, you were there. You were watching me.”
A slight smile creased Little Weaver’s ruddy features. “You are returning to yourself, my friend.”
“Do you remember how you said the dark angels feed on our regrets, our disappointment? It’s like the darkness inside us is their magnet, their lifeline. Well, if they feed on unforgivingness and regret, then I’m like a twelve-course meal. As long as I hold onto this garbage, let this fear, this bitterness eat me up—as long as I keep runnin’—they have power here. I can’t stand before them.” He gestured toward Otta’s Rift. The memory of the shadowy winged thing swooping upon him sent chills over Zeph. “Don’t you see?” He turned to Tamra, almost pleading. “They don’t want me going in there, into that rotten mine. Whatever I’m supposed to do when I get there can put an end to this.” He stepped back.
The stillness of the mountains encroached, as if the world—the land he had been called to—was waiting for the words Zeph was about to say. “But if I’m gonna do this, there’s something I need to get off my chest.”
“Now?” Tamra looked cock-eyed at him. “Can’t we just get this over with?”
Zeph pulled his car keys out of his pocket. “I’m sorry.”
“It is as he says, Warrior Soul.” Little Weaver’s countenance was grim. “Meanwhile, I shall go to Marvale, to Camp Poverty. I must stop Fergus’s advance. He cannot be allowed here, for the soul eaters march with him. Dark forces will align against us in forms you have not conceived.” He faced Zeph. “Take heed! You must return here for one last match.” His eyes sparkled. “Surely it will be a tale for the ages!”
Chapter 56
Zeph told Tamra he was well enough to drive, although now behind the wheel he had second thoughts. Pearl’s words stalked the borders of his mind, threatening to tug him back into an infernal malaise. He was fallow and fruitless, just like she’d said. His twenty-six years were a virtual road map to existential barrenness.
Tamra pulled out her cell phone and rested it on her lap. She drew her fingers through her hair. “This is all so crazy.”
“Which part?” Zeph peered out the dirty windshield, navigating back down Dawson’s Rut toward the highway. “Are you kidding? The whole thing.”
“Maybe you shoulda listened to your grandmother. She seems to have figured it out.” He smiled to himself.
“Don’t get me started about her. And Little Weaver doesn’t help matters.”
“I know what you mean,” Zeph said. “Half of what he says I don’t understand. And the other half I’m not sure I can trust.”
“That makes two of us.”
“But he did come for me, so that’s gotta count for something.”
They reached the highway, and Zeph sat with the truck idling, looking south past town.
“What’s wrong?” Tamra asked.
Zeph shook his head. “Nothing.”
Tamra stared at him. “You’re not having one of those …”
“Prophecies? No.”
&n
bsp; He continued to let the truck idle, contemplating his next move.
Then Tamra said, “You said there was something you had to do before we go back there, something you had to get off your chest. You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”
Zeph was beginning to feel that Tamra Lane was reading him a lot faster than he was reading her.
“Okay,” she said. “If you are, you shouldn’t.”
“How do you know I’m having second thoughts?”
“I’m just guessing.”
“You’re good. Maybe you’d make a better prophet than me.”
“No thanks.”
Zeph turned the truck onto the 395 heading south, to a ramshackle community outside Endurance named Blister.
“I was right,” she eventually said. “Wasn’t I?”
But Zeph was too busy thinking of what waited ahead to answer.
Tamra dialed a number and put the phone to her ear. After a minute or so, she hung up and sat staring forward. “It’s Nams—she’s not answering.”
“You dropped her off at her apartment, right?”
“And I was supposed to pick her up there. She was worried about you, ya know? That’s why I went to your house.”
Zeph stared at the passing landscape. “What do you want me to do?”
“Maybe I should do what I shoulda done a long time ago,” Tamra said.
“Which is?”
“Let her go.”
He cast a quizzical glance at her.
“Our folks—me and Dieter’s—are both addicts,” Tamra explained. “I couldn’t even tell you where they live anymore. Or if they’re alive. When they bailed on us, Nams stepped in and helped. She was a godsend. But I couldn’t help but feel it was out of guilt, mostly. She took it personally that her son, my dad, had turned out that way. Anyway, she eventually bought us that house. I dunno, I suppose I just feel her pain. And I feel obligated to watch out for her, especially since her own son is AWOL. Maybe I’ve just been too protective. But something tells me I need to trust her to find her own way. And hopefully not kill herself in the process.”
Approximately seven miles south of downtown Endurance, past Loomis’s farms, the llama ranch, a honey stand, and a billboard touting the health benefits of alfalfa, Howard Walker lived. The lawns were dead here, just as they’d been for the last twenty-some years. Located at the southernmost point of Endurance, Blister received the worst of Death Valley’s wrath. Built cheaply during a brief economic upturn, it remained a community of drywall boxes, decorative rock yards, and serious down-and-outers.
Zeph turned off the highway and drove slowly down a ragged asphalt road.
Endurance was not the Capital of Nice, but this area made Zeph’s house look like a Bel Air mansion. A man in an undershirt stood outside a dingy yellow house smoking a cigarette. He followed them with a leering gaze. Near the end of the cul-de-sac Zeph parked in front of a ranch-style property. A screen door hung cockeyed on its hinges, and near it was a broken window with its pieces held in place by black electrical tape.
The house was even worse than he remembered.
Zeph looked down a dirt driveway to the old Triumph. The red convertible sports car sat dull and dusty, sagging on flat tires. After he received his inheritance, Zeph fancied the vehicle the car of his dreams. But by then his dreams had already started to sour. For the last five years the sports car had sat there gathering rust and memories. This house was like a monument to everything he had fled.
He turned off the truck and sat there. The gray afternoon draped the neighborhood in its gloom.
Tamra said, “This is your dad’s place, isn’t it?”
Zeph nodded. He knew she wanted to ask more, but she refrained. It was a sacred moment for him, and Tamra Lane seemed to respect that.
He got out of the truck, closed the door, and walked toward the driveway. Zeph stared at the house. He could still remember returning here from Los Angeles, scarred and lost, feeling like a prodigal. The heartache swelled inside him, just as it had before the Rift. What had occurred at this house, he now knew, was as hellish as the Madness itself.
A voice roused him.
“I figure we’re in this together, huh?”
Zeph turned to see Tamra at his side.
He nodded. “I guess you could say that.”
A row of cyprus trees bordered a dirt driveway and stretched deep into the property. Corrugated metal stitched the back fence together, and several stacks of bald tires teetered there. A tire swing hung from a dead tree out back, evoking childhood memories.
He straightened his jacket vest and walked down the driveway to the back gate. Tamra walked beside him. As they passed the Triumph, she drew her finger along the dusty driver’s side window. Even though Zeph struggled against embarrassment, Tamra did not seem put off by the home of his youth. He reached the gate and stopped, looking into an overgrown field of grass left dried by summer’s passing. Through the dead meadow he could see the cellar. Zeph opened the gate and walked through the waist-high grass, which rustled in the breeze.
Zeph reached the cellar and stood over a stone stairwell that descended to the tiny door. “This is where it all started.”
“Where what started, Zeph?” A hint of fear laced Tamra’s words.
He looked at her and said matter-of-factly, “This is where I lived, Tam.”
She gazed at the door and looked at him with brows creased. “Down there?”
He descended the steep, narrow steps, which could only be managed by walking sideways. The wooden door was warped by moisture and age. Almost unconsciously he traced the initials carved into the wood with his fingers. It had become a ritual of his and, even now, before proceeding, it seemed to bring consolation.
“Zeph,” Tamra said gently from the top of the steps, “what is it you have to do here?”
“I need to see him.”
“Someone’s in there?”
Zeph nodded. He put his shoulder into the door, and it scratched the surface as it opened. He smelled the must. How many years had it been since anyone had been down here?
He stepped inside. Tamra descended the steps and entered behind him.
Thick cobwebs overlaid empty canning jars that lined several sagging wooden shelves. The floor was dirt. Slits of gray light poured through broken windows. The memories swirled around him like mist from a graveyard.
He went to a wooden box, not much bigger than a produce crate, with a lid. A dried bouquet of flowers lay scattered there.
“He’s in there,” Zeph said.
“In the box?” Tamra’s breathing halted. “Zeph …”
“My brother. We were twins. He died at birth. My cord—” He turned. “My cord strangled him.”
“Oh, Zeph.” She touched his arm.
“Mother sent me down here to learn. Life’s fragile, she said. I should think about that. For days, weeks sometimes—I don’t remember. And the Telling, she said I should listen for it. God spared me for a reason, gave me the gift, and took him. So that’s what I did—I sat here in the quiet, and listened.”
He let his gaze drift around the room.
Tamra stared at the tiny makeshift coffin. She was growing pale. And angry.
“Zeph,” she finally said. “This … this isn’t right.”
Something rustled at the stairwell, and a shadow passed into the entryway. Tamra gasped. Zeph stepped between her and the looming figure. And he knew this was the final darkness inside him he needed to slay.
Chapter 57
It smelled like …
Annie awoke with a gasp.
“What was that?” a voice echoed.
She was still gagged and swallowed rapidly in an attempt to keep from choking. Still, Annie clamped her jaw, stifling any further noise. Her eyes burned and a sharp, acidic smell stung her nostrils. As did a stench of rot and spoilage. Water droplets pattered out a sludgy murmur. She was on her back in a dark, moldy place. Her hands were still tied behind her, and the pain was so s
harp she knew that something serious was developing. Perhaps her circulation had been cut off or her wrist was broken. Either way, she dared not move.
“—s nothing.”
“… er … have to wait until … the others …”
The voices trailed off into the musty din. Whoever it was, they were near.
She stared into a dark void overhead and what appeared to be timbered beams laden with webs and rusty pipes against thick plaster. Where was she? She turned her head slightly to try to identify her location. Pain lanced her temple, and she clamped her teeth on the gag to avoid from crying out. It felt like the side of her head was swollen.
Then she remembered. Camp Poverty! Easy had said they were taking her there. It was here they were planning to swap her. Which meant that somewhere nearby …
Panic tore through her.
She would not become one of them. Whatever it took, Annie refused to surrender to these devils.
Her eyes were watery from the pain in her head. She rolled onto her side, blinked back tears, and waited for her gaze to clear. Her surroundings came into focus. A single bare bulb wafted above an antechamber and a semicircular stone bench. Below it a tiered basin dropped into shadow. Nearby stood an uneven row of barrels with stenciled numbers on them and a red skull and crossbones.
A dark, discomforting mound lay across from the basin. She forced her eyes to focus, and what she saw made her heart freeze. Bodies, bruised and sunken, rose in a decrepit drift. At their base she could barely make out Easy Dolan’s emaciated carcass, a cusp of white teeth showing between his sagging jaw.
This time Annie could not withhold a gasp.
Something scurried across her field of vision. And another. Then there were footsteps. Large roaches fled from an approaching figure. Annie forced herself to remain as rigid as possible.
“It wath you.”
Someone stood over her.
“We thought maybe he’d killth you, hittin’ you in the head like that. Here.”
The person grabbed Annie by the shoulder and propped her up. Then stepped back and stood before her. She stared at a pair of black rubber galoshes splattered with fleshy particulate matter.