The Brotherhood of the Wheel

by R. S. Belcher

  Max was pacing around the table now, with the fervor of a child playing musical chairs, waiting for the music to stop. She pointed to Ava. “Maiden,” she said, then she pointed to Lovina. “Mother.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Lovina said, raising an eyebrow.

  Max went on, pointing to Agnes. “Crone,” she said.

  Agnes nodded. “Yes,” she said. “You’re getting it, Professor.”

  “Wait, that’s the Triple Goddess thing you were talking about,” Jimmie said. “You said that had something to do with the universe being all messed up.”

  Max eagerly pointed to Jimmie, then to her own nose, nodding. “Exactly, yes, yes!” Max said. “Four is a powerful number in numerology. It is a number of renewal, of clearing a system—of rebooting it, if you will! If this town and those dwellings are, in fact, conduits for primal powers, then Chasseur has unbalanced everything by tampering here!”

  “Hold it,” Lovina said. “Are you trying to say that those old, burned-down houses are linked to the fundamental forces of the universe, and to me, Ava, and Agnes? Seriously?”

  Max sat down as abruptly as she had stood. She grabbed a biscuit from the napkin in front of her and began to pull the bread apart layer by layer. “The universe operates on multiple levels, multiple scales,” she said, holding up part of the biscuit and then popping it into her mouth. She kept talking around the food. “All at the same time. Like the old saying ‘as above so below.’ At some point in time, this space became a place of power; it attracted individuals that the power could work through, that mirrored its purpose, like water seeking the cracks in stone.”

  “So there’s some kind of cosmic war taking place in this little town in Kansas?” Heck said. “If this is, like, fundamental forces of nature, how can teeny, tiny little human beings upset shit so badly? How would the universe not have been screwed up a long time ago if it was that easy?”

  “In the truck headed here,” Max said, “we reasoned that the Master of the Hunt had sacrificed one of his first victims on the highway near here, tapping into the Road and all that ley-line energy it was channeling. If he dedicated that to his patron, to the Horned Man, then all that additional power would have tipped the balance even further and upset the interaction between the forces more. The Horned Man is ascendant; the Triple Goddess is diminished.”

  “It’s not a war, Heck,” Agnes said. “Nature is not good or evil. We put those names on it. These powers simply are, like water or wind. The Horned Man is part of the natural cycle. He has his place in the making and unmaking of things. His image, that of Cernunnos, was taken by the early Christians to embody their concept of evil—Lucifer—but that is simply us, putting faces on what we can’t fully understand. We dress these powers up in human forms, attribute to them human motives. We can no more comprehend them than bacteria can comprehend us. Chasseur is insane, and he’s tapped into true power. The Horned Man is the essence of predation, of negation, the mercilessness, the rutting of life, of nature.”

  “Sounds like a perfect fit for a serial killer,” Heck said.

  “He’s a narcissistic fiend,” Agnes said. “Chasseur has no clue, and less care, what he’s wrecking.”

  “What, exactly, is he wrecking?” Ava asked. “The world, the planets, the galaxies—they’re all still spinning along okay, it seems. He’s been at this for decades.”

  “You tell me,” Max said. “The forces of creation, moderation, and stability have been lessened on every level from the quantum to the macro, and the fury of nature—the unchecked, uncaring, unreasoning force that seeks dominance over all systems, over all life—is riding high. Sound familiar to you?”

  “Point taken,” Ava said. “It does seem like the world has gotten crueler, nature more brutal. But if Chasseur already did all this and things are already screwed up, all out of balance, then what’s he doing now?”

  “He sent Mark Stolar,” Jimmie said, “to give to George Norse, the paranormal-TV-show guy, a video of him hunting a girl in the woods back in the nineties to air on his show tonight. Cecil Dann messaged me that the video had the shadow hounds in it and, apparently, a glimpse of the Horned Man, too.”

  “Like in the Internet videos Shawn Ruth and Karen Collie and their friends saw,” Lovina said.

  “Sounds like it,” Jimmie said, sipping his iced tea. “I think it might be the whole video that the kids had seen parts of on various paranormal websites.” Again, Jimmie had a weird feeling something was very important, and he wished he could reach out and grab whatever it was. That video … something he had heard recently … something about watching, looking … seeing? Seeing, yes.

  He looked to Max. “Max, you said people who saw the Wild Hunt … bad things happened to them, right?”

  “Yes,” Max said. “It was bad luck to see the Hunt. Those who did see it disappeared, or—”

  “Or died,” Heck said, the realization coming to him, too.

  “Oh, no,” Lovina said. “No, no … that video … Norse’s show. Millions of people, all over the world watch that show.…”

  “And will see that video,” Jimmie said. “They’ll see the Wild Hunt.”

  “Yes,” Agnes said. “And the Hunt will come for them, claim them—every single last one of them, men, women, and children. Especially the children. That’s his endgame.”

  “Aw, shit!” Heck said, rising, even as his voice did. “No fucking way, no! That son of a bitch! I’ll suck his fucking eyes out! We’ve got to call Dann, have him stop that fucking video!”

  “Mind your language, squire,” Jimmie said. “Got children in here. Don’t need to get them all riled up. We can’t call Cecil or anyone else; I wish we could. Remember where we are? This place don’t exist.”

  “Tonight’s April 30th,” Max said. “Beltane. As the Pagan, Chasseur always murdered, always sacrificed, on Wiccan holy days, like tonight. He’s about to perform the largest sacrificial rite in human history. That much energy, that much death, focused in his belief,” Max said. “It sends everything crashing down.”

  “Define ‘everything,’” Ava said.

  “Imagine the universe tearing itself apart,” Max said. “The imbalance would become too great for the system to right itself: the serpent eating its own tail, devouring itself—the death throes of creation.”

  “We’ve got to stop him,” Barb said. “There’s no one else, and no more time.”

  “What’s the plan, chief?” Heck asked Jimmie.

  Jimmie rubbed his face. Everyone at the table was looking at him, waiting for what came out of his mouth next. It occurred to him that he had been up for almost three days straight now. His mortgage was past due, his ribs and his back ached from the beating he took in the Atlanta hotel room. He was going to miss his window to pick up the load that his family desperately needed him to deliver. And the universe was teetering on the brink of collapse. He sighed. It all seemed too big, too much. He thought of Layla and the kids, and he pushed the exhaustion, the doubt, and the fear away.

  “I ain’t got one, yet,” Jimmie said. “But I’m damn sure we can improvise.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  “10-18”

  They walked out of Buddy’s just before 7 P.M. The final brilliant struggle of sunlight was above the line of the horizon, and the sky had deepened to a gunmetal blue. The light was dying, and soon the shadows would come to feed upon it.

  Everyone had wanted to get moving sooner—they had less than an hour before Norse’s show went on the air, in the network studio in New York. However, there were parts of the plan that had to be hashed out, and the protection of the innocents remaining at Buddy’s had to be organized.

  Heck, Jimmie, Ava, Lovina, Max, Barb, Agnes, and Carl stood outside the roadhouse. Each was carrying weapons and bags of gear, and each was lost in thought. They all looked up at the darkening sky. “Everyone good?” Jimmie asked the group. “Everybody knows what they have to do, know our timetable?” The party nodded, gave a thumbs-up, or muttered in the af
firmative.

  “I know we’re all scared,” Jimmie said. “This all seems so damn big, so important, and we’re all so … not. I want you to think of someone on the other side of the world, someone you love or care for, someone who might be watching that show tonight. Think of them and do what you need to do. That’s all I got for you. Let’s move like we got a purpose, people.”

  The party scattered.

  Heck walked over to Jimmie. “I ain’t scared,” he said, lighting up a Lucky Strike. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Yeah,” Jimmie said. “I kind of thought you might be. That’s why I’m sending you to do the job. You have the best chance of pulling it off, and you’ll have the best time doing it.”

  “When you met me, you got pissed because I cut loose, all Ted Nugent Double Live Gonzo, in that restaurant full of psychos, remember?” Heck said.

  “Yeah, I do,” Jimmie said, as he slid some chaw into his cheek. “Right now, I need you to go a little Double Live Gonzo on these sumbitches.”

  “I can do that,” Heck said. “I’m real good at it. Second nature.”

  The men nodded to each other and then went their separate ways. Jimmie paused and turned. “Just bring your ass back,” he said. “I ain’t done squiring you yet.” The biker raised a hand as he walked toward his motorcycle, now sitting beside Jimmie’s battered semi. “I’ll bring it back, boss,” Heck said without turning around. “My ass is my best feature.”

  * * *

  Lovina was huddled with Ava and Agnes near the semi, going over a few final details. Max hovered near the circle of the three, silently. Lovina sensed her and turned to look at her. She walked over to her. “You okay?” Lovina asked.

  Max nodded, her lips pursed. “I am,” she said. “I … wanted to … wish you good luck.”

  “You did?” Lovina’s eyes were bright as she spoke, stepping a little closer to Max, who for all the world reminded her of a deer—skittish, gentle, almost too gentle for this world. “You stay close to Jimmie; he’ll look after you. And don’t get hurt. I hear you nearly died getting here. I don’t want you doing that again, you hear me?”

  “I do,” Max said. “I don’t want you getting hurt, either.”

  “I promise I won’t, if you do the same,” Lovina said.

  Max laughed. “Deal,” she said, and extended her hand. “Shake on it.” The handshake held; neither wanted to break it, the sensation of warm skin on warm skin, the power that moved from their fingertips to their arms and passed between them in their eyes. Max’s red lips parted in a nearly audible gasp. Lovina’s eyes held Max’s, almost losing herself in them. Max felt as if her body were made of helium, and her stomach made of lead.

  “Gotta go now,” Max said. “Um, world to save, and um, things.”

  Lovina nodded, and the sphinxlike smile returned to her lips.

  “Me, too,” she said. “I’ll see you on the other side of this. Remember your promise.”

  They walked away from each other. Neither looked back out of fear, a fear very different from any that could be summoned by serial killers, murderous shadows, or horned gods.

  * * *

  “Well,” Ava said to Agnes, “I guess this is it.” Ava looked up the high hill and the winding stone drive to the old burned husk of a house that called to her. “I shouldn’t be the one here,” she said. “It should have been Alana. I’m … I’m not a good person, Agnes. I’m not even sure, most times, what kind of person I really am. I react—I don’t think, I’m selfish, and superficial. I’m not the person for this. The person for this died in that field the first night we came here.”

  Agnes took her by the shoulders. “Dear, none of us knows who we are and what we can do until the world forces us to. You’ve shown me all I need to know about you. If you can’t trust yourself, then please, trust me. You will do well, Ava. Very well. Goodbye for now, dear, and thank you for all you’ve already done.” The two women parted, Agnes toward Jimmie’s rig. Ava remained, alone now in the gathering dusk. She sighed, wiped her eyes, gathered her pack, and began walking toward the Maiden’s house up on the hill.

  “We’ll hold down the fort,” Carl said to Jimmie as the trucker helped Agnes up into the cab of his idling rig. “We’re all as ready as we can be. Those shadow bastards and BEKs won’t know what hit them.”

  “Good luck, guys!” Barb called out, as they drove away. “Go kick their butts!”

  In the rig, Jimmie set the clock on his mounted laptop to give him a countdown till showtime. The clock said 7:21:00. Jimmie hit the start button, and the countdown began. He pushed Play on the digital player. Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free world” tore its way out of the cab’s speaker. Jimmie looked back at his own eyes in the reflection of the driver’s-side window—gut check. Less than forty minutes to save the world, to save Layla, and Peyton, and his baby—to save his world. He jammed the rig into gear, felt it snarl.

  “Let’s roll,” he said.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “10-10”

  Scode’s Garage was lit up, as always, in the darkness of Four Houses, a Judas beacon, a false promise of aid and comfort in the night. Wald was sitting outside in his chair, beside the door to the office. He cradled a shotgun and was sipping a grape Nehi. The old, hissing AM radio in the office was playing Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.” Today’s sweep had been a disaster because of the old witch, because of the one that had followed the Master back to Four Houses, and because of that damned truck driver. The Master would make them all pay tonight. Let them live another night—if they survived the shadows and the packs, tomorrow would find them in a world where everywhere was like Four Houses.

  He took another sip of his soda, a simple pleasure, and relaxed, closing his eyes like a snake sunning itself on a rock. There was a crash and a clatter, and Wald felt the sour wad of acid in his belly hiss. He opened his eyes and looked toward the source of his irritation. Toby was in the garage bay. He was pushing trash from the floor of the garage outside through the open bay doors and had accidentally knocked over a metal toolbox. He wore a gun belt with an old revolver and a knife on it. He had a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder.

  “Hey, Wald,” Toby said, “are you still mad at me?”

  “Shut up,” Wald said, and took another swallow from the narrow glass bottle of soda.

  The heavy bass purr of a motorcycle engine could be heard heading west, toward the station. Toby stopped pushing the broom and looked in the direction of the lone headlight stabbing the darkness. “Is that the Master?” he asked.

  Wald slowly lowered his Nehi as the light grew brighter and the engine louder. He leaned forward in his chair. “No,” he said, hesitantly, at first. “No, it isn’t!” Wald stood, his Nehi bottle crashing as he leveled the shotgun.

  Heck’s bike tore into the parking lot of the garage like wrath itself, his metal Oni face mask reflecting the harsh light of the lot in its demonic grin. He fired on the gas pumps with his MP9, spraying a rain of tracer rounds at them. The pumps exploded in a column of brilliant flame, climbing high into the night sky. Wald fired as he flew backward from the blast. The glass walls of the garage office buckled and shattered in the wake of the fireball. Sizzling drops of gasoline rained down across the lot, hitting cars and the roof of Scode’s Garage.

  Toby unslung his rifle and ran out to find his brother in the hellish tableau. “Wald! Wald!” he screamed as he swept the rifle before him. He saw a figure walking toward him through the smoke and the fiery rain. It was Heck, walking slowly toward him, machine gun pointed toward the ground, his leering mask hiding his eyes in the wells of jumping shadows caused by the fire.

  “The kids,” Heck said, his voice muffled by the steel and the cackle of the fires. “The college kids, where are they, asshole?”

  Toby raised the rifle to his shoulder to fire. It was an awkward motion. Heck’s machine gun came up smooth, fluid, like breathing. Toby closed his eyes in anticipation of the bullets ripping through him. There was a
roar, and for a moment Toby thought the gas pumps were exploding again. He opened his eyes to see the man in the demon mask lying on the ground, his gun a few feet from him.

  Wald stepped into view, his shotgun still smoking. He looked at Toby and shook his head. “Goddamned useless,” he muttered.

  Toby smiled. “Thanks for saving me, Wald!”

  “Shit!” Wald said as he kicked Heck’s still form with his work boot. The biker groaned a little but didn’t move. “I didn’t give a shit about saving your miserable ass. You gave me a chance to drop him, dead bang. Fucking scooter trash, wreck my livelihood, will you?” Wald kicked Heck in the side, hard. Heck groaned a little more. “Looks like his leathers, helmet, and mask stopped most of the shot, but not all. He’s alive. He’s gonna wish he wasn’t.”

  The fire was still raging, but the rain of gas seemed to have stopped. Wald kicked Heck again and then grabbed him by one of his ankles. “Make yourself useful, moron,” he said to Toby. “Grab the other one. We’re going to drag him inside.”

  “What you going to do to him, Wald?” Toby said as he grabbed Heck’s other ankle and they began to drag the biker across the asphalt toward the garage bays.

  “Get me the blowtorch and I’ll show you,” Wald said.

  * * *

  Lovina walked toward the Mother’s house a few miles down the road from Buddy’s—the burned house, the one with the chain-link fence and the NO TRESPASSING sign. It was dark when she reached the fence. A few stars were beginning to show themselves in the dark, cool night. Lovina grabbed the bar of the fence and swung herself over. She landed low and looked up into the growling maw of a shadow hound.

  “Beat it,” Lovina said as she fired the tiny laser pointer in her hand at the hound’s face. The shadow howled, smoked, and staggered away before melting into the night. Lovina stood and moved across the lawn toward the front door. “I hope you little suckers don’t leave shadow poop all over the lawn,” she muttered.

  She found the front door locked and knelt, slipping out her picks. A sense of déjà vu settled over her. This had all started with her picking Dewey Rears’s apartment door. Was that a week ago? Seemed like aeons had passed. The lock was old and stiff, but it clicked. Lovina felt the tumblers give and the front door clicked open, a little too loudly for her taste. She slipped inside and clicked on her Maglite flashlight. The house smelled of smoke, burned plastic, and a faint, sweet-stale hint of something else—something that had gone bad. She closed the door and locked it, in the hope of not having uninvited guests to the party. The place had the feel of a seventies house, despite the much older façade. The carpet in the entry hall was pale blue industrial. Dark stains, drag marks, ran from the door into the dark. She moved along the hall carefully, quietly, each step measured, her breathing even, flashlight in one hand, her Glock in the other. She held them together, the way she had learned as a cop, sweeping each area to make sure it was empty before moving along. She scanned the stairwell to the second floor on her left with the light and the pistol—clear. She moved past the stairs. Two doorways—one to the right into a den, most likely, and one ahead into what was almost certainly a kitchen. She swept the gun and the light into the den, putting her back to the hallway wall, so that the kitchen doorway was on her left.