“I lost my faith too.”
He turned from the window. “I haven’t lost my faith, Phil. It’s stronger than ever. That’s what makes it all so painful. I can remember praying so hard, asking not to do good work, but to have the desire to want to, to reject sin and weakness. I still do, but all I ever hear is that scream, that—that horrible scream. To fall from grace before you even have a chance to reach for it hardly seems fair, but that’s what happened to us all those years ago in the rain. We never even had a chance. How could we with the blood of angels on our hands?”
“What if it’s the blood of demons?” I asked.
“Do you really think it makes any difference?”
“You’re the one who went to seminary, you tell me.”
“Damnation’s no different than death, Phil. If the end result is death regardless, does it matter how or why you die?”
I lit a cigarette and offered him one, but he shook his head no. “The last day all three of us were together, the day at the boulder, did you and Martin go back to the field?”
“That night, yes,” he said. “We found the knapsack. The sword and the book were still there. Martin took them. He said he’d get rid of them.”
“And did he?”
“I don’t know.”
I exhaled some smoke between us and tried to gauge his answers. “What do you know about them, Jamie, the sword, the book, the scarred man?”
Jamie rubbed at his arm where he’d stuck himself, moved away from the window and collapsed into the chair at the table. “I don’t know what he was for sure, but I did some research into the book. There was a symbol on the front.”
“The Traveler.”
He didn’t hide his surprise well. “How do you know that?”
The woman who had it carved into her goddamn stomach told me so.
“I did a little research too,” I said.
He had a coughing fit that lasted awhile but it eventually passed. He drank down the remaining water in the bottle he’d opened earlier. “I think it was a prayer book,” he said, clearing his throat. “It’s believed a Traveler practices magic and communes with the spirit world through applying the prayers, spells and teachings in his book. Supposedly the things contained in its pages are so powerful that mortal Man can barely comprehend them. The book of spells is earned by a Traveler before he leaves the spirit world and crosses over into this one. It’s granted to him by God, or the gods, depending on the religion. In some stories it’s even granted by a Traveler’s own personal god. All comes down to who—or what—he worships.”
“And the Traveler can be either a martyr angel or a demon?”
“That’s correct, sent here for purposes of good or evil.”
“Or chaos.” I knew the mere mention of the word would result in both of us seeing that tattoo across the back of the scarred man’s shoulders flash through our heads. “So what kind of magic are we talking about? Was that book used for good or evil?”
“My guess is it’s all up to whoever wields it.”
I stood over him next to the table, pushed the window open a crack and flicked my ashes out into the night. “Martin still has it, doesn’t he?”
“It’s possible, yes.”
“Do you know what he’s up to out there in the desert?”
“This has destroyed all three of us, Phil. Not just you and me. The only difference is you and I have turned it inwards, against ourselves, while I think Martin has done the opposite. I think he’s using his pain to hurt others.”
“Do you still have ties to him? Are you a part of what he’s doing?”
“No,” he said quietly, “of course not.”
“Then what are you doing in Tijuana? Of all the places on the planet you could be, why Mexico? Why so close to Martin? Shouldn’t you be in, I don’t know, let’s say Bangkok, where you can fuck all the little kids you want?”
He winced and bowed his head.
I regretted it the moment I said it, but it was too late to take it back. “If I’m supposed to believe it’s all a coincidence, sorry, not buying it.” I flicked my cigarette outside but left the window open. “Answer me. Why are you here?”
Jamie measured his response before offering it. Maybe it was the heroin, or maybe the years that had passed had thickened his skin—maybe both—but he was no longer quite as easy to bully as he’d once been. “That day we met at the boulder,” he said dreamily, “and you wouldn’t come with us to dig up the knapsack, Martin was so hurt. He was angry too, but that’s just how he covered the pain, with anger. I could tell how hurt he was. I think in his mind, even though we hadn’t seen much of each other in the years leading up to that day, we were supposed to just pick up where we left off because of the bonds we’d had as kids. We were supposed to be the Three Musketeers forever. Remember how Mr. Bullard at the pharmacy used to call us that when we were little?”
I nodded. The warmth of that fond memory passed through me, but I resisted his attempts to take me any further down memory lane.
“That night when we dug everything up, Martin and I promised each other we’d stay friends no matter what. We wouldn’t do what you did and walk away. But in the end that’s exactly what happened. We went our own ways and I never saw Martin again.” He pushed himself to his feet and shuffled off, leaving me standing over an empty chair as he slipped into the bathroom. He returned with an electric handheld razor. “They let me out of jail when it was decided by a judge there wasn’t sufficient evidence to go to trial. I ended up living in a motel not far over the border in California. I had some money put aside from all my years in the priesthood, never made all that much but I never really had any bills to speak of either, so I invested most of my earnings. I was in a motel trying to figure out what to do next. I realized my problem with the needle had followed me to the outside, and even though I’d prayed and promised myself I wouldn’t give in to my weakness again with...the other thing…I was in real trouble, Phil. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to live anymore to tell you the truth. I actually came close to doing it a couple times. But I couldn’t. Not with what’s waiting for me.” He switched the razor on and ran it sluggishly along the stubble on his face. “Out of the blue one day,” he said, raising his voice so I could hear, “these two guys show up at the motel and give me this letter. They were so strange, these two. They had eyes that—well—you just knew there was something wrong with them, that they were missing something, you know? Like there was supposed to be something behind them and there wasn’t. Just these cold, almost dead stares. I thought at first they were trying to sell me something, but they just gave me the envelope and left. Never said a word. Turned out to be a letter from Martin. Didn’t make much sense, but he wanted me to come to Mexico, to join him out in the desert. He said amazing and wonderful things were happening out there, that he’d found the truth and that I needed to see it too. The problem was, even if I wanted to, I had no idea exactly where he was. He only told me he was in Mexico. The letter said to come to Tijuana, find somewhere to stay and wait, and that he’d be in contact with me from there. He’d find me.”
“Did he?”
Before he could answer, a man in the room next door began pounding on the wall and yelling in Spanish.
“OK! Lo siento! Lo siento!” Jamie called back. He shut the razor off and tossed it on the table. “The guy next door has a TV with rabbit ears and every time I turn on my razor it interferes with his picture.”
I wasn’t amused. “I know from Janine Cummings that Martin sent you more letters after you came to Tijuana.”
“Yes, two more.” He put both hands to his head like a headache had settled in his temples. “I don’t know how he knew what I’d been through but he did. He told me he could heal me, he could make me whole again. He told me he’d send people for me and they’d bring me to him and we could be together again—friends, like before—and he could heal this thing in me. I thought maybe if he’d kept the book he’d figured something out, tapped into someth
ing maybe that could make it all true. Maybe he could give me deliverance, real deliverance from this evil. He said he could set me free. It was all in the letters.”
“Do you still have them?”
“I burned them.”
“Why?”
He sunk back down into the chair again, still clutching his head. “Because I didn’t think I’d need them. I asked around, tried to find more information on him, and I couldn’t believe how easy it was if you asked the right people in the right places. I learned how powerful he was, how feared he was even by people who’d never laid eyes on him. He’s become like a god here. They call him Papá, for God’s sake, like he’s the Pope or something. I knew then there was something happening out there, something important. I decided to wait for him. I’d wait for Martin—for Papá —to take me out there and to be my friend again.” He dropped his hands. He was terrified, his fear so strong I could feel it in the air like an electrical current. “That’s why I stayed here. I was waiting for him to come and get me.”
Poor pitiful bastard, I thought. “Why hasn’t he?”
“His mother started hiring people to find him. First a detective came.”
“Thompson.”
Jamie shrugged as if his name was unimportant.
“Do you know what happened to him?”
“I only know he went looking for Martin and no one ever saw him again.”
“Who took him out there?”
“Everyone’s afraid to go, but he found a local guide to take him. Nobody ever saw him again either. It only made the fear of Martin stronger. And then the woman detective came. But she didn’t get as far.”
“Martin sent people to—”
“I heard the stories,” he said, nodding furiously. “And then that Janine woman came here trying to get me to go back with her to talk with Mrs. Doyle. I wouldn’t go. I knew if Martin found out he’d think I was against him, he’d change his mind and he wouldn’t come for me. So I said no. I knew if you were still alive she’d go to you next. And I knew you’d take the money. I knew you’d come.”
“How’s that?”
“Because I knew you’d understand it was destiny and that you could end all this once and for all, one way or another. I realized after I’d seen what his people were capable of that I had it all wrong. Martin wasn’t going to save me. There is no saving me. There is no saving us. Those three little boys are dead, Phil, all of us, dead and gone. All Martin could do was to help me embrace and accept my damnation, to find power in it just like he has, in the dark, in the evil he serves. And he’ll do the same thing to you.” Tears streamed his cheeks. “Why am I in Tijuana? Because I was waiting for Martin. Now I’m waiting for you.”
Christ. He was making one last ditch effort to do some good. He’d stayed here to stop me from going to Martin, to help me, still trying to be the loyal and faithful sidekick. No longer Martin’s, but mine. “Jamie, look at me.”
He did.
“He’s no antichrist. He’s just a man.”
“Leave, go home and live your life as best you can. Stay away from Martin, stay away from me—just—leave. I’ll be gone soon too, I—I can’t stay here anymore, and now that you’ve come there’s no reason for me to.” His eyes widened with enthusiasm, but they remained glazed from the heroin. “Or we could leave together, I—we could do that, go somewhere and help each other and be friends like before or—or I could come with you. I should, really, I—I’m as much a part of this as you.”
“You can’t make it, Jamie.”
“You think I can make it here? Or back in the states?”
“You need to get out of this city, out of this country. Go home and get some help.” I watched him deflate right before me, shoulders slumping and chest caving into itself in defeat and self-loathing. He’d made it halfway across the bridge and reached for me frantically just as it gave way beneath his feet. And I’d let him fall. There could be no other way. We both knew it. “You were right before. I’ve come for Martin, and one way or another, I’m ending this.”
“There’s nothing out there for you but horror and death,” he told me. “You have no idea the Hell he’s created. It doesn’t matter how much money his mother spends or how many people she hires. Martin’s not coming home. Not even you’ll be able to make that happen. You must understand that by now.”
“We all fell.” I reached out, gave his shoulder a squeeze. “But you were always the best of us, Jamie. Never forget that.”
He grabbed hold of my wrist. “Where are you going?”
“To the desert.”
“Jesus went to the desert.” Jamie’s entire body began to tremble. “He found the Devil out there.”
Night crept in through the open window and folded around us, bringing with it a trace of faraway desert wind, Martin’s whispers and the scarred man’s screams carried on its wings and thrashing tail.
“He also found Himself,” I said. “And nothing was ever the same again.”
ELEVEN
With Jamie’s tormented face still carved into my brain, I hurried back through the streets of Tijuana toward my hotel. I stopped off along the way and bought a bottle of whiskey, and then key in hand, tramped up the staircase to my room. As I unlocked the door I glanced up and saw that the lone light fixture in the hallway had apparently burnt out, leaving much of the landing covered in darkness. It had just occurred to me as suspicious when something darted out of the shadows and a silver blur flashed before my eyes.
I fell back, more confused than stunned, but it felt like something had hit my ear. Not a punch, more like a finger-jab. Raising my arms defensively, I stumbled away from the door, dropping the bag with the whiskey in it as my head spun and a sticky wetness trickled along the side of my neck.
I regained my balance in time to see a swarthy man charging toward me with what looked like a small tool of some kind in his hand. Had that been what I’d seen flash before me? He swung at me again and I leaned out of the way as his arm swept past, revealing his weapon to be some sort of knife with a short curved blade that forked at the tip.
You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought, this guy’s attacking me with a fucking cheese knife.
There was an odd silence in the hallway as he came at me again. It struck me as almost comical until I realized I was bleeding. My instincts took over, and I threw a combination that caught the man off-guard due to my southpaw stance. The right hook was an awkward and glancing blow that landed high on his head, but he walked right into the straight left I followed it with. My fist smashed dead into the center of his nose. His head snapped back and he let out a muffled grunt. As I moved closer to kick out the side of his knee, another man suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. At first I thought he was coming for me, but he quickly closed on my attacker instead, launched a savage, lightning-fast punch to the base of the man’s throat, and then darted into the shadows in the corner of the hallway. Gasping for breath, the swarthy man sunk to his knees, gagging and jerking about with spasm-like seizures.
As I spun away from him I realized the man who had helped me was Party Boy. He had emerged again from the shadows, this time dragging someone else into the light along with him.
Hardy Brunner.
“Of course this is—this is all a terrible misunderstanding, sir!” he blathered hysterically. “Allow me to explain, I—I saw this suspicious individual following you and assumed he planned to rob you. I only came to warn you of his plans, sir, I—”
Party Boy gave a look that silenced the old man in mid-sentence.
“You sonofabitch,” I said, trying to catch my breath while assessing the damage. I brought my hand to my ear, which had begun to burn rather severely, and my fingers came back slick with blood. I stepped forward and backhanded Brunner in the teeth.
He gasped and would’ve collapsed had Party Boy not held him upright. Thankfully, the blow finally shut him the hell up.
Brunner’s partner had regained his breath and managed to crawl a few ya
rds away. When he saw who had dropped him, he scrambled to his feet and ran back down the stairs and into the night.
Party Boy, still holding Brunner by his lapel, stepped closer to me. He only came up to about the top of my chest, but he squinted and studied the wound a moment then nodded at me like I’d be fine.
“I’m really terribly sorry,” Brunner said softly, his bottom lip split and bleeding. “With my osteoporosis, and being an older gentleman, my bones are quite brittle and break rather easily, you understand.”
I looked to Party Boy. He raised a finger to his lips as if to shush me, and I began to wonder if this man ever spoke. Pulling Brunner away by his lapel, he started back down the stairs.
“Oh this is most unfortunate.” Brunner stumbled down the stairs after him. “This doesn’t bode well at all.”
“Good luck, asshole.”
I checked the whiskey. The bottle hadn’t broken, so I grabbed it, pushed my way into my room and slammed the door behind me.
At the small mirror over the table I checked my wound. The cut, only about an inch long, was just to the side of the ear hole. Another half-inch and the blade would’ve sliced the lobe off. Like most head wounds it bled like a faucet, but upon closer inspection it wasn’t all that bad. I went to the sink, cleaned it out best I could then sat on the edge of the bed and held a towel against the gash, applying pressure while the adrenaline rushing through my system gradually ebbed. Within two or three minutes the bleeding stopped. I only had a couple small Band-Aids in my suitcase, but I used them both to cover the wound for the time being. In the morning I’d get something better.
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