Thief Of Souls ss-2

by Нил Шустерман

  22. Turbulence

  A body-bruising slap of cold, and a tumbling loss of control—Dillon had finally given his will over to the will of the water. He felt himself whipped against boulders in the churning currents and his senses began to leave him. Then, in the midst of the maelstrom, Dil­lon felt a calm numbness begin to surround him like a bubble of peace within the flood, and all Dillon could hear was the heavy beat of his own heart. So this is death, Dillon thought, as he began to feel himself slip out of consciousness.

  ***

  Meanwhile, on the ridge above, the remaining fol­lowers, spectators, and a half dozen airborne news crews watched as Dillon and “the chosen ones” were taken under by the torrent. At first, the followers on the ridge didn’t know what to make of it, but as the water continued to pass, wails of anguish began to fill the air as they realized that this was not the glorious event they had been promised; and their minds began the long, arduous task of reconciling what they had just witnessed.

  Somewhere in that reconciliation, they would come to accept that Dillon Cole had tricked them all; that he was just another false prophet, and in the end brought nothing but death and destruction. For all those who stood on that rim, for all those who saw Black Canyon fill with white water, there would be many sleepless nights, but in the end, the dead would be buried, and the living would return to the lives they had led before being touched by Dillon. . . and in so doing, set the world back on its balance.

  This is what Dillon had wanted—and it all would have come to pass, had Dillon’s power not been stronger than even he could comprehend.

  The water surged down the canyon at 200 miles per hour. By the time the canyon widened, the wave was crashing toward the hotels at Laughlin—at 175 miles per hour. In Laughlin, those unlucky enough to be stranded there caught sight of the white foam of the water-wall in the distance as it crashed toward them—at 150 miles per hour. Several news helicopters, barely able to keep up with the surge at first, found themselves easily matching the pace of the flood’s leading edge, clocking their speed at 100 miles per hour, just ten miles out of Laughlin.

  There was a figure caught in the telephoto crossbars of one cameraman’s lens. He was riding the crest of the flood’s leading edge, lying on his back. By all rights, he should have been churned down into the wa­ter’s killing depths—yet somehow, was not. Instead he was surrounded by an island of calm water amid the chaos. His eyes were closed, so there was no way of telling if he was dead, or merely unconscious.

  It was five miles out of Laughlin that the rushing water inexplicably slowed to below the highway speed limit.

  ***

  Michael’s powers were not hell-bent on self-preservation.

  The moment Michael and Tory fell into the powerful updraft, they were dragged skyward, and as Dillon tumbled beneath the waves during the first moments of the flood, Michael and Tory were tumbled up by the wind.

  At a height of ten thousand feet, the dust-filled shaft of wind burst apart, spreading out like a mushroom cloud. Michael and Tory continued to cling to one an­other as they rode the shock wave of wind, no longer knowing up from down. Michael knew his skill was not one of precision, but of broad strokes. Storms and cloud sculptures were a far cry from controlled flight. The air was now too thin to fill their lungs, and unforgivingly cold. Michael tried to move his fingers and found that he couldn’t even feel them.

  “What happens now?” Tory cried into Michael’s ear.

  Michael knew he didn’t have to say it, because she already knew.

  “Whatever happens, I won’t let you go.”

  And in that instant, as he held Tory’s shivering body, he knew he had finally found in his soul the faintest glimmer of love.

  But it was too late to change the course of the wind.

  ***

  Gripping cold.

  Breaking clouds.

  A long, frozen fall.

  And then nothing.

  The sudden sense of Michael and Tory’s death snapped Dillon to consciousness. He opened his eyes, and thought the blinding light that shone on his face was the spirit of God, until a helicopter cut across it, and he realized it was only the sun shining through the breaking clouds. He was alert enough to realize that he was alive, and to know that he was floating in strangely serene water. Yet why did he hear it churning all around him?

  A moment more, and it all came back to him— everything until the moment he had lost consciousness.

  Now his body no longer felt the battering it had re­ceived from the water. He had already healed himself—although his lungs still felt heavy from the submerged breaths he had drawn.

  While still underwater, he must have unknowingly created an oasis of calm around himself like a reflex. That bubble of calm water had lifted him to the surface and carried him along, acting as a buffer between him and the raging torrent.

  But there was something more going on here—he could feel it, like a chill that wound up his spine. Only it was longer than his spine—much longer.

  The feeling stretched out the length of his body and beyond; shooting hundreds of miles to the south through the soles of his feet, and hundreds of miles to the north through the top of his head. Then he realized that the churning water—still bubbling and brewing, was no longer consuming the landscape before it. The hotel towers of Laughlin stood only a mile or two away, but drew no closer. The entire flood was in fact standing still—treading itself like the waters of a wash­ing machine. Dillon then felt himself moving again, and he once more sensed that cold strand shoot through him like a thousand-mile vein. Then, in a moment, he understood exactly what was happening.

  Laughlin would not be washed away today.

  Lake Havasu and the London Bridge would be per­fectly safe.

  This should be a good thing, thought Dillon, but it was not. It was bad news in its rawest form, as terrible as Michael’s and Tory’s deaths. Dillon released a de­lirious laugh—a cackle of bitter surrender as the flood began a powerful backwash toward higher ground. No matter how hard Dillon had tried to scuttle his “miracle of the waters,” it was going to happen anyway. For his power had grown far beyond his ability to control it— and now, even against his will, Dillon’s influence had fallen upon these waters, caressing them into submis­sion, from Mexico to its tiniest mountain tributaries . . .

  . . . And the mighty Colorado River was flowing backward.

  PART V - THE BACKWASH

  23. The First Wave

  Winds in the upper atmosphere had quickly shredded Michael’s fierce storm into wispy threads of ice vapor. By noon, thousands more had gathered around the Nevada and Arizona sides of Black Canyon, because, where Hoover Dam once stood, the Colorado River Backwash was its most impressive. At that point, the waters gushed back into Lake Mead, at a steep up­ward slope—a river rapids flowing against the pull of gravity.

  The white water running back into the canyon that had been Lake Mead, was filled with the bodies of those chosen followers—but the mourning for the dead was overcome by the sight of the backwash.

  It was an image that burned itself into the world’s collective consciousness, because it was so wholly in­conceivable, no one could wrap their mind around it. Rational thought meant nothing in the face of this won­der, and people knew that from this day forth, nothing they thought or believed could remain the same. Like a train hurled from its track, day-to-day life started grinding to a screeching halt, as alliances began to shift, and people began believing in the divinity of the mar­tyred Dillon Cole.

  They had no way of knowing that he was still alive.

  Even when he washed up the rapids where the dam had stood, he appeared to be just another victim life­lessly pulled along with the flow. No one noticed the small lily pad of calm that protected him, as he surged semi-conscious up the Colorado River.

  ***

  Drew Camden had stumbled away from the canyon before the waters reversed. His shoulder was badly swollen, the pain making him hobble like
Quasimodo as he crossed the desert back to the campsite. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find there, but he didn’t know where else to go. Yellow police lines were spread like cobwebs, blocking everything off, and he burst through one like a racer at a finish line. The campsite was de­serted except for the police.

  “My God, it’s another one!” one of the cops shouted. “Don’t let this one get away.” They were on him in an instant, hurling questions.

  “Dam . . . broke,” Drew muttered. “Friends died. Two of them.” The cops looked at each other.

  “It was a lot more than two, kid,” one cop said. Drew stared at him blankly.

  “Forget it,” the cop told him, “it’s not your prob­lem.” There were paramedics around him now. They secured him to a backboard, and packed his shoulder with ice.

  “Don’t worry,” one of them said. “You’ll be fine. The doctors’ll patch you up, and have you home in no time.”

  Home. It was a place Drew hadn’t the luxury of con­sidering for quite some time. Between the alternating current of his own personality, and the events he had been a part of, Newport Beach seemed far, far away. In a way, he had been caught up in Michael’s tornado all this time, hadn’t he? From the moment the sharks leapt up the beach, he was drawn up in a current that left him at the mercy of the winds. He had been de­stroyed, reborn, shredded, and reconstructed, and now he had been spat back out again.

  When he got home, he would have much to tell peo­ple: things about the Shards, and about himself as well; things that needed to be said.

  As he lay there, he heard voices around him and snippets of conversations talking of even stranger events at the river.

  ". . . damnedest thing . . .” ". . . it never hit Laugh­lin . . .” ". . . whole thing flowing backward . . .”

  He heard radios reporting on it. Police had crowded onto one of the buses, watching it on TV. “That can’t be what it looks like . . .”

  It’s not over, thought Drew—but whatever happened now, he instinctively sensed that he was not a part of it anymore. He was not one of the Shards—and al­though he had envied Michael at first, he now realized there was nothing envious about that kind of power in this kind of world. Tears filled his eyes, and one of the paramedics gave him a shot of morphine for the pain.

  As they carried him toward a waiting helicopter, he began to struggle against his bonds, trying to force a single thought out before the morphine took effect. “Okoya . . .” he said weakly, his thoughts slurring. “Bad. Dangerous. Must find . . .”

  A paramedic looked to his partner. “The kid’s rant­ing.”

  “Who isn’t today?” his partner said.

  The paramedics ignored him as they carried him to the helicopter and past a bus, where the frayed ends of nylon cords dangled limply from the mirrors and bumper.

  24. The Confluence

  Life began at the Confluence. At least that was the belief of many Southwest tribes. It was the place where the Colorado and Little Colorado merged into a single river. It was a place of magic. A place of powerful spirits, both good and evil.

  Radio Joe—second-degree burns on his hands and part of his face from the real flames of the fake vol­cano—had taken a car, sold it for a horse, took the six-hour trek down into the Grand Canyon, and waited at the Confluence for the world to end. When the river began its backward flow, he knew the time was near.

  He watched as body after body drifted by in the cur­rent, and he awaited the coming of a god, or a demon.

  ***

  At twilight, as Radio Joe cooked himself a hot meal over an open fire, he saw a raft approaching him on the river. He thought he recognized the raft’s single occupant—but wasn’t certain until the raft had been beached and the visitor’s face, bruised and swollen, was lit by the flames. It almost looked surprised when it saw the old man, but hid it quickly.

  “You’ve abused their body,” Radio Joe told the dark Quíkadi; the thief of souls. “I would think a creature of your power would have kept it in better shape. Un­less you’ve met your match.”

  “Don’t anger me, old man.”

  Radio Joe reached into his pot and offered a helping of stewed rabbit.

  “I don’t need your food,” it said.

  “Then what do you need?”

  “I’m looking for the one who changed the course of the river,” said the thief of souls.

  “And you think it was me?”

  Then the thief leaned closer into the fire, until beads of sweat appeared on his bruised face—still the perfect synthesis of Lara and Jara. “I think you have eyes that see more than most. Tell me what you’ve seen on the river.”

  Radio Joe gnawed his meat. “I’ve seen bodies carried around the bend, deeper into the canyon. I’ve seen fish swimming in perfect schools. I’ve seen the holes in my shoes close as I stood in the water.”

  The thief waited for more, but Radio Joe offered nothing further.

  “I know he’s nearby,” said the thief. “I think you know more than you say.”

  “And if I do?”

  “If you don’t tell me all you know I’ll do what I should have done to begin with. I’ll leave you worse than dead.”

  “And what about Lara and Jara?” demanded the old man. “Are they worse than dead? Did you devour their souls?”

  “They sleep,” said the thief. “They merged into one, and now they sleep.”

  Radio Joe nodded. If he hadn’t destroyed the twins, then he spared them for a reason. But perhaps he didn’t need them anymore. He decided to gamble.

  “Free their spirits, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  The thief of souls was taken aback. His face hard­ened, and for a moment Radio Joe thought he was done for. But then the thief grinned. He gave his head a shake, flicking his long mane of hair from his eyes—and as he did, Radio Joe felt the soul of the twins pass clear through him.

  And behind him, his horse began to whinny and buck.

  “There,” said the thief. “I’ve freed them.” His gaze intensified. “Now tell me what you saw.”

  “I saw him float past here, two hours ago,” said Radio Joe. “The water bore him like a pillow as he slept, refusing to let him drown.”

  The thief turned his eyes to the two rivers, tracing the larger one’s winding path. But the hour was late, and the outline of the river disappeared into shadows as pitch-dark as the new moon.

  “The Colorado travels north a ways, then winds back to the south,” Radio Joe told him. “Camp in the shadow of High Pebble.” He indicated a pillar of darkening red stone in the distance. “You’ll see him at dawn.”

  The thief wasted no time with thank yous. He slipped back into the shadows, and disappeared.

  When he was gone, Radio Joe left the fire, his kettle of stew in hand. His horse was tied to a rock, but tried desperately to pull itself free, with a spirit the young gelding hadn’t shown before. It looked apprehensive and angry as Radio Joe approached, but it calmed as he brushed its mane.

  “You’re free from it now,” he told the spirit of the twins. Then, taking out his knife, he cut the horse loose from its bridle. Instantly it took off into the canyon. Radio Joe listened until the hoofbeats were over­whelmed by crickets, then he turned and headed with his bucket of rabbit stew toward the small cave in the canyon wall behind him.

  ***

  “I hope you like rabbit.”

  Dillon was awakened by a gruff voice, and reached up to peel back the blanket that covered him. His mem­ory was foggy, but he vaguely remembered being pulled from the river by the old man. The muscles in Dillon’s arms and legs had been knots of hard rubber, and his jaw had locked from chattering. The old man had carried him to this cave, rubbed warmth into his arms and legs, and covered him with a blanket. It was the last thing Dillon remembered before slipping from consciousness.

  Now his muscles felt looser, and his body felt warm. Dillon had never tasted rabbit before, but right now, it smelled awfully good to him. The old man serv
ed Dil­lon the stew in a cracked bowl, but the crack healed quickly enough . . . and hadn’t the blanket that covered him once been dilapidated? Even in this desolate cave, he could not escape his aura of mending anymore than he could escape his own shadow.

  Dillon ate with his fingers, trying to put those thoughts aside.

  “You should know that I don’t have much luck with hermits,” Dillon said.

  The old man shrugged. “I’m not a hermit, I’m an electrician.”

  It was as the old man turned, that Dillon had a mo­ment of deja vu. He had seen this face before. “Do I know you?”

  The old man hesitated before answering. Then he said. “People call me Radio Joe.”

  Dillon’s hand began to shake, and he put down the bowl, as he realized the significance of the name. “The Shiprock Slayer.”

  Radio Joe smiled. “I’d be lying if I said I’d been called worse things.” He picked up Dillon’s bowl, studying where the crack had healed. “But the task was beyond me. You completed what I began.”

  He held out the bowl to Dillon, and Dillon took it. “What are you?” Radio Joe asked.

  Dillon considered the question. “Damned if I know,” he said, finally. Truthfully. For at that moment, he didn’t know. He couldn’t say if he was good or evil; a hero or destroyer; a gift to this world, or its greatest curse.

  “Does the river still run backward?” Dillon asked.

  The old man nodded, and Dillon was not surprised; it had only been a matter of time until his powers grew too strong for his will to control.

  “I hear talk of a river up north,” Radio Joe told him, “that also flows in from the sea. Its waters are healing, and to drink of it means to cheat death.”

  Dillon closed his eyes. “The Columbia River.” Did every place he tread bear the indelible print of his in­fluence now? And would the rivers flow to the sea once more if he were dead? He didn’t know. He didn’t even know if he could die—and that thought added a new level to the misery, because it meant he didn’t even have control over his own existence.