“And what will that make us?”
Decamp shrugged. “Slaves. Food. Superfluous.”
“You have to tell Griffin.”
“I know. I needed to get my thoughts together once the realization hit me. I’ll call him now.”
***
The twin buses were parked at odd angles in front of the Blackbourne house. Griffin could see them clearly though his binoculars. The doors were open and the interior lights were slowly dimming as the batteries died. No one was worried about a return trip.
Griffin had just barely convinced Carl not to go barreling into the front yard with sirens howling. The cruiser was parked on a low ridge that gave a clear view of the house and Griffin was watching the house and listening to Carter Decamp talk about the end of the world.
When Decamp ran out of steam, Griffin said, “We’ll do everything we can, Decamp. Put Charon on, would you?”
The sound of Charon’s voice was like oxygen to a drowning man. She said, “Hey, wild man. Guess you’re going into the house.”
“Looks that way.”
“I don’t suppose there’s much point in my telling you to be careful.”
“Not much.”
“I guess you’d better tell me that you love me then.”
“I was sort of hoping for a better time.”
“That doesn’t look too likely at this point.”
“No it doesn’t. I love you, Charon.”
“I love you, Wade. Come back and I’ll show you how much.”
“I’ll do my best. Stay safe.”
He turned off the cell and took just a moment to look up at the cold night sky. Then he walked over to where Carl was keeping an eye on the house. Griffin said, “You remember how we were wondering how things could get any worse?”
Carl said, “You’re about to tell me, aren’t you?”
Griffin gave Carl the short version of what Decamp had told him. When he was done, Carl said. “I’m a small town sheriff, Wade. How the hell did I get stuck with this?”
“No idea, man.”
“If we were smart we’d call the FBI or the army,” said Carl.
“And by the time they got here, the sacrifices would be complete and it would all be over. Decamp says we have to stop the Moon-Eyes from finishing the ceremony. It’s the only way to keep them from summoning their god.”
“Down to me and you then. Just like old times. We going to sneak in like you did before?”
“Nope. No time for that.”
“We’re just going to walk up to the front door, kick it in and go in shooting?”
“That was my thought, yes.”
“I knew I liked you.”
“Let’s get our stuff together.”
They walked back to the cruiser and Carl popped the trunk. Griffin pulled out his canvas bag. He put on his web belt, which held the knife, the 45. and his speed-loaders, and he transferred the two frag grenades and a couple of other items to his smaller carry bag. When he pulled the shotgun out he saw something gleam at the bottom of the bag. Decamp’s sword. What the hell. He took out the scabbard and slung the sword in its baldric across his shoulder.
Carl was similarly bristling with weapons by the time they shut the trunk and got back into the front of the cruiser. Griffin said, “If Jerry Wallace were here, this really would be like old times.”
“He’s here,” Carl said, slapping his fist on his chest over his heart.
Griffin nodded. “He is.”
Carl said, “Lights and siren?”
“Hell yeah.”
***
Carl brought the cruiser to a sliding halt beside one of the buses. He and Griffin got out of the car and crossed the yard at a brisk walk. Griffin didn’t see anyone in the yard or on the porch. Guess everyone is at the party, he thought. True to his word, Carl walked up the steps, and without slowing, raised one booted foot and kicked the front door in.
Griffin went in behind him, shotgun at the ready, and promptly had to lean against a wall and throw up. Griffin spit and looked around trying to get a handle on what was making his guts churn. There was something wrong with the hallway. The floor and walls didn’t line up somehow, like they were leaning in different directions. Ahead of him, Griffin could see Carl staggering along, one shoulder brushing the wall and his body thrust forward as if he were trudging up a hill, though they were on level ground.
A second later, the world snapped back into place and they were in a boring, unfinished sheet rock hallway. Griffin looked behind him and the broken door looked just as it should.
Carl said, “What the hell just happened?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say we walked between a couple of misaligned dimensions.”
“Makes about as much sense as any of this,” Carl said. “Any idea where we’re going?”
“None. When I was in here before, different rooms seemed to lead to different dimensions, so I guess we check every room until we find the one where the ceremony is happening. There was a big ballroom that might fit the bill, but I’ve no idea how to get back to it.”
At that moment two grinning pale ones rounded a corner. They looked to Griffin like two members of the group that had pursued him on his first trip into the house. Carl raised his shotgun and shot them both at point blank range. Dark blood spattered the dirty white walls.
“Guess they’ll know we’re coming now,” said Carl.
“Maybe not. The different rooms I was in seemed pretty much self-contained. Like once you were inside, you were cut off from the other dimensions.”
“Well, here’s a door. Let’s see what’s inside.” Carl grabbed an old-fashioned brass doorknob and turned it. Griffin looked over his shoulder as Carl swung the door inward. A parlor, with overstuffed chairs and Victorian style furniture that gleamed as if recently polished. If not for the human heads mounted on plaques on the walls, like the work of some mad taxidermist, it would have seemed a very normal room. Carl shut the door.
“Jesus,” Carl said.
Griffin leaned on a wall trying to get his bearings. He had come into the house from the rear on his last visit and never reached the front part. Not that front and back had any real meaning in this madhouse. Still, if they continued down the corridor they might eventually reach the ballroom he had seen before. Or that bedroom that led to the moors. Plenty of room for a big party out there.
Another door loomed on the right and Griffin opened this one. Nothing inside but blackness. Griffin fished a quarter out of his pocket and flipped it through the doorway. After ten seconds or so he heard a distant splash. He reminded himself not to go blundering into any more rooms without making sure there was a floor first.
Carl snatched open another door and said, “Uh oh.”
Griffin looked past him. There were five men sitting around a small, filthy room. Griffin got the idea that this room might actually have been part of the original house. The men were obviously Blackbournes, though of the more human variety, which probably explained why they weren’t at the ceremony. They were apparently enjoying some of the crystal meth that the family made so well. Various drug paraphernalia was scattered about on the floor. Unfortunately there were also several guns at hand. The men began to scramble for weapons and Carl began to fire.
***
Technically there was absolutely nothing right about blowing the hell out of five men without giving a little warning first. It went against every programmed instinct that Carl had learned and forced his people to learn. The reality, however, was that they intended to kill him, Wade, and whatever both of the men held dear, with their plans. Or at least they would have planned to if they’d been completely sober.
Instead they scrambled for their weapons on the ground, spitting obscenities and getting in each others’ way. That was okay with Carl. He took full advantage.
Someday, when all of this insanity was over and he’d spent some time in jail for the laws he was breaking, he might seek some therapy to make up for the shit he w
as doing. For the moment, he shot Lucius Blackbourne in the face and a spectacularly greasy looking man in the side of the neck as the man lunged for a shotgun. The advantage of shotguns was you really didn’t need to aim. Point in the general direction, pull the trigger and watch whatever was in front of the barrel turn into blood and pulp. He preferred to save that advantage for himself and Wade. The other three men might have actually reached their weapons and done some damage, but Wade leaned over Carl’s shoulder and pulled the trigger on his shotgun. Carl was already ducking, because as soon as Wade moved he knew what was coming. The explosion from the weapon was still incredibly loud. Neither of the men were getting out of this without that special ringing in the ears that said you’d been firing heavy artillery or attending a death metal concert.
Wade stepped back and covered the hallway, his face set in hard lines. There were very few men who could look that deadly serious and just plain scary without trying.
“Well, we need to get where we’re going, because I figure anyone not at that ceremony’s gonna come tear us new assholes in about forty seconds.”
Wade didn’t argue with him. Carl took the lead again, not because he was braver or because he was the sheriff but simply because Wade was taller and could maneuver a shot over his head or next to it a damned good bit easier. They’d worked that way in the past and they worked that way now. Years since they’d been partnered up and they automatically fell into old routines. There were a few new dangers╤you know, ancient gods trying to eat the universe or at least all the people╤but a lot of the threats were the same, like the meth-heads they left behind them, either dead or dying.
Carl looked at the carpeted uneven floor and smiled. Somebody figured out they were in trouble and decided to leave a clue or fifty. In this case, a trail of M&Ms was scattered on the ground with remarkably even spacing. Some of them had been mashed into the ground, a few were knocked around, but it was basically a Hansel and Gretel moment.
“Will you look at that....”
Carl pointed to the trail and watched Wade flash the tiniest smile of satisfaction.
Sometimes, just now and then, you got to catch a break.
That, or it was a trap. Either way, Carl started following.
***
Another one died, released a splash of blood and spilled life across the cosmos. The energies echoed across his Auntie Siobhan and from her splashed outward. Some of the others, they got their little taste of that power, and they feasted on it, like starving puppies.
Frank got more of it. He burned with it, and he wallowed in it.
The memories crashed around him again.
The first time Auntie had played with him, sung her little songs to him and cut his body with her nails, her teeth, other things that couldn’t even really be seen. She was playing, of course learning about what she was and what she was becoming, and he was the dolly she played with most often.
The first time he died it had been Auntie’s fault. She’d felt bad, of course, and run to Meemaw and told her what had happened and Meemaw shook her head and smiled, that odd, idiot smile of hers, so beautiful and lonely and broken, and she’d taken his body in her hands and started singing old songs that she’d learned from the white people in her time, when she wandered the woods at night and they talked to her, before they made her their door to other places. She’d sung and prayed to the One and Frank had been given back to her, back to Auntie, a doll that was stronger, changed and made better.
And Frank had grown, oh, how he had grown. And Frank had become Two instead of One. Frank’s Other was chatting up a storm now, calling all kinds of dirty words and making promises about what he’d do to Auntie when he finally got his hands on her. Hands, and other parts. Frank didn’t like to think about that, Auntie was beautiful, of course, and he understood the notions, but that wasn’t the way he was supposed to think about his kin.
“She ain’t your kin, boooay! She’s yer bride! She’s gonna scream and sire us some puppies!” The voice belched excitedly from his side and despite what he believed was right and wrong, his Other seemed to have taken control of some of his parts, because he had a raging erection and dark thoughts were boiling through both of his minds. Blood and sex and violence and other things all sang inside his heart and body. And Frank ran faster, breathing like a great bellows, his body swelling, taking on more mass from that place where his mind went whenever he died╤” Not dead! Sleeping! Dreaming! Waiting for naaaoow!” his Other screamed as they ran╤and as he moved, Frank shrugged aside one of the burdensome trees that stood in his way, knocking the pine tree from the ground with an explosive bark. The tree, which had grown in the same spot for over fifty years, sailed through the air and smashed two other trees sideways as it landed.
The ground shook when the tree landed. No one noticed. There was no one nearby and even if there had been, they’d have been far too busy wondering about the way the ground shook as Frank stormed past.
***
Wade and Carl followed the trail carefully, both of them moving with smooth strides that looked unconsciously graceful. It had nothing to do with an attempt to be quiet; that was already a thing of the past. It was about not tripping over themselves. They moved on the balls of their feet and tread carefully because they couldn’t afford to screw up.
Just to make that point clear, Wade dropped back two paces and drove the blade of his knife deep into the throat of a pale-skinned, lumpy thing that tried to creep up on them from behind. Carl never even heard the thing coming, but partly he could accept that. He knew Wade had his back.
The stench of the thing was as vile as anything he could remember. Wade wiped the blood off on the wall and caught back up as soon as he was sure nothing else was coming out of the door they’d passed.
And then both of them stopped as another wave of unreality came rippling up the hallway. There was simply no way to adjust to the feeling as far as Carl could figure. His vision distorted╤how else was it possible to explain the way his mind ached when he looked down the hallway when the angles shifted and no longer made any sense? It was like looking at one of those damned eye-straining optical illusions that seemed to move when there was no actual motion; only the entire world went that way all at once╤his hearing went crazy, ears popping like he was on an airplane that was descending at high speed╤and his stomach did back flips that would have had him vomiting his guts out if there was anything at all in him to disgorge.
But this time was different. Instead of simply snapping back to the way the world should work╤or at least feel╤Carl could feel himself slowly adjusting to the change.
“What the hell was that?” Wade’s voice sounded distant, but when he looked, his friend was in the same spot as before.
The difference was that the area behind Wade had changed. The hallway they’d been in was warped and staying that way. Even as he realized that it came to him that the area in front of him was likely the same. He was afraid to move too quickly in case it caused another bout of vertigo.
Wade’s eyes grew wide and his friend was bringing up the shotgun an instant later. “Drop!” Carl didn’t waste any time listening. He dropped. Despite his fear of nausea, he also took the time to look over his shoulder as he fell, and regretted it instantly. Not because of the sudden dizziness he’d feared, but because the rules of sanity insisted on stretching to the breaking point again.
Wade’s friend Decamp had warned them about the differences in dimensions and he was starting to understand the gravity of the comments. There was something coming through the wall behind him. Not through a door, not bursting through the solid barrier of the wall, but literally ghosting through the faded wallpaper. And that something had no right to exist in the universe as far as Carl was concerned.
Partially it looked like Terrell Blackbourne, a four-time loser who should have been in lockup in Dandridge Federal Penitentiary in Savannah, Georgia at that exact moment, serving his twenty-seven year term for trafficking in meth, kidnapping
and attempted murder. Partially, because while it had the face of Terrell Blackbourne╤in all his buck toothed glory╤that face was fused to a body that made absolutely no sense. It was grossly disproportionate. There were too many limbs and a lot of those limbs didn’t belong on a human being, not even one as flat out homely as Terrell.
The thing looked at Carl with recognition and grinned. “Lookit here. Carl Price.” Whatever it was going to say at that moment was lost behind the sound of a load of buckshot blowing all hell out of its face.
If Carl had jumped any harder at that precise moment, it’s possible he could have reached escape velocity. The leap was purely instinctive, brought on by the sheer mental repulsion of what he was looking at, and it was a blessing, because while the thing’s face had his undivided attention, the bloated body had been reaching for him, slithering thin tendrils across the ground that had been reaching up to tear into him. Each of the whipping cilia ended in a wickedly hooked barb. Wade unloaded three more rounds into the thing, picking his targets and pulling the trigger with terrifying efficiency. The look on his face said he was as repulsed as Carl felt.
The Terrell-Thing╤what was left of it╤flopped back against the wall and sloughed down to the ground.
Carl pulled the .45 with the special rounds and looked around the area. Sure enough, there were more of the damned things coming and they were stretching through the walls same as the Terrell-Thing had.
He needed to know if the bullets were as special as Decamp claimed. He needed to know now, because there were four holes the size of footballs in the goddamned thing that Wade had blown the hell out of, and those four holes were getting smaller and the face was almost reformed and looking a mite pissed off.
Those bullets didn’t do the job, Carl figured they were dead men.
***
The sky shuddered above them, and Siobhan moaned her pleasure into the universe.
Another body. The last of the locals. She looked to the west, and smiled as she saw her children coming toward her. Lorne led the way, his pale face smiling back, thrilled to see her in her full glory. The worlds were starting to fuse and for the first time in as long as she could remember, she could feel all of herself in one place. It was an exhilarating sensation.
Blind Shadows: A Griffin & Price Novel Page 29