And in that instant she realized her folly.
So many children, so many efforts to create others as adept as she was, as capable as she was and she had always taken for granted that she had failed.
She might have believed it all a coincidence, but she felt it, the taint of the magics her mother had generated, the alteration to the spells her mother had created. Old sorceries to be sure, created by the Pale Ones when they drew the One to mate with her mother so long ago. Only one of her children knew about the charm bracelet her mother had created and been buried with. Only one child would have had the ability to alter the spells woven into the thing.
So many children and the one she’d kept at her side was the one who betrayed her. She screamed Jolene’s name in vain as she was pulled from the sacrificial fields where she was meant to finally gain the graces of her master.
Frank screamed too, crying out his frustrations, his demands for his Meemaw’s damned charm bracelet, which she’d have given if she could have pulled it from deep within her body. Their screams mingled together with the howling rage of the One and then the rift was gone and their song of damnation was silenced.
***
Merle Blackbourne ran for all he was worth. He’d never been the most powerful member of the family, to be sure, but he was wise in his way and he knew enough to understand when the end was upon the house he’d helped create. The walls warped and shuddered and the energies that had been built into them started to collapse.
That damnable thing╤the monstrous form that had torn the house apart as it entered╤had started the damage, but Siobhan’s failure to pull the One through was surely the final blow. He felt her rage as she was drawn into the sky and ripped away from the universe. Part of him was terrified by that notion, but part of him felt a savage glee at the concept of a life without her ruling over everyone and everything.
There was no love in the Blackbourne family. He had never loved his mother, merely feared her. Obeyed because that was what every member of the clan had to do if they wanted to survive.
The ground bucked under him and threw him to his knees.
Merle climbed back to his feet and started running again, shaking off the feeling of nausea that tried to grab his mind and throw him into madness.
He understood the feeling, of course. Riding the dimensions was a tricky business and he’d been doing it for years now, long enough to adjust to most of the odd distortions not only of the senses but of the mind itself as it tried to adjust to the impossible.
He’d get past this. He would endure. That was what Blackbournes did. They survived. He’d survived every obstacle ever thrown at him, and he had prepared himself for the possibilities. Siobhan had amassed a fortune over the years, and being a wise son, he had done the same. Every dealing that had taken place in the Hollow had been his to oversee and every transaction had earned him a percentage.
The walls were falling.
Shit.
Merle braced himself in a doorway for a moment and held on, certain that the end of the place was coming and soon. Not far now. The good news was that he knew the house, had built the house and understood the secrets of getting in and out. He stepped to the left and moved through a hallway that wasn’t visible to the naked eye. He knew it was there because he’d been the one to hide it. The dimensions were locked together here, and the perceptions of reality were deliberately altered. You just had to know where to look and how to look.
Three more paces and to the right at a sharp angle and there it was, the main entrance of the house. The door was open, the ground buckled and broken but still intact enough to let him pass.
“Told you, Wade. Just got to follow the rat to get off the goddamn sinking ship.” Merle turned his head sharply, surprised by the voice. Carl Price was behind him, leaning on the wall. Next to him was his friend, the ex-cop.
Merle opened his mouth and reached for the .22 he had tucked in the small of his back at the same time.
“No. Fuck no, Merle. Not this time.” Price drew first. At the end of the day, the sheriff was faster. Merle left the house with a bullet blowing out the back of his skull. Carl Price and Wade Griffin left the house one second later.
***
The house did not disappear. It did not collapse in on itself, nor did it explode.
Instead it seemed almost as if the structure gasped out a last breath and died as they stepped past the ruined threshold.
Both Carl and Griffin understood the instant the power left the house: their heads stopped aching with that unique pain, and the hairs on their arms calmed down and settled.
And while both of them felt like collapsing, it had more to do with physical exhaustion and less to do with the distortion of the world.
The house simply sat there, fat and bloated and ruined, broken and beaten by whatever the hell had torn through it.
Whatever explosions were going on inside, they were trapped away in another reality.
Neither one of them could complain about that part at least.
***
The walking wounded. That’s what Charon had called them and Griffin had to admit she was pretty much on the mark. Sitting there in Decamp’s study, with the late autumn sun shining through the windows, the group did indeed possess a varied collection of bandages, splints, casts, and less visible signs of medical treatment. Griffin had broken fingers on both hands, cracked ribs, and more bruises, cuts, and lacerations than he cared to think about.
Carl had ruptured an eardrum when he had thrown the frag grenade, and had torn ligaments in one knee and broken his left wrist somehow. His collection of cuts and abrasions rivaled Griffin’s as well.
Decamp was still healing from the wounds incurred in his fight with Isaiah Blackbourne, but he seemed well on the road to recovery. He leaned back in his desk chair and took a sip of Charon’s passable coffee. He said, “How did your meeting with the city fathers go, Carl?”
Carl made a face. “I think they bought the exploding meth lab story for what happened to the Blackbourne house. The fact that Wade and I threw some explosives in there before I let anyone see the place probably helped. But a lot of people died over the last few days and there will be more investigations. Ain’t looking good for re-election time.”
Decamp nodded. “More of that may go away than you suspect. I’ve called in some favors.”
Carl gave the man a long look. “What kind of favors?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Griffin glanced at Decamp. What was with this guy?
“Well what I want to know,” Charon said, “Is how you knew that shooting that charm bracelet at Siobhan Blackbourne would hurt her, Carl.”
Carl shrugged. “Instinct and a little bit of the old deductive reasoning. Someone went to some trouble to get that bracelet to me, and whoever did it didn’t seem to mean me any direct harm. Hell they could have killed me while I was in the shower. That and some things Andy Hunter told me about the bracelet made me think it might do some good against the Moon-Eyes.” He paused. “That and there was a note for Andy, told him to give the bracelet to Siobhan. I didn’t think they meant wrapped up as a present.”
“Not bad for a small town sheriff,” Griffin said. “And by the way, if the election doesn’t go your way, I could always use a partner in the private investigator business.”
Carl grinned. “The old team together again, eh?”
“Indeed.” Griffin turned to Carter Decamp. “I guess now’s the time for the hard question. There are still plenty of Blackbournes out there, so is this really over?”
Decamp said, “It’s as over as it was back in ╘86. What you and Carl stumbled upon was something that had been in the works for decades. It will take the Moon-Eyes a long time to recover, if they ever do. When you interrupted the spell and sent the Old One back to the other side, the power that the Blackbournes had accumulated went with it.”
“Do you think the Blackbo
urnes inside the house were killed?” Charon said.
“I hope so,” said Decamp. “As I told you before, I think they escaped back in ╘86 by shifting through the dimensions. I think it likely that the state of dimensional chaos inside the house kept them from being able to do the same this time. But I can’t be sure.”
Carl said, “Still a lot of questions left unanswered.”
“Unfortunately life is like that sometimes,” Decamp said.
Griffin said, “At least we got a little payback for Jerry Wallace.”
“And for poor Whit,” said Charon.
Carl raised his coffee cup, as if in a toast. He said, “Absent friends.”
The others raised their cups. “Absent friends,” said Griffin.
Blind Shadows: A Griffin & Price Novel Page 32