by James Jaros
“Stand in the presence of the Lord,” His Piety ordered.
The guards hoisted Hunt by his arms; he still could not find his footing.
His Piety nodded approval and spoke to him in a low voice. “Tell me what you found.”
“Damocles? Did he come back?” Hunt gasped.
His Piety shook his head solemnly, working his jaw. A nut? Hunt wondered. He favored them, crushing a precious reserve with the three teeth that hadn’t rotted from his braces, cemented into place a month before the collapse.
In the first days of the rebellion, the wires protected his mouth during a vicious beating by infidels who tried to raid his church—widely accused of hoarding. His Piety decided to keep his braces because he expected more battles with rebels, and added protection of any kind felt like a wise idea to Frank Louch, as he was known before the visions. Later, orthodontic tools weren’t available; a lone attempt to remove the braces with pliers loosened a tooth, but not the wires. So they stayed on, a sign of privilege that he hid with silence until the sanctuary of the base was won.
But without proper care, most of his teeth shriveled to blackened nubs and cracked apart, leaving small decayed chunks to clutter the wires. His suffering continued for years, pain that he offered up to the Father so many times that he was forced to recognize his own sainthood.
His most prominent survivor was a dark tusk that protruded from his lips and attested to the original need. He tried to keep his few teeth and wires clean, causing the latter to flash strangely in the mote-stirred streams of sunlight that flowed into the chapel. His mouth looked like a cage from which vicious prisoners had escaped.
His Piety stopped chewing. “If you sent your dog, you found the gas.”
“I did, His Piety.”
“Tell me where you saw it.”
He glanced at the black bota, asking permission with his eyes, which His Piety granted, pursing his lips. Hunt sipped, and with his throat refreshed, told His Piety the location of the tanker and van.
“Was Burned Fingers still with them?”
“I don’t know a Burned Fingers.”
“You must. The one with burned fingers? He’s in his fifties, gray hair. Shaves.”
Shaves? Now he was certain he didn’t know him; he’d met only one man who shaved, a trader of iron scrap rumored to have died in his sleep last year, a fate bestowed by the Lord on so few.
“You’re gone from the base too much if you don’t know about Burned Fingers.”
“His Piety, they stopped me before I could get close.” His words came quickly, and he felt the strength that a challenge often gave him, especially when His Piety questioned his heavy travel.
“Stopped you? From what?” the prophet asked, as if he knew what had occupied him.
“From taking prisoners for you.” He paused and looked into His Piety’s blue eyes, mustering all his strength to speak clearly: “A demon.”
His Piety rose from the cathedra. The loss of formality startled Hunt, and he expected to be struck or thrown to the marble for his failure to bring back the demon. But instead His Piety leaned so close that Hunt had to struggle not to turn from his breath.
“Demon?” His Piety asked.
“Yes, His Piety. It was just like you said. A demon. A beast. That’s what I saw.”
He began with the black skin and dark eyes, noses and lips, arms, legs—all the notices of normalcy—before he said, “And two heads.”
His Piety’s eyes widened. Hunt struggled to raise his right hand, bloodied by those savage cats, and extended his index and middle fingers, like the sinners who once professed their love of a false peace; but this shaky V formed a sacred oath: “From one body.”
Silence. Barely a breath.
His Piety studied Hunt. “I have seen such a demon in my worship. I am not surprised.” He lifted his gaze to the band of sunlight right above him, as if to the risen trove of Christ. “Dear God, I am so humbled to be honored, once again, by Your gift of prophecy. Please grant me strength for such a sacred burden, and the courage to remain a strong vessel for Your divine message.”
He returned his eyes to Hunt. “The two-headed beast is a vile portent from the ashes of Hell.”
“I found the demon covered in ash. Crawling in it.”
“As I saw, as I saw.” His Piety sounded pained, sickened. The Elders looked on him with concern. One took his arm as if he feared the prophet would falter.
In a reverential whisper, Hunt described the demon’s nakedness, hard haunches, and long African legs, a wholly faithful rendering; yet his increasing breathlessness and awe—his repeated emphasis on finding the two-headed beast crawling from the hot ash “with cinders alive on that black skin”—drew a consuming stare from His Piety and frequent nods from the Elders. Hunt’s own skin came alive as if startled by demon breath, or the cool quiet of hushed angels—who could tell amid such madness? But it was real, real as sin and blood and lust.
And the sensation that coursed through him, that imbued him with a lightness of being he’d never known, also lessened the weight on his feet. He could have stood unsupported by the guards, but they were so stunned by his affirmation of evil—by revelations rarely accorded such lowly servants of the faith—that they took no note of the miracle between them: his sudden strength from the provocation of an evil distillate, dauntless enough to violate God’s earth in material guise.
His wounds felt like they were closing, the hacked bones in his back healing. The pain grew most assuredly soft and pliant, letting him stand straight and raise his eyes to the cross, to feel in its purity all that could save him. As much as the heathens bloodied his body, their wanton violence was necessary—maybe even ordained by God—to forge in him a greater will for the fight to come. He saw all this in a vision, though not so blessed as the heavenly language known to His Piety, but sharply etched and filled with the calling that had long claimed him.
He felt the chapel teeming with spirits, a gathering of good, a gathering of evil, a cavalcade of grace and hate and—always—godly wonder.
His Piety moved to the cross, bowed his head till his beard splayed on his chest, and prayed aloud. His importunate words filled the chapel. The Elders of True Belief flanked him, his entreaty now their own.
The prophet raised his hands, and the billowy sleeves of his gold-braided gown cascaded to his elbows. “A demon has arisen from the depths of hell. Of this we can be sure. But why does it have two heads. Why?” He turned to look at them, not for an answer because his eyes never beckoned, but to pause, perhaps to consider.
“To mock,” he thundered. “That is why. To mock God the Father and God the Son as One. There can be no other reason.” Searching their eyes now. Hunt dared not blink.
“The demon,” His Piety intoned carefully, “must be enslaved and brought here. This is what the Lord commands of me.” His voice widened, as if to embrace more than the chapel or base, or the earthly surrounds of sin and disgrace. “All True Believers must bear witness to the demon. The Lord has given us a test of faith that we must not fail, for this beast will destroy all God-given glories if Satan holds sway.”
His Piety walked to the altar, drew a sword from a gold case, and raised it till the sunlight gleamed on the silvery surface. “We will look the two-headed monster in the eye, cleave it—with the mighty shield of God to protect us—and burn it to death. No lord of hell will crawl from a flame consecrated in the name of God before the assembled power of True Belief.”
“His Piety, I fear we are too late,” ventured a short Elder. “The tank might be attacking the fallen right now.”
“The tank?” Hunt asked, surprised and deflated. “It found them?”
His Piety turned to him. “You confirmed what we knew about the truck. The tank’s dog arrived before you. The collar was clear. But they knew nothing of the demon.” Words that restored Hunt’s sense of mission.
His Piety turned a curiously empty gaze on the short Elder. “We are in the Lord’s hands. D
o you forget that? Do you fear the Lord’s righteousness? Do you not trust the Lord to do what is best?”
“His Piety,” the Elder said, “I always trust the Lord to do what is best, and for you to divine His every intention.”
“Then know that the tank’s flames failed to kill the demon once, and here is our witness,” he pointed to Hunt, “for he pulled the beast from blistering ash.” His Piety’s face came back to life, so flushed that Hunt saw it reddening through his beard. “Let the tank try to kill the demon again. Let them kill all the heathens and their children, too. Let them even burn the truck—if that is God’s will. But I do not believe that is so. That is not what the Lord is telling me. The Lord,” he looked at the Elders one by one, “is telling me that even if our tank kills all the fallen to get the fuel, which is their sacred duty, the demon will rise again because that is what a demon does until it meets the full force of the Lord Thy God on earth.”
His Piety thrust the sword back into the band of sunlight and vowed to the Father and Son to burn the demon into hell forevermore.
“Amen,” the Elders said.
“Amen,” Hunt uttered, and then collapsed.
The armored tank raced at the caravan from less than a mile away, within easy striking distance with its long cannon. Jessie rushed Leisha and Kaisha to the gasoline tanker and gave them an open-air perch under the trailer, moving two more able-bodied girls to ladders up above. The twins cried out as their burns pressed against the metal grating.
Jessie forced herself to turn from them, searching wildly for Bliss and Jaya, recalling that the morning had started with the same task. She spotted the pair bolting to their respective posts: Bliss to the top of the tanker behind the cab, and Jaya to the van to ride shotgun.
Ananda?
In the van, she saw, when Jaya threw open the heavily plated door.
She wheeled around looking for Burned Fingers, and spotted the Pixie-bobs pouring down the bottom of the hill, a mass of fur as dark and wide as a mudslide. In seconds they swarmed the tank. Some were crushed but most leaped aboard, covering the camouflage paint with their writhing coats. Jessie saw in a glance there would be no protection from the cats for anyone riding on the outside of the tank or van. And there was no time to regroup.
A brief hope that the Pixie-bobs would cut off the tank crew’s sightline—and stop the murderous vehicle—vanished when it churned on without changing course.
She raced toward Burned Fingers, who was studying the tank’s approach, yelling, “They’ll be on us next.”
He raised his hand. “We’ll never outrun them,” he said evenly.
“We’ll never outgun them, either,” she shouted.
“Nope, we won’t. It’s a straight shot for them either way.”
Still his words came calmly. And in the midst of her most convulsive fears—of ruthless firepower and voracious cats, whose howls now pierced the air—she remembered how relaxed and cheerful he’d been during the most terrifying moments at the Army of God.
He knows war, she told herself now as she had then. “I don’t care,” she bellowed, as if he had spoken the words in her head. “I just want to go.”
“Our timing is starting to look good,” he said.
Good? “How can you—”
“Tell Maul to start driving. Brindle, too. I want both of them in motion.”
“Of course.” She turned to run, finally. He grabbed her arm.
“But tell Maul I don’t want this truck moving any faster than you can walk. Then I need you back here, and when I say so, you’ve got to signal him—and that’s when he’s got to find a way to make this big fat fucker move.”
Burned Fingers pounded the back of the tanker; but she was already racing to the cab, ears ringing with the howling, engine roar, and—rising above both—the deafening screams of terrified children.
Chapter Six
Jessie veered immediately from the girls on the gasoline tanker clamoring for help. Harsh as it felt, she had no comfort or hope to offer them, and definitely no weapons to make them feel safe—nothing to thwart the thunderous tank and squalling cats charging at them. She carried only her M-16 and Burned Fingers’s mystifying instructions, and couldn’t have explained them to herself, much less to the petrified girls reaching for her.
She leaped onto a rusty pipe that served as the cab’s running board and smashed her fist on Maul’s door so hard the pain startled her.
The big bald man peered out, eyes no more than slits, the whole of his face compressed by tension.
“Go-go-go!” she screamed. Then, before he could close the door, she shouted, “Walking speed. No faster.” She’d almost forgot.
Maul nodded, sunlight catching his large dome, and before she could jump down the tanker truck lurched forward.
She weaved in front of it, wounded thigh begging for relief, and dodged the broken radiator grill bearing down on her like a shattered face. She looked up to see Maul mouthing What the fuck? and waved him on with a “Don’t worry” he clearly couldn’t comprehend.
Brindle opened the van’s driver door seconds before she ran up breathless and bent over. “Go, get out of here.”
“Wh-What?” he asked.
“Go!”
Already she was pivoting toward the rolling trailer and fixing her eyes on the armored tank, with its cannon, flamethrower, and machine gun pressing closer, now less than a half mile away.
It better be good. Whatever Burned Fingers had in mind.
Lungs still heaving, she ran to the rear of the gasoline tanker, but he had disappeared.
She swore loudly before spying him hanging by one hand from the underside of the trailer. He clung to the frame like a monkey, feet braced against the rear axle, free hand furiously turning a steel wheel with three stout spokes.
Fuel seeped from an L-shaped valve right below it. The trickle quickly grew into a stream, forcing him to twist sideways as gallons spilled out, splattering the ground and misting his bare back till the pungent gas beaded like sweat; but he didn’t pause until he had it open fully, creating a powerful gusher. Then he pushed himself farther to the side and dropped to the dusty ground, rolling away from the flood.
He jumped to his feet, chased by the spreading flow, which formed a broad dark V as the tanker lumbered up the slope. Jessie, grasping both his plan and its horrendous peril, tried wiping the gas off his back with the hem of her shirt as they backpedaled. Failing, she pulled off her ragged cotton tee, casting aside modesty to dry his skin.
The armored tank, a dark, howling mass of Pixie-bobs clinging to every available surface—hanging from the cannon like a drooping sleeve—raced within a thousand feet. But Burned Fingers never glanced away from the fuel rippling down the slope, his body bobbing as he continued to back up. To Jessie, his up and down movement looked like a man counting down to a cataclysm, a possibility that chilled her to her core. She was frantically pulling on her damp shirt when he turned to her.
“Tell Maul to haul ass.” Then he slipped back under the trailer with the ease of a gymnast.
Maul already had his door open. “Haul ass, haul ass!” she yelled, unconsciously echoing Burned Fingers in her escalating panic.
The cab heaved from the sudden acceleration, but not so fast that she couldn’t spot the van now a half mile ahead of them.
She sprinted back to see Burned Fingers cut off the fuel, then drop to the dust once more; but this time he scrambled to the spill, pulling out a flint and steel before pausing to look up. The armored tank was tearing across the fuel drenched ground, so close that Jessie could see the wild eyes of the Pixie-bobs.
Burned Fingers kneeled and struck the flint till a fireball bloomed. It raced at the tank, engulfing it in flames twenty, thirty feet high, and spread all the way down the slope, growing hundreds of feet thick in seconds too quick to count.
She felt a surge of relief—and didn’t see the flames rising up Burned Fingers’s pants until he was rolling on the ground to snuff them. Paine
d, he jumped to his feet. Both of them backed away from the fire as smoke instantly enveloped them, a thick black shroud spawned by the chance mechanics of wind and warfare.
Jessie glimpsed him wheeling away, covering his eyes, but lost him when the acrid plume forced her own eyes shut. She staggered through the darkness, lungs burning fiercely, finding her way out, only to spot another dense black cloud churning toward her. She bolted from its path and watched it chase the truck.
The howls of the Pixie-bobs grew, and as the tank roared closer she saw a ghastly sight through the flames—screeching cats leaping from the turret and the tank’s broad platform, dropping from the cannon like big drips of sizzling candle wax, all of them ablaze and feeding the fire.
Their screams never sounded more human—infants trapped in a boiling inferno—and their dark darting forms could not have looked more tortured. Blinded by the broiling heat, they scurried crazily in the flames, running into the tank and one another. Or they stopped suddenly, like they were frozen by fire, then arched their backs hideously, driving themselves to the tips of their melting toes, as if in water, not flames, stepping once, twice, even three times—a death dance, it seemed—before collapsing and twisting on the gas-soaked ground, spasms bathed in orange and red and blue.
The tank rolled on, a furious, impervious monster shedding a flaming coat, crushing an untold number of the beasts it had borne.
But even witnessing this annihilation didn’t prepare her for the shock of seeing the long cannon poke from the receding fire and smoke. She’d thought the tank would burn up or explode, but it kept rolling until she could see all of the turret with its terrifying weapons, and then the entire length of desert camouflage paint that covered every square inch of steel, scorched and sooty but still visible, still rolling.
Why had she thought they could stop it? What pathetic hope had led her to believe that an armored tank engineered to roar through the burning oil fields of the Mideast to take Riyadh, Tehran, Baghdad, and Abu Dhabi could possibly have been foiled by a few thousand gallons of fuel splashed on the ground?