Father Soltera didn’t need Tabitha’s encouragements to cause his suspicion. He’d come upon it all his own as he squinted at the jar. How was that possible? How could a key glint from beyond a wax plug? It couldn’t.
Unless it wasn’t a real key.
He sensed immediately that what was in his hand was evil. That if he shattered the jar? It would be the end of him.
The fight behind him broke out again. He didn’t want to distract Michiko, but he couldn’t help himself. “Michiko?” he said, asking for guidance.
I cannot help you, tomodachi. I don’t know this place any more than you do. All you can do—her voice in his head broke off as he heard her grunt loudly behind him—is follow your instincts.
He nodded. His instincts told him to put the jar down. He didn’t know how it could hurt him if he shattered it, but it could.
Running from jar to jar, he saw some that were empty, but some still contained gold, silver or bronze keys. Some of the keys were round, others square, and a few were skeleton keys, which caught his eye the most.
One in particular almost felt like it was the one when he looked up for some reason, back to the door, and noticed for the first time that the lock in the door . . .
“It’s way too big for any of these keys!” he shouted with surprise.
His hands trembling and his mind caught in a seesaw of trying to stay calm enough to think and trying not to completely panic over how the fight behind him was going, he ran back to the door, half tripping and catching his balance along the way.
Once at the door, he looked more closely at it. Horrifyingly, he could see deep gouge marks that looked scratches, as if some people who’d gotten here had tried to claw their way out. Then, stuck in the brick wall to the right of the door, nearly covered with ivy, he noticed two old and rotting wooden spikes, like the ones from the tips of The Wood Demon’s wings. How many people had made it this far, past that creature somehow, only to be killed by it in the end?
“Tomodachi! Hurry!” Michiko shouted.
Not in his head. Aloud, this time. And panicked.
He looked over his shoulder to see that Tabitha had pinned Michiko into a neck of the river. The wounds she’d received from her battle with La Patrona had all reopened, and white blood was spilling from them.
Tabitha was bouncing, up and down, on her chest, determined to force a wooden branch across Michiko’s throat.
He took two steps towards them, but his instincts kicked in again. Still, his resolve almost waivered until he saw Michiko clearly shake her head at him.
He turned around, back towards the door . . . the covered door.
That was it! He ran up to the door and began using his fingers to pull all the moss, dirt and ivy clear of it. Bits of it came off at a time as soil became stuck beneath his nails. Still, he scraped and scraped at it all, until, at last, a series of bamboo wheels, eight in all, came into view.
He froze, completely stunned for a second.
On the wheels were numerals. Greek numerals.
His mind spun in every direction before it came to him. Of course: a combination. You needed a combination to unlock the door.
Banging his hands over the wheels, momentarily excited by his realization, he closed his eyes and tried to think. What combination? Why a combination?
The fight behind him continued. Tabitha screamed out in pain as Michiko grunted with exhaustion. Water splashed.
Focus. Focus. Focus.
Why . . . why were the numbers in Greek?
How fair was that?
Not that this place, or any place, had to be fair. But, still, whatever dead zone this place was, it was obvious that many people came here, from all places, races and . . . times. If poor Ikuro had made it this far, being Japanese, how likely would it have been that he would know Greek? Not likely at all. And unless the whole idea of The Stairway was a complete lie, unless there really was no escaping this place, ever, then this meant something.
This meant that the wheels were personal. They had to be.
Because who else would be likely to know Greek . . .
Than someone who had been forced to study it in seminary for years.
Like a priest.
Eight digits. He blinked. Michiko screamed with rage from behind him as the sound of fists on flesh, punches being exchanged, followed. He blinked again. Think, Bernie! THINK!
Eight digits. Personal.
Too short for a social security number. That was nine digits.
His birth date! Day. Month. Year.
That had to be it.
He ran his hands over the wheels, most of which rolled beneath his fingers with little effort. The last two stuck before he managed to loosen them and get them into place.
Then, with a smile, he stepped up and looked at the door.
Nothing happened.
Again, he remembered seminary. How they’d been trained that what was least obvious was most obvious. Scripture. Context. History. You started with the obvious and worked your way backwards, because that was often the right path. So . . . what was obvious . . . the most obvious thing . . . about this place?
He took a deep breath. Think, think, think. He said the words over and over again, almost like a prayer.
The answer came to him like a gunshot: you came here after you died. Or sort of died. Or half died. The point was . . . your first day here . . . was your last day there.
He opened his eyes. God, please let it be true. Don’t let my friend die, Lord. Help it to be true.
What was the date of his last day back in the reality he once knew? The day that Felix had stabbed him? It was the same day that he’d visited Gabriella’s bedside. And that was always on the last day of the month.
And what month had it been?
February.
He punched in 0228 and the full year.
Again, nothing happened.
“No!” he screamed. “This can’t be! It can’t—”
His mind was caught in a cobweb of panic when he told himself to stop.
Wait. Wait. Wait. Hold on a second!
He’d left Gabriella and stopped off on the way home, hadn’t he? Yes. Late at night. Then caught the bus. By the time he’d gotten near home . . . it had been well after midnight, hadn’t it?
“Yes. It had been nearly two in the morning,” he whispered to himself. “Two in the morning the next day.”
His hands ran over the wheel frantically to change the numbers.
When the door disengaged with a loud boom and an overwhelming bright light began to spill out from around its frame, he was so shocked that he tripped and fell backwards down the stairs.
Rolling over on to his stomach, he looked up to see that Tabitha had her hands around Michiko’s throat. She looked up with a feral scream at Father Soltera, her face laced with hatred, but then immediately became spellbound by the light. She looked down at Michiko, as if trying to resist the urge to finish her off, before she looked back at the now opening door.
“C’mon!” Father Soltera shouted. Getting to his feet, he waved his arms at her. “C’mon. You wanna go. You know that! C’mon, you little monster! C’mon!”
Unable to resist, she leaped off Michiko and began to run full speed to the doorway, which was open all the way now, casting light in all directions across the forest, which seemed to be shriveling in response to it.
As she came, fast and hard, Father Soltera ran to the side of the doorway and yanked at one of The Wood Demon’s spikes. Stuck in the ivy it took a few tugs, but with his adrenaline surging, he was finally able to wrench it loose.
He turned, and seeing her coming . . . he hesitated. What if she really was the spirit of some poor, demented child? Did it matter if she wasn’t? Was murder ever allowed? Could he really do this? Could he kill?
He didn’t have a choice. His vision of Maggie and Luisa had made it clear; if he didn’t stop Tabitha then Luisa was doomed. Gritting his teeth, he steeled himself for what was coming, determined
to do whatever it took to stop Tabitha from getting through the doorway.
He needn’t have bothered.
As she ran towards him, her eyes full of determination to get past him and through the doorway, Michiko’s katana shot through Tabitha’s chest from behind. She vaporized with a stunned look of pain on her face.
The katana fell to the ground.
Father Soltera looked past it to his friend, who had thrown her sword from on her knees. Her shoulders were slouched, her head was down, and she was looking at him through her hair, which had fallen over her face. With one arm she was clutching the other. “I just . . . needed time . . . to draw my sword,” Michiko gasped. “It is good now. Leave now,” she said, as she wobbled in place and then fell sideways into the gravely dirt next to the river.
He shook his head, walked down the stairs, picked up her katana and went to her.
The door behind him began to slowly close.
“Tomodachi, you are risking everything . . .”
“For a friend,” he said, as he scooped her up in his arms.
He was old and weak and frail, but he had to do this, no matter what.
He turned and half ran, half stumbled with exhaustion up the stairs. With just enough of a gap remaining, he tilted her at an angle and squeezed them both through the doorway before it closed completely.
They were through and free, at last.
Hector stood and looked at his cell door, melted now to the frame, his frustration only mounting as he heard all the other doors of the cells around him open up in a cascading melody of metal on metal, from right to left, top floor to bottom floor.
His door tried to open, but it was hopeless. The electrical current sent to it to disengage the locking mechanism sputtered and the gears inside the door groaned with protest. He was trapped.
He ran to the bars and began screaming for help but all the other prisoners on his level funneled by, some with shrugs, others with smiles on their faces.
“Sucks to be you,” one of them said with a chuckle, causing a bunch of them to laugh out loud. “I’ll eat your dinner for you, homie. Thanks for the seconds!” someone else shouted out with a chortle. But then, Hector noticed a few of them look over with hateful grins, their eyes nothing but black orbs. One guy, with thick eyebrows and a narrow chin, slowly drew his finger across his throat and turned away.
“You got lucky, anyway, man,” the other one said. Heavy-set, he held out his pudgy hands. “Power’s out in the other block so they’re mixing up the chow line with guys from that side.”
Hector was staring at him intently, noticing the black orbs in his eyes as well. The man stepped to the bars and added with a smile full of gold teeth, “You know. Guys like Flacco. You know Flacco, right?”
Then he laughed, causing his belly to bounce as he disappeared down the stairs to the first floor.
What do I do now? Hector thought, leaning his head against the bars. This was it. This was the moment that had been manufactured by Güero’s people to give Curtis the chance to take out Flacco. “Power outage, my ass,” Hector seethed.
He looked around, trying to buy time, then told himself to think. He couldn’t feel The Gray Man anywhere nearby, but he had to try. “You there?” he asked.
Silence.
Down below, the chatter of all the inmates coming together at the cafeteria door grew. His cell was on the second floor, so he could only see the far corner of the bottom level. The door at the far end opened and in came a stream of prisoners from the other block. Looking intently, Hector could see none of them was Flacco, and he was just beginning to hope against hope that something had gotten screwed up, when in Flacco came, fifth from last in line, his hands in his pockets as he exchanged a few informal “hello”s with some of the other inmates.
Stepping back from the bars, Hector took a deep breath. He knew that the blue was his only way out now. He called a few orbs to his hands and grabbed the bars, intent on summoning enough power to blow the door off its hinges, but after half a minute it was obvious that he needed way more power than he’d learned how to master yet to pull his idea off. Instead, he noticed that, beneath his grip, the blue melted straight through the metal, leaving two hand-sized holes in the bars.
The guards below were shouting at everyone to get in order. Three lines, instead of the usual two. Curtis was down there somewhere, he was sure of it, slowly working his way towards Flacco. He’d have his own shiv, ready to strike.
And then? Then it’d be too late.
Hector looked at the bars and blinked. Of course.
Dropping to his knees, he called two more orbs and repeated the process, four feet further down on the same two bars he’d already melted. This caused two four-foot sections of bar to fall with clangs to the floor on the catwalk outside his cell. The hole was still too narrow, so he repeated the process on the two bars on either side of the existing hole. Four more orbs later, and he had a hole that was big enough to crawl through.
Once out on the catwalk, he ran at full speed down to the stairs, taking them in twos and fours.
But his path was blocked. Two guards were on the way up to his level, no doubt alerted by the jail’s security system that his cell door had malfunctioned. When they saw him coming, they looked surprised.
“Hey!” one of them, stout, with a blond crew cut, yelled.
A few inmates looked over, but Hector couldn’t have cared less. He saw Flacco, just past them, still near the end of his line of prisoners. Scanning the rest of the crowd below, Hector saw Curtis just as he jumped out of the front of his line, a row over, and began weaving his way up Flacco’s line. Smooth and swift, like a shark, he was coming. Some of the other prisoners, no doubt recruited by Curtis in advance to facilitate the attack, began to move out of the way or nudge other prisoners off to the side.
Hector began running down the stairs again, straight towards the guards, which did not make them happy. They each pulled out their batons. “Stop!” the other guard, short and muscular, yelled.
A few more prisoners saw Hector coming but Curtis didn’t. When Hector saw him again, he had the look of a man with fixed, almost blinding attention on the task at hand. It made sense. Flacco was a very dangerous target and Curtis would know that he’d only get one chance before he’d have the fight of his life on his hands.
The guards flew up the stairs towards Hector, one of them actually getting close enough to swing at him, barely missing, before Hector leaped up and over the railing. The drop to the ground wasn’t that far and he took it easily, landing smoothly into a roll, like a kid on the playground, before he got to his feet again and charged towards Curtis, who had now closed the gap between him and Flacco with incredible efficiency.
Hector was close to the lines but not close enough. He wasn’t going to make it in time. In desperation, he was about to yell out to Flacco to run or get away, but then Hector realized that would only help Curtis by distracting his target even more.
So instead, with complete disbelief that he was doing it, Hector called out to Curtis.
“Curtis! Don’t do it!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
And this time, everyone heard. The guards behind Hector were closing in. All the other prisoners stopped talking and turned to look at him as he came running across the lobby towards the cafeteria. Seeing the commotion, the guards near the entrance fanned out as one of them blew their whistle to sound the alarm.
But Hector only saw one person. One face.
Curtis was looking at Hector with burning betrayal in his eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was a twenty-minute walk in, measured and slow, to the “one mile out” mark. Because there was little or no cover, it was mostly done at a crouch. When they reached it, Juan settled down onto the ground with his backpack and combed the area with his binoculars. He needn’t have done it on their behalf. Parker and Melon had both gone down on one knee and were doing the same with their own binoculars.
Things were
mostly how Jim had described them earlier. A dirt road led to a wooden fence made of decrepit wooden posts. There was a gate to the property that was open, and beyond the gate was an old, abandoned house. Beyond the house, further inside the property, there was an adobe house with a wooden roof, and beyond the house there was a small barn, the doors slightly open but unguarded. A white Range Rover was pulled in to the left of the house and a black Escalade was backed in next to the barn.
What was different was concerning, though. There were two large delivery trucks to the right of the property, one behind the other. Jim had mentioned eight men, including Güero Martinez. Three of them were supposed to be sentries, but there was actually five of them now: one isolated at the entrance to the property, two at the front door of the house and two standing next to the backs of the delivery trucks.
“What do you make of those trucks?” Juan asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Parker said.
“Odd.”
“Yeah. You could say that. But between them, the barn and the Escalade, if we come in from the east, we’d have a ton of cover.”
“Getting there is going to be the problem,” Melon said.
“Spider crawl,” Parker said flatly. “Probably for a half mile or so east, then north before coming in from that side on a westward path.”
“Bellies the last half of the way,” Melon replied.
Parker did the math in his head as he imagined Melon doing the same in his. They looked at each at the same time and said, “Two hours.”
“What?” Juan said incredulously. “Two hours?”
“Minimum,” Melon answered. “That guy at the front of the property is both a good and a bad thing. Good, because he’ll be the easiest to take out.”
“Yep. He’s separate from all his buddies,” Parker said.
“But he’s also the most bored and least distracted, and therefore the most likely to notice movement as we’re coming in.”
“We a go?” Melon asked.
“We’re a go,” Parker replied.
So that no errant ray of sun could glint off the barrels if they were strapped to their backs, they instead strapped their M-4s to the front of their torsos.
The Parker Trilogy Page 83