Mason figured this rain would be good ambience too. In other words, Rowland had just turned all of Terminal City into a necromantic playground. As to why he had done that, Mason hadn’t a clue, but he knew it couldn’t be good news. At least, not for anyone whose name didn’t start with R and end with owland.
Well, shit.
Mason returned his attention to Asha.
She finally tore her gaze from the window and looked toward him. “What could possibly make the rain red like that?” She was breathing heavily and hugging her naked body.
Mason consoled her with a hug of his own but didn’t offer any answers, even though he had one. “I don’t know,” he lied.
“Stay here tonight,” she said.
Right then, he wanted nothing more in this world than to say yes— and right then, it struck him that he couldn’t. He had to go. But it wasn’t because of the promise he’d made to the Spirit Realm. Indeed, he still wasn’t sure he wanted to kill Rowland, although he was sure he’d have about a snowball’s chance in hell if he tried. Rather, he felt responsible because he knew of no one else in Terminal City who could reason with Rowland. Not that he had ever won any of their arguments, mind you, but at least Rowland would give him a chance to speak, which was more than most could say. They had a connection, weird as it was, to death and to each other.
Thus, he had to try. He had to go find Rowland and attempt to stop him from… shit, he didn’t even know, but it couldn’t be good. He knew it was the right thing to do— his body told him as much. The wretched, right thing to do.
The worst part was leaving Asha behind. “I’m sorry.” Mason kissed her one last time. “I want to stay. Believe me. You have no idea. But there’s something I need to go take care of.”
She didn’t look pleased. “You’re leaving?”
He began gathering his clothes— his pants and socks from the floor, his shirt from the bed. “I’m sorry.” He meant it. “I wish I could stay.”
“You’re leaving right now?” She grabbed her housecoat from the closet and wrapped herself in it, no longer wanting to be naked in front of him. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry.” Mason slid on his right pant leg.
“Stop fucking saying you’re sorry.” Asha was equal parts mad and scared. “What is it you have to go do? What’s so goddamn important?”
“I wish I could tell you.” Mason figured that was probably the last thing she wanted to hear. If only he were a good liar, he might have been able to handle this better.
Asha shook her head. “Whatever.”
“I’ll make this up to you,” he told her. “I swear.”
“How do you know it’s even safe to go outside?” she asked. “How do you know that red shit won’t burn your face off or something?”
“I’ll be fine,” said Mason. But she did have a good point; hopefully, he wasn’t wrong about the nature of the rain.
“You’re acting like you know what’s going on out there.” She nodded toward the window.
He didn’t tell her otherwise.
“I want to know, Mason,” she said. “Whatever it is, if you know something about all this, tell me. Stop being so cryptic or protective or whatever. I deserve to know.”
She wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean telling her the truth was the right thing to do. For a moment, he entertained the idea, mentally tracing the consequences from point A to Z. If he told her he was a necromancer, he’d have to prove it. Once he did that, she’d want to see more. She’d want to know more. Eventually, she’d want to try it herself too— because who could resist? And once she became like him, a necromancer in her own right, she would face the same dangers he did. And that, Mason couldn’t allow. He pictured Mr. Huxley cornering her, shooting her— the gasoline. He’d sooner die, again, than let that happen.
And so he said, “I have to leave now,” and left it at that.
“Then leave.” She stayed a cool distance from him.
“I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
“Whatever.”
“I’m sorry.”
Asha shook her head and crossed her arms.
Mason stepped through the front door without saying goodbye, closing it shut behind him. He lingered until he heard the lock click from the other side and then ambled down the dim hallway toward the elevator.
Why now? Why did this have to happen tonight of all nights? Rowland, you son of a bitch.
Mason could certainly feel the coldness now.
Chapter 23
Mr. Huxley was nursing a wound back in his motel. It was a modest room with two beds— but now only a single inquisitor. He didn’t want to be here, but a rather serious gash over his left eye didn’t leave him with much choice. Every inquisitor kept a first-aid kit (hospitals were always a last resort), though he’d never needed to use his before, save for a bandage or two. But a flurry of shattered glass had rained over Mr. Huxley’s face in the accident on the bridge, slicing open his forehead.
The biggest cut was only half an inch, but what it lacked in size, the gash made up for in blood. Mr. Huxley had covered the wound with a torn piece of his shirt on the way here — and gotten into an argument with his cab driver, who insisted he go to the hospital — but now he needed a more permanent solution.
With his head bent over the bathroom sink, Mr. Huxley washed his cut with tap water and disinfectant. Then came the hard part. He’d learned how to stitch years ago as part of inquisitor training, but this was something else. This was backward stitching through a mirror— on himself. To make matters worse, his hand was trembling.
Breathe. Damn it, you can do this. You have to do this.
He was used to pain— that wasn’t the problem. God knew he’d handled worse. Rather, it was the needle itself and the suture that followed. He’d never liked them, needles that is, though these were more like hooks. And it didn’t matter that he’d seen, and done, a lot of shit in the last decade. He simply hated the feeling of cold metal slipping so easily through his flesh, into his body.
The first suture was the hardest. Mr. Huxley started from the bottom, but he wasn’t good enough with tweezers to thread the needle through his skin. He made it bleed more. Son of a bitch. He tossed the tweezers into the sink and used his right hand instead, pinching the wound shut with his left. This time, he got the needle in. Mr. Huxley yanked it up through the other side of the gash. He knotted the suture string twice before cutting the excess.
One more should do the trick, or at least be good enough. Mr. Huxley got the second one through quicker, but it didn’t hurt any less. Afterward, he cleaned his forehead and slapped on a bandage. Of course, he still looked like shit. That kid had done a good number on him in the woods.
Mr. Huxley collapsed onto the toilet seat, exhaling relief. At least that was over. But now what?
That simple question had plagued him since Mr. Underwood’s untimely death. Indeed, it permeated every aspect of his life, every time frame that laid in wait. He didn’t know what he ought to do with the next minute, the next hour, the next day, week, month, year, decade. It wasn’t that he despised necromancers any less — on the contrary, there was one in particular he hated even more — but now he felt aimless. There was no getting around the fact that he couldn’t kill Rowland even if he tried. And though he verged on being suicidal, held back by the sinful nature of the act, Mr. Huxley didn’t want to give Rowland the satisfaction of killing yet another inquisitor.
Hence, here he was, without even the inkling of a game plan, and he’d always been such a methodical man. So much so that, absent of direction, he no longer knew who he was. Certainly, he was no longer a father or a husband. Now, with his partner gone, he wasn’t even a friend. More than ever before, he was a man empty of everything but his cause. And with that, there was only one question left to ask — what next? — and he hadn’t the slight
est clue.
Mr. Huxley sat up absentmindedly and wandered out of the bathroom. He strolled past his bed, past a pile of dishevelled clothes strewn across the floor, past his pistol on the nightstand, resting atop his King James Bible. He stopped in front of the window at the end of the room. It was dark, but he could hear rain drumming on the pavement outside. He rested his palms on the windowsill and stared into the night.
It took him a second to register what he saw then, but the moment it clicked, he knew where to lay the blame. Only a necromancer could turn rain into blood, only someone possessed by demons.
Did that mean Rowland had finally found him? Instinctively, Mr. Huxley bolted across the room for his gun— a fat lot of good it would do him. And yet, in the face of danger, he felt naked without it. Much like his silver matchbox, tucked away in his blazer pocket— where it always was. Mr. Huxley clicked off the safety on his pistol and double-checked that the door to his motel room was locked. It was. Then he waited silently for anything to happen, but nothing did. Perhaps he was safe, at least for the time being.
But that would mean the rain really was red, not just outside his window but throughout the city. Mr. Huxley grabbed the remote control from the nightstand and clicked on the television, an old, black tube TV. He flipped to the news and, lo and behold, Terminal City was awash in crimson.
Footage was shown of downtown, abandoned by all but a few cars speeding to get home, splashing through bloody puddles. “As you can see, most people have already taken shelter.” The news anchor, a middle-aged woman, came back on screen. “Once again, we strongly recommend everyone stay indoors. We still don’t know why the rain has turned red in color, nor if it’s dangerous. What we can say is that it has certainly been a strange news day. And a tragic one. With me now is meteorologist Harold Buchanan to talk about this remarkable weather. Thanks for joining us, Dr. Buchanan.”
“My pleasure.”
“So, my first question for you, the one on everyone’s mind: why is the rain… red?”
“The truth is we don’t know yet. Having said that, it hasn’t even been an hour. It can take days or weeks or even months of research to uncover the reasons behind phenomena such as this.”
“Of course,” said the anchor, “but can you think of any potential ones? Has something like this ever happened before?”
“Well, sort of.” Dr. Buchanan hesitated. “Red rain, or blood rain as it’s often called, is a known phenomenon, although a rare one. Usually, it occurs when wind whips up fine grains of sand from deserts like the Sahara. These small grains get suspended in the clouds. Up there, they can travel great distances. Once it finally rains, the sand comes down too, making the rain appear reddish in color.”
“Do you think that’s what’s happening right now?” The anchor leaned forward. “Is this just sand?”
“I’m not so sure,” replied Dr. Buchanan. “I don’t know of a single recorded case of blood rain occurring in the Pacific Northwest. And this red, the shade of it, is a bit… different. Blood rain is generally more of a reddish brown. What we’re seeing tonight in Terminal City looks more crimson— more like actual blood.
“There was an instance of red rain in southern India where the culprit was local airborne spores,” he added. “In other words, there can be multiple explanations for phenomena like this. We won’t know why it happened tonight, in the way that it did, until we study it, and that will take some time.”
“I see. Well, we here at TCN have been advising people to stay indoors,” said the anchor. “Do you think the rain could be dangerous?”
Dr. Buchanan shrugged. “That seems unlikely, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, I suppose.”
Mr. Huxley flipped off the TV, dropping the remote onto the bed beside him. He’d heard enough. They didn’t know what they were talking about. They didn’t know about necromancers. They didn’t know Rowland. Then again, he had never seen anything like this either. Necromancers were supposed to be secretive. But just today, Rowland had caused a bridge to explode and now this— and why this? Something was going on, he wagered. Something big.
And then there was that kid, whose real name still eluded him. Mr. Huxley had killed him. He’d checked his pulse as he always did (he was a professional, after all), and there was no doubt about it: he had exited this world, just like the rest of them. Only now he was back, and that had never happened before, unless Mr. Huxley was seeing things…. No. He was stressed, sure, on edge, but he still had his wits about him, and that was definitely the necromancer he’d killed that he saw sitting in Rowland’s car. He never forgot the faces of people he’d executed, especially the young ones.
Mr. Huxley lit a cigarette and began pacing around the room.
That kid, he was… important somehow, sent back by the devil for ungodly purposes. There was a connection, Mr. Huxley was sure of it now, between Rowland coming back, the blood rain, which he could still hear pattering outside, and that young necromancer’s apparent resurrection. All in Terminal City, no less. Satan was at work here. Come to think of it, this might just be the beginning of the end.
Well, Mr. Huxley sure as hell wasn’t going to sit by idly. He was a warrior for God, a man of duty. If he couldn’t kill Rowland, then he would just have to find another way to help out, another necromancer to kill. Like the one he’d already killed once before. Only a man beholden to the devil could come back to life— save Jesus, of course, who Mr. Huxley was quite sure was no necromancer (he didn’t stop to think about it).
With his wound now stitched, Mr. Huxley was ready to go. He picked up his blazer from the bed and dusted it off with a couple hard slaps. Religiously, he checked to see that his steadfast silver matchbox was where it should be, resting in the inner pocket, and then slid on his jacket and grabbed his gun from the nightstand. He made sure the magazine was full and then headed for the door. He didn’t bother locking it behind him, and Mr. Huxley, well, he was a man who locked things, checked them twice even— but right now, he wasn’t himself.
Unsurprisingly, no one was outside when he reached the parking lot. That was probably for the best. He needed to steal a car, a sinful but necessary deed. Carwin University wasn’t exactly walking distance from here, and he had a young necromancer to stop. And this time, he wouldn’t leave a body for him to come back to. This time, that kid would burn.
Mr. Huxley stepped out from under the cover of the veranda, carelessly into the rain. And that’s all it was, rain. The red was a necromancer’s illusion— he’d seen them before, though nothing like this. But he wouldn’t let it scare him. God was on his side. He didn’t fear death.
Mr. Huxley reached out with both hands and cupped his fingers together until a red pool formed between his palms. Then he carried the water to his mouth and took a swig.
Chapter 24
Dear Grand Inquisitor,
It would appear that Mr. Uilliam Collins, the Irish-born necromancer we executed a fortnight ago with your blessing, was not without a protégé. There is no doubt that he too is possessed by the same demons that had overtaken Mr. Collins. The young man, foregoing any family name, calls himself only Rowland and looks to be in his early twenties. Last night, he took the life of one of our fellow inquisitors in a quest for vengeance. The victim was a recent recruit, Mr. Sharpe. There were two witnesses to the deed: Mr. Smith and Mr. Elliott. Both tell the same tale. They say Rowland wandered into our camp sometime after midnight, asking for directions. As Mr. Sharpe offered his help, turning his gaze from the young necromancer, Rowland struck him down with a demonic spell. Mr. Elliott managed to shoot Rowland before he was able to harm anyone else, but the wound was not fatal. For now, we have imprisoned and gagged Rowland to prevent him from casting any more spells. With your permission, however, we would like to carry out his execution.
Mr. Adams
3rd of May, 1698
* * *
Rowland se
ldom thought of his father, a man he’d hardly known. Rowland wasn’t a bastard, but he often felt like one; his parents had been married, but his dad was the other sort of bastard. He had abandoned him and his mother when Rowland was only five, never to return, not once. And that’s all Rowland knew of him. In his mind, his father was little more than a blurry silhouette, towering over his five-year-old self. Little more than a blurry bastard who abandoned his wife and child.
Rowland had a surname once, his father’s, which his mother kept because he was still her husband, even after all those years, and because she believed, perhaps out of desperation, that he would come back one day. She believed it up until the day she died. Rowland remembered that better than he remembered his father.
And that was just fine with him. Rowland didn’t want to remember his dad, and he sure as hell didn’t want to carry on his legacy. The day after his mom died, he forever disregarded his family name. From then on, he was just Rowland. Whenever anyone would ask him about it, he’d say it wasn’t their business. It didn’t leave folks with a favorable impression of him, but then Rowland was never going to be likable— no matter how you sliced him.
He’d nearly been sliced a few different ways only hours ago. In his heart of hearts, Rowland knew he could have died. In those brief but intense moments, as the fire and rubble was bearing down on him, he had feared for his life. But his barrier held, with no small amount of effort on his part, and he lived, unscathed too, save for a small scratch on his cheek. Nonetheless, the narrative in his mind was already course-correcting, telling him his continued existence was, as it had always been, inevitable. You can’t kill a god with fire and concrete.
He’d since emerged from the water, drenched but unseen, and had reached a conclusion. He had decided that tonight he would end this war. He knew the inquisitors would be here now. He had given them enough time. And soon their time would be up.
But first, he’d need to get ready and find a way to draw their attention. Clever as he was, Rowland had mustered up a plan that killed two birds — and a whole lot of inquisitors — with one stone: the red rain.
Terminal City: Book One in the Terminal City Saga Page 19