"I'm sorry, Coop. Life doesn't always go the way you think it should."
"And that's exactly what Damon wanted me to learn," I said.
"Damon? Is that old spirit still bothering you?"
"He said I was naive. Looks like he was right."
"So, what does that mean?" Gramps asked.
"It means I'm going to take care of number one, just like my gramps taught me."
I turned and walked away. Gramps stood and followed. "Cooper! What are you going to do?"
"What I think is right, and the hell with everybody else!"
"Coop!" he shouted. "Don't leave. Let's talk and—"
I didn't hear the end of his sentence. I had already left his vision and arrived in the Light. I wanted to see if Marsh was okay. I hoped to find him sleeping at the lake house, safe and sound.
He wasn't.
I found myself in the backseat of a sheriff's cruiser, flying along a dark country road. It was night. We were moving fast. Behind the wheel was a guy I recognized. Sheriff Vrtiak. Sitting next to me in the backseat was Marsh. Separating the front seat from the back was a cage.
Got it. Sort of. What the hell was going on? Was Marsh under arrest?
"Ralph, can you hear me?" I asked.
Marsh didn't react. At least he didn't react to me. He was reacting plenty to the situation. He looked scared.
Sheriff Vrtiak spun the wheel hard and made a fishtailing turn off the road onto another. He gunned the engine and charged into the night.
"Where are you going?" Marsh asked Vrtiak nervously.
"He warned you, didn't he?" the sheriff said. "But you just kept looking. Kept poking around."
This wasn't right. The guy in front looked like Vrtiak but sure didn't sound like him.
"Sheriff, stop the car," Marsh said.
Vrtiak yanked off his sunglasses and threw them onto the seat. The guy was crying, and I soon found out why. Appearing in the passenger seat next to him was a spectral hound. It was huge, with its head nearly touching the ceiling. Rotted fur and flesh hung from a skeletal head. Its tongue hung from its mouth covered with spots of putrid flesh. Dark juices dripped from the blackened tongue as it leaned toward Vrtiak . . . and spoke.
"Faster," it growled.
"I don't want to do this," Vrtiak whimpered as he cowered from the horror.
"Do what?" Marsh screamed. "Sheriff, slow down!" Marsh couldn't see the dog. He had no idea that Vrtiak was being haunted and manipulated.
The sheriff sped up and took a curve way too fast. The car skidded and nearly flew off the road. But Vrtiak somehow kept control and got back onto the pavement.
There could be only one explanation.
"Damon!" I shouted. "Stop the car!"
The grotesque hound whipped a look at me, stared me down with hollow eyes . . . and smiled.
"Do what he says, all right?" the sheriff said to Marsh, pleading. "If you don't, he'll just keep coming. And the more people who know, the more will be in danger."
"Sheriff!" I screamed. "It's okay. You can stop. This isn't real. It's an illusion."
Vrtiak couldn't hear me either. I had no power over the situation. I could only go along for the insane ride.
I yelled at the dog, "You think this is going to get me to help you? You hurt my friend and I swear you'll wish you never met me."
In response the gruesome dog lifted its muzzle and let out a hellish howl.
Vrtiak whimpered. All I'd done was scare the guy behind the wheel even more, and he had Marsh's life in his hands. The car veered into the opposite lane as headlights appeared in front of us. Vrtiak jerked the car back into our lane.
"Who told you that, Sheriff?" Marsh asked. "Who is he?"
"Give him what he wants," the sheriff whined. "Let him take the road wherever he wants to."
The car was getting closer. I wanted to jump through the bars and grab the wheel but I knew it would be useless. "What road?" Marsh asked.
"You know," Vrtiak said.
The dog lunged at Vrtiak, snapping his jaws. Vrtiak's response was to steer into the opposite lane—directly in front of the oncoming car. The car blew its horn and Vrtiak snapped us back into the right lane.
"What road?" Marsh demanded.
I knew.
At the same time Vrtiak reached up to the rearview mirror and turned it so Marsh could see his reflection.
Vrtiak had changed. Instead of the face of the frightened sheriff, he had transformed into the ghostly character from Marsh's graphic novel: Gravedigger. Marsh pressed himself back into the seat. This was an illusion he could see. Damon knew exactly how to get into my friend's head.
"The Morpheus Road," Gravedigger said in a low, guttural growl.
Vrtiak, or whatever he was, jerked the wheel and sent us flying directly into the path of the oncoming car. A horn blared but the car kept coming. Vrtiak used both hands to spin the wheel to the right and made a sharp turn away from the oncoming car. The headlights flashed past, missing us by a hair. But we weren't out of danger. Vrtiak had turned so violently that we careened off the road and charged into the woods.
I leaned into Marsh and for whatever good it would do I screamed, "Get down!"
I can't say for sure that he heard me, but he covered his head just as Vrtiak hit the brakes and sent him crashing into the grill between the front and back seats.
Vrtiak screamed as the car flew out of control, bumping over rocks and slashing through bushes. He maintained control long enough to avoid a few trees, but we weren't slowing down. It was then that the hound reappeared in the front seat, but not to intimidate Vrtiak. The dog was looking straight at me.
"You see?" the dog growled. "Bad things happen."
The dog howled again, or was it a laugh? A second later it vanished. I felt a rude bump as if the front left tire had hit something that launched us into the air. The car flipped up onto its side, skidded for a few more yards, and then slammed into something with a jolt before coming to a stop . . . on its side.
I had been thrown out of the car and landed a few yards away, disoriented but generally fine. It's good to be a ghost. I ran back to the wreck to check on Marsh. I was already planning on how I would go to the Thistledown Fire Department and somehow convince somebody to send an ambulance. But first I had to see if Marsh was okay.
I moved through the door of the car and saw that he was dazed but moving.
"Stay put, Ralph!" I shouted. "You might have hurt something."
Yeah. Waste of breath. He seemed okay, though, because he sat up and looked around to get his bearings. The sheriff wasn't so lucky. He was jammed behind the wheel with his eyes open but he wasn't focused and he mumbled something that I could barely hear.
"Are . . . are you okay?" Marsh asked him.
Vrtiak moved his head slightly toward Marsh's voice. He might have been physically okay, but his brain had snapped. "Sheriff?" Marsh repeated.
"Won't stop," Vrtiak mumbled. "Won't. So many people. So many lives."
"I'll get help," Marsh said.
All I could do was watch as Marsh struggled to stand on the door that was now the floor. He pushed up on the opposite door that was now the ceiling, but didn't have enough leverage to open it. He had to wedge his feet into the cage, lift himself up, and use both hands to twist the handle and push the door up and open. He was out.
"Can you move?" he called down to Vrtiak.
The sheriff answered by drooling.
Marshall dug his cell phone from his pants pocket to make a call, but it was no use. The phone was dead.
"I'll go into town and send help," Marsh told the sheriff. "Don't move, all right?"
Marsh threw his legs over the side of the car and jumped down to the ground. He was a little wobbly, but okay. After a quick look around to survey the accident scene, he took off running back through the woods toward the road. I was about to follow him when I heard a growl come from behind me.
Turning quickly, I saw the ghoulish dog on all fours, hunche
d down, ready to spring.
"You really think that's going to scare me?" I said.
The shape of the dog transformed and grew until it locked into another image.
Damon's.
"You can end this," he said casually. "Destroy the third crucible."
"And then what?" I asked.
"Then I leave your friend alone."
"Don't you need him to find the poleax?"
Damon gave me a sly smile. "Perhaps not. Once I control the Rift, there are others who can locate my weapon."
"You mean your soldiers that are trapped in the Black," I said. "You'd send them through the Rift into the Light."
"Along with you, my friend. Remember that."
"Me? Why me?"
"That was our agreement," he said innocently. "You still want your life back, do you not?"
Of course I did, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of saying so.
"So, what happens once you get the poleax?" I asked.
"Break the crucible," Damon said, ignoring the question. "Until then I will continue to haunt your friend. I must admit, I am enjoying this game."
"Leave him alone!"
"Excuse me," he said. "I have a phone call to make. Give my regards to your grandfather."
And he disappeared.
"Damon!" I shouted, but he was gone.
I was left alone in the desolate field with a wrecked car and an insane sheriff. Damon was going after Marsh and there was nothing I could do to stop him, except break the crucible.
"What happened?" came a friendly voice. Maggie rounded the wreck to join me.
"Marsh is lucky to be alive," I answered. "This isn't fair. He didn't do anything wrong."
Maggie gave me a sad smile and said, "Yes, well, who said life was fair?"
If anybody had the right to feel that way, it was Maggie. She may have been coming from another place, but it was the same attitude my grandfather had. Life wasn't fair. Bad things happened and maybe there wasn't always a perfect solution. All you could do was what seemed right . . . and I knew what that was.
"I'm worried about you, Cooper," Maggie said.
"Don't be," I said. "Go back to your vision."
"What are you going to do?"
"The only thing I can do." The swirling colors appeared behind me, ready to take me away from the Light and back to the Black. "I'm going to take control."
From the moment I got slammed by that speedboat on Thistledown Lake until Marsh got flipped in the sheriff's car, I'd pretty much been a bystander. Everybody had their own plans and secrets and goals and all I could do was play catch-up and try to understand it all. That had to change. I had to stop worrying about what everybody else might do and start getting people to wonder what I might do. That's what I always did in life. Somehow I'd lost sight of that in the Black. I always found my way out of Trouble Town. It might have taken a little longer to figure things out this time, but I finally knew what I had to do.
"What does that mean?" Maggie asked.
"It means I'm going after the third crucible."
24
Ree and her Guardians wanted to protect the crucible. Damon wanted it smashed. If I could snatch it, I would have power over both sides and could start calling the shots myself. I liked that idea. All I had to do was figure out how to get my hands on it.
Yeah. That.
I left the Light and went directly to Ree's vision. My hope was that if I got into trouble with the Guardians, my friendship with Ree would prevent me from getting vaporized on the spot. A couple of seconds might mean the difference between success and oblivion. The one person I needed to avoid was Ree herself. She always knew when I was up to no good.
I landed in her vision in the exact same spot where I left it the time before. I was a few blocks away from Grand Central Terminal, on the edge of the vision that separated the Rift from the rest of the Black. As I stepped out of the wall of color, I saw a Watcher standing on the far street corner.
"Hey!" I called out. "If things start hitting the fan, remember, I'm one of the good guys."
His answer was to disappear. Tool.
I moved quickly across the wide avenues, headed toward the train station. It was eerie to walk through a deserted New York City. It was like being in a sci-fi movie about some deadly outbreak that wiped out humanity. Only this was no movie.
After crossing Lexington Avenue I had to make a decision. How would I enter the train station? When I arrived with Ree, we came up from the subway and there were guards everywhere. I needed to figure out a way to get inside without running across any of those killer clowns. I was prepared to fight, so long as they didn't have black swords. The best thing to do was avoid them for as long as possible. My plan was to go inside and quickly drop down to the lower level. I'd been there before on different trips from Stony Brook. There was a vast space directly below the main concourse that was loaded with restaurants and shops. My thinking was that I could conceal myself down there as I made my way to the stairs that led up to the main floor, and the information booth. It was as good a plan as any so I slipped through the outside door and immediately ran down the stairs.
I hit the lower level without running into any Guardians. Quickly and quietly I made my way along the long corridor that led to the shops. Normally the place was alive with sounds but it was so quiet that every time my foot hit the floor it sounded like an elephant was tromping through. You'd think a ghost would be a little quieter.
When I reached the lower concourse, I was shocked to see that none of the restaurants and shops were there. It was a huge, empty space with only a few old benches. I realized that the shops probably didn't exist back in the seventies. That was bad news because the counters and booths would have given me plenty of cover as I made my way to the stairs. Now I was going to be totally exposed. There was nothing I could do but keep going.
I moved with my back to the wall, trying to be as quiet as possible. It would only be a matter of time before I came upon a Guardian, and I wanted to get as close as possible before jumping him. I was tuned for every sound. I didn't hear anything unusual but didn't believe for a second that the upper concourse, and the crucible, were unguarded. It wasn't a question of whether there would be a fight, but when.
I made it to the bottom of the staircase that led to the upper level of the terminal without a problem. There wasn't a Guardian in sight, which seemed odd. Had something changed? Did they move the crucible? That didn't make sense because Ree's vision was as much about the Rift as it was about the crucible and I didn't think there was any way to move that. I hoped that maybe I'd arrived at the exact right time and they were changing shifts. That would have been a huge stroke of luck.
All I had to do was climb the stairs and I'd be within sight of the crucible. My plan wasn't clever. I was going to sprint across the floor, climb up on top of the information booth, grab the golden ball, and sprint out the far side of the terminal and keep going until I hit the edge of Ree's vision. Your basic snatch and grab. Up until then nobody knew I was there. No alarms had sounded. I'd managed to maintain my biggest advantage—surprise.
I cautiously began climbing to the main floor. There were about thirty stairs, then a landing where I would turn 180 degrees to the bottom of a second flight that would bring me up to the giant hall. Hugging the wall, I made it to the landing and was about to make the turn to the final flight, when I heard something. It was a clicking sound, like something tapping against a hard surface. Multiple things. Whatever it was, there were a lot of them. There was a faint clattering that sounded as if it were coming from the top of the stairs above me. It didn't sound human. My hope was that it was rats, but it didn't seem likely that Ree would have rats in her vision.
The tapping sound stopped. The rats, or whatever they were, had left. I took a relieved breath, turned the corner, and peered up the final staircase to see that the rats hadn't left. They had just arrived. And they weren't rats. The sound I'd heard was the clattering of cl
aws on the floor. Big claws. Standing at the top of the stairs were three of the biggest Rottweiler dogs I'd ever seen. Their ears were up . . . on alert . . . for me. It was a standoff. A frozen moment. They were on top of the stairs looking down. I was at the bottom looking up. My hope was that they were friendly pets.
"Hello, boys," I called out.
They weren't pets. Or friendly. Their response was to charge down the steps, snarling and barking. My hope for surprise was gone, but that was the least of my worries. I turned and ran back down the stairs, taking them three at a time. Spirit or no spirit, getting ripped apart would hurt. I hit the bottom of the stairs and kept running with no idea of where to go. I sprinted across the empty space, scanning for an escape route or a place to use for protection. The doors that led to the lower train tracks were all closed tight. Every other passageway seemed too wide open to offer protection. All I could do was run, though I wouldn't be able to keep ahead of the dogs for long.
I was halfway across when the dogs hit the bottom of the stairs. The floor was hard and smooth, which made it difficult for them to get traction. That slowed them down, but not by much. They howled a warning as if to let me know it was only a matter of time before I'd be lunch. All I could do was keep running until I hit the stairway on the far side of the lower concourse and climb back up to the main floor. The doors to the outside were up there. With luck I'd make it to one. Lots of luck.
I practically flew up the stairs, motivated by the sound of gnashing teeth and sharp claws. I hit the landing and made the turn up to the final flight. All I wanted to do was escape with my limbs intact and hide out somewhere until I figured out a better way to steal the crucible.
When I reached the top of the stairs, and the main concourse, my eyes locked on the brass clock shell that held the prize. My goal was no more than twenty yards away.
Trouble was, there was a pack of wild dogs at my heels . . . . . . and standing between me and the crucible was a Guardian.
It was Adeipho's daughter. She stood halfway to the information booth with her hands on her hips. She didn't have on her clown mask and had taken off her suit jacket and tie. Her white sleeves were rolled up and her long dark hair was tied back. If she was surprised to see me, she didn't show it.
The Black Page 26