A Gathering of Crows (29 page)

“You shouldn’t tell the boy that old stick is magic.”

“Why not? It makes him feel better—safer. Where’s the harm in that?”

Greg shrugged. “I guess.”

“And besides,” Axel continued, “how do you know it’s not magic?”

Greg shook his head. “Crazy old man.”

“I’m not the one who thinks the NOW controls the world.”

“It’s NWO, not NOW. How many times do I have to tell you people that before you’ll listen?”

Paul and Gus crossed to the windows and peeked outside.

“See anything?” Greg asked.

“Nothing,” Paul said. “Even the bodies are gone now. It’s like nothing happened.”

“Well, that’s the worst part, isn’t it?” Gus turned away from the window. “Not really knowing what’s happening? I mean, if this was a tornado or a blizzard or a flood, we’d know what to do. We’d know how to protect ourselves. But after everything that’s happened tonight, we still don’t have the faintest fucking clue what we’re dealing with here.”

Greg walked to the front room. The others followed him. When he began unlocking the front door, his brother stopped him.

“You sure about this?”

“Sure I’m sure,” Greg replied. “You and Paul looked through the windows and didn’t see anything, and it’s quiet now. I reckon that whatever happened, the worst is over now.”

The locks clicked open. Greg turned the doorknob and opened the door—

—and something tall and black and foul-smelling grabbed his face and yanked him outside. Smothered, Greg was unable to scream.

The others did it for him.

***

“So,” Donny asked as they walked along, “if you’re not Amish anymore, then what’s up with the clothes and the beard and the hat? Couldn’t you dress a little more . . . I don’t know, modern? Stylish?”

Levi sighed and tried to conceal his annoyance. He’d been asked questions like this hundreds of times, and his answers always remained the same.

“I’m single,” he said. “I thought that women might be attracted to the beard. All of the magazines and talk shows say that beards are back in style now. And as for the hat, I wear it for the same reasons anybody else wears one—to keep the sun out of my eyes and the rain off my head. And to hide my bald spot.”

“Shit, Levi. Just get hair plugs.”

“Haven’t you ever read the story of Samson? Mess with a man’s hair and you take away his power.”

Donny chuckled nervously. Levi could tell that the younger man wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, and that was fine by him. In truth, Levi privately wished that Donny would stay quiet. Even though they were currently shielded from the enemy, there could be other dangers around, and there was no sense in advertising their presence. Plus, he needed to think and he could do that better if Donny was silent.

“What about the buggy? Why do you drive a buggy if you’re not Amish?”

“Have you seen the price of gas lately?”

“Good point.”

Finally, Donny stopped talking. Gritting his teeth, Levi tried to focus. He sensed the soul cage overhead, just as Randy had said it was. The boy hadn’t known its true name or purpose, of course. He’d thought it was merely a prison to keep them from leaving the town. In truth, it was a construct of great willpower and malice, a mystical barrier designed to capture the souls of all living things that came into direct contact with it. Judging by the amount of energy it was giving off, the cage had captured many souls indeed. Levi wondered if he could dispel it before the soul cage’s creators had a chance to feed off its contents, but then decided against doing so. Better to save his strength for the main task, rather than wasting it on the cage. If he was successful, the souls trapped in the cage would be free. He only wished it wasn’t too late for those the entities had already fed on directly.

The corpses that had filled the streets earlier were missing now. A few small piles of dust remained behind, but most of these had vanished, as well, eradicated by the cool, swift breeze. Levi slowed their pace as they passed by the hanging tree that Randy had mentioned. The carving was still there, stark against the bark: CROATOAN.

How was it connected to what was happening here? The methods and goal—eradicating every living thing in an entire town—were those of Meeble, but their adversaries obviously weren’t him. What did it all mean? Levi couldn’t help but picture their dilemma as a puzzle spread out on a tabletop. In the center of the puzzle was a hole, and until he found that missing piece, the full picture wouldn’t be revealed. Somehow, the entities stalking Brinkley Springs were connected to Meeble and the Thirteen. The question was, how?

His thoughts turned to revenants and shades. Could the black figures be one of those? Shades were spirits, the shadowy ghost of a dead person. The term stemmed from several sources, including Homer’s Odyssey and Dante’s Divine Comedy. In Greek mythology, the dead lived in the perpetual shadow of the underworld. The Hebrew version of the shade—the tsalmaveth—translated as death-shadow. While the entities certainly had shade like attributes, he didn’t think that was what they were. Likewise, they didn’t seem to fit the definition of a revenant. But then again, many of those definitions were faulty. The term had been assigned to creatures that were not revenants, but Siqqusim, a race of beings able to inhabit the bodies of the dead. In Akkadian literature, when Ishtar and Ereshkigal threatened to “raise up the dead to eat the living and make the dead outnumber the living,” they were referring to casting Siqqusim into corpses. They were zombies, rather than revenants, but it was a distinction that was lost on both.

Medieval revenants were more similar to what he faced now. Levi considered the Anglo-Norman legends and folklore of that time—the documented accounts of William of Newburgh, the chronicler Walter Map, the Abbot of Burton and the bishop Gilbert Foliot, and the later writings of Augustus Montague Summers. Though the accounts varied, all had agreed that revenants who returned from the dead were wicked and evil while alive, and that the only way to destroy one was through exhumation, followed by decapitation and the removal and subsequent immolation of its heart.

Was it possible that his foes were some new form of revenant, a type thus far unknown to occultists? If so, how was he supposed to defeat them?

He was still thinking about it when they heard the screams. Without a word, Levi and Donny ran toward the sound. Their footsteps pounded on the asphalt, punctuating the cries. They rounded a corner, emerged onto another street and found a house under siege.

“That’s Axel Perry’s place,” Donny said.

The five dark figures had surrounded the home.

Two of them were in the front yard. One had just torn the face off an unfortunate victim. The man’s body lay jittering and twitching on the wet grass. Three other men stood on the front porch, watching in terror. Levi recognized one of them as one of the two owners of the local garage.

“Oh, shit,” Donny moaned. “I think that’s Greg Pheasant lying on the ground. But what’s wrong with him? He doesn’t look right.”

Levi reached into his pocket and pulled out his copy of
The Long Lost Friend. He kissed it and then handed the book to Donny.

“Here. I’m about to drop our concealment. Keep this on you and don’t let it go. And Donny, for God’s sake as well as our own, stay here and do exactly what I tell you.”

“What are you going to do?”

Levi gritted his teeth. “I’m going to pick a fight.”

Without another word, he inched toward the house.

The injured man was still twitching, but his movements had slowed. As Levi crept closer, the man’s killer leaned over and thrust a hand into his back. He could hear the flesh rip from where he stood. The killer fished around inside the body and then wrenched the spine free, snapping it off at the base of the skull and then holding it in one hand like a dead snake. The man’s movements abruptly ceased.

The man in black held the grisly trophy high over his head. “Now we’ll feed on the rest of you.”

“No,” Levi said, stepping forward. “You won’t.”

TEN

The shadowy figures turned toward the sound of his voice. When they saw the source of the interruption, they shrieked. Levi imagined that the sound was probably like what one would hear if standing beneath a jet engine. Donny dropped Levi’s copy of
The Long Lost Friend
, slapped his hands over his ears and shouted something, but Levi couldn’t understand him. The words were lost beneath the cacophony.

Levi tried his best to ignore the noise and focus.

Levi’s heart beat once. Twice.

Then, still shrieking, three of the creatures swept forward in human form. The other two shape shifted into crows and soared toward him. Levi stood with his feet spaced at shoulder width and his hands in his pockets. His demeanor was grim but calm. He did not speak or flinch as they closed the gap. One of the birds pecked at his cheek. The sharp beak drew blood, but Levi didn’t flinch. Its feathers brushed against his skin as it passed. They were ice cold.

The other crow swooped at Donny. He dropped to his knees and scrabbled in the yard for Levi’s copy of
The Long Lost Friend
, picking it up at the last instant. The bird’s attack missed. Screeching, both crows circled around again.

“Leave the youth alone,” Levi shouted at them.

“Your fight is with me now. Face me as men.”

The three human-shaped figures stopped before him, laughing.

“But we are not men, little magus,” the tallest said. “We have not been men for quite some time.”

Which means that they once were,
Levi thought,
fighting the urge to grin. I might have been right. They might be some form of revenant—ones with the ability to change shape.

The two birds joined their brothers and resumed human form. The five figures surrounded him, hovering only an arm’s length away.

“Your quarrel is with me,” he told them. “I bested you earlier. Let the others go unharmed and face me again.”

The tallest gnashed its teeth. “You do not give orders to our kind, Levi, son of Amos. We will do as we wish.”

“Cowards.”

“Still your tongue, bearded one. We’ll feed until there is nothing left.”

“Levi,” Donny shouted, “look out!”

The shortest of the five slashed at Levi with its talons.

He sidestepped the attack and pulled one of his hands free from his pockets. In his fist was a handful of salt. Levi tossed it into the creature’s snarling face and yelled, “
Ia, edin na zul. Ia Ishtari, ios daneri, ut nemo descendre fhatagn Shtar!
God, guide my hand.”

The effect was immediate and remarkable. Hissing, the shadow-man recoiled as if Levi had splashed battery acid in its face. Levi grinned as his opponent flung its clawed hands into the air and screeched—a long, warbling, tea-kettle sound that rose in intensity and seemed to have no end. The dark figure stumbled backward, colliding with its brothers, and violently shook its head from side to side.

Levi held up another fistful of salt. “Come on, then. I have plenty to go around.”

The creatures held their ground, staring at him with unbridled hate.

Levi backed up slowly, not taking his gaze from them. He stopped when he reached Donny. Without turning around, he whispered, “Move with me toward the house. Don’t panic. As long as you have the book, they can’t touch you.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about, dude. It’s you.”

“I’m fine. Now come on.”

He and Donny moved as one, shuffling toward the house. The three men in the doorway—Levi couldn’t remember if Donny had given him their names or not—had watched the confrontation and stalemate in horror, as if not quite believing what they were seeing. Levi and Donny moved slowly, circling around their foes. The dark figures turned with them, watching. Then, just as Levi and Donny had almost passed them, all five charged at once, flinging themselves at the men.

“Go!” Levi shoved Donny forward. The younger man stumbled but did not fall. For one terrifying second, Levi thought he might try to stay and fight, but he obeyed, running toward the house—a soldier to the end, following orders.

Heat flared in Levi’s back as one of the attackers slashed at him. The claws ripped through his clothing and into his flesh. Levi responded by tossing salt over his shoulder, and felt a vicious, satisfying thrill as the creature screamed in obvious torment. A blow landed on his left shoulder and Levi’s entire arm went numb. Moving quickly, he grabbed another fistful of salt with his good arm and spun in a circle, flinging it in a wide arc. Again, the attackers fell back.