Empire of Dust (2 page)

"Is it diet?" Lucretia asked.

"No, it's not diet. I hate diet. Diet's got that shit that kills rats. This stuff's packed with real cane sugar, twelve teaspoons a serving—good, and good for ya, too."

Lucretia took the can from Ezekiel's outstretched mitt as though she were picking a slug off a rose, then sat holding the unopened can. "You gotta pull the tab," Ezekiel said. "Diet Pepsi's the only one that opens by mind control."

Damon took a birch beer. If Ezekiel wasn't drinking beer, he was damned if he was. All this time, Jezebel had not spoken a word, but now she looked at Damon. "I thought there would be more of you," she said, and he heard accusation in her tone. "You said in your phone call that there would be six."

"I . . . overestimated."

Ezekiel pointed a finger at Damon. "One . . ." Then he pointed at Lucretia. ". . . Two. So you overestimated by, um, two hundred percent, is that right? So what was the problem?"

"People had . . . other engagements," Damon said, hating how ineffective he sounded. "A lot of them are in the film industry, and there are a couple of big event movies shooting right now."

"Actors and actresses? Or grips and gaffers and caterers?"

"Yeah, them," said Lucretia. "The grips and all that."

"Well, we couldn't possibly have Tom Cruise under-gaffed," Ezekiel said. "He does need his best boy, too. Even though they had an opportunity to confront the only being on this earth that could pass for God. But I mean, when Tom Cruise calls . . ."

"Why couldn't you convince them?" Jezebel said. "I thought you were their leader."

"I . . . kept them together, but we didn't believe in formal leadership. It wasn't that kind of group."

"Well, that was your major screw-up," Ezekiel said. "The mob always needs a leader. See, around here, I'm the leader. Not because I'm smarter or braver or handsomer than anybody else, but because I'm the one, see?"

"The one?" Damon said. "The one he speaks to?"

"That's right. Me and Jezebel, though he doesn't hit her nearly as strong as me. She's gotta work at it, but I just open up, and if he's trying to communicate, slam barn, I know it. I'm blessed with a wonderful family . . ." He squeezed Jezebel's leg, and she smiled. ". . . And a wonderful talent. Hell, I never met
anybody
could pick him up except me and Jezebel. Must be something in the blood, y'know? Power in the blood, man."

"So how does he contact you?" Damon asked. "I mean, do you actually
hear
something?"

"I hear him inside my head. There's a
presence
there, it
echoes
without going through my eardrums, if you can dig that."

"What does he say?" Damon was getting excited in spite of his reluctance to appear emotional. He knew that emotions were something that Ezekiel Swain would only use against you.

"He tells me things . . .
promises
me things." His hard, piggy eyes grew suddenly dreamy. "Wonderful things. Not always good things for other people . . ." He smiled, and it wasn't pretty to see. "But good things for me."

"He tells you where to go?"

"Yeah, he tells me. But that took a while. He wouldn't tell me where he was until he knew I had enough manpower to make it worthwhile. That's what I was hoping you were gonna bring to the party, Demon Damon, but all you bring along is Miss Lucretia here, who doesn't appear to be Michelle Yeoh."

"I can take care of myself," Lucretia muttered, still picking feebly at the soda can tab, trying not to break a nail.

Ezekiel grabbed the can away, stuck a thick fingertip under the tab, and jerked up. A spray of soda geysered into Lucretia's face and hair, and she gave a gasp and wiped at it frantically. "Oh yeah," said Ezekiel, "we can see you're
American Gladiator
material all the way. And I've been meaning to ask, what the hell is that shit sewed on your jacket?"

Lucretia couldn't answer for a moment. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish, and then she said, "
Symbols
, they're
symbols
, man, don't you know
anything
?
Shit!
"

"Watch your mouth," Jezebel said coldly, "Don't you forget for a minute who's in charge here."

Damon thought about saying something in Lucretia's defense, but forgot about it when Jezebel turned her basilisk stare on him. Sometime he could show these two that they couldn't pull this kind of shit on him, but not yet. Besides, Lucretia was acting like such a chump that she deserved to get reamed. What really offended Damon was the way her behavior reflected on him, like having a dog who pissed on your host's carpet.

"So what's the plan?" Damon said, ignoring Lucretia.

"To write a whole new book of the Bible, my friend—the Revelation of Ezekiel. A book of total freedom and the release of the human spirit to realize its full potential, both for light and for darkness. But in order for that book to be written, the Divine has to be freed. Turning to the practical, the plan
was
to get more people for an out-and-out assault on the assholes holding him. But now we'll just have to find him and play it by ear, see what we're up against."

"So where is he?" asked Damon.

"Northeast of here somewhere. We head that way, and then he'll speak to me again, get us closer, like a hound dog sniffing out a trail . . . you get a little closer, it gets a little stronger."

"So you don't know where he is exactly, then?"

Ezekiel looked at Damon as though he were the dumbest thing he had ever seen. "What, you want an
address
? I said he's
northeast
. We'll find him, Sunny Jim. Now, you guys bring a tent, like I said?" Damon nodded. "Then I suggest you set it up, or just bunk down in your van. We're taking off in the morning."

D
amon and Lucretia went outside and walked to their van, past the circle of people who continued to glare at them. Several had gone to their own tents, but half of them were still sitting around the campfire.

"I want to set up the tent," Lucretia said.

"What? I thought you hated that tent."

"I want to sleep in it tonight," she said, in a voice so firm that it made Damon sure that even if he found the Divine and understood the workings of the mysteries of life and death, he would still never understand women.

B
ut he understood at least one woman when he woke up at 6 A.M. to find Lucretia nowhere in sight. Oh yeah,
now
he understood, all right. If they had slept in the van, she wouldn't have been able to drive away in it alone.

The foam pads they had brought along were so uncomfortable that he had been awake for an hour after they had gotten settled in. He had not heard Lucretia stir once during all that time, and wondered how she managed to get to sleep so easily.

Now he knew she had only pretended to sleep, waiting for him to nod off so she could take the keys and split. At least she'd been straight with him. She hadn't taken any of his money, and had left his duffel bag behind. He couldn't be pissed at her for taking the van, since they had rented it on her credit card.

But what he
could
be pissed at her for was dissing him. He looked around desperately, dreading the time when the others would rise and he would have to tell Ezekiel Swain that the only person he had been able to talk into coming with him had gone.

The reality was worse than the anticipation. When Ezekiel Swain heard the news, he laughed out loud. "Demon
Damon
! You dumb, handsome
schmuck
! The princess not only splits on you, she
takes
your
van
?" Then he laughed, like lava bubbling. Jezebel smirked, and the others laughed, too.

Damon could feel a blush burning his cheeks. He wanted to tell them all to go to hell, wanted to lash out at that fat, gross pig who called himself a leader and bury his fist in the man's doughy gut. But instead he smiled, because he was where he had to be, and he had to stay there. There was a way to use this.

"I told her to go," he said gently, but loudly enough for them all to hear. "She wasn't right for this . . . for us."

"Wait a minute," said Ezekiel. "You saying you told her to take off with the van?"

"Sure. It was her van. And you saw the way she behaved last night. She doesn't have the determination, the
spirit
, to see this through to the end. Everybody here is dedicated. I doubt there's a person among you who isn't ready to die if we have to, to find and free the Divine. But she didn't have what you all have, so I told her to leave. I'm sorry that I couldn't bring more people to help, but those like us are very few."

He could feel them listening now, actually responding to this shit. "To leave everything behind," he went on, "and come into the desert looking for someone we've never seen, not knowing what we may have to face when we find him . . . well, it takes strong people to do that. I'm sorry she couldn't handle it, but I'm glad I'm a part of it."

For a moment there was silence, and then Ezekiel started to clap, an amused, lopsided grin on his fat face.

"Very nice. Very nice indeed, Damon. How did you know that we respond so well to flattery? But you're right on one count—that chick was a real pain in the ass." He stretched and yawned, showing yellow teeth. "Let's get some breakfast and then get our butts in gear."

Breakfast was simply instant coffee and donuts, of which Ezekiel ate half a dozen of the cream filled. Damon took down his tent and put it and his duffel into one of the vans. "Come on, Demon," Ezekiel told him. "Since your old lady took your van, you're riding with me."

"Great," said Damon with a smile. "Where are we headed?"

"Due east, pilgrim." Somewhere, John Wayne rolled over. "Toward New Mexico." Ezekiel maneuvered his bulk into the front passenger seat next to Jezebel, who sat behind the wheel. Damon got into the back, next to a colorless woman who Jezebel introduced as Charlotte. Rodney, a big man who looked like an ex-biker, was on the mousy girl's other side. Two dour men in their mid-twenties were wedged in the rear seats. "That's Chang and Eng," Ezekiel said. "Now, you're probably thinking that they don't
look
like Siamese twins, but they're bound at the hip just the same."

Damon nodded to them, looking but not discovering if Ezekiel was speaking figuratively or not. The two men stared back. They did not speak.

Jezebel drove the van out a dirt road until she reached Route 40, then headed east. The northwestern Arizona scenery was sparse and beautiful, but Ezekiel didn't seem to notice it. A six-pack cooler was at his feet, and he opened a can of the generic soda and started guzzling it. When he wasn't drinking, he was either belching or talking nonstop.

The subjects included the country around them, the Anasazi Indians who had lived there centuries before, the Navajo who lived there now. He also talked about the Divine, and how when they found him and freed him, there was going to be "a whole new world on this old shitball we call Earth," and how the ones who freed the Divine were going to be kings and queens over all the countries of the world, or what was left of them after the wrath of the Divine was satisfied.

"He's been held down for a long time, man," Ezekiel said, "like a genie in a bottle. And when he gets out, he's gonna be righteously
pissed
. Even though he gets a taste now and then."

"A taste?"

"Of
blood
, Demon. He knows how to mess with people's heads. Man, he messed with mine—that was how I knew he existed."

"What did he do?"

Ezekiel turned his ball of a head around to look at Damon. "Oh no, you're not gonna get me to incriminate myself. Besides, I wasn't the one who did the actual killing, was I, Rodney?" He reached back with a fat hand and patted Rodney on the knee.

"Sonofabitch deserved killin'," Rodney replied heatedly.

"Enough said." Ezekiel tossed his empty soda can out the window. "Jezebel heard him that time, too, didn't you, baby?"

Ezekiel's sister nodded. "Loud and clear."

"I keep telling her that if he came in that strong once, it can happen again—she just gotta work at it a little harder."

Jezebel sighed as though she had heard this many times before, but didn't otherwise respond. It was as if she knew that if she didn't rise to the bait, Ezekiel would find new prey.