On Tenterhooks (55 page)

His calves burned as he did his best to
carry
Abby
across the yard to the corner of the house.
When
he reached the edge of the
porch,
the whirring tone ended
.
H
e
threw Abby down on the ground and jump
ed
on top of her to shield her
body
. As he did, a bright light seared his eyes, coming from the di
rection of
Preacher. Steve felt a sharp pain tugging
in
side of his skull, as if
Preacher
were
magnetic
and
Steve’s head a lump of metal. T
he rest of
Steve’s
body
resisted
,
but the force was straining the muscles of his neck
.
H
e fought to maintain protection over Abby.

The next moment
,
he felt the heat of a
piercing
chemical explosion as it burned against him
.
The shockwave
knock
ed him
off
Abby
and
flung him
into the air like
discarded news
paper in an alleyway.
He smas
hed into the side of the cabin, feeling and hearing
his ribs snap like fresh stalk
s
of celery. He collapsed to the ground face down, gasping for breath through compressed lungs.

His chest burned through his fractured ribs.
Despite it all, he felt a change in the air around him.
The
stench
of death and bitter hatred was gone. The sun
was shining
,
and the
birds had already begun chirping again. It was as if nature itself breathed a strong sigh of relief and cleaned the air
of
all the pollutants
spouted by
Preacher.

He squinted through his pain to find Abby.
His body couldn’t keep up with the speed at which his mind was racing.
Abby
was a few feet from him
.
The shockwave had rolled her over
,
and he saw that her face had deep gashes from Preacher’s whip.
Dirt and grass caked her
wounds
,
and there was too much blood to determi
ne how badly she was hurt
.
H
e
could see
that she
was breathing
and said a silent prayer of thanks
.

He
climbed to his knees,
pressing
his arm to his side
to control the burning
.
When he
stood and turned, wanting to check on Martin
, he
moved too fast and became dizzy. Blackness clouded the edges of his vision
,
and
there was a
ringing in his e
ars. He stumbled and fell into darkness
.

Chapter
4
8

“Steve.”

He heard a far off voice, calling his name. He didn’t like it
.
It was disturbing his much-needed rest.

“Steve.”

H
e
forced his eyes to open, taking
several seconds t
o recognize where he was
.
E
ven without his glasses, he could see the giant cracks in the plaster
between the
ceiling
beams
and
the
faded wallpaper
above the bed
.
He was in the cabin.
It all
came back in a flood
.
Martin
.
Abby
.
Veronica
!
He
sat
up.

“Steve.” He felt a strong,
steady
pressure on his ankle
.
Biker sat at the foot of
the
bed.

“Biker.”

“’Bout time you woke up, bro
.”

“The others, what happ
—”
Steve
started
sitting up in the bed
.

“They’re fine, Steve,” replied Biker
, pushing him back down
.
“I’ll explain it, but please take
it easy.”

Steve’s neck was still stiff
.
A tight homemade bandage wrapped his
midse
ction
.
He could feel the pinch of cracked ribs when he breathed deep
ly
, but otherwise he felt intact.

“
Listen
, brother
. I have to go
.
I have stayed longer than planned already
,
and I have a lot of other people I need to check up on.”

“But,
I don’t understand. Didn’t
we .
.
. kill
him?”

“Preacher?
Well,
you didn’t exactly
kill him
,
but he and his cronies
definitely
won’t be showing their faces around here any time soon.
U
nfortunately, he’s not the only dirtball
who
was born to raise a little hell on earth
.
There are plenty
of
others out there
,
and I
’ve
go
t to get back on schedule.
I don’t think you’ll be bothered for a long time
, if ever
.
Well done, by the way.”

“It wasn’t me.
It
was
Veronica
. She’s
the one
who
. . .
took him out.”

“No.
It was all of you, working together.
None of you alone could have done what you did together. You won
.
You each paid the price, but in the end, you each stepped up and did what you had to do.”

“You said the others w
ere fine?  Are they still here?”

Biker chuckled. “Are you kidding?” he asked
.
“
I’ve barely been able to ke
ep Martin and Abby outta here
.”

“
But
Veronica
, she’s gone.”

“Yeah, about
Veronica
,” said Biker, voice going soft. “Martin and Abby were able to tell me most of what happened
,
and I’ve been able to piece the rest together just b
y doing a little
looking around
this place
.
”

He paused for a moment,
searching
for the right words.
“
Listen
Steve,
Veronica
made a conscious decision to do what she did
,
and it turned out to be the very thing you needed. I told you that you weren’t going to be able to kill Preacher like
you could
a norm
al man, right?
”

Steve nodded.

“
When I told you though
, I did not know how you were going to do it
.
But
by sacrificing her own life,
Veronica
showed us all how it’
s done
.
She knew that no mortal could harm him
,
so she
worked it out
that he died
via
his own goatboy. I don’t know
if
she had it all planned
out
that
way
or not
, but it worked, didn’t it?
”

Steve wasn’t shocked to hear this
.
He
knew that her sacrifice was the reason the rest of them were still alive.
T
hat didn’t make it any easier to face that she had died on his watch.

“I figure that’s
why we read
he
r as a ‘positive’
to begin with. A
nd it s
eems
Satan
didn’t anticipate a person willing to sacrifice herself for the good of those she loved
.
That’s where he botched it up something awful.
Looks to me like we might’ve found the game-changin’ flaw in his plan though
—
underestimating the people he’s got his sights on. Believe you me, this is gonna be a big break for us
.
”

Biker took a small silver box out of his pocket and slid it across the
bed sheet
to Steve. Steve looked down and picked up the box.

“What is this?” he asked, opening the box on its tiny hinges
.
It
was filled with
fine
gray ash.

“I think she’d want you to
choose
her final resting place
.
”

Steve gasped and shut the box.

“Me?”
Steve
asked. “What about her family?”

“I think ya’ll here qualify for that title more than anybody else these days.”

Steve sighed. He
sat in silence for a moment. He
ran his thumbnail along the gilded edges of the
shining square.

“I think we should go back to Cozumel t
hen.
We can spread them in the water where she loved to dive.”

“I think that’d be perfect
.
”

Steve clutched the box in his lap
.
He held back tears.
“Biker, I need to ask you something
.
It has been bothering me
since the beginning.”

“Shoot.”

“If
you didn’t know
how
we were going to kill him, how
could you be so positive that
it would work for us?”

Biker nodded and was quick to respond.

“For the very same reason you ag
reed to lead this charge, man.
It was a question of faith
!
I believed that you could do it
.
You believed that you could do it
.
W
hen
it came down to it
, yo
u did what needed to be done. Y
ou all did
.

“Yeah, but we
all
almost died out there
—
not just
Veronica
,
all of us!” Steve’s anger was rising.

“Look Steve
,
that damn
Preacher was
a trafficker in evil
.
He was used to dealing with the dirtballs and rejects of society, twisting them to do his will and ensuring their one-way ticket to
H
ell upon their demise
.
W
hen you knocked him off up here, Satan tore him a real new one when he got back home
.
Preacher was too eager for the kill
,
and he ended up destroying all that set-up work.
”

Biker stood up from the bed, talking excitedly.

“
Word on the street is that Satan made the biggest snafu himself
,
though
.
His whole premise backfir
ed
.
By killing your loved ones
,
he
drew you four together
.
H
e made you strong
er
than you ever would’ve been on your own
.
That reliance, trust and teamwork you all showed, it saved you all.
It set you free
.
T
hat’s something
you
had to do for yourselves
, and
you did it.”

“So,
does that mean it’s over then?”

“Over?” asked Biker
, pacing in front of the bed
. “For you?
Yeah
,
I think
so
.
You’ve
paid your dues
and then some
. But no, it isn’t over
for everybody else
.
Our spies tell us Satan is ragi
ng something awful right now
.
But t
hat distraction and
the knowledge
we have about his flaw gives us the upper hand, at least for
a while
.”

“Wait,” said Steve. “God has spies in
H
ell?”

Biker sighed
,
“Brother, t
his goes deeper than you’d
ever
care to imagine.”

Steve
’s head was aching
,
and
Biker
,
talking so freely of life and death
and Heaven and Hell
,
still made him queasy.
“Is
Veronica
gonna, you know,
be
okay?” he asked
, looking down again at the silver box
.

“She is
exactly where she needs to be
,
a
nd she’
s got somebody
there
who
loves her very much.”

Steve
sensed the finality in Biker’s words
.
He had closed the subject of
Veronica
’s afterlife.

“What about the others?
Both of them were hurt pretty badly in that fight.”

“Yeah, they each took some lumps and earned some scars
.
And they are both
feeling it over
Veronica
. But they understand it
,
too. I know it’s a double dose of grief that all of you are dealing with, but you
are
dealing with it
,
and I promise you, just like I did them, that it does get better.