R.S. Guthrie - Detective Bobby Mac 02 - L O S T (15 page)

“I didn’t want to argue with you,” Jax said. “You have your talisman, I have mine.”

Severs and I gathered some twigs and small, broken limbs, and then cleared a small patch of dirt. I used the matches and a clump of the driest grass I could find to start the small fire. Jax poured water into a pot and laid the three sticks close on the ground. He removed three blasting caps and three fuses from a watertight case and began inserting them, one by one. Unser set the pot down in the coals at the edge of the fire and put on a show, stirring the water slowly.

I placed the crucifix next to the explosives. The other three stared at the ancient talisman.

“It was said to be forged from steel smelted from the nails used to crucify Christ,” I said. “I can’t explain what happened. And I don’t have any idea how much of its history is truth and how much is legend. But I know what it did for us. It saved our lives.”

“Can you call on its power again?” Jax said.

“I’m not sure. I think the power found
me
.”

“Well, just in case…”

There was a CRASH at the far end of the clearing. The four of us rose to the sight of two-dozen dark, monstrous beasts bursting through the downfall at the edge of the far tree line. Their sizes and shapes differed, but they were each twisted with muscle and howling with hatred and rage.

Jax bent over and snatched one stick of dynamite. He quickly estimated the distance between the demons and where we stood. He needed to know where and when the dynamite would detonate. He clipped the fuse to an inch and a half. He put the end of the fuse in the fire and it ignited. We stood back as my brother heaved the projectile as far as he could. It landed ten yards in front of the mass of demons and detonated.

Earth, deadwood, and demon pieces blew skyward in an incredible fountain of destruction.

Severs had clipped another fuse and was already lighting a second stick as a dozen surviving creatures cleared the thick cloud of smoke and debris. They had fanned out in a wide line, no longer clustered stupidly.

The deputy threw the stick in a high arc—too high. It exploded a good ten feet in the air over the middle of the skirmish line of monsters. The concussion took out two of the beasts, putting them down hard, but ten more ran on. And they were too close to risk another detonation.

“Get behind me,” I said, and held forth the Crucifix of Ardincaple. I showed it to the beasts as they gained ground, holding it before me like a shield, waiting for the power to surge forth and allow me to consume my enemies.

Nothing happened. The rusted dagger remained just that.

A useless artifact.

And the demons were nearly upon us.

“DRAW YOUR WEAPONS,” Jax shouted, and the three of them fanned out to my right and left.

I pulled my Beretta and leveled the sights at the tall monster that was leading the charge, putting the crosshair in the center of its bumpy, disfigured forehead. I squeezed off a round and the demon’s head burst into a splash of blood and bone. The creature fell and skidded in the wet earth; its brethren trampled the dead thing without regard.

Jax and his deputies fired as well, cutting down three more. I fired again, hitting a short, fat demon in the center of its chest. A thick, hunched, corded beast reached Deputy Severs and tackled him. The two rolled along the ground, Severs in a kind of bear hug, and when the beast stood, it tore one of the deputy’s outstretched arms from his body with a sickening crunch.

Severs screamed in agony. The demon threw him to the ground and dropped on top of his quaking body. The thing sank its long, gnashing teeth into his shoulder and neck—tearing, ripping, gorging.

I aimed carefully, not wanting to risk hitting Deputy Severs, but he wasn’t going to survive much longer if his attacker was not stopped. I pulled the trigger and caught the demon in the back of his skull, the force of the 9MM flipping the beast, head over tail.

Before I could try to reach our fallen man, a demon lunged for Jax. My brother ducked at the last moment and the beast missed him, tumbling to the ground behind. Jax spun, leveled himself, and we both fired.

Unser had killed one more; the four remaining demons ran for the nearest forest edge. Jax scooped up the last stick of dynamite, clipped half the fuse, lit it, and threw it past the scrambling beasts. It landed between them and the tree line and blew them to hell.

Deputy Severs could not be saved. He was dead when we returned to him, his body having given in to shock. Jax was visibly affected. Losing a brother or sister cop is never easy. That said, his sudden anger toward me was still surprising.

“What the fuck good is that thing?” he said, pointing to the crucifix.

“I don’t know. I really don’t…”

“You say it saved you! It did nothing for my deputy. NOTHING.”

“I know that, Jax…”

“I knew Bill Severs for twenty-five years. He was my friend.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry and he’s dead. Kind of a shitty trade.”

“Fuck you, Jax. I didn’t kill him.”

Jax looked up at me, eyes red, swollen, and accusatory.

“But you thought you could stop it, didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“Well you damn sure had US believing.”

“I did what I could.”

My words sounded as hollow as I felt.

“Put that thing away,” he said. “It’s a joke.”

“We need to get moving.”

“Not until we bury him.”

“Call for someone,” I said.

“We’re not going anywhere until we give my friend a decent burial.”

“I’m not trying to be callused. We don’t have the tools. Or the time.”

“You and Unser go on then,” my brother said, grabbed the water pot, and started to dig.

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Unser. He grabbed a thick, pointed stick and began scraping at the wet earth.

I put the Crucifix of Ardincaple back into the saddlebag and found my own makeshift shovel. We worked at burying Deputy Severs as the sun continued to move mercilessly across the cloudless sky.

~ ~ ~

“I’m sorry,” Jax said when we were back riding the trail.

“If I could have left without you, I would have. I’m sorry about Severs, but this is Amanda’s life we’re talking about.”

“I couldn’t just walk away. But you’re right. I let my emotions take over. It won’t happen again.”

“I get it. But we’ve lost time—how much further to the fork?”

The highline trail we followed would eventually split into three separate paths, one for each of the Three Sisters Peaks.

“Four or five hours,” Jax said, looking at his watch and for any weather in the skies. “What are the chances we’ll run into more of, uh, them?”

“I doubt we will. Of course, that’s just my gut.”

“Care to expand on that?”

“I think that was just a message.”

“What message?”

“Hello. Welcome to the game.”

“Nice. This Rule asshole is a real specimen.”

“I can’t say I’m happy you’re going to meet him.”

“Me either.”

We rode in silence for a bit. I knew, however, that my brother’s mind was in high gear. And I knew the questions that were stalking around in his head like combat boots on broken glass.

“I can’t explain what happened back there,” I said. “Or what didn’t happen.”

“I know you can’t.”

“It went down in Colorado just as I told it.”

“I believe you.”

“Severs should be alive right now. I failed him.”

“You didn’t fail him. And you didn’t kill him.”

“How am I supposed to save Amanda now?”

“What?”

“The crucifix was our only real hope. We can’t save Amanda without it.”

“We’ll just have to rely on ourselves.”

“Ourselves?”

“Good over evil. We’re going to have to believe in that.”

“And if we can’t believe?”

“Then Rule has already won.”

~ ~ ~

We did not encounter any more resistance. We rode through the heat of middle day and on into late afternoon. We reached the trail’s fork with maybe two hours of daylight remaining. Jax climbed down from his mount and knelt in the trail, examining the ground carefully. He didn’t need to. Rule and his legions made no effort to disguise their route.

“Pretty obvious they went this way,” he said, pointing down the rightmost trail.

“Deer Song,” Unser said.

“What’s that?” I said.

“Each of the peaks themselves has a name,” Jax told me. “This one was named after a Coeur d’Alene squaw that was murdered in her teepee by the United States Cavalry.”

“Great history, ours,” I said.

“Not
my
history. Yours either.”

The three of us rode toward Deer Song peak, what little confidence remained fading a little more with each mile we covered. Just before the trail climbed out of the trees into the low-vegetation of our remaining ascent, Jax stopped us.

“There’s no more cover,” he said quietly. “From here forward we won’t be surprising anyone. Or any
thing
.”

“They know we’re here,” I said.

Jax looked at his deputy.

“This is beyond duty now, Donnie. I can’t order you to go this last mile.”

“You don’t need to,” Unser said.

“I had to say it,” Jax told him.

Unser nodded, but the fear in his eyes betrayed what we were all feeling.

As we rode slowly from the cover of the trees, the land around us took on the look of the lunar landscape. The horse’s hoofs crunched as they picked their way amongst the loose shale. Above us, lining the winding, open trail, were the demons—creatures of every size, shape, and dark color. They sat on the rocks, hung from the cliff faces—they were
everywhere
. Thousands, perhaps. All watching us. Hungering for us. But none attacked. They simply stared—eyeing their prey, willing us to keep moving forward, deeper into their domain.

As we climbed, the trail took us closer to them—close enough to see the bottomless hatred in their eyes; close enough to hear them wheezing and growling and scraping their claws across the boulders and stones beneath them.

We tried to avoid looking at them directly. To stare too long would erode what little courage remained. Clearly this was part of the setup. The next move in Father Rule’s chess match. He did not have to let us through. We’d never stand up to another dozen of these creatures, much less thousands. Rule could have us now, and that realization brought a strange calm over me.