Thief of Souls (18 page)

Okoya strolled at a calm, deliberate pace through the lavish corridors, running his hands across the tapestries and sculptures—noting the eons of art and civilization born during his three-thousand-year hiatus. But his thoughts were on weightier subjects.

Five Shards!

And each one greater than the Olympian king who had ordered him chained to the mountain! A quintet of diamonds too bright to behold . . .

. . . And too powerful to devour.

These were souls too large to feast upon—and although his hunger was great, he hid it from the five. These were spirits to master and control—not spirits to dine on. These Shards could be useful tools for the harvesting of a world . . . .

But as with any tool, there were dangers. Spirits of such power needed to be broken and harnessed like horses before the chariot—and if a horse could not be broken, it had to be destroyed, lest it turn on its master.

But so far, things were going exceptionally well. The Bringer had already begun to watch and listen—seeking out weaknesses into which he could insert his will, like a hand into a puppet. Deep enough so that he could either play them or crush them—whichever ultimately suited his needs.

The Bringer stepped out into a calm night, and there, on the steps of the castle's front gate, sat a man in the uniform of law enforcement. His head was cupped in his hands like a small child. Curious, the Bringer sat beside him.

“My name is Okoya,” said the Bringer. “Spiritual advisor to the stars.”

The man looked straight ahead at the fountain, and spoke as if carrying on a conversation with himself. “What am I supposed to tell them? How can I tell them anything?”

“Tell who?”

“I'm with the county sheriff,” he said. “They got word of something suspicious at the castle, so they sent me here to check it out. Then, when I got here, they brought me to that redheaded kid.”

“And he ‘fixed' something?”

“He just
said
something,” the deputy told Okoya. “I don't even remember what he said, but suddenly . . . suddenly . . .”

“Suddenly all that was wrong with your life fell into place.”

The deputy finally looked at Okoya. “Yes! Yes, that's right!” Tears welled up in his eyes. “How can I turn him in?”

“You won't,” the Bringer instructed. “You'll return to your office, report that nothing is wrong, then you'll quietly collect your family and join us.”

When it was put to him so plainly, like a clear-cut set of orders, it wasn't a hard decision to make.

“Yes, that
is
what I'll do,” he said—as if he had any choice in the matter. The fact was, from the moment Dillon received
him, the pattern of this man's destiny was set. It was a pattern even the Bringer could read.

The officer stood to return to his squad car, but Okoya grabbed him by the arm.

“Just one more thing.”

The man turned his eyes to Okoya, and Okoya silently, secretly, lashed out. Fine tendrils of pink light shot from Okoya's eyes, dancing across the officer's face, penetrating the pores of his skin. The tendrils reached way down, and drained out the very thing that made the man human:

His consciousness.

His essence.

His soul.

The Bringer devoured this man's life force—just as he had done to many residents of Shiprock, New Mexico, and a string of others between there and here. Each one small but satisfying, like a plate of hors d'oeuvres.

When it was done, the living shell of the county deputy stumbled for an instant, unable to know or understand what had been torn from him.

“Whoa—must have gotten up too fast,” the man's shell said, regaining its balance. “Now, what was it you wanted to tell me?”

Okoya let go of his arm. “It wasn't important.”

The officer nodded a quick farewell, and returned to his squad car, never knowing that although his body went though the motions, he was as lifeless a vessel as the car he drove.

Okoya watched him go, wondering how many human souls he could devour in a single day without feeling too terribly bloated. Forty? Fifty? He'd have to find out.

His smile broadened as he went back into the castle. Yes, things were going very well indeed!

T
HE
S
HIPROCK
C
HIEFTAINS KICKED A FIELD GOAL, PUTTING
them eight points ahead of Toadlena, deep into the third quarter. If the streets of Shiprock were quiet on this windy Friday night, it was with good reason: Toadlena and Shiprock Highs had been rivals ever since the game of football came to Navajo land. This had been the Chieftains' most winning season in years, and the games brought out most of the town.

Radio Joe had arrived during the first quarter, but had little interest in the game. Instead he wandered the bleachers, and loitered around the concession stand, munching on some fry-bread, biding his time. He watched the evening's spectators, making brief eye contact with everyone he passed. He made his way through the stands, squeezing through the crowds, taking a seat, then moving, then moving again. By the time the third quarter rolled around, he had worked the crowd well. He knew the faces and the eyes of the spectators—or at least the ones he needed to remember.

He went out to his truck, a rusted old Ford that had seen him through the latter part of his life, then systematically he began to fill the many pockets and compartments of a hunting jacket he had picked up in Flagstaff. The various weapons all fit handily into the jacket—all except the Winchester 1300 he had taken from Mary Wahomigie. That he hid in a trash can closer to the stadium. The band played a familiar fight song, only the drums and brass instruments making it through the baffling of the crowded bleachers. He whistled the tune, trying
to clear and purify his mind for the task at hand.

Across the parking lot, a middle-aged man checked unhappily under the hood of his Corolla.

“Engine trouble?” Radio Joe asked as he drew near.

“Fuel pump, I think. Just had the damn thing fixed last month.”

“Mind if I have a look?”

“You a mechanic?” the man asked.

“Electrician,” Radio Joe answered truthfully, “but I've fixed an engine or two.” He turned to the engine, but only so he could withdraw the hunting knife from his sleeve pouch.

“What do you think?” the man asked, leaning over Joe's shoulder.

Radio Joe turned quickly and buried the knife to its hilt between the man's upper ribs. It slid in silently. Then he twisted it ninety degrees, shredding his aorta and ventricle walls.

The man gasped, and Radio Joe clasped his free hand over his mouth, pushing him back against the side of the car. “Out of respect for your devoured soul, I put this body to rest.” Thick blood, almost black in the dim light, pumped out between Radio Joe's fingers, but he did not remove the knife. The man groaned, too weak to scream. Radio Joe took his hand from the man's mouth, then cradled his head, gently helping him to the ground.

“Shh,” he said. “Let it come peacefully.”

The man gurgled out something that sounded like a question, and then went limp. Only then did Radio Joe pull the knife from his heart. He slipped the body into the back seat of the Corolla, then wiped his hands on the parking lot gravel.

At the south end of the stadium, he followed a large woman into the ladies room, and strong-armed his way into her stall.
She screamed instantly, alerting any occupants of the stalls around them.

Sloppy,
he thought, chiding himself. He had to be quick about this now, but the hunting knife would not do, for she had already begun to fight him, and her arms were longer than his. Instead he slid out the machete he had always used to slash overgrown weeds from his yard. A single hack to the woman's neck silenced her, but set off a geyser of arterial blood that flooded the floor.

“What's going on in there?” demanded a woman in the next stall.

Again Radio Joe cursed himself, for the element of stealth was the only advantage he had, and now it was gone.

“Oh my
God!
” The woman beside them screamed as the floor tiles beneath her slowly grouted red.

Radio Joe ran from the restroom, knowing he could not afford to give the body the respect it deserved. Things had exponentiated much too quickly, and he knew his next stop would have to be the trash can where he had stowed the Winchester.

The concession stand was at the north end of the stadium, and was understaffed for the crowd the game had drawn. The line, fifteen deep, was filled with the type of diehard snack addicts who couldn't have their game without hot dogs, popcorn, and beer. Radio Joe approached with the rifle by his side—but it was so odd and incongruous a thing, no one took serious notice of it until it was too late. He barged his way to the front of the line.

“Hey, what's up, Grandpa? Wait your turn!” said the teen behind him.

There was a woman behind the counter with oversized earrings and bleached hair. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“Please stand still,” said Radio Joe. He was so close that when he swung up the barrel of the rifle, it struck her on the chin. He pulled the trigger, and the woman's expression of shock exploded into a spray of blood that seasoned the popcorn, and splattered into the cotton-candy drum, turning the wispy strands of whipped sugar a deep crimson.

The first scream was his own, his mind recoiling from the grisly act just as powerfully as the rifle kicked. Radio Joe turned and fired into the chest of a brawny man beside him, as the screams began to erupt around him. Then he swung the gun around to a couple who had stopped short their approach to the concession, taking them out in two consecutive shots. In the stands, the band blared the school victory march, as the Chieftains scored another touchdown. The cheers from the crowd blended in with the screams.

People close enough to see what had happened scattered from the concession area in a panic, dropping to the ground, crawling into any crevice available. But the panic only erupted in pockets, and those who were out of the concession's sight line were slow to discover the danger. Joe slipped beneath the stands, where he had noticed a trio of teens drinking beer and listening to music. With his own breath coming out in wheezy cries of grief, Joe pulled out a pistol, and selected two of the three to take out, for those were the two who no longer had souls. The third one stood gawking for a moment at the holes in his dead comrades' heads, then he ran for cover.

The concession area was clear now, and word was beginning to make it to the stands that something was going on back there. Radio Joe came upon two young lovers hiding behind a Dumpster, terrified.

“Please,” begged the girl. “Please don't hurt us!” She wore her boyfriend's class ring on a gold chain around her neck.

“Take that off,” Radio Joe insisted.

Quickly the girl took off the chain, and held it out to him.

“Give it to
him
,” said Joe, “not me.”

Not understanding why, the girl handed the ring on a chain to her boyfriend.

“Save your ring for a girl who's alive,” Radio Joe told the boy. “I mourn with you.” Then he raised his shotgun, and fired into the dark bull's-eye of the girl's right pupil.

Radio Joe next headed toward the field, where panic had begun to take over. Under the bright lights of the field, his chosen targets were easy to spot as they raced from the stands—he had memorized their faces, and their clothes. His own sobs of anguish now ululated like war cries as he raised the rifle, and picked them off one by one.

In the end, Radio Joe was harder to take down than the Toadlena quarterback.

P
ARKER
C
HEE, THIRD DEPUTY
in the quiet, uneventful town of Shiprock, knew he was sitting nostril-deep in crap as thick as quicksand. This was a big deal. The kind of small-town nightmare that drags in the media vultures. When it comes to carnage of this magnitude, they descend with such ferocity, the whole town would be picked apart by morning. Thirty-two dead in a rampage that appeared to be neither planned, nor random. There was some method behind the old man's madness that no one could yet guess.

“Damn shamans,” griped Sheriff Keedah. “They're psychotic, every last one of them.” There was nothing worse in Chee's book than a self-loathing Navajo. Keedah never missed an opportunity to berate his own people. Chee longed for the day Keedah was ousted, but in the meantime, Chee did his job, and kept a low profile. While most every other law
enforcement officer in the Navajo nation dealt with the crime scene, Chee was charged with minding the prisoner until he was taken away for the type of big-time arraignment reserved for the truly notorious offenders.

Chee found himself drawn to the old man in a sort of morbid curiosity he thought he'd gotten over in his five years on the force. He had seen his share of lunatics, but this old man didn't fit the mold. He had a clarity about him that was almost as disturbing as his bloodbath.

This massacre wasn't the only disturbing thing that had happened this week. There had been a prelude. Chee had sensed a discomfort throughout the week with the citizens he came in contact with. It wasn't everyone—just certain ones. Danny Yazzie, who he pulled over for speeding again; Addie Nahkai, who had a break-in; and more than a dozen others. Bad vibes—or more accurately, no vibes at all. Talking to them had been like talking to a wall. It's not that they weren't listening—it's that they weren't there. Chee would have let it go—attribute it to stress, or too little or too much caffeine—except for the fact that many of those people were now dead.

When the names of the dead began to come in, at first it seemed like coincidence, and then just plain creepy, that at least half of the people this crazy old man had singled out for execution had already made Chee's “absentee” list.