Thief of Souls (34 page)

“I can't run from Okoya,” he told Radio Joe. “I can't run from him anymore than I can run from myself.”

Radio Joe offered him a knowing nod. “It is said, ‘Wherever you may travel, wherever you may roam, the center of the circle will always be your home.' ”

“Ancient wisdom?” asked Dillon.

“John Lennon,” answered Radio Joe.

The old Hualapai added more wood to the fire, sending sparks streaming into the night. “Ten miles west of here, you'll come to a place called High Pebble. He'll be there at dawn, looking for you.” He handed Dillon a flashlight. “Here. The batteries died, but I suppose that won't matter to you.”

Radio Joe had called that one right; as Dillon held the flashlight in his hands, the batteries began to charge. In a moment, it glowed with a dim orange flicker that kept glowing brighter.

“What about you?” Dillon asked, but Radio Joe seemed unconcerned.

“I've retired to the canyon. Either they find me here, or they don't. If they do, it doesn't matter, because the worst of it is over for me.” Radio Joe gave Dillon his jacket. “Cold night,” he said.

Dillon took the jacket with a nod of thanks. “I'll bring it back to you when it's all over.”

Radio Joe pursed his age-worn lips. “Never make promises you may not live to keep.”

H
IGH
P
EBBLE, WHEN VIEWED FROM THE CANYON RIM, DID
appear to be a tiny speck of rock, but up close, the boulder was so huge, its shadow could cover a small neighborhood. The spot was one of those magic tricks of nature—the elements having eroded the softer stone beneath it, leaving the boulder perfectly balanced atop a thin spike twenty stories high.

The Bringer, however, had no room in his heart for aesthetics. He cared nothing for the majesty of the place. To him, the Grand Canyon was no more than a ditch, the High Pebble was just another indication of how absurd this world of matter was.

From the base of High Pebble, Okoya could see the river as it wound mile after mile through the canyon. But when the light of dawn hit the canyon, Dillon was nowhere to be seen.

So intent was Okoya searching for signs of Dillon on the river before him, that he never sensed the presence coming up from behind.

“Looking for me?”

Startled, Okoya spun to see Dillon leaning up against the pillar of rock, as if he had appeared out of thin air. Okoya seethed, furious to be caught off-guard, but he quickly took control of the situation.

“Well,” Okoya beamed, his face stretched into a steely smile. “If it isn't the river rat! Quite an impressive show you put on. I'd pay to see it again.”

“It won't happen again,” said Dillon.

“No?” Okoya swaggered closer. “Obviously you have no clue of what's happening to you, do you?”

Dillon kept silent. He merely stood his ground, impassive, as if none of it fazed him. This was not the state in which Okoya had expected to find Dillon. The boy was far too composed. “Your powers have reached what you might call a ‘critical mass,' ” Okoya said. “The circle of your influence is exploding beyond your ability to control it. Rivers you touch flow toward higher ground, and the earth beneath your feet drags to life that which was dust. The world you see before you will turn upside down. But there
is
something that you can do . . . .”

Okoya sensed Dillon's resolve begin to collapse. “What?”

“Let me harness your power!” demanded Okoya. “The strength of my will is the only thing now that can keep it from raging wild.”

“And let you devour every soul on Earth? Let you destroy all there is to destroy?”

Okoya laughed, genuinely amused. “You seem to think there is something here worth preserving. But this world is
nothing
, and the people here are
nothing
. They're fodder for greater beings, like me . . . and you.”

Okoya took a moment to let the words sink into Dillon's slow human brain. He knew he was offering Dillon little more than a collar and leash, but he made it sound more like a crown and scepter—for the Bringer knew that slavery was a far more powerful thing when the slave was willing.

“And if I refuse?” asked Dillon.

“Then I'll kill you.”

“The flood couldn't kill me; what makes you think you can?”

“Do you think you're immortal? You power makes you difficult to kill, but not impossible. Anything from a blade through the heart to a well-placed bullet could do the job.”
Then Okoya grinned wickedly. “And you know all about well-placed bullets, don't you?”

Dillon's fists clenched, probably wondering how the Bringer knew the circumstances of Deanna's death. There were many things the Bringer had learned—and Deanna wasn't Dillon's only weakness.

“I can see you're already willing to throw your life away, so I'll make the stakes worth your while. If you refuse my enlightened leadership, I will kill you . . . and then I will devour the souls of everyone you brought back from the dead. I'll seek out everyone whose life you suffered to mend”—Okoya suppressed his smile as he delivered his coup de grace—“and I'll start with the boy you call Carter.”

Dillon's eyes became feverishly angry. “You leave Carter out of this.”

Okoya began to enjoy this more and more. “He'd become like a younger brother to you, hadn't he, that feral child rescued from the town you destroyed? He'll be exceptionally easy to find.”

“Stay away from him!”

Okoya raised his hand to silence him. “I'm not finished. That's what will happen if you refuse. However, if you accept, that's an entirely different matter.” Okoya tossed his hair, becoming coy, almost feminine. “Let's talk about Deanna.”

Dillon looked away, and Okoya could feel Dillon slowly wrapping around his finger.

“All your powers,” said Okoya, “and you can't bring her back. You could give her life again, if you could reach her; but there are some places you can't travel . . . .
But I can!
”

Okoya waved his hand, hurling the power of his mind like a ball from his fingertips. The view before them began to ripple like a heat mirage, there was a blast in the air like a sonic
boom, and the air pressure instantly changed. The whistle of the wind changed pitch, the rich smell of the Earth took on a bitter odor, and the red canyon light around them grew even redder than before. Beside them, Okoya had torn a hole to the Unworld, its jagged edges rippling with spatial distortion.

Okoya had chosen his point of entrance well, for there in the distance was the Palace of the Gods—just a few miles through the breach. Dillon stood before it, staring at the mountain palace, transfixed by the possibility.

“Either the death of everything you care about,” said Okoya, “or Deanna's life—these are the things that rest in the balance. You choose.”

Dillon did not take his eyes away from the hole, and Okoya resisted the urge to kick him, just to get him moving. “This is the only chance you'll ever have. Go get her, Dillon. Bring her back to life.”

“If I agree,” said Dillon, “you'll stay away from Carter and anyone else whose life I've restored.”

“I will leave alone anyone you wish me to leave alone. Consider their souls a gift from me.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

Okoya chuckled. “Don't you know me by now, Dillon? I serve my own interests—and it's in my best interest to keep you happy.” Okoya slapped Dillon on the shoulder with a firm grip. “In fact, it's best for me if you're the happiest man on Earth.”

Wind drained from the red sands of the Unworld into the Grand Canyon, trying futilely to equalize the pressure between the two dimensions.

“You have a destiny, Dillon. You tried to fight it by denying your own followers, and still they were drawn to you. You tried to fight it by letting loose the flood, but still the event
you tried to undermine only became greater. The pattern of your own future must be clear to you by now, Dillon. Let me help you embrace it.” Okoya could feel the moment Dillon surrendered: his shoulder went limp, his posture slackened, his breathing slowed.

And finally Dillon leapt through the hole.

A
N INSTANT OF BLACK,
numbing cold as he crossed the boundary, then the feel of gritty sand beneath his feet. He didn't turn back to watch Okoya scrutinizing his actions from the other side of the hole. Instead he marched deeper into the Underworld, until the breach was nothing more than a speck of light behind him.

Nothing had changed here. Rusting wrecks of cars, planes, and other, less-identifiable vehicles littered the sands, filled with the bones of the dead occupants, slowly turning to sand themselves. He took inventory of the only landmarks he knew, as if recalling them could give him some sense of comfort in this alien place.

To the left was a great ship, lying crushed on its side, and somewhere beneath it were the remains of Winston's furred beast. Far to the right was a mound of rotting blubber, its stench weaving in and out of the wind—all that was left of Lourdes's beast. Beyond that, was the shore where Michael's parasite of lust had dissolved into the sea. And just before him was the old propeller plane, which had become the tomb of Tory's hive of disease. The parasites had all been destroyed. All but two—Deanna's, and his own.

Dillon continued toward the mountain palace in the distance, letting the steady cadence of his own footfalls hypnotize and numb him. He knew what he had to do—Okoya had left him little choice. The question was, could he go through with
it? With each step toward the mountain palace in the distance, his longing grew, and yet he stopped only halfway there. The hole through which he had come was completely out of sight many miles behind him. The urge to get to Deanna was almost overwhelming, but he fought it, forcing himself to stay put. There was little to hear in the dead air around him, but still he waited, keeping his ears attuned to the slightest rustling of the dry briar-weeds around him.

“I'm here!” he called out to the sky. “I'm waiting for you. Show yourselves!”

The light in the sunless ice-blue sky never changed, so he had no way to measure the passing of time. He waited there for hours . . . until at last he heard them.

It began as a distant
whoosh, whoosh, whoosh
in the air, chased by the sandy hiss of something slithering across the ground. He turned to see his winged creature of destruction approaching in the distant sky, with the Snake of Fear winding the sands beneath it.

So they
were
still here! Still waiting for a great soul to leech upon, for they could not survive outside the Unworld any other way. Dillon knew that these hideous creatures wanted a way out of this place. But he also knew how to keep them from leeching onto him. All he had to do was refuse to invite them in.

The Spirit of Destruction circled above him like a vulture, perhaps wondering why Dillon had chosen to return, then it flapped its huge wings as it settled before him, creating a dust cloud. The Snake of Fear came in from behind, darting from rock to rock, cautiously making its way closer.

Dillon had anticipated this moment, just as he had anticipated that Okoya would punch through to the Unworld and bribe him with Deanna. He knew coming here would lead to this confrontation, and although he feared it, it was also something
he was counting on. He only hoped Okoya's arrogance had blinded him to what Dillon was about to do.

Before him, his creature snarled, its gray face a hellish forgery of Dillon's own. Its muscles rippled, and it flexed its sharp talons as if it were about to pounce and gouge its way back into him, burrowing into his soul. It said nothing to him at first—it just watched, waiting for some part of Dillon's soul to open so it could squeeze its way in.

All I have to do is refuse to let them in,
he reminded himself.

He turned his gaze to the spirit of fear slinking up behind him. “Out where I can see you,” he told it.

It recoiled, then gave him a wide berth as it saddled up beside the creature it partnered with. Dillon tried to forget how much the terror-serpent's face resembled Deanna: a twisted image of her with no eyes.

“He's come to kill us,”
hissed the serpent.

Dillon showed them his palms. “With what weapons?”

The Spirit of Destruction regarded Dillon a moment more, trying to divine his purpose here, but Dillon chose not to reveal it just yet. As long as his intentions were secret, he had the upper hand. Finally his parasite spoke. “I've missed living in your flesh,” it said. “I've missed being a part of you.”

“You were never a part of me,” Dillon told it. Dillon could sense its hunger for destruction, its hatred of him, and its resentment at having been cast out. Did it forget that it had won their last battle?—that it had ultimately destroyed what mattered most to Dillon: Deanna.

It unfolded its wings, taking on a looming, imposing stance.
“Why are you here?”
it demanded.

“I'm here to give you an escape from this place.”

His creature did not take its eyes off him, its distrust oozing like a fume in the air.

“It's a trick!”
hissed the serpent.

“No trick,” said Dillon.

His beast folded its wings once more, and although it did not move any closer, a slight turn of its head told Dillon that he had snagged his deadly doppelgänger's curiosity.
“You would bring us back to your world?”

Dillon took a moment to look toward the palace one last time. Yes, Deanna was there, and yes, his longing for her had been almost insurmountable. But there were things far more pressing now, and so Deanna would have to wait. He knew Deanna would understand.

“I can offer you a bargain,” said Dillon. “Step inside . . . and we'll discuss it.” The creature slowly began to advance, the beast of destruction clicking its talons, the serpent of fear salivating at the prospect of freedom.