by Lukens, Mark
“I don’t understand this,” Juan Carlos said, muttering to himself as he put a pair of headphones on. “This can’t be real.” He looked at Cole and the gun in his hand. “Put that away. You don’t need that anymore.”
Cole laid the gun on the seat between his legs and looked out the window as Juan Carlos drove his airplane onto the tarmac. The small narrow airstrip looked cracked and dilapidated now that Stella saw it up close.
“I want three thousand for this!” Juan Carlos announced as his plane picked up speed on the airstrip.
Cole waved a hand like he was agreeing, but he didn’t say anything.
The plane was moving faster now, beginning to lift just a little, the engine whining. It was so loud inside the airplane. Juan Carlos pulled up slightly on the control wheel and the plane lifted up into the air, the gray sky in front of them. The plane rocked from side to side on the wind.
Juan Carlos looked back down as he banked sharply into the turn north; he looked down at the tarmac, the grass, and the buildings, staring in horror at the dead people below. Even from a few hundred feet in the air Stella could see the tentacles and feelers shooting out of the people below, the Ancient Enemy constantly changing shape once it was out of the bodies, like a black amoeba, like an oil slick that had come to life.
The pilot muttered another prayer as the plane sailed higher into the low clouds, flying right towards the dark clouds to the north. At least there wasn’t any lightning. Soon Juan Carlos would get the plane above much of the thunderstorm, but not high enough to be completely above it.
The plane shuttered, rocking from side to side again. For a moment Stella thought the Ancient Enemy had launched itself at the plane and was holding it, one long tentacle wrapped around a wheel.
“Hold on,” Juan Carlos said. “This is going to be a bit bumpy for a while.”
Stella held on to the armrest of her seat. She had buckled her lap belt. The plane shuttered again and it sounded like the metal was trying to rip apart. The engine was roaring. The plane dipped and it felt like they had dropped at least twenty feet. Stella’s stomach fluttered.
“Once we get past this storm it will be better,” Juan Carlos promised.
The clouds were swirling in front of them, darker and darker, moving faster. Cole leaned forward, staring through the windshield at something in the clouds.
Stella saw what he was looking at.
“What’s that?” Cole asked, pointing at the dark mass in the gray clouds.
Juan Carlos stared. He was speechless for a moment. “I don’t know, but we’re going around it.”
The plane shuttered again, metal screeched and made popping sounds. Juan Carlos struggled with the control wheel, trying to maneuver the plane.
“What are you doing?” Cole yelled. “Turn away from that thing.”
“I’m trying,” Juan Carlos yelled back.
Stella watched the black mass among the clouds. It looked like a spinning black sphere in the clouds, but it also looked like a black hole that was pulling the clouds down into its darkness. She had seen it before—she had seen a black swirling mass like this inside the church at the ghost town, the black spinning ball that David had summoned, the doorway to the Ancient Enemy’s world, the doorway David had sent the monster back through. Now it was here in the sky, among the gray storm clouds.
Juan Carlos still fought with the control wheel. The plane was shaking even harder now, but they kept flying right towards the black hole, the gray clouds swirling around it. To Stella, it looked like they were flying right down into the top of a tornado, right down into the funnel.
“I can’t turn!” Juan Carlos yelled, still pulling on the control wheel as hard as he could.
Stella remembered when David had summoned the spinning black sphere in the church, the electricity crackling from it, the Ancient Enemy being sucked into it, stretched and pulled back into its world. Now it was happening to them. She realized now why the Ancient Enemy hadn’t attacked and killed them—it had been saving them for this, for the chance to suck them into its own world, into the Void.
CHAPTER 42
David
Joe Blackhorn’s trailer
It was early afternoon when they got to Joe Blackhorn’s trailer. David had expected the place to be the same, and it was, but it was also different. The trailer was still there, the small greenhouse not too far away, the stables and corral off to the left, the small windmill generator in back, the hogan in the distance beyond the trailer at the foot of the steep hill. But none of Joe Blackhorn’s stuff seemed to be there. All of his vehicles were gone, both of his pickup trucks and even the two junk vehicles. The construction and fencing supplies piled up at the rear of the trailer were gone. His potted plants beside his trailer and next to the greenhouse were gone. All of the horses were gone. And of course Joe Blackhorn’s German shepherd had been given away to a good home two years ago.
Palmer parked in front of the trailer and shut the engine off. It was deathly quiet now. He sat there like he was reluctant to get out, looking around.
“It’s not here,” David told Palmer. He would be able to tell if the Ancient Enemy was here, he would feel that prickling on his skin, the goosebumps raising, that electric feeling in the air around him like the air was suddenly ionized, that sense that someone—or something—was right behind him, sneaking up on him, about to touch him.
“Nobody lives here now?” Palmer asked.
David shook his head no. “An old lady owns all of this property around here. She let Joe Blackhorn live here. When he died, she just left his trailer and buildings here. She gave a lot of his stuff to his distant relatives and friends, and donated the rest of it.”
“She doesn’t want to rent this place to somebody?”
“Nobody wants to live here. A lot of people were scared of Joe Blackhorn. Some believe his ghost is here now.”
Palmer didn’t look like he believed that, but he looked worried that a demon might be here. He got out of the truck with Begay’s gun in his hand.
David got out and walked to the front door of the trailer, climbing the three steps up to the door.
“Is the door locked?” Palmer asked from the sandy and weedy area that served as the front yard.
David didn’t answer. He knew the door would probably be unlocked—many older Navajo didn’t believe in locking their doors. He twisted the doorknob and opened the door.
It was a little stuffy inside the trailer. The air was musty but not too bad. The trailer was mostly empty; all of the furniture and Joe Blackhorn’s possessions were gone. The handmade wooden bookshelves were still there, still attached to the living room walls. David swore he could still smell the old books in this room.
Memories came flooding back as David walked deeper into the living room. He had prayed in here and learned in here, studied in here. And outside by the fire pit he had listened to Joe Blackhorn tell stories of his ancestors, stories that had never been written down, some stories never uttered between two people who weren’t Navajo; they were secret stories and powerful songs.
“The power is already in you,” Joe Blackhorn had said while sitting across from him at the fire pit, the firelight dancing and reflected in his dark eyes, the creases and wrinkles in his face seemingly deeper and darker. “Energy is all around you, every atom vibrating at its own frequency. Use that frequency. Use that energy. Nothing in this world is still, that is an illusion. Reality is only an illusion.”
Joe Blackhorn used a mixture of science and ancient teachings in his lessons, and when he explained things scientifically it had all seemed plausible to David. But his teachings had also been frustrating because so much of it relied on David’s own instinct, and David didn’t even know how to control any of it yet.
“You will learn,” Joe Blackhorn had said so many times. “It will come to you. You have years to learn this. Let it come to you naturally.”
But right now David didn’t have years to learn how to summon his powers.
Maybe it was too late for him, and maybe it was too late for everyone else.
Palmer entered the living room from outside. He still had Begay’s gun in his hand. He looked around at the empty living room and kitchen, then at David. “This place is empty. You sure there’s something here for you?”
“Billy Nez said there was. I believe him.”
“Do you know what you’re looking for?”
“No.”
“If this thing he left for you was so important, why didn’t he just give it to you when he was still alive?”
David shrugged. Trying to explain how Joe Blackhorn’s mind worked would be a waste of time; David didn’t understand it and he definitely wouldn’t be able to make Agent Palmer understand it. “I think he left something to me like someone leaves something in a will.”
Palmer just sighed, but he seemed to accept and understand that answer. He walked into the empty kitchen, looking around like he might spot an object sitting on a counter or inside a cupboard.
I stopped coming to see him. That was the real reason Joe Blackhorn hadn’t given him the item before now. But David didn’t want to explain that to Agent Palmer either; he didn’t want to tell him how he had turned his back on Joe Blackhorn.
David walked over to the empty bookshelves. He could almost still see all of the old books, the titles and author names on the spines, hardback books shoved in with paperback books, no real order to the collection. He remembered the small objects on the shelves in front of the books: a small animal skull, the sextant, a small figure carved from wood. He had never been contacted by the old woman about Joe Blackhorn’s things. Maybe Joe Blackhorn had been angry at him the last few years for not continuing with the training, or maybe the old woman was angry. David had a few things Joe Blackhorn had given him over the years, a stack of books, carvings from pieces of wood and stone. That was enough for him.
He walked down the hallway into the bedroom. The furnishings and décor in here had been simple: a bed, a table next to it with a lamp, a dresser, and a wooden chair. But the room was empty now. There was a bathroom off of the bedroom with a small shower in it. The bathroom was bare and clean, nothing left behind.
Billy Nez had said that Joe Blackhorn had hidden something here, something that could help with a spirit walk. David tried to guess what it might be. In all the years of teaching that Joe Blackhorn had done with David, he had never taught him about spirit walks, and he had never used objects or talismans. David had never even been on a spirit walk before.
But then again maybe he had been on a spirit walk already; maybe his dreams were unconscious spirit walks. He’d seen the killer in his dreams; maybe he had been journeying through other dimensions to get to the killer in those dreams.
“Physicists know there are other dimensions than ours,” Joe Blackhorn had said. “They can’t prove it yet, but they know those other dimensions are real. Are they alternate realities or just different planes of existence? They can’t say for sure. But they know they exist—it isn’t science fiction.”
David thought about the spirit walk again, a different dimension. He had summoned a doorway to the Ancient Enemy’s world before inside the church in the ghost town. Could he summon that doorway again? And if he could, then could he enter that world?
But he had already been in the Ancient Enemy’s world. In Hope’s End he had entered that doorway and taken the Ancient Enemy with him. He couldn’t remember anything now about that world, but he had survived it before because he was standing here now.
David felt a little better as he walked back out to the living room. Palmer was back by the front door, waiting impatiently. David went into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator; it was empty and clean.
“Still didn’t find anything?” Palmer asked.
“No.” David closed the door, thinking again about all the training he had done with Joe Blackhorn here. Some of it inside this trailer, some of it out by the fire pit, much of it in . . .
“. . . the hogan,” David whispered.
He shot past Palmer and went outside, almost running to the hogan in the distance at the foot of the hill. He opened the wood door that faced east and entered the hogan. It was empty inside, all of Joe Blackhorn’s possessions gone. The only thing left was the old fire pit in the middle of the hogan, the pit surrounded by rocks, a hole in the center of the ceiling for the smoke to escape.
David sighed. There was nothing in here. He walked over to the fire pit, but it was empty. He even sifted through old ashes, but he didn’t find anything. He stood back up and walked over to the wall, walking around the large circular room, running his fingers along the wood posts that made up the walls. More wood posts crisscrossed each other to make up the ceiling. As he walked he swore he could still smell the faint odor of wood smoke inside. He swore he could still hear Joe Blackhorn’s chanting.
Whatever Joe Blackhorn had left for him, it was in this hogan—David was sure of that. But where? He had to slow down and concentrate, feel where Joe Blackhorn would have hidden it.
He kept walking next to the walls of the circular hogan. He kept running his hand along the wooden beams that stood up next to each other, lashed together and packed with mud years ago. And then he stopped. A part of one of the thick wooden posts felt loose. He dug his fingers in around the edge of the loose area and pulled off a piece of wood revealing a rectangular hole cut into the wood. A small wooden box was stuffed into the hole with a white envelope on top of it. He pulled the box out and opened it, sifting through the few contents inside: a small jar of what looked like red paint (but David knew it was owl’s blood), a small paintbrush, a few smooth round black rocks, a small stick with beads and feathers attached to it, and one lone eagle feather.
After setting the box on the floor for a moment, David opened the envelope.
“Is that it?” Palmer asked from the doorway.
David didn’t respond. He unfolded the two pieces of paper he had pulled out of the envelope. One was a letter from Joe Blackhorn, both a goodbye letter and a set of instructions. The other paper was a hand drawn map.
“It’s a map,” David told Palmer as he folded up the papers and stuffed them back into the envelope. He folded the envelope in half and shoved it down into his pants pocket.
“To the ghost town?”
“No. I already know how to get there.”
“A map to where?”
“A map to Bone Canyon.”
“Bone Canyon? What’s that?”
“It’s a place where mass burial sites of the Anasazi were found a few years ago along with some kivas.” He thought of Stella just then and how she would love to see those ancient burial sites. But these sites had been kept secret from outsiders. Many of the Navajo were tired of scientists coming in and unearthing the dead, taking the bones away to be studied and kept in some drawer at a university, or worse, displayed in a museum. This burial ground had been left just the way it had been found, and no one ever went out there. But Joe Blackhorn had gone there over two years ago, and now he wanted David to go to a certain spot in Bone Canyon for some reason. And at the spot he wanted David to go to, he had drawn a medicine wheel there on the map.
Palmer stepped outside the hogan.
David took one last long look around inside the hogan. He picked up the wooden box and followed Palmer outside.
Palmer looked up at the early afternoon sky. He seemed to be calculating the hours until sundown. And then he looked at David. “What now?”
“We go to the Bone Canyon. We go to the place on the map that Joe Blackhorn drew.”
Palmer didn’t say anything for a long moment; he just stared out at the never-ending hills.
David thought Palmer was going to refuse to take him to Bone Canyon, but Palmer took a deep breath and then exhaled just as slowly, like he had finally made up his mind about something. “You ready to go now?”
David nodded.
“Then let’s get going.”
David’s cell phone
dinged, it was the sound of a text message. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket, his heart leaping with hope.
“You’ve got cell service way out here?” Palmer asked, looking at his own phone and frowning. “I can’t get anything out here.”
“No service,” David said, reading the text message. “It’s from Stella.”
“What did she say?”
David handed his phone to Palmer.
“Help me,” he said, reading the text. “Where is she?”
“That’s not her,” David told Palmer. “The Ancient Enemy’s got them now.”
CHAPTER 43
Begay
Hospital – New Mexico
Begay woke up in bed. For just a few seconds he didn’t know where he was. He knew he wasn’t in his own bed or at his own house. No, he wasn’t at his house because there were dead people at his house. The Ancient Enemy had been there.
“You’re awake.”
Begay turned to his left and saw Angie sitting in a chair near the window. The blinds were drawn but the late afternoon light was still shining through them. She smiled at him as she got up and walked over to his bedside.
“I guess I dozed off a little,” Begay said. Now he remembered coming here to the hospital this morning. From the look of the golden light coming through the blinds he guessed it was close to sundown. “What time is it?”
“You can go back to sleep if you want to,” Angie told him. “The doctors told me you don’t have a concussion. They were amazed about that.”
“I’ve got a hard head.”
“I told them that. You’ve got some bruising and they stitched up the cut on your head. And your right knee is sprained.”
Begay moved his leg and felt a sharp pain shooting through his knee. He winced, closing his eyes for a moment. “Have you been back to the house?”
