Mare had felt lost at the time, and now was no better. Had Phoenix been talking to him, or to someone else in one of the vast hidden universes behind his gaze?
Phoenix’s eyes had focused upon his then, truly seeing him instead of through him. He had felt Phoenix’s right hand squeeze his left, heard Adam calling for them from a million miles away.
“It saddens me to give this gift to you, for it will change nothing. Your power is your courage, while I can only offer you peace. You will do what needs to be done when the time comes, not to prove you aren’t your father, but rather because you will know how it feels to be one, however briefly. You will father the future, which, unfortunately, is not a gift I can offer you.”
Adam’s voice had been joined by others, calling for them, louder, more insistent.
Phoenix had released his hand then and the world had collapsed upon him as though held at bay by a bubble that had finally popped. He remembered gasping for air, fighting the sensation of nausea, and the last thing he had heard, whether real or imagined, were the words Phoenix had whispered as he walked away.
“You will feel no pain.”
Even channeling the voice from memory sent a shiver up his spine. What was that supposed to mean? He had a sinking sensation in his stomach, the same feeling he always had walking into his house when his old man was home, not knowing whether he was drunk or not, fearing he would be greeted by raised fists.
Who was “she”? What the hell did any of this mean?
You will feel no pain.
And what in God’s name was he supposed to make of that?
He swatted the back of his head. It felt like something was crawling on his scalp beneath his hair. Something warm.
His fingers came away with singed hairs that blew away as soon as he saw them.
“Dammit, Ray!” he snapped, turning around to see the flames rising from Ray’s eyes, flagging on the breeze generated by the speeding cycle. He still wasn’t accustomed to the sight of his friend’s face on fire.
“Sorry,” Ray said into his ear. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Hurt me?
But it hadn’t.
Mare turned back to the trail, steering the bike with one hand while he massaged his scalp with the other. The skin was hot to the touch and he could feel the fluid forming beneath a pliable blister, which dimpled under the soft pressure. The hair had been burned away in a section the size of a half dollar, the remaining locks crisp and singed.
He hadn’t felt anything more substantial than momentary warmth.
You will feel no pain.
“What did he do to me?” Mare gasped. More importantly…why had he done it?
VIII
JAKE COULD HARDLY KEEP HIS EYES OPEN. THE SUN HAD SET SOME TIME ago, though how long he couldn’t be sure. It didn’t matter anyway though. His concept of time was skewed beyond repair. Either it was day and they needed to be on the move, or it was night and they needed sleep, but every time his eyelids closed, he was welcomed inside his head by images of monsters racing through rolling clouds of smoke, their nightmarish roars still echoing through his skull. Each time one of those fearsome bat-like faces lunged at him, opening its ferocious jaws, his eyes snapped back open to afford fleeting glimpses of the burned forest flying past beside the path, dead trees standing like zombies over their graves, before slowly beginning to close again. He was terrified either way, wishing for sleep to claim him in the heartbeat before his upper lashes laced with his lower.
Evelyn’s warmth soothed him slightly, but she was no substitute for his mother, the very thought of whom never failed to bring tears to his eyes. She needed him to be strong—her memory had told him so many times in his dreams—so strong he would be, but the exhaustion was making it difficult. All he wanted was to curl up in his own bed at home, awaken from this nightmare, and drink warm milk with honey while his mother stroked his forehead, gently tracing circles around his eyes until the sandman whisked him off into dreams of superheroes and cartoon characters. That was never again to be, of course, for before he could ever enjoy a restful night, they would have to storm the gates of hell.
He shifted his head against Evelyn’s back, finding a momentary soft spot between her shoulder blades and tightened his grip against her stomach. She lowered her hand from the handlebars only long enough to give his arm a soft, reassuring squeeze. It would have to suffice.
Their speed had slowed dramatically since the onset of night, the headlamps providing little help as they merely cast a glare across the wash of black. They were going to have to stop soon. Try to sleep for a little while. That thought made him even sadder, for he knew tonight would be the last night that all of them would be alive. He didn’t know who would join his mother or how, but he had never been more sure of anything in his short life. His dreams where he could see into the future had evaporated, or maybe it was simply because he was getting so little rest that he slept the dreamless sleep of the dead. Regardless, the coming dawn promised only bloodshed and suffering.
Brake lights stained the forest red around him as the bikes coasted to a halt. They had stopped at the base of twin rock formations, which reminded him of tall mushrooms set into the hillside, their flat caps forming a precarious ledge from which a stand of scorched trunks stood like massive yucca plants.
“This looks like as good a place as any,” Adam said, killing his engine. He climbed off and leaned it on the kickstand as the remainder of the motors were silenced. They stood there in an eerie quiet unmarred even by the whisper of the wind, a void of the ordinary sounds of the world.
“It’s about time,” Missy said. “I was starting to doze off while I was driving.”
“You and me both,” Jill said, watching Mare climb off his motorcycle. He raised his arms and stretched. She wished she could have been riding behind him, her chest pressed to his back just to feel him near. “I just need to lie down for a little while, and then I ought to be fine to go again.”
Jake lowered himself from the seat, and staggered to the side. It still felt as though he was on the moving bike, the way his butt still vibrated. The sensation quickly passed, only to be replaced by a more urgent one. He instinctively grabbed himself and scurried away from the others, heading around the limestone towers to a secluded spot where he was out of sight, but could still hear them close by.
Unzipping his dirty jeans, he hosed down the charred side of a tree trunk, the never-ending stream crackling as the charcoaled wood fell away, a small river racing away from him down the slope. He hadn’t realized his body could hold so much fluid. When the flow finally abated, he zipped back up and was preparing to rejoin the others when he noticed something strange from the corner of his eye. There was a gap in the hills against the horizon. That in itself was nothing out of the ordinary. It was the fact that he couldn’t see any distant ridges between them. Only the black sky, the stars muffled by a haze of smoke trapped in the atmosphere.
He wandered up toward it, leashing himself to the sound of voices so he couldn’t go too far. When he crested the slope, he looked to the east. The scorched land stretched so far out in front of him he wondered if he could see the entire world. The foothills rolled lazily down the eastern slope of the Rockies, leveling into the flat plains, uninterrupted until they reached the distant Mississippi hundreds of miles away. From such a distance, details were vague at best, the black ground at the base of the mountains was rough with debris from burned houses and buildings, piles of rubble and timber that provided the only texture to the landscape. It was the same moving onto the plains, the mounds of destruction growing larger and more densely packed as they neared the rim of an enormous crater that looked large enough to cup the moon, the edges leading downward to what must have once been downtown where—
Jake gasped. Had he been able to breathe he would have screamed.
“I was starting to wonder where you might have wandered off—” Ray said from behind him.
Jake whirled around, his hea
rtbeat pounding like a hummingbird’s, his shadow snapping behind him on the ground, cast by the flames in Ray’s eyes.
“Are you guys having a party up here of something?” Mare asked, joining them at the top of the knoll.
The others slowly joined them and together they stared across the Front Range in silent awe, focusing on the point in the center of the crater, where a single dark skyscraper stood from the ruins, supported from all sides by the buildings that had fallen against it, toppled by the atomic blast. That lone spire lorded over the devastation, radiating pain and suffering in palpable waves, a construct of man, and yet simultaneously not of this earth. A physical manifestation of the evils of humanity that had spawned its near extinction.
“That is where we must go,” Phoenix whispered, trying to hide the tremble in his voice.
Nothing more needed to be said, for they had all known it the moment they saw it, precisely as each had imagined it from the uncanny description Jill and Jake had provided from their visions. Even without, it would have been unmistakable.
“They know we’re here,” Jake said, his hand sliding into Ray’s. “I can feel it.”
Phoenix couldn’t bear to look at it a moment longer and turned away. He knew what needed to be done.
“Death will wait for us,” he said, starting back toward their impromptu camp. “Sleep while you can…if you can. Tomorrow we must complete our journey.”
The adversary was now so close it felt like a cold hand had clamped over his heart, chilling his blood. He could almost see the specter of their demise hovering over them. He felt so alone. As he must be when he finally faced Death.
Alone.
He headed down the path they had forged through the soot, glancing back to make sure they were all behind him. He needed them distracted, better yet asleep. And soon.
He had a long night ahead of him.
Chapter 7
I
The Ruins of Denver, Colorado
THE FILMY LIDS OVER DEATH’S EYES SLID BACK, HIS WAKING EYES SHINING golden into the room only momentarily before turning crimson, giving the bones covering the floor and staked to the walls the impressions of bleeding anew. He hadn’t been sleeping, but rather in a state of heightened concentration, his consciousness expanding from the confines of the small throne chamber to study his preparations. He was ready for them now, ready to wage war against the Lord and His pathetic band of survivors. Soon enough the entire earth would be his to do with as he pleased, a smoldering wasteland to rule. He was beyond God’s reach and above the consequences. He was Death, harbinger of life eternal and bringer of damnation, and soon to be king of the hell he had spawned on Earth, the fires of which he could now stoke at will.
A sharp-toothed gash ripped his reptilian face. They were here, he could feel them. Close now. Near enough that he could hear the soft thumping of the last blood of mankind coursing through frail bodies soon to release it onto the black ground, christening it in anticipation of his sovereignty.
He rose from the throne and crossed the room, brittle bones cracking and fracturing beneath his heavy tread, talons clicking, making his way to the stairwell leading to the roof, the vantage from which he would reign supreme. Pestilence and Famine stayed where they were, standing sentry beside the front door of the throne room. He had no need for them. Yet. Their time would still come. They would be sent out into the ruins to intercept the stragglers. The boy, however…the boy was all his.
At the top of the stairs, he stepped out into the night. The air was electric. Lighting slashed the black sky, a battery of blue bolts stabbing the ground all around his fortress from the smoke overhead, illuminating the landscape of the damned, the mounds of rubble stretching away to all sides, ringing the towering behemoth nearly to the horizon. He raised his eyes to the west, to where the mountains carved an angry seam across the night, a ragged saw blade. They were up there, barely out of sight. He could feel their stares upon him, certain that they in turn could feel his, their fear radiating from them even across the miles between. His opposite number was among them. Just a child. A weak and pathetic human, growing more so by the second. Once he was eliminated, the others would fall like leaves.
The boy would come to him. Under the cover of night, the boy would ride to face him and beneath the morning sun’s first light he would crucify God’s chosen warrior and stake claim to the realm of his design.
His heart rate accelerated, cold blood thrumming through his eager form. Where was the Lord now? With His fragile army standing on the brink of eradication, where was He hiding?
Death felt his enemy turn and slink away like the coward that he was and lowered his stare from the high ridge. A flash of light drew his eye from below. With a flick of his eyelids, Death was down on the ground, viewing the remains of the city through the eyes of the source of the sudden flash.
The Leviathan stood in the bottom of a massive hole in the earth to the west where once there had been a large lake in the middle of a beautiful park, before the atomic detonation had vaporized it. Now the formerly luscious grass and bountiful shade trees were gone, replaced by black soot and ash, the banks scattered with the bleached bones of the picnickers who had been witness to its passing.
The creature raised its burning arms out to its sides, directing its palms to the heavens. Its wrists snapped with power before launching geysers of magma into the heavens. The fiery flames rose hundreds of feet into the air before reaching their apex, pausing as though trapped between worlds, and then rained back down. Molten fluid splashed over its body, patterning the divots in the lake bed, beginning to fill the irregularities in the ground where small-mouthed bass had clung to the murky depths in wavering weeds while sunfish and bluegills had darted in schools in the shallows above. The puddles expanded until the creature stood ankle-deep in the widening pools, flames still filling the sky and pouring back down into the deepening melting pot. The Leviathan made no movement, merely generating more and more of the bubbling liquid, the magma reaching the level of its knees, then its waist. Soon it was shoulder-deep, only the beast’s black head above the boiling surface, a stationary buoy. The streams of fire no longer flumed into the sky, instead fueling its depths from beneath, spatters of molten fluids rising from where its hands stayed under the surface until even those twin volcanic eruptions stilled. The level of the magma continued to rise over its head.
Death again retreated into his own skull, watching from high above as the lake of fire finally reached the banks, a glowing beacon visible even to the weak Lord from on high. Bubbles swelled on the flaming surface, issuing tendrils of smoke when they popped. The lake was choppy with waves of fire.
The Leviathan stayed beneath, immersed in its lifeblood of lava, biding its time.
Death could only smile, wicked teeth gnashing.
A distant pinprick of light appeared far ahead from the foothills, and he knew exactly what it was. The end of humanity was nigh, its final hope speeding toward him.
“Come,” Death said in a tongue that sounded obscene coming from his mouth.
He couldn’t tear his eyes from the light, which faded behind hills and vanished as it dipped into valleys, only to reappear again. Closer. Closer still.
A bellow of triumph burst from his chest, echoing like thunder along the Front Range.
II
The Trail of Blood
PHOENIX STOOD UP FROM WHERE HE’D BEEN LYING BESIDE MISSY, ON a blanket covering the scorched earth. There had been no wood to create a fire or with which to fashion shelter, so they had all chosen various points along the limestone cliff out of the rising wind and the elements. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Not yet. Not until it was finally time to say goodbye, a task that was tearing him apart inside. He loved her more than anything else in the entire world and resented the role he was destined to play, but everything he did from this moment forward he would do for her. Despite the broken heart and the risk that she might hate him forever, if he succeeded, she would liv
e. And that was the only thing that mattered to him now.
The others had fallen asleep more quickly than he could have even hoped. Maybe some divine hand had granted a small measure of assistance, one last chance to recharge their batteries, to summon every last iota of strength before the day to come. At least that would buy him a decent head start. He wanted to be in the city before any of them even suspected that he was gone. But first…first there were several important tasks yet to complete.
He walked past where Jill and Mare were sprawled out on a blanket, her hand on his chest, his arm wrapped around her. Mare snored softly. Phoenix knelt silently, kissing his fingertips and placing them gently on Mare’s forehead.
God grant him the strength, he thought, rising and sneaking past. Ray had fallen asleep sitting up with his back against the rock, his chin against his chest, singed bangs covering his hollow sockets. Jake was wrapped in a blanket like a burrito, his head on Ray’s lap. It pained Phoenix to sneak past without being able to give them each a hug goodbye. Beyond, he reached Adam and Evelyn. Staring down at them for a moment, watching Evelyn’s eyes flick back and forth under her lids in a dream that brought a sad smile to her face while Adam slept flat on his back with his mouth hanging open, he waited for Evelyn to roll away as he knew she would. He eased himself to the ground by Adam’s head, and softly placed both hands on the older man’s shoulders, closing his eyes to focus his concentration.
Energy coursed through his fingertips, the hair on his forearms standing electrically. The power flowed away from his chest, draining him as it poured into Adam. Phoenix’s head sagged, his body acquainting him with its frailties. Exhaustion set in, but it was more than that. He had emptied his vessel of flesh of everything but his blood, reminding him of his nights in The Man’s basement confines when the Swarm had descended upon him, stealing his strength to cure their own ills, draining him of everything that he was. Only this time he had done so willingly, sacrificing his very soul in hopes that his friends would live to see the sunset one more time. He was almost done, and soon he would have to abandon them to set off for the terrible tower where Death waited for him with ferociously sharp claws and—
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