The latest slide showed laughing men gathered around the fire and one sloshing an arc of gasoline from a square red gas can toward the blaze, which had died down to half strength——enough so that it was no longer an overexposed blur, and the darkness at its heart was no longer shapeless.
Matt froze in his tracks, staring at the projection. Felt the back of his throat close. His palms flash with the damp ache of horror.
The dark shape within the fire…
It was a log of some kind.
A weirdly shaped log.
It had to be.
It—
Clack.
Matt gasped.
The shape was not a log.
The shape was a woman.
The shape was a woman with blackened skin and blazing hair, a woman who strained against the steel pole to which she’d been tied, her mouth open in midcry, her eyes rolling white and as mad as a mare’s, her clothes incandescent, her head haloed in yellow points of flame.
Click-click-click-click.
Matt’s gaze snapped down. For no reason whatsoever, the See ‘n Say on the crate had rattled to life, the plastic arrow whirling around in a circle until it came to rest on a pig picture. The warped, distorted voice that warbled out of it in half time was barely recognizable as human.
“This…is the sound…a hog makes,” it said.
But what followed was not the grunt of a pig. It was the ear-shattering shriek of a woman being burned alive, and it went on, and on, and on…
Matt clamped his hands to his ears, bounded to the crate, grabbed the possessed toy, and flung it against the wall, where it shattered into a hundred pieces. As soon as it did, the oily green flame rising off the blackened hand flared up with a tearing sound. It rose three, four, five feet above the bowl in a roaring tongue of fire, then split into a Y-shaped blaze that morphed into the slant-eyed visage of a hook-nosed clown, jaws agape in laughter.
Matt staggered backward, his mind reeling.
Where else should an Aryan soul seek purification, than in the very crucible of Aryanism?
The tongue of flame grew thinner, grew blacker, and resolved itself into a helix of smoke with a sudden whoof.
Ahhhhhhhhh…
From the bed, Jasha groaned, blindly lunging against his bonds, eyes rolled back into his skull.
But Matt wasn’t there to hear it. Matt was already past the clothes rack, was down the ladder, was in the hall. He dropped to the floor gasping, nearly broke his ankle. Rose unsteadily, expecting chaos, but didn’t get it.
The hall was strangely silent.
Well, almost silent. From Kingman’s study at the opposite end of the hall came the hiss of urgent whispers.
Could Roma still be talking to Kingman? Wouldn’t he have heard the shrieking upstairs? Wouldn’t she?
None of it made sense to Matt. No surprise there: his brain felt as useless as a blown fuse.
What had he just seen? Had it even happened?
As he crept down the hall, Matt was dimly aware that he was probably in shock. People who see a photo of a woman being burned alive should not be walking silently down halls. They should be weeping or freaking out or shouting at the top of their lungs. But he couldn’t do any of those things. Because he now knew what the purpose was of the pyre being built at the base of the hill.
He knew what “BY MIDNIGHT TONIGHT OR ELSE” meant.
He knew what was in store for Roma if he didn’t find a way to save her.
And he knew he’d have only one shot at doing so, and if he failed, they would both be ashes by morning.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Closer now to Kingman’s study, Matt could begin to make out snatches of the old man’s hoarse whispers.
“…not much time left, but listen! Listen to me…”
Was he still talking to Roma? Clenching his fists, Matt positioned himself by the cracked door and peered in. He saw Kingman from behind, his scabby scalp hovering above a tatty red robe.
“…’course I know what the alternative is! But she’s… proto-Aryan princess!…of the Bear…how can we just…”
Matt’s fists unclenched slightly. Kingman was talking about Roma, not to her. Unless she was in the room, listening silently?
A pause. Matt waited. Matt couldn’t hear another voice, but clearly there had been one, because Kingman strode agitatedly out of view, saying, “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t want my army back? My beautiful, magnificent, army…Fist of God…” He almost sobbed the last few words.
Matt eased the door open an inch to get a better view. He could see Kingman again. The old man was leaning against a strip of wall between two bookshelves; his palms and forehead were pressed into the wallpaper as if it were the only thing keeping him upright. He looked exhausted.
Another silence.
Then: “Don’t…don’t you dare patronize me!” Kingman jerked his face back from the wall, staring at his shadow, which the lamp behind him cast upon it. “I’m fully aware…”
Matt eased the door open another two inches. He could now see more than half of the room. No one was standing near Kingman.
Who the fuck was he speaking to?
“Oh, go ahead. Yes, you think you’re so smart,” Kingman sputtered, backing up, jabbing a finger at his shadow. “But I’m not lost yet! She gives me strength! Power! She renews me! Shares my bed!” Hunched over, Kingman pounded his chest with his fist, shouting at the wall and the black shape on it.
Matt cracked the door open another two inches. He now could see the far window, which reflected the entire room.
There was no one else in it.
Kingman was alone.
“Laugh all you want, you bastard! But I cannot…I will not burn her!” Kingman grabbed a book off his desk and flung it against the wall before him. “She’s not like the rest. She’s not! And I will not be bullied…I will not…” He covered his ears with his hands, shook his head fiercely. “Oh, goddamn you…!” Kingman staggered backward, as if standing in a gale, and then threw himself against the wall before him. His clawlike fingers grabbed a scrolling tip of wallpaper and ripped it off in one long sheet. He flung it to the floor. Now nothing remained on the drywall before him but his shadow.
“You can’t make me…” the old man wheezed, backing up, clutching his chest with one hand while he jabbed a finger at the wall with the other. “You cannot make me…”
The skin on Matt’s arms lifted into gooseflesh. Jesus Christ. He’s talking to his shadow! Matt took a careful step backward. Guy is fucking nuts.
And then something happened that shocked Matt so completely he couldn’t process it at first. It was a simple thing. Kingman spun away from the wall, his face haggard, his eyes glazed, and staggered over to a low mantel to grab a half-filled decanter of amber liquid, which he shakily poured into a shot glass.
There was nothing unusual about what Kingman did.
What was unusual was that even though he’d walked away, his shadow remained on the wall.
Matt stared, wide-eyed, feeling his chest tighten ‘til he couldn’t draw a breath.
The shadow didn’t move.
And yet it did. Because it wasn’t completely motionless. It swayed slightly. Very near the shadow, the drywall had a long, diagonal crack. The shadow’s shoulder wasn’t touching the crack. But then it was. But then it wasn’t.
Matt forced himself to breathe, to take a step backward. He fought off a creeping, dreamlike paralysis that threatened to freeze him in his tracks like a headlight-blinded deer.
Got to get out of here, he thought, stepping away from the cracked door—but not before he saw the shadow slide down the drywall, spill onto the carpet, and glide, like an oil slick, toward Kingman.
Got to get out of here now.
Even if it meant leaving his backpack, his ax.
But wait: hadn’t Roma said she’d put those things in his room?
She had.
Moving fast now, he backtracked down the hall toward
the room they’d left him in. He pushed open the door— and there, on his bed, waiting for him like two old friends, were his backpack and ax.
Bingo.
Matt slung the backpack over his shoulder and grabbed the ax. He felt better immediately. The smooth grain of the handle was warm and dry in his palm, and the panic in his breast vanished.
Then he noticed something else: Roma had set Kingman’s open laptop on his bed as well. But why? Had she wanted him to know where to find her?
He picked it up to take a look. The screen was still split into four quadrants, each showing a separate live video feed from the cameras carried by Thor, Loki, Odin, and Freya.
But none of the feeds showed Roma’s location. Two were dark, while the other two just showed…
Matt blinked. Could that be…?
He peered closer. Snorted in disbelief.
Yep, it was.
Bare breasts, that is.
The lucky bearer of the Loki camera was clearly lying on his back somewhere. His video cam was pointed upward at the interlocking branches of overhead pine trees. The pines, however, were for the most part obscured by the halfnaked commando bouncing up and down above him. Her camo jacket was open, and her baby-doll T-shirt was rucked up to her collarbone. The feed showed his hands rising up and massaging her full breasts, plucking at the dark nipples. Her eyes were closed, and she was breathing hard. As Matt watched, she threw her head back, brow furrowed, and said, “Fuck, yes.”
Meanwhile, Freya’s feed showed the flushed face of a supine militiaman, his bristly jaw slack with pleasure.
Despite the horror of the past few minutes, the sheer innocence of the cam-recorded tryst almost made him laugh. He was glad someone in this godforsaken place had something better to do than commit murder, practice black magic, and measure craniums. The transported look on the young woman’s face reminded him of better days that he’d once enjoyed, and might again—if he could find Roma and get her to guide him out of this compound to wherever these lovers frolicked. He gazed enviously at the image of the healthy young woman astride her companion, her face lifted against the night, with a full moon above her shoulder.
Full moon? Matt did a double take. When he’d been in the sky chair, he’d seen the moon, and it was a crescent.
Looked closer.
That full moon wasn’t a moon.
It was a face.
“Oh my God,” he said.
Baldy’s white, vein-laced face loomed out of the darkness above Freya’s shoulder. She didn’t notice. But Loki did: Matt saw the soldier’s eyes get big. He gave a muffled yell of panic at the same time that Baldy’s huge fists slipped a black wire around Freya’s neck and lifted her up, up, gagging—revealing the full breasts, the pale belly, the triangular thatch, the thrashing thighs, the kicking black combat boots.
Suddenly Thor and Odin’s feeds flashed to life, showing dozens of bodies in motion, swiftly approaching the compound’s electric fence.
He glanced down at the laptop’s clock: midnight.
Time’s up.
Matt threw down the laptop, raced into the hallway, and at the top of his lungs, yelled, “Here they come!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
In two minutes the entire compound was roused, and its staff—which by now included nine militiamen, Kingman, Arkady, and Roma—had assembled in the downstairs armory. And in that two minutes, every single halogen light along the compound’s perimeter had been blown out with rifle fire.
In five minutes, the Fist of God’s members were armed, armored, ammo’d up, and reporting to battle stations throughout the first floor. From outside came the ominous snarl of chainsaws biting into tree trunks beyond the fence.
And in eight minutes, a booming, amped-up voice came thundering from the direction of the front gate.
“WE’RE HERE, OLD MAN. COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE!”
Charles Kingman stepped out onto the lodge’s porch with Arkady and three other militiamen. Matt followed, his heart pounding. He’d tossed aside his backpack and slipped a bullet-proof vest over his denim shirt. In his left hand he held a Glock. In his right was the ax.
So bright: Matt blinked, squinted against the harsh glare that bathed the porch.
As his eyes adjusted, he saw that thirty feet beyond the electric fence’s main gate, the huge headlights of a familiar ATV were focused on them like the eyes of a giant predator. The ambient light from the halogens picked up the gleaming row of steel spikes on the ATV’s hood, the fanged maw, RAHOWA.
Clutching a rifle, Kingman walked stiffly up to the camo-covered chain link that screened in the porch and peered out.
“What do you want, Alastair?” he shouted.
“YOU KNOW WHAT I WANT, OLD MAN. WE GOT THE PYRE. WE GOT THE GAS. ALL WE NEED NOW IS THE GIRL.”
A sharp intake of breath behind Matt. He glanced around. Roma was standing behind him, her hands pressed to her belly, her eyes wide with fear.
“Never,” Kingman croaked, his voice shaking with rage. “Not this one. I will not give her up. How many times have I told you? She is proto-Aryan, married in May to the Ursus—”
Alastair didn’t wait for him to finish.
“I DIDN’T COME EMPTY-HANDED, OLD MAN. I’M PREPARED TO TRADE PRISONERS.”
“Trade…?” Kingman seemed at a loss. Then he understood, and his voice rose to a hysterical pitch. “You release my scouts immediately! They are your brothers in arms, Alastair! I forbid you to harm them!”
This drew ragged laughter from the rank of traitors in the darkness beyond the fence. Christ, thought Matt, sounds like a lot of them.
“Hmm.” Alastair was no longer using the bullhorn. He seemed to be mulling it over. “Well, now that you say it like that—all authoritative-like—goddamn, but it’s awful hard to say no. You sure can be convincing when ya wanna be. God knows I spent my entire life bein’ convinced of all kinds of shit you said…Dad.”
Oh my God, Matt thought. That’s all that was missing. He gripped his ax more tightly. Alastair’s last sentence was spoken with a deep fury. Clearly, these two had major issues with each other.
Alastair cleared his throat. “Anyway. I’m more ‘n willin’ to let bygones be bygones. So here’s your weak-ass foot soldiers. Don’t never say I didn’t give you nothin’.”
There was movement out beyond the fence’s main gate.
Matt peered through the camouflaged chain link.
Slowly, the silhouettes of four figures staggered single file in front of the ATV. Their hands were bound, and they were all linked together by a long strap, like prisoners on a chain gang.
Kingman gave a sharp intake of breath when he saw them. “If you’ve hurt them, Alastair…”
“Naw, old man, see for yourself. They’re just a little soggy is all.”
The figures staggered away from the ATV and toward the gate, each linked to the others by a six-foot cord. They appeared to be gagged. As they approached the fence, Matt could see that they were indeed soaked. While their features were still shadowed, their clothes were clearly black and stuck to their skin, which gleamed. Their hair was plastered to their heads. They looked like they’d been dragged through a creek. And probably had been.
“Get a move on, you four,” Alastair said. “G’won home like the ass-whipped bitches you are.”
Walter stepped up nervously behind Kingman. “Sir, the fence is live! If they touch it—!”
Another kid next to him said, “Sir, they’re gonna want us to turn off the juice. That’s why they’re doin’ this.”
Kingman nodded. “The electricity stays on. But we will open the gate to let those four enter.”
“Sir!”
“We will open the gate,” Kingman hissed, turning on him. “But as soon as they’re through, close it up. And shoot anyone who tries to follow them.”
“Yes, sir.”
Walter flicked open the control panel and tapped in a code.
There was a hum.
A loud clic
k.
And then the electrified gate began to rattle back on its steel track.
The four prisoners stumbled forward, muffled groans coming from behind their gags. They came within fifteen feet of the gate.
Then ten.
Five.
The breeze shifted, began blowing toward Matt and the rest from the direction of the ATV. Matt got a whiff of something he didn’t like. It could be coming from the ATV…
The four reached the open gate.
Or not. He sniffed again.
The first two staggered through the gate, followed by the third, followed by the fourth. Bound together, they all approached with shuffling steps.
“Shut it,” Kingman hissed.
Walter’s fingers clattered over the control panel.
Immediately the gate began to rattle shut. Everyone on the porch tensed, every muzzle was lifted…But the ATV stayed where it was, its engine thrumming powerfully, its exhaust drifting toward the compound along with the smell of…
“Oh Jesus,” Matt said.
A flame flared to life between the ATV headlights. It grew until it encompassed a fiery bolt. Hidden hands slid it into the drawn wire of a crossbow.
Matt threw himself against the chain link, shouting, shouting to the prisoners, “Get down! Get down!”
“The hell are you doing?” Kingman roared, grabbing Matt by the elbow.
Matt shook him off. “Can’t you smell it? They’re doused in—”
The crossbow released with a fwick.
“—gas!”
The flaming bolt flashed through the chain-link fence and hit the nearest scout square in the back. There was an incredible whoomf, and he exploded into a twisting, screaming ball of fire. A line of flame shot along the strap connecting him to the nearest prisoner, who immediately whoomfed into a second fireball, and so (whoomf) ignited the wailing third, who (whoomf) lit the shrieking fourth.
“No!” With a strangled cry, Kingman made a lunge for the steps—only to have Matt grab him by the collar and jerk him backward. As soon as he did, splinters erupted from the porch pillar that Kingman had been standing next to only moment before.
“Let me go,” Kingman yelled, struggling. “We’ve got to help them!”
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