59
CAITLIN HEARD THE singing before she saw the light of the fire. The road she’d followed up from the washout had come to a winding stairway, obviously the way to the peak, before continuing toward a loop that looked like it circled the compound and joined up with the southern entrance.
She sure as hell wasn’t going to take the long way. The hundred feet of stairs took her up to the edge of the ceremonial fire circle on the opposite side as her first visit. Once again, the Dayans surrounded their eternal flame, and damn were they naked.
Ten to fifteen women lay on the stone wall circling the fire, eyes closed. Another twenty milled along the edges of the plateau. The rest stood in a line near the fire, singing and waiting to be served a beverage from a silver decanter by a woman Caitlin recognized by bare ass alone. Even from twenty feet away, she could see where Gwendolyn Sunrise’s sun didn’t rise.
No sign of Magda or Promise, but near the other side of the plateau, one woman, her old friend Mouse Girl, remained dressed in red with the ultimate accessory: a firearm.
If Promise wasn’t here, she might be locked in one of the holding rooms in the main house. Maybe the long way was the only way. Caitlin turned back toward the stairs, but a sound behind her, neither singing nor speaking, caught her attention: coughing, or rather gurgling. Someone was choking.
She looked back to the circle, saw the chest of one of the supine women on the rock wall heave. A mess of white foam flowed from the woman’s lips to her shoulder.
“She’s choking,” Caitlin yelled, rushing into the clearing. Surprisingly, no one even noticed her approach. She got her hand under the woman’s head and turned her onto her side. The woman’s closed eyes didn’t open, but her mouth did. Curdled chunks of white and red replaced the stream of foam.
“Help,” Caitlin yelled, trying to clear the woman’s airway.
The volume of the singing lessened as some of the voices dropped out. A young woman said, “Look, it’s Magda’s daughter.”
A handful of voices answered her. “Blessed be the Daughters.”
Caitlin turned back toward the crowd, saw Lily “Eve” Kramer looking her way.
“Help me,” Caitlin repeated, and Lily ran over, naked and smiling like a puppy in its first dog park.
“Caitlin, you made it. I hoped you would.”
“Lily, this woman’s sick.”
Lily’s smile took a hit. “It’s Eve, remember?”
Caitlin grabbed Lily’s cheeks and turned her toward the chunks of blood-filled vomit. “Eve, Lily, who-the-fuck-ever you are, snap out of it. This woman’s dying.”
Lily’s eyes widened. She took Caitlin’s position, propping the unconscious woman’s head up, then nodded. “It’s only the Calm. As long as I help her breathe, she’ll be fine when the Light comes.”
Caitlin took a step back, noticed the feet of the next closest woman and their odd blue tint. She reached out and touched a bare foot.
Cool, not ice cold, but not the normal warmth of a healthy body next to a roaring fire.
Caitlin turned back to Lily. “Have you taken the Calm?”
Lily shook her head. “Not my turn yet.”
Caitlin looked back at the line, saw twenty women still waiting for a drink, meaning almost as many had already sipped from Gwendolyn Sunrise’s blessed cup.
“It’s poison,” she yelled, pushing through the naked women toward the serving station. “You’re drinking poison.”
The singing finally stopped, and all the women, especially Gwendolyn Sunrise, turned toward Caitlin, not angry or scared but with complete wonderment.
“You came back,” Gwendolyn said, the ceremonial chalice in one hand. “And you’ve seen the miracle. Magda lives.”
“Magda lives,” the others boomed, smiles on every one of their faces, even Mouse Girl.
Caitlin pushed through the smiling nudes, closing in on Gwendolyn Sunrise. “Where is Promise Larsen?”
Gwendolyn only smiled. “Not here, and that is truly her loss, for the world burns—”
“As foretold,” the Daughters finished.
“And the Light comes—”
“For the pure.”
Gwendolyn threw her arms wide. “Led by Desmond the Shepherd.”
The still-standing Daughters raised their hands toward the sky. “Father, brother, lover, guide.”
Caitlin moved close enough to Gwendolyn to smell the woman’s sweat. “And where is your shepherd?”
“Preparing his soul.”
Caitlin reached for the cup in Gwendolyn’s hand. “Did Desmond drink from the Calm?”
Gwendolyn handed her the cup freely. “Of course.”
Caitlin threw the cup on the ground. “It’s fucking poison. You’re drinking poison.”
Gwendolyn calmly bent over, retrieved the cup, and smiled once more. “It’s only poison to the unsure. A soul of white can enter the Light. Only the pure won’t burn.”
She raised her hand.
The women repeated the phrase. “Only the pure won’t burn.”
And again. “Only the pure won’t burn.”
Caitlin didn’t know how much time she had or what their reactions would be, but she couldn’t let one more woman drink poison. She lunged for the silver decanter, knocking it off the table and into the fire.
The smiles dropped from every face on the hill, even Gwendolyn’s. Mouse Girl reached for her rifle. Caitlin pulled Stupid Tom’s handgun out of the back of her pants and beat Mouse Girl on the draw. Everyone took two steps back. Besides the gun in Mouse Girl’s hand, Caitlin saw two more assault rifles on the ground near the stairs to the compound.
“Where’s Magda?”
The faces all looked for leadership. Gwendolyn Sunrise raised her hand, and everybody who had taken two steps back moved one step forward.
Caitlin couldn’t shoot them all. Hell, with only one bullet, she couldn’t shoot more than one, but she might be able to stop them. She raised the gun into the air to fire a warning.
Someone beat her to it.
And their shot wasn’t a warning.
A copper-smelling mist soaked Caitlin’s face. She opened her eyes and saw a red mess of tissue where Gwendolyn Sunrise’s raised hand had been.
The naked lawyer screamed in pain. Everyone else turned away from Caitlin toward the outcropping of rocks looking down on the flat plain.
Mouse Girl raised her rifle and fired.
“A man,” she screamed, then fired again.
Caitlin saw someone dressed as a soldier scramble away from the same point she’d used three nights before, running down the lit path toward the southern side of the property with Mouse Girl in close pursuit.
In seconds, two of the sweaty nudes had grabbed the other assault rifles and joined the chase. Additional gunshots and screams followed, and the remaining women broke into confused yelling.
So much for the Calm.
Caitlin didn’t waste any time. Elbowing the wandering Daughters out of the way, she ran down the path as well, not after the assailant but toward the compound’s main building. Halfway down the steps, she heard another burst of gunfire, then saw a streak of red sail through the sky over the fields. Seconds later, the Dayan machine shop exploded in a ball of flame.
CHAPTER
60
LASER SCOPE ON, Johnny scanned the large room left to right, saw only Promise, the Bitch, and the silver-haired nutjob in the toga. He stopped the red dot on the nutjob’s forehead and called over to Promise.
“Daddy’s here, my special girl. Time to go home.”
The Bitch pushed Promise to the side and went for the AR strapped to her back.
Johnny swung his rifle left, pulled the trigger, and caught the old woman in her shoulder, spinning her one hundred and eighty degrees and knocking her onto the floor, face first. Her gun hit the tile and bounced, falling six feet further.
“No,” Promise screamed, throwing herself over the fallen woman.
“Move, girl. I’m done with this shit.�
��
Silver-haired nutjob moved closer but froze when Johnny’s laser point returned to his chest, hands up again. “You can have her.”
Johnny laughed. “Says the asshole shitting his pajamas.”
“You can have any of the women. Take your pick.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You like them young,” Nutjob said, a shake in his voice. “Take Lily Kramer. She’ll do whatever you want. They all will. Anything I tell them. Not just one at a time. Anything you can dream of. No one else has to die.”
Johnny walked toward Promise and the Bitch, his gun still aimed at Nutjob.
“I haven’t killed anybody, you sick fuck. She’s alive.”
He bent down, grabbed the woman’s AR, ejected the magazine and tucked it into his pocket, then aimed the second rifle a foot higher than Nutjob’s head and pulled the trigger. Nutjob collapsed with a scream, but the bullet went through the giant window facing the woods.
“Damn,” Johnny said, tossing the empty AR across the room. “Kind of thought that thing would shatter.”
He reached down and grabbed Promise’s arm. She reared back and threw a punch, but her arm flailed wildly, and he was able to pull her away from the woman on the floor with less of a fight than he’d expected.
A growing pool of blood spread onto the white tile underneath the old bitch, but her chest moved up and down.
Promise swung again, her fist bouncing weakly against Johnny’s Kevlar vest. He shoved her hard, and she tumbled in the other direction.
He looked back at Nutjob, saw the man had gotten up and moved toward the door.
“What’d you give her?”
Nutjob froze again. “Valium. She’ll be unconscious in a minute.”
“Good.”
What to do about the Bitch?
He could put a bullet in her head, probably should, but that would leave Nutjob as a witness, which would mean he’d have to kill Nutjob as well and hope their exit fire made the whole thing go away.
He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, looked over at the daughter he’d been hunting for six months, and decided he’d take those odds.
He raised his rifle. No need for the laser at that distance, but it felt good to see the dot on the back of the Bitch’s head.
A loud bang filled the tiled chamber, and Johnny reached for his back. He twisted around, saw Caitlin Bergman standing in the doorway with a handgun, and returned fire.
CHAPTER
61
CAITLIN SPUN BACK into the hall as Johnny Larsen’s assault rifle went semiauto, barely avoiding the stream of bullets tearing into the hallway’s drywall. She knew she’d made contact, but obviously his body armor meant she’d only pissed him off. She ran to her right, checking each door she passed.
Locked.
Locked.
Locked—no, wait.
She grabbed the third door’s handle, slammed her shoulder into the wood, and tumbled into the room, landing on her knees. No sound of Larsen behind her, but she reached back and thank-the-freaking-Spirit found a dead bolt to lock. She turned back to the office-type room, saw a window and door on the opposite wall.
Another burst of gunfire rang through the halls, followed by what sounded like a waterfall of shattering glass.
The gallery’s windows.
Caitlin pressed herself to the window. No good. The straight line of the building meant she couldn’t see more than a few feet.
She opened the back door a crack and peered outside. Not only had the two-story gallery window completely shattered and fallen, but Johnny Larsen had walked out the opening with Promise slung over his shoulder, headed toward the far end of the building. He stopped short, turned back toward the gallery, reloaded his rifle, then fired once.
The bright glare of red tracer fire lit up the night, piercing one of the building’s second-story windows. He turned to the opposite end of the row house and fired again. This time, the tracer landed where the building met the ground, and the red flame turned orange as the dry grass took the incendiary’s invitation.
He’s setting the building on fire.
Caitlin ran back across the room, undid the dead bolt, and returned to the long hallway. Past the entrance to the gallery, the one and only Desmond Pratten awkwardly dragged two giant suitcases toward the far exit.
She’d heard enough of Johnny Larsen’s conversation to know that Magda was wounded, maybe even bleeding to death. Still, with a hilltop of women choking on their own vomit, Caitlin couldn’t let Desmond get away.
Her dad’s words came back in a flash.
Take the fight to them, Slugger.
She gritted her teeth and started running. By the time Desmond turned in her direction, she’d dropped the asshole like those name-calling bitches in high school. He went down and onto his back, his head striking the tile floor with a solid thud.
His hands flew up in defense, but Caitlin knocked them aside, straddled his chest, and whaled on his face, hammering with the heels of her fists. After a dozen solid hits, Desmond’s nose had crunched more than once, his hands had stopped fighting back, and his blood painted Caitlin’s fists.
The clarion call of a smoke detector blared suddenly down the hall, then another, then a third. Chest pounding, she got up.
Desmond’s foot flew up into her stomach, knocking her against the hard-shell suitcases. Both she and the bags sprawled across the hall and Desmond ran past, kicking her again on the way. Before she could get to her feet, a door slammed somewhere down the hall behind her. She pulled herself up and looked around. No sign of Desmond. She took a step, kicked something plastic on the floor: a cell phone with a two-inch antenna.
A satellite phone.
Apparently, the no-phones-on-God’s-Hill-mobile-or-otherwise rule didn’t apply to Desmond Pratten. Caitlin’s own device had never gotten a signal, but a satellite phone would do the trick. She hit the power button, dialed 911, and prayed the phone could make a connection.
An operator came on the line. “What’s your emergency?”
Caitlin ran toward the gallery and tried not to laugh. “You might want to get a pen.”
She gave the woman the directions she’d followed from Coos Bay, the number of women who might have ingested poison, the explosion of the machine shop, and a brief description of Johnny Larsen shooting tracer fire into the building.
“And my mother’s been shot,” she added, squatting next to Magda’s body and turning her over.
“Your mother?”
Whether from the upstairs rooms, the outside air, or both, thick smoke wafted into the gallery. Caitlin coughed, then brushed the hair away from her unconscious mother’s face. “That’s right. Please send all the help you can.”
She pocketed the phone, then dragged Magda toward the open window, struggling to lift the muscular woman over the two feet of broken glass.
“Leave me.”
Caitlin looked down, saw Magda’s open eyes.
“Are you kidding? You’re not even hurt that bad.”
She managed another fifteen feet before setting Magda down on the stone walkway, away from the burning grass.
“You’re bleeding from both sides of your right shoulder,” Caitlin said, helping Magda sit up, “which I believe they call a through-and-through, so less chance of infection if we can stop the bleeding.”
“Desmond was just as false as Daya.” Magda’s head lolled toward the hilltop fire. “You don’t need me, Caitlin. You never have. The fire is coming, and I’ll slow you down.”
Caitlin bent over, put her arm around Magda, and stood, helping her mother to her feet.
“Maybe I didn’t need you, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want you. You’re here and I’m here. Johnny Larsen has Promise, and she needs us both.”
The fight came back to Magda’s eyes. “Where did he take her?”
Somewhere past the main house to their right, an eruption of gunfire answered t
hat question.
CHAPTER
62
JOHNNY FIRED ANOTHER burst at the last place he’d seen a pair of topless chicks with rifles. A thick cloud of smoke made it hard to tell if he’d hit anyone, but no one shot back. He hadn’t seen Gunner yet, but the trail of gasoline he’d left from the machine shop had definitely gone up. With the wind whipping all around, the fire had spread, not only to the fields, but all the way to the clumps of cabins, and Promise’s body was weighing him down. Plus, his back ached like someone had shoved a spike into a kidney.
He covered his mouth, took as deep of a breath as he could, and ran toward the tree line he and Gunner had taken on the way in. A gust of wind came through, blowing both smoke and embers toward the trees. Small patches of undergrowth already smoldered. He passed the cabins, the fields, and what was left of the machine shop. Luckily, the fire hadn’t spread to the remaining buildings or the trees along the southern entrance where they’d left Gunner’s truck.
He rounded a sheet-metal building, saw the road out but no sign of Gunner. Instead, a single white Jeep Wrangler waited, soft top, no windows, and no one inside. No telling if the keys were in it, but he’d pass it on the way down the hill regardless. He took another deep breath and ran.
Fifty feet away, the wind shifted to the south, and he found himself fighting through a cloud of ash and bright-orange embers. He slowed, coughing his way across the last twenty feet.
Unlocked. Lucky break. He set his AR down and slid Promise into the passenger seat. Even luckier, a set of keys waited on the dashboard.
Eyes still closed, Promise shifted in the seat. “What’s happening?”
“I’m taking you home, beautiful.”
“No.” She shook her head, her eyelids fluttering irregularly.
Johnny grabbed the keys and aimed for the ignition, but Promise’s hand slapped down on his wrist, and the keys ended up on the floor mat.
“Don’t say no to me.” Johnny belted the girl with the kind of slap he used on his wife. “Not after what I’ve been through to get you back. You’ll see. It’ll be like it was, Daddy and his special girl.”
Sins of the Mother Page 27
