by Mike Cranny
He kept his voice low, told her. She looked at him intently, eyes searching. She was obviously surprised and relieved. Then she nodded at the Children — the so-called Divine Spirits — assembled at the far end of the cavern.
“Can you believe this?” she said.
He didn’t know what to say and shook his head. Then he said, “It’ll be alright,” as if maybe it would.
But that was a vain hope and they both knew it. She grinned at him as if to let him know that he needn’t worry about her, that she was a professional too.
“You came looking for me,” she said. “That means a lot.”
She looked around and rolled her eyes.
“Can you believe this Halloween crap?” she said. “I wonder if they give out candies.”
That made him laugh, which earned him a cuff from the Divine Spirit who had suddenly appeared behind him. Archie cursed the man.
The chanting started up again and just as abruptly ceased. The Ultima stood and, in a wavering voice, sang a song in the Finnish dialect, much like the one Streya had sung to Archie earlier. The Children formed a crescent before her, bowed to her in their turn; they seemed to be ranked according to the colour of their robes and they sung repeats of parts of the Ultima’s song. The Ultima then made elaborate and theatrical gestures with her hands. Arms were raised. A mask slipped and Archie recognized Laci Laitenen. She repositioned her mask and, with the other acolytes, made a parade around the chamber. Finally, they returned to their carved chairs and drank from their skull cups. Patsy used the diversion to ask Archie how he happened to be there.
“I came to the Island with Streya Wainright, which was stupid really. She led me into a trap. They blindfolded me and brought me here.”
“Do you think Streya is one of those masked idiots?”
“I guess she is but I can’t tell which one. She was there when they grabbed me of course but I don’t know where she is now. Chad Reddin and a Rochville cop named Pared were there and must be in the crowd. Estes is here too.”
“Estes?”
“He’s one of four brothers. Stone was one; Estes and Bulkwetter are the others. I think Pared might be the fourth. There are probably others, given the fact that Eli had multiple wives. His group’s been running drugs, and the town, for decades. ”
“Damn. Can a person trust anybody in Harsley?”
“I’m not sure — Cal Fricke probably and a few others.”
Patsy shook her head.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” she whispered.
“You got that right. These folks cut peoples’ heads off.”
The Children finished their ritual and then formed into line. Yet another chant started. A yellow-robed Spirit walked to one of the bare rock walls of the chamber and passed a hand over a sensor. A rock-faced door opened electrically to reveal a dark passageway into the rock. Two burly Children freed Archie’s wrists and hauled him to his feet; others took Patsy away in the opposite direction. He called after her, told her he’d come for her but a hard fist to the kidneys cut short that hopeful reassurance. He grunted and stumbled, swore at the man who had rebound his hands behind him.
Pushed into line, he had no choice but to follow the Children into a tunnel that seemed part natural cavern, part mineshaft. It was lit by softly glowing lights set at intervals into the living rock. But it all looked cheap, like a down-on-its-heels horror house, the kind Archie had visited at the Harsley Fall Fair when he was a kid. Even the bulbs at his feet were recycled Christmas tree strings. Mostly, though, he thought about getting his hands free and smashing somebody in the face.
The procession stopped at a heavy wooden door covered with symbols. The yellow-robed figure lit tall red candles that stood on either side. The chanting dropped to a whisper. The Ultima made a sign, spoke words. Yellow Robe bowed, inserted a large and ornate key into the lock, spoke more words, and opened the door. The Ultima entered the chamber. His minders pushed Archie forward and he followed the Children into the cavern, this one very large. Its high vault disappeared into darkness over his head.
Slowly and haltingly, the Ultima crossed the room and seated herself on a low chair at the foot of a tall throne. A figure, wrapped in heavy brocades, sat there, eyes apparently focussed on something at its feet. The hair rose on Archie’s head. The eyes were sightless and long-dimmed, and the body dried and horrible.
Brother Eli had never left the island. He still watched over its pots of the gold coins that bore his name. Bales of marijuana and kilo blocks of cocaine stood stacked and ready for shipment nearby. Before Archie could get his bearings, two of the Children dragged him to a brass disc set into the floor and forced him to his knees facing the mummy. Archie was calm and clear-headed in spite of it all.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Shut up, Stevens.”
Emile Pared was the wearer of the yellow robe.
“And the hell with you too, Emile.”
The Ultima shouted for silence. Pared said, “Yes, mother,” and moved away. Someone hit Archie hard on the back of the head and he fell forward, stunned. And then something sharp nicked his bare flesh. He felt his own hot blood on his neck and then the cold metal rim of one of the calva cups against his skin before he was pulled up to his feet.
Pared raised the calva goblet he had used to gather Archie’s blood, saluted the mummy on its throne with it. He said something in Finnish and then carried the cup to his mother, who sipped from it. Then, the Ultima pronounced Eli’s will. Archie, the sacrificial victim, would be released unarmed on the slopes of Rose Mountain; Chad Reddin would hunt him down and bring back his head. Pared and the others would make sure Archie didn’t leave the island if Reddin failed. Pared leaned close to Archie and whispered, “That was Sister Streya’s idea. She says she loves you, dickhead, and wants you to have a chance. This suits me just fine so I don’t care. Don’t get your hopes up. You won’t come down off that mountain.”
CHAPTER 36
John Robbie waited as Bill Tran, Lars Norgard, Jumbo, and Scorpion checked their weapons and adjusted their gear — all wore black jumpsuits. Norgard looked out of place; Robbie knew that he did too. He thought back to the deal he’d made with the gang leader. Tran had seemed pleased to hear from him, said he had a way to get at Brother Eli’s treasure but that he needed another gun. Robbie had no choice but to agree to be that extra gun. He wondered if Bill cared more about the gold than he did about squaring things with his sister’s killers. As for himself, he wouldn’t rest until he’d made them pay for what they did to her.
He thought about the little he’d learned about the Divine Spirits from his mother, who had escaped from them, and more recently, from Lars Norgard. Now Norgard was part of the deal and had worked something out with Tran. Norgard would lead the way. He was a guy who liked to brag after a few drinks. One long night, he’d told Robbie about the Children of Eli, about Rose Mountain and Monkey Beach, and about the happenings in a place called the Pavilion of Stars. Scary stuff, he said; best not to trifle with the Children. Robbie let him talk but remembered. Later he told Nick Donaldson about it, which likely led to Nick getting himself killed.
Norgard had tried to scare him too, telling how he’d killed a woman because Wes Means had ordered it and how they’d cut her head off and used it in ceremonies. He had brought out a weird knife with a strange blade and waved it around. Robbie had only half-believed that but now with Norgard just ahead of him, heading towards the slopes of Rose Mountain, his story had a lot more traction. Plus it jived with what his mother had hinted at all those years ago.
Tran had picked the early evening for the assault. When they were ready, Norgard led them up through abandoned fields until they reached a towering rock face on the eastern side of the mountain. They stopped at a patch of stunted cedar. Tran studied it for a moment; he seemed to have foreknowledge that they were looking at an artificial screen used by the Divine Spirits to hide a back door into the mountain. He called Norgard up to the front, sai
d something Robbie couldn’t hear. Norgard moved to his right, unlatched the screen and swung it back. Tran asked Norgard if he had the combination to the security system. Norgard said he didn’t.
Tran nodded, waved Norgard back. Scorpion moved up quickly, put the silenced muzzle of his pistol to Norgard’s temple and pulled the trigger. Norgard dropped instantly. Robbie, taken by surprise, said, “Fuck!” Jumbo slapped him on the side of the head and told him to keep his mouth shut. Robbie nodded.
Tran looked at Norgard’s body lying in the rocks and then at Robbie.
“You going to cooperate, Johnny, or do we kill you right here?”
“I’ll cooperate,” Robbie said. “You took me by surprise is all.”
“He would have betrayed us once we were inside. It had to be done.”
He turned, brushed dust off the keypad. Then he consulted a paper he pulled from his pocket, punched in a set of numbers and stood back as the low rock-faced door swung open. He saw Robbie’s confusion, grinned, told him that a smart guy had to get the inside track on things to be successful. He said that his original plan had problems but a new one had presented itself. He seemed pleased with himself. When he had finished bragging, he checked the interior with his light. Then he motioned Scorpion, Jumbo and Robbie into the tunnel, telling them to be quiet.
Robbie looked at the weapon he carried. Tran had given him a Chinese pistol; the brand was not one he’d ever seen before. It held ten parabellum rounds, which should be enough to do the job, which was to shoot the hell out of Ray Jameson and Wes Means, if they were there and if the gun would shoot, which he doubted. Tran might not kill him, because of his relationship with Bonnie, but he doubted that meant much to Bill. Besides, he had just seen what happened to someone that Tran didn’t trust or need.
They went quickly and quietly. Two hundred feet into the tunnel, a web of slender infrared beams crisscrossed the tunnel. Tran said that it was the Divine Spirits’ security system. Robbie wondered how he knew so much. Tran took a calibrated blocking device out of his shoulder bag and turned it on, watched as the beams clicked off one by one.
At last, they reached a heavy steel door that Tran said was locked from the inside. He had brought small, measured charges of plastique. These he placed at intervals around the jamb and carefully inserted the wireless detonators. They backed off.
When they had gone far enough, Tran tapped in a number on the wireless unit and the door disintegrated. Jumbo and Scorpion followed him through the dust and chaos and into the Pavilion of Stars. Robbie stayed put and watched from the shattered doorway.
Eli’s Children, taken by surprise, tried to fight back. Confused and disorganized, most tried to escape; some were shot down as they scrambled for the door. Tom Estes tore off the god-imaged mask that barely covered his large round face, grabbed an assault rifle from a rack. It jammed on him and he cried out in frustration. Scorpion, laughing, taunted him and then shot him dead with the big pistol he carried.
Tran shot down the Ultima, who crawled to the feet of Brother Eli’s mummy and died. The remaining Spirits gave up, threw down their weapons, raised their hands and begged for their lives. Jumbo grinned; he killed them, one after the other, with bursts from his assault rifle.
Robbie watched, stunned and uncomprehending. At the same time, he was thinking too that it had all been too easy. He didn’t see Emile Pared or Wes Means in the cavern and that made him wary. For a dozen reasons, he lingered in the shadows near the door, expecting something and not sure what that would be.
He watched Tran step his way through the carnage, cross to the rows of coin-filled jars that the Spirits had set out in ranks before the mummy’s throne. Tran reached down and grabbed a handful of gold coins and waved Jumbo and Scorpion over. They came. Tran upended a jar and let the coins tumble through his fingers. The other two grabbed for the gold and played with it like children.
Preoccupied, they didn’t notice Wes Means, Lisa Wainright and Emile Pared entering the chamber from a side tunnel. All carried automatic weapons. Before Robbie could call out, the siblings opened fire.
Tran took a bullet through back of the head and must have died immediately. Jumbo, turning, was shot in the jaw and the shoulder. He swore, spitting blood, grabbed for the automatic weapon he had dropped on the floor. Means walked to him and shot him twice through the head. Scorpion, screaming with fear, dropped his pistol, threw up his hands and tried to surrender. Grim-faced Lisa Wainright shot him through the throat. And suddenly it was over.
The siblings moved around the cavern checking bodies. A woman groaned and stirred. Robbie saw that it was Laci Laitenen. She said something. Lisa smiled, bent down as if to listen. Then she put the muzzle below Laci’s right eye and pulled the trigger.
Then Pared called the others to him. Robbie heard something about things working out as planned, about getting the gold out and setting the charges. But Robbie didn’t linger to hear more. He slipped farther back into the darkness and went back the way he had come. He still had work to do.
CHAPTER 37
Archie saw Chad Reddin on the other side of the ravine, saw him unlimber his weapon; he even saw the muzzle flash from a burst before it chopped up the alders beside him. He dove into cover before Reddin had a chance to fire again and soon he was running hard, going ever higher up the mountain. He was tired and sore and he wished he knew where he was going.
Reddin didn’t seem at all confused. He was bigger than Archie, but much slower. He made up for that disadvantage with knowledge of where his quarry must go. He read Archie’s dodges and diversions perfectly. When Archie tried to go lower, to get into dense cedar forest, Reddin had already circled to cut him off. Occasionally, he fired shots to force Archie to retreat, outflanked him and drove him higher.
Archie knew then that Reddin was driving him towards the cliffs at the west end of the island; he was being pushed towards open ground but there was nothing he could do about it. When Reddin finally caught up to him, there was no place to go. He stopped at the edge of Cormer’s Surprise, looked down hundreds of feet into the sea, turned and waited. Reddin stopped too. He cradled a short-barrelled H&K assault rifle in one arm, dug out his cigarettes, pulled one out of the pack and lit it.
Archie waited. Reddin seemed to be expecting him to show fear and maybe to beg. Archie wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
“You not scared?” Reddin said. His voice was nasal, the result of Archie’s punch in the office confrontation, a lifetime ago, it seemed. “You should be. I’m going to cut your stupid head off after I kill you. Maybe I’ll drink your blood. What do you think of that?”
“If you’re going to shoot, Chad — shoot. You’re such a long-winded bastard.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll happen. I was hoping you’d take a minute of your valuable time to review the hunt with me — figure out the places I outsmarted you.”
Archie crossed his arms across his chest, stood hipshot, and contemplated his brother officer. Reddin took off his jacket and dropped it on the rocks.
“Warm work chasing you, Archie.”
“Go to Hell,” Archie said. “This is as good a place as any to die.”
“You will die, my friend — for certain. I just want to get everything I can out of the moment.”
A horn sounded down in the channel. Reddin looked surprised, like he was hearing a signal that had come too soon, turned away a little as if waiting for a second blast. He peered into the mist. It was all Archie needed. He darted across the six feet or so between them and slammed his shoulder into Reddin’s chest. Reddin, caught reaching for his gun, lost his balance and fell hard, but he was on his feet before Archie could follow up. He yelled something, charged and caught Archie around the waist. They wrestled and slid, locked together, down the wet, slick, slanting rock towards the edge of the cliff.
Archie was taller but Reddin was broader and heavier. Archie hammered him with punches, bruising his knuckles on the knotted muscles of Reddin’s massive back. But R
eddin was sweating and panting hard now, using up his strength just to hold his opponent.
Finally, he released his grip and shoved hard. Archie lost his footing, stumbled, fell heavily into the salal. He got up immediately, saw in that instant that Reddin’s move had put the man on the slanted rock where the footing was precarious. The dirt beneath Archie’s feet felt firm; he was off the slippery, sloping rock and was as safe as he could be under the circumstances.
Reddin was not so lucky. On the downside slope, he was slipping almost unperceptively towards the cliff edge. His gun followed him down, the metal chuffing off the sandstone. Reddin saw it and grabbed it as it slid by and retrieved it. He worked the mechanism and swung the barrel around to shoot. Archie could see the effect of Reddin’s movement. Reddin was losing his footing. Reddin knew it too. He struggled in vain to keep his balance, to stop his slide towards the precipice. For a moment, he seemed to catch himself and to start back upwards but then he windmilled his arms and almost threw this gun away. Immediately, he righted himself, grinned wildly, deftly spun the barrel around and fired.
But Archie was already in motion. He threw himself backwards towards some deadfall. He was almost too late. He felt the hard blows of bullets but no pain, crashed sideways into the brush, twisted around so that he could see and fight if necessary.
But Reddin, who now had a puzzled look on his face, was still sliding. He struggled mightily to get back up the slope; he failed. The look he shot Archie was questioning, disbelieving. He said, “Shit,” and toppled backwards into the void.
Archie tried to catch his breath. He hurt all over but his left side was the worst; it felt like someone had driven a spike through him front to back. He rested a moment, saw the blood under him; his fingers were so wet with blood that it dripped in great globules onto the rocks. Gingerly, he opened his jacket and checked his wounds. Two bullets had caught his left side, one above the other, and ripped thumb-width gashes through the flesh.
