“You say it saved you! It did nothing for my deputy. NOTHING.”
“I know that, Jax…”
“I knew Bill Severs for twenty-five years. He was my friend.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry and he’s dead. Kind of a shitty trade.”
“Fuck you, Jax. I didn’t kill him.”
Jax looked up at me, eyes red, swollen, and accusatory.
“But you thought you could stop it, didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“Well you damn sure had US believing.”
“I did what I could.”
My words sounded as hollow as I felt.
“Put that thing away,” he said. “It’s a joke.”
“We need to get moving.”
“Not until we bury him.”
“Call for someone,” I said.
“We’re not going anywhere until we give my friend a decent burial.”
“I’m not trying to be callused. We don’t have the tools. Or the time.”
“You and Unser go on then,” my brother said, grabbed the water pot, and started to dig.
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Unser. He grabbed a thick, pointed stick and began scraping at the wet earth.
I put the Crucifix of Ardincaple back into the saddlebag and found my own makeshift shovel. We worked at burying Deputy Severs as the sun continued to move mercilessly across the cloudless sky.
~ ~ ~
“I’m sorry,” Jax said when we were back riding the trail.
“If I could have left without you, I would have. I’m sorry about Severs, but this is Amanda’s life we’re talking about.”
“I couldn’t just walk away. But you’re right. I let my emotions take over. It won’t happen again.”
“I get it. But we’ve lost time—how much further to the fork?”
The highline trail we followed would eventually split into three separate paths, one for each of the Three Sisters Peaks.
“Four or five hours,” Jax said, looking at his watch and for any weather in the skies. “What are the chances we’ll run into more of, uh, them?”
“I doubt we will. Of course, that’s just my gut.”
“Care to expand on that?”
“I think that was just a message.”
“What message?”
“Hello. Welcome to the game.”
“Nice. This Rule asshole is a real specimen.”
“I can’t say I’m happy you’re going to meet him.”
“Me either.”
We rode in silence for a bit. I knew, however, that my brother’s mind was in high gear. And I knew the questions that were stalking around in his head like combat boots on broken glass.
“I can’t explain what happened back there,” I said. “Or what didn’t happen.”
“I know you can’t.”
“It went down in Colorado just as I told it.”
“I believe you.”
“Severs should be alive right now. I failed him.”
“You didn’t fail him. And you didn’t kill him.”
“How am I supposed to save Amanda now?”
“What?”
“The crucifix was our only real hope. We can’t save Amanda without it.”
“We’ll just have to rely on ourselves.”
“Ourselves?”
“Good over evil. We’re going to have to believe in that.”
“And if we can’t believe?”
“Then Rule has already won.”
~ ~ ~
We did not encounter any more resistance. We rode through the heat of middle day and on into late afternoon. We reached the trail’s fork with maybe two hours of daylight remaining. Jax climbed down from his mount and knelt in the trail, examining the ground carefully. He didn’t need to. Rule and his legions made no effort to disguise their route.
“Pretty obvious they went this way,” he said, pointing down the rightmost trail.
“Deer Song,” Unser said.
“What’s that?” I said.
“Each of the peaks themselves has a name,” Jax told me. “This one was named after a Coeur d’Alene squaw that was murdered in her teepee by the United States Cavalry.”
“Great history, ours,” I said.
“Not my history. Yours either.”
The three of us rode toward Deer Song peak, what little confidence remained fading a little more with each mile we covered. Just before the trail climbed out of the trees into the low-vegetation of our remaining ascent, Jax stopped us.
“There’s no more cover,” he said quietly. “From here forward we won’t be surprising anyone. Or anything.”
“They know we’re here,” I said.
Jax looked at his deputy.
“This is beyond duty now, Donnie. I can’t order you to go this last mile.”
“You don’t need to,” Unser said.
“I had to say it,” Jax told him.
Unser nodded, but the fear in his eyes betrayed what we were all feeling.
As we rode slowly from the cover of the trees, the land around us took on the look of the lunar landscape. The horse’s hoofs crunched as they picked their way amongst the loose shale. Above us, lining the winding, open trail, were the demons—creatures of every size, shape, and dark color. They sat on the rocks, hung from the cliff faces—they were everywhere. Thousands, perhaps. All watching us. Hungering for us. But none attacked. They simply stared—eyeing their prey, willing us to keep moving forward, deeper into their domain.
As we climbed, the trail took us closer to them—close enough to see the bottomless hatred in their eyes; close enough to hear them wheezing and growling and scraping their claws across the boulders and stones beneath them.
We tried to avoid looking at them directly. To stare too long would erode what little courage remained. Clearly this was part of the setup. The next move in Father Rule’s chess match. He did not have to let us through. We’d never stand up to another dozen of these creatures, much less thousands. Rule could have us now, and that realization brought a strange calm over me.
If I was to die, then it should be here, with Amanda, with our babies—there was no longer any doubt in my mind that she was out there, somewhere ahead of us. I wouldn’t have gone back even if that were an option. I knew Jax and Donnie felt the same way. We’d already lost too much. And leaving wouldn’t solve a thing. Somehow we needed to end this.
The final climb was extremely steep, even for horses bred to move through such inhospitable terrain. At times it felt as if we were going straight up. And there was never a moment when we were not surrounded by Rule’s army. I never looked backward, but I sensed the demons we’d already passed joining together, following us up the mountain.
~ ~ ~
Deer Song Peak was incredibly flat, about as large as a basketball court. As the horses reached the top they halted, refusing to go any further. At the far end of the peak was a group that no doubt had our animals spooked.
Rule was standing there. And the demon Annir. Three other misshapen monsters guarded them on either side.
And there was Amanda.
She was alive, seated on a cracked boulder. Trembling, she looked to be in deep shock, perhaps only kept conscious by her captors. The desire to rush to her side overwhelmed me, held in check only by my hatred of Father Rule. I had to keep my head. If we were to have any chance, cool heads were a necessity.
The group of them could not have been more than a step or two from the north edge of the mountain peak. How far was the drop?
Two thousand feet?
Three?
We stayed our ground at the other end of the peak, just at the mouth of the trail, trying desperately to put the guttural sounds behind us from our mind. We were not safe. We were exactly where Rule and his army of darkness wanted us to be.
And I had no idea what our next move should be. Never mind that the Crucifix of Ardincaple had proved worthless. And we could never reach R
ule, not before he killed Amanda and the babies she carried.
“Macaulay,” Rule called, his voice barely above the rising wind.
“We’ve come,” I said. “Just like you wanted.”
“You and your brother, come closer. Over here.”
“I don’t suppose you’d consider taking me in exchange for my…for Agent Byrne?”
“I think you know the game better than that.”
I looked to Jax and he nodded.
“Wait here,” he said to Donnie.
We walked toward Rule. As we did, demons from below on the trail began climbing to the peak, swallowing the deputy from view and filling the space between him and us. For every few feet we advanced, our escape was closed off from the rear.
“I wanted you close,” Rule said when we stopped a few yards away. “We finish this soon.”
“This is no game, Rule.”
“You’re wrong. This has always been a game. Since before your memories. Since before all of you. For all of time, the game has been played.”
“None of this matters,” I said.
“It matters to you,” he hissed.
I reached behind me and slipped the crucifix from my belt, where I had hidden it at our last stop. I held it before him, my hand wrapped around the hilt.
“Remember this?” I said to the beast.
“You’ve discovered its power?”
“I have.”
“You are a poor liar, cop. The weakness of your faith bleeds out in your words. Your ancestors forged a weapon whose power is only as strong as the belief of he who wields it.”
“If you kill her,” I said. “I’ll take you down, too.”
Rule smiled wickedly. His blackened, razor-like teeth absorbing the fading sunlight.
“I wish you were that much of a challenge to me. I do. I relish such tests. But your trepidation betrays you. Your faith was never strong enough. You are too reasonable.”
“Reasonable?”
“You could never put your confidence in a God who would allow the death of innocents.”
“My confidence—my faith—is in the idea that evil such as yourself will be stopped. In the end I’m just a cop, Rule. We’re stubborn that way. We each have such faith.”
“The field has never been that balanced,” Rule said. “You think in terms of fairness and of honor. Such ideals must exist for good to have any chance against evil. I told you before, this is my world. God is not here. He never was.”
Rule pointed and the demons took us. The rest of the horde—dozens of Rule’s disciples—retreated to the far end of the mountaintop.
The sun was quickly dropping in the west and the chill night air was already seeping in.
“The moon rises in less than an hour,” Rule said.
“The one moon.”
“It’s a silly superstition. But it is one I will honor for this, our special occasion. The next phase in the game.”
“Why do any of this?” I said. “You said it yourself. This is your world. Why not simply take what you want?”
“Taking has no discernible effect on the spirit,” Rule said. “I desire to break you. You and all like you.”
“You’ll only strengthen my resolve,” I said.
“What little faith you may have had once has died. Resolve is doomed without faith. And I will have you witness the destruction of your own seed. I will extinguish that light in you forever. Everything you are will be lost.”
“And what about me?” Jax said. It was the first time he’d made a sound since we arrived.
“You have a much different fate ahead of you, Jackson.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“You ask about yourself, but you already know the answer, don’t you?”
“I have no idea what you mean,” said Jax.
“You are weaker than your brother,” Rule told him. “Since childhood, you’ve known this. Spent your whole life denying it. But denial cannot wipe away the truth, no matter how much you wish it were so.”
“Fuck you, demon.”
“You’re second chair to your brother. You always have been. Surely you’d like an opportunity to change that.”
Jax said nothing.
“All roads lead to this one,” Rule said.
He motioned to Annir, who leaped up and snatched Jax from the grip of the lesser demon. My brother struggled mightily, but was as helpless as a child in the arms of a grizzly bear. The huge demon put Jax down hard, pressing him against the ancient, stony ground.
“More power than you’ve ever imagined, Jackson,” Rule said, leering at me as he walked toward my brother. “You’ll never be found wanting in the company of your big brother. Not ever again.”
Rule straddled my brother, further pinning him on the hard ground. He ripped Jax’s shirt—tore it away from his body and tossed it behind him, where Annir took it and tied my arms behind me. The demon then pulled me over next to my brother, forcing me to my knees, only inches away from Jax’s twisted face.
Rule then raised his right hand in the air. His skeletal, spindly fingers ended in long, straight, knife-like claws. Jax screamed as the monster bent over him, pressing the talon on his index finger against the center of my brother’s chest. He held it there for a moment and a single drop of blood emerged from Jax’s skin and ran down his side to the cold earth below. Rule then leaned even further down, his face nearly touching Jax’s, and slowly pushed the nail deep into the center of my brother’s chest right into the meaty core of his wild, beating heart.
The screaming began to die away, ending in a final, defeated whimper. And then there was nothing but the whistling wind. Jax lay there, silent, tears running down his cheek from eyes that were closed forever. Then Rule did something strange. He pressed his cracked, scabby lips against my dead brother’s mouth and kissed him. He breathed into my brother’s mouth, as if trying to revive him in a kind of macabre resuscitation. Rule’s black eyes rolled into his head and he blew harder—pushing the life of the damned into my brother.
Then he ceased, and moved away from the limp body.
At first, nothing happened. And then Jax drew breath in his once dead lungs and coughed. Then he coughed again, harder.
His eyes opened. He slowly sat up.
He looked fine. As if nothing had happened. Then his eyes met mine, and I saw that they lacked any light at all.
“Big brother,” he said, the words oozing from his lips.
“Jackson…”
“You see now, don’t you, my son?” Rule said.
Jax peered up at the demon with a strange gratitude in his countenance.
“I do. I see.”
“What have you done, Rule?” I called out to him, horrified.
“Nothing that could have been done without his deep hatred of you. I only breathed a life into him that was already there, dormant, dreaming of freedom.”
“This isn’t you,” I pleaded to my brother. “Think of your girls. Gracie. Celia. Your wife.”
“This IS me,” Jax said, climbing to his feet. “You’ve never had the vision to see it. I’ve never had the courage to release it.”
“I want you to do something for me, son,” Rule said to Jax.
Jax turned to him again, subservient.
“Anything.”
Rule waved his hand and a far demon brought Deputy Unser out of the night, locked in its grip.
Jax looked into Father Rule’s eyes and nodded. The demon handed the deputy over to my brother.
“Jax!” Unser screamed.
Jax grabbed Unser by the throat and by his belt, hoisting him high in the air.
“Jesus, Jackson,” I shouted, trying to connect with what was left of my brother inside this new demon. “DON’T.”
Jax never hesitated, not even for a moment. Donnie Unser sensed the end and fought desperately for his life, kicking and swinging his fists, raining blow after blow down on an oblivious captor. Donnie was no match for Jax, who now had the demonic strength of
the damned.
The thing that used to be my brother walked slowly over to the edge of forever, as if savoring this moment—wanton to carry out its new master’s command.
“NO JAX,” I yelled one final time.
Paying me no heed, Jax reared back and threw his screaming, begging deputy out into the open maw of the abyss.
Then he turned around and smiled at me—the same kind of warped, psychotic smile I’d seen a hundred times on the faces of murderers and thugs and rapists. The same smile I’d seen on Eb Durning before they executed him in front of me.
The smile of Spence Grant.
The thing before me no longer resembled the brother I’d known.
“The moon has risen,” Rule said. “Join us, cop, won’t you?”
Annir growled and put his hands on my shoulders to bring me closer. The demon was strong but had no idea that I’d loosened the torn shirt used to tie my wrists. As the beast bent over to lift me, I drove the back of my skull into its mangled face.
Annir tossed his head back in rage and pain, but he was quick—one massive clawed hand swiped at me as I tried to roll away. Several claws tore through me, removing a piece of my left shoulder. I cried out in pain but kept rolling, putting distance between Annir and myself.
Then I saw it. Lying on the ground, just a few yards away.
The Crucifix of Ardincaple.
I lunged for it. Just as my hand wrapped around the hilt, a throng of crazed demons charged me, ready to take me apart. Father Rule was yelling to them, working them into a frenzied hunger. I came to my feet, blood flowing from the wound on my shoulder, the crucifix in my hand, and as I brought the weapon to bear the demons stopped suddenly, terrified of the talisman I held before me.
I kept it there, holding them back. Rule yelled to Annir to kill me now and the beast started moving slowly toward me. I could now see reluctance in those hateful eyes and maybe, what? Fear?
Annir was not as certain as his master was; worried perhaps that the weapon of my ancestors still held some power.
“KILL HIM,” Rule commanded.
Obeying his master, Annir moved quickly toward me, fangs and claws bared. I pulled back the dagger, preparing to strike down the evil thing.
I put all my fears out of my mind, allowing my mind to free itself and to connect with the power I had summoned before. I willed the hero inside to spring forth and bring the weapon of MacAulay to life.
R.S. Guthrie - Detective Bobby Mac 02 - L O S T Page 11
