by Ninie Hammon
But far more important than the healing of his body is the healing of his mind. The scales have dropped away, the gauzy curtain raised. He sees with absolute clarity now, understands that this—all of this—has been a gauntlet he had to run to cleanse his body, mind and soul. It has been a test—that he is about to pass!
When The Voice spoke in his head as he ran—staggered—through the ugly forest of stubby, mangled trees, he had dropped to his knees in terror, surprise and wonder.
It is almost over.
The hole inside him was filled again with the presence of The Voice. And with its power. He felt it surge through him like an electric current as the other voices spoke to him. They were all there—the sultry woman’s voice urged him to get up, to go on. Voices in Italian and Arabic directed him down the path. The child’s voice from his boyhood revealed where his prey was hiding.
And they all speak in harmony now as he stands triumphant. They chant in concert, “Kill them! Kill them!”
That was the plan all along, the will of The Voice! She is a false prophetess; the words in her book are heresy designed to deceive and subvert the powers of darkness. She is an agent from the light. He saw it clearly when he passed through the ugly trees into the clearing—a golden radiance shown out like a beacon from the pile of boulders, led him to where she cowers in terror in a hole like a cornered rabbit. She must be eliminated and he has been chosen for the task.
But he also knows what The Voice does not know. Once he has completed the task, he will become The Voice. It was foretold before the laying of the foundation of the world. When he tastes the blood of the false prophetess, Yesheb Al Tobbanoft will become more than The Beast of Babylon. He will become the most powerful force in the universe.
He looks down into their faces, throws his head back and laughs out loud, a full, roaring, glorious laugh that echoes the maelstrom of the storm rumbling on the other side of the mountain peak.
“You will die in agony. Slowly. I will make you scream.” He tosses his gun aside and withdraws the dagger from its sheath. “You will beg me for death.”
He crouches to leap into the branches of the tree to break his fall. It is perfect. His prey will have nowhere to run.
GABRIELLA STARED AT the apparition above her, a character out of a slasher horror movie. Yesheb was drenched in his own blood. His clothes were torn, his left arm dangled useless at his side, most of his right ear had been ripped off. But the maniacal twisting of his perfect features into a mask of hatred and evil was the most horrifying sight of all—one last, apocalyptic celebration of madness.
He lifted his dagger and cried out that he would make her beg for death.
“I’m not afraid of you anymore, Yesheb,” she said and only became aware of the truth of the words as she spoke them. “You can’t hurt me here.”
She suddenly understood that he had been feeding off her fear like a maggot off rotting meat. He needed her to be afraid.
“You’re not The Beast of Babylon. You’re a pathetic psychopath with delusions of grandeur. Now, get off this mountain and leave me and my family alone!”
Yesheb stood with his dagger raised, a quizzical look on his face. He seemed to shrink before her eyes, out of the grandiose proportions her terror had granted him, down, down into reality—a mortally injured man who’d be dead inside half an hour. Oh, he was still as dangerous as a pit viper. But he couldn’t touch her or Ty. They were safe here.
“You’ll be sorry you ever—” he began.
“No, you’re the one who’s about to be sorry.”
Rage washed anew over his face and he crouched to jump into the opening.
“Leave now, Yesheb. I’m warning you.”
Where did that come from?
He tensed to spring, but an instant before he leapt down on them a flame appeared on the end of Yesheb’s dagger. Bright blue, shimmering into violet, the tiny blaze danced on the point of the dagger like the flame on the end of a cigarette lighter. Slowly the flame spread. Up his arm to his head. Down his body to his feet. She clutched Ty tight against her and started in fascination at the bloody horror lit in blue-violet flame. Tiny sparks appeared, popped in the air all around him, and she could hear a humming, crackling sound.
St. Elmo’s fire!
YESHEB FEELS THE power of the universe flow through his body, a force of such incredible strength that it sparks and pops off him in flickering blue fire. He is the Anointed One! All the elements in time and space bow to him and obey his will. He controls the sun and moon, stars and constellations. The earth rotates at his pleasure; life exists by his divine design.
He is invincible!
THE FULL MOON rising as the sun set left the shadowed mountainside awash in an odd half-light, neither day nor night, that made it hard for Pedro to see. He had followed the trail of blood in the growing dusk until he reached a slight rise that looked down on a conical pile of boulders. Light glowed out a crack between the boulders. From a small fire? But there was no smoke. A lantern, then.
A dark shadow hulked above the light. When the shadow leaned over the opening, the light illuminated it like the face of a man looking out of the darkness into a campfire. Except the golden glow was steady, not flickering.
The shadow was a man, the stalker. Gabriella and Ty, one or both of them, must be hidden down between the boulders. Pedro saw the stalker toss something away, then he drew a knife, a long thin knife, a dagger, and held it above his head.
In a single, fluid motion, Pedro lifted the rifle and fit the stock tight against his shoulder. A hundred yards; he could make the shot. Through the telescopic sight, he could see the man clearly and knew whose blood had been smeared all over the kitchen floor in the cabin and dripped on the trail to lead him here. An image from a movie flashed into his mind—Carrie, covered in blood, her face distorted in rage and evil intent. That was the man in his gun sight. Any second, he would leap into the crevice. Pedro didn’t hesitate. He fit the crosshairs on the center of the man’s chest.
Then a light appeared on the tip of the man’s dagger, a blue-violet flame. It spread slowly over him until it outlined his whole body. Pedro lifted his head, looked out over the sight to be sure it wasn’t a reflection of some kind on the glass. The man’s body was bathed in blue flame.
St. Elmo’s fire!
Pedro returned his eye to the sight, breathed in slowly and held it. Then he squeezed the trigger to send a bullet hurtling across the clearing into the heart of the figure outlined in blue flame.
The rifle recoiled, kicked Pedro’s shoulder like a mule and knocked him backwards. His hat flew off his head and the gun flew out of his hands, its barrel puffed out in the middle like a golf ball had been stuffed down it. Pedro landed on his back, the wind knocked out of him.
What in the …?
The barrel was jammed! When he fell climbing up the mountain and dropped the rifle, something must have gotten stuck in the barrel. He was lucky it hadn’t exploded like a hand grenade in his face.
He staggered to his feet and began to run toward the boulder pile. Weaponless now, he would rip the stalker apart with his bare hands! But he knew he would be too late. In seconds, the stalker would leap into the crevice. Gabriella would be dead before Pedro could save her.
A sob exploded out of his chest as he ran.
“No!” he cried.
God, please, don’t let—
A flash of white ripped the world open, so bright it wiped out every image in an explosion of light.
Crack!
Boom!
A mighty fist of sound and pressure and hot wind hammered Pedro backward into a bristlecone pine, jammed broken limbs into his back and arms, slashed a jagged cut across the side of his face. He couldn’t hear. A roar like a pounding surf filled his head. He couldn’t see, just bright spots of brilliance, sparkling explosions of white.
He gasped in air that smelled like cordite and ozone, slid down out of the branches of the gnarled tree to the ground, shook his head.<
br />
Lightning!
From the storm on the other side of the mountain!
Pedro staggered to his feet again and stumbled toward the pile of boulders. He still could see fiery rings of light, flashbulbs popped all around him and he could hear the rumbling surf pounding in his ears.
Rocks on the side of the pile of boulders made a natural staircase leading to the top. When he stepped on the bottom one and looked up, he saw it. It was clear even with his distorted vision. A huge slab of rock above the boulders—that looked like a diving board over a swimming pool—was moving, beginning to tilt slightly downward. Rocks and boulders on the far end of it were sliding away.
WHITE LIGHT.
A mighty roar.
Then Pedro’s face.
One, two, three.
It was like there had been no time between them. But it also seemed like an eternity had passed between the brilliance of the sun above her and the face that looked down at her. A face lit by a golden glow from below.
Pedro! He was alive! She wanted to laugh and cry and sing and—.
Pedro’s lips moved. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear it, could hear nothing at all, in fact, but a buzz like a million bees had built a hive in her head. And his face … his cheek was bleeding.
“… get out now …”
The voice seemed to come from a great distance, sounded hollow.
“Rock slide …” The words were muffled.
Ty leapt up out of her lap.
“Mom get up!” He yanked on her arm. “The overhang … it’s falling!”
For some reason, that didn’t surprise Gabriella. Though she felt a sense of urgency, a need to hurry, she still was unafraid.
“… get you out of there!” Pedro called.
Out of here? She looked around. She had not given a nanosecond of thought to how she would get out of The Cleft once she’d gotten into it. There was no way to climb out; the roof hung out over the walls. The hole was too far above their heads to jump up and grab hold of the rock where she’d slid in.
“… your jacket. Take off your jacket,” Pedro yelled.
She slipped out of her nylon rain jacket because he told her to, but she had no idea why.
Ty understood, though. He yanked off his own jacket and began to tie the arm of his jacket to the arm of hers. She looked up and Pedro was leaned into the opening from the waist, dangling his jacket above them. It was too high for her to reach.
“Hold me up, Mom, on your shoulders.”
Gabriella crouched down. Ty climbed up on her shoulders and she staggered to her feet, swaying from his weight. She couldn’t look up with him there, but in a moment, he jumped down and a nylon-jacket rope hung from the hole above.
Pedro pulled it out of the hole—must have been securing the knots Ty had tied—then dropped it back down into the opening. Gabriella lifted Ty up high enough for him to grab the rope and Pedro quickly hauled him to the top.
Gabriella could hear it now, the crunch of rocks grinding together.
She grabbed the jacket-rope when Pedro tossed it down to her, held on tight and rose agonizingly slowly to the edge of the hole. Ty reached out as soon as she was close and caught the collar of her shirt and pulled. Her hands connected with the rock. She held on and started to climb up. Then Pedro gripped her arm and yanked her up over the edge in one motion.
“Run!” he yelled.
She didn’t look up.
There was something black, charred, lying beside the opening. She recognized the smell. But she didn’t look at that either.
She leapt down the rock steps, with Ty in front of her and Pedro behind. She heard a rumbling sound, rocks peppered her back, a roar rose up with a cloud of dust and she kept running.
Pedro grabbed her arm to pull her along faster, dragged Ty almost off his feet. It all happened so fast.
She had no memory of actually crossing the clearing. Her next clear awareness was of Pedro knocking her and Ty to the ground and covering them with his body. She couldn’t see, but she could feel the avalanche chew up the world behind her.
She smelled dust. Pedro lifted himself up off her and rolled over onto his back, panting. Dirt and little pieces of rock were still raining out of the sky. She sat up. Ty sat up beside her and she noticed the rims of his glasses were bent. The two of them turned around together and stared at the cloud of dirt in the moonlight, watched as the dust settled out of the air above the massive pile of boulders that lay in a heap on the other side of the clearing. A pile of boulders that had shattered The Cleft and buried the body of Yesheb Al Tobbanoft. And a single, perfect Jesus tree.
Then Pedro was kneeling in front of her. He cupped her face in his hands, gently brushed her hair back from her forehead. Tears glistened in his eyes. When he spoke, the roar in her ears muffled the sound. She could hear the thick Spanish accent, though, and she didn’t need words to know what he was saying. She reached out to him, tried to wipe the blood off his cheek, but he folded her into his arms before she had a chance and held her against his chest. She closed her eyes but could still see star bursts of colored light behind her eyelids. Then she felt something warm and wet slide across her cheek and her eyes popped open. P.D.! Ty must have called him. The dog’s tail was wagging so fast it was a blur and Ty was hugging the ball of fur almost as tight as Pedro was hugging her.
CHAPTER 20
GABRIELLA PUT THE FINAL PAIR OF JEANS INTO THE SUITCASE, wrestled the zipper closed and carried it downstairs and out to the jeep. When she came back in, she held a box Ty’d slipped in between the suitcases—a shoebox with holes in the top.
“Whatever’s in here—a tiger salamander, a green snake, a mountain lion, a sperm whale—whatever it is, take it back to Notmuchava Waterfall and let it go.”
“But Mom, I—”
“Take a picture of it to prove to Joey you didn’t make it up. You can catch another one next year.”
That put a smile on his face. And on Pedro’s, too.
“I mean, if Jim Benninger invites us.”
“Oh, he will invite you,” Pedro said. “I can absolutely guarantee he will invite you!”
The boy and P.D. headed out the back door and across the meadow toward the creek and Pedro held up a cup of coffee.
“Break time,” he said. “I spared no trouble or expense in brewing the perfect cup of coffee, made from eleven herbs and spices—”
“That’d be fried chicken.”
“Then I threw in two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pick—”
“It’s instant, isn’t it.”
“Yep. But sit on the porch and look at the view and you will not notice.”
She followed him out the front door and eased carefully down into a chair. The doctor had given her a cervical collar and instructed her to wear it on her injured neck for two weeks. She’d taken it off after ten days, but was beginning to regret that decision. The plane flight from Pittsburgh to Denver, the three-hour drive to St. Elmo and the ride up the mountain yesterday had reawakened the pain of the injury.
“Your neck hurts.”
“A little, but—”
“You are not lifting anything heavier than a toothbrush! Ty and I can handle the rest of it.”
Gabriella didn’t even bother to protest. She had learned that when Pedro went into what she called Pancho Villa mode, resistance was futile. He was in charge … as he had been from the moment he half-carried her down from the bristlecone pine forest, wouldn’t let her or Ty go into the cabin, just whisked them off the mountain and took care of everything. It was all a blur now. Her only clear memory was that Pedro had been there through it all—the hospital, the police investigation … and Theo’s funeral.
“You figure they will sue?” Pedro asked.
She barked out a little laugh. “Of course they will! When I tell Hampton Books there’ll be no sequel to The Bride of the Beast and that I’m not going to make any more appearances to promote the book, they’ll sue all right.�
�� She looked sideways at him without moving her head. “I’ll survive. It’s only money. I can live comfortably the rest of my life on the royalties from Garrett’s music.”
They sat together in companionable silence, looking out over the vista of the Arkansas River Valley.
“When does Adriana’s flight get in?” she asked quietly.
“A couple of hours after yours leaves. The timing ees perfect.”
Gabriella said nothing.
“And we will talk. All of us, as a family. I think I know where eet will go, eventually. Where it has to go. Perhaps Angelina can learn to breathe on her own without the ventilator … but if she can’t …”
Gabriella reached out and squeezed his hand.
Ty came around the side of the cabin and up onto the porch and said he’d returned the creature to the creek.
“You got all your stuff gathered up?” Gabriella asked.
“Just one thing’s left and it’ll have to stay here.”
“You’re not leaving your rock?”
Gabriella had given Ty the half she’d hidden in the fireplace to save as a Christmas present for Grant more than thirty years ago. An ordinary rock. Except it wasn’t. A chunk of granite that couldn’t be a geode. Except it was. With rainbow crystals inside that were a geologic impossibility. Just like The Cleft was an impossibility.
She and Pedro had talked and talked about it, and they always wound up at the same place. And that was nowhere at all. There was no explanation, not for any of it.
They wondered what they’d find if they dug farther down in the rock slide than the authorities had dug to recover Yesheb’s body. If they dug out where The Cleft had been—would every pebble she and Garrett had tossed into it that summer be changed on the inside, too? Be just as beautiful as—?
“The impossible rock—no way!” Ty said. “It’s the best present I ever got! I’ll keep it my whole life.”
