Silver responded by cocking the hammer of his pistol, but was otherwise silent. Emmett stood up and turned to face the intruder. Silver's head darted from side to side and Emmett realized the man was blinded by the darkness. His weak, mortal eyes had not grown accustomed to the endless darkness of the wastes between the stars. Some small voice inside Emmett questioned why he was able to see in this utter darkness, but that whisper was ignored.
As much as his enemy's blindness was advantageous, Emmett wanted Silver to see. He wanted him to see and he wanted him to fear.
Emmett closed his eyes and raised his hands in front of his face. With his index finger and thumb, Emmett made a shape like a sideways "V". With his other hand, he made an inverse of the same shape, placing his right index finger below his left, and similarly so with his thumbs. A moment later fire erupted from the stove and two oil lamps in the kitchen exploded with fire. The glass shades of the lamps shattered from the sudden, intense heat, and glass showered the room.
Silver retreated several steps back and ducked down as sound and light invaded the room. A sliver of broken glass cut into his left forearm, leaving a deep cut.
The sheriff staggered backward, letting out a shocked cry. He blinked his eyes several times, presumably adjusting to the unmerciful light.
“Look at what you did!” Emmett growled, pointing toward his mother’s makeshift gallows.
Kylie Wongraven's still-living body swung gently back and forth from a noose. Deep lacerations adorned her neck, where she had desperately clawed at the rope for God knows how long.
Her fingernails were ragged and broken, covered in the same dried blood that dripped from her neck to her chest. Her body still twitched and her feet kicked in a spastic, un-syncopated manner, which sent droplets of piss from her legs down to the puddle underneath her. Despite her movements, she had given up on escaping the noose, and her arms hung limply at her side.
Emmett stood in front of her. In the firelight, he looked like a nightmare version of his father. His face showed the same chiseled features, but cracked and broken, like some heroic statue that had turned ominous over time. Deep cracks and fissures riddled his dried flesh. Blue eyes, lined with tiny black veins, cried viscous, ebony tears.
"You should have minded your business," Emmett said. "What comes next will not be pleasant."
The thick fingers of Emmett's hands curled with sinister purpose. Blood, piss, and chalk responded to Emmett's semantic gesture, and the circle, which had been left unfinished, closed itself up behind Silver.
"You hurt my mother. You hurt me."
Emmett took a slow step toward Silver and tightened his enormous hands into fists.
"I could make this painless and reap the same gains. A slug to the head. A quick blade across your throat," Emmett growled. "But I want to tear you apart with my bare hands for the sorrow you've brought to my house."
Emmett took another step forward and Silver retreated. Horror and encroaching madness danced in the sheriff’s eyes.
"I ain't talking figuratively here, Silver. I’m going to break your bones, tear your flesh, and rend your limbs from your body."
A deep-seated rationality, some part of Emmett that cared more for self-preservation than for vengeance, told him to stop talking and end the man swiftly. The more powerful part of him, that deep voice that spoke to his anger and pain, told him to punish the sheriff and revel in his fear before dining on his pain.
Emmett took another unhurried step forward. He smiled at his prey. Then something odd happened. The fear and threat of insanity fled from Silver's eyes. A grim determination took the place of hopelessness. Not even a second later the lawman had his pistol chambered at his hip. He pulled the trigger and released an explosion of burning lead into Emmett's belly.
To Emmett’s surprise, the slug tore through his abdomen, shredding his stomach muscles and his intestines. He looked down at the bloody hole in his stomach and the black sludge that leaked out from it, unsure exactly what had happened. A moment later, the pain, pain more intense than he had ever felt, followed the disbelief.
"I was so close," Emmett muttered as he fell backwards, slamming into his mother's pendulous form on the way down. "So close to heaven and all its power."
The world began to darken. Emmett wasn't sure if the alien force that aided his vision was fading or if he was dying, but he suspected the latter.
His sight had faded, but he could still hear his mother's choked gurgles and a labored breathing that might have been his own, or just as easily Silver's. The hot California air was fading and giving way to the icy grip of hell.
Another explosion filled Emmett's ears and more lead filled his gut. Silver wasn't taking any chances.
The pain caused Emmett to retch, which in turn tore at his already shredded insides, and renewed the cycle of pain induced more retching.
"This can still be salvaged. The door can still be opened!" the growling hateful voice that shared his mind screamed, not in anger but in desperation.
"How?" Emmett asked aloud, in his own voice, leaving his would-be killer to think him delirious.
"The way between worlds can only be opened from the side on which you lie dying. Give yourself to me. Speak the words I say, and give yourself over freely. Only then will the gate open."
Emmett realized now that he would never see those spheres of reality that lay beyond death's realm. It was he who was capable of opening the doorway to infinity, but it was Thurs who would step through. This had been the plan from the start, just as his hateful grandfather and the dark titan had planned.
It was clear now that Thurs was his enemy, just like Poohwi. The pain in his stomach burned like fire though, and the choking sounds of his hanging mother fueled the poison in his mind and blood. Rationality retreated and hatred became his master. His anger should have been directed at the thing called Thurs, or the mad shaman who sired his mother. If he’d been square with himself, he’d have really directed his anger inward.
His rage was becoming a relentless torrent, and it smashed through any logic that might have given it proper direction. At this moment, Emmett wanted the world to burn, and knew himself to be incapable such a task. Instead, he gave himself over to the alien thing inside his mind, and spoke the words of invocation.
***
Wholly unnatural events played out before Patrick Silver's eyes. Fire that had erupted from thin air and bathed the room in an uneven, wavering light. Emmett, his friend's son, lay bleeding on the Wongraven's kitchen floor. Swinging above the boy was the kicking, choking, body of his mother who seemingly refused to die despite the noose around her neck.
Like mother, like son. Emmett kept mumbling incoherently instead of letting the two slugs in his belly escort him into oblivion. The blood pouring out from the boy's gut seemed black in the firelight, as did the bursting veins in his eyes that were now spilling their darkness across the whites and into his pupils.
Beyond reason and belief, Emmett shook off the two belly wounds and pushed himself back onto his feet. A sound like gravel crunching under hooves came from the boy's mouth as he rose. Silver felt as if he were living out a nightmare, and could think of no way out of it but to keep shooting.
He cocked his hammer and took a step away from the monstrous thing before him. As the stomach wounds had not kept the massive creature before him down, Silver chose to aim for the head this time. His hand shook wildly, like an old man with tremors.
The creature, who had once been Emmett Wongraven, staggered forward. Silver thought its slow, awkward shamble was because of the pain of the slugs in him. In truth, the ancient intelligence, which some referred to as Thurs, was learning to control its new body.
Despite Thurs's incredible power, Silver could have thwarted the Devourer's plans right then and there. If he'd not taken the time to steady his hand, if he hadn't waited for an absolutely clear kill shot, then Thurs's earthly form would have been shattered and the evil thing cast back across the abyss.
&
nbsp; Patrick Silver waited for the perfect shot, but it never came. Instead, an ounce of lead tore through the back of his skull and exploded out through the front of his face, painting the already grim scene with blood, brain, and bone.
The sheriff’s body crashed to the ground. His ruined skull lay at the Titan's feet. Beyond where Silver stood, in the threshold between the sane world outside and the nightmare of the Wongraven house, stood a tall and broad man dressed in Confederate gray. He held a smoking .44 pistol in one hand.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Winter's End was a fitting name. For the old man, it was where his war would reach its climax and, with any luck, it was the place where he would save his son. For Thurs it was the beginning of a new world, far removed from the cold vacuum of space.
The old man thought back to the day when this all started, for him at least. It had been a bright, beautiful day, and he’d had it in his mind that the sun was mocking him with its eternal optimism. He placed the last shovel full of dirt onto the grave outside of the burnt and broken husk that used to be his home. He looked out upon the ruins of the town that, until only hours before, had been called Affirmation.
That was before the monster inside his son had called upon the earth itself to heave and twist and tear the town to bits. Now it was a graveyard, and the old man was not alone in his loss. There were other survivors, and they too were burying their dead.
The old man had cried, openly and unabashedly on that day, as he patted down the dirt. He was unable to free his mind of the image of his wife's bloody, twisted neck in those moments before he realized that she was ruined. The ragged whisper that crawled its way out from her mouth still echoed in his mind like a Howitzer’s report.
His heart ached as he relived telling her that things would be alright, only to have her reach for his gun and silently ask him to put an end to her pain. Sobs and drool and tears escaped him as he heard the report of his pistol echo endlessly in his ears. The image of her splattered skull was burned into his mind forever more.
The thing called Thurs held his son captive, and the old man had known no way to stop it, so he hadn’t. It burned like lye on his soul, but he let the thing that had hijacked his boy walk away. He knew it was hurt, and he knew it was afraid, but what could he do? A well-placed shot might exorcise whatever manner of thing had come to possess Emmett, but the old man guessed that it would just as likely end his son's life. He'd never believed in ghosts or gods or monsters and he knew not how to fight them. He would learn though.
Before he'd sent his wife to heaven or hell or that nothingness that lay beyond, the old man promised her that he would save their boy. If it took a week or ten years, he would hunt this thing down and save their son's life. If it took a trail of dead bodies that stretched from Affirmation to Boston, he would make this creature relinquish their boy.
He’d done his best to make good on that promise. He tracked down holy men, witches, and scholars. He’d convinced them to share their secrets, sometimes with a pistol to their head. Those who’d seemed touched from something beyond this world he’d killed. Others he’d left with a sense of pity.
The old man recalled myths told to him by his grandfather, a Swedish immigrant to the States. He remembered tales of monsters from the cold depths of some wasteland called Utgard- that which lies outside. The gods before creation in those stories were titanic, vile, mad things. Giants with souls smelted from anger and hatred.
The old man had never been one for religion, but his experience had taught him that god was real. Only it wasn’t some force of love and kindness. God was the rage filled creature from the Old Testament, flooding worlds and wielding plagues. God was a monster, hungry for escape from the frigid depths of Utgard. God was that thing holding his boy captive.
It was just past dawn when Hank and the old man walked into town. They had left their horse a mile or so back, hoping to spare at least her life if things went south. From the looks of things, that was a very likely scenario.
The old man had warned Hank that Winter's End was a witch's den. Anyone who stood between them and the adobe church—that temple of chaos that came together at impossible angles—was to be treated as a monster. The old man had suspected that the whole town might be touched by the Devourers.
They had circled a wide berth around the town and were coming in from the northwest. If Thurs had set up any patrols, they'd be looking for an enemy to come in from the east. At least the old man hoped so.
It seemed he was right. The two companions made it nearly to the center of town before seeing a single soul. Regardless, Hank's hands never left the hilts of his new guns—guns that formerly belonged to the lawmen of Omaha.
At the heart of Winter's End, waiting by the train depot, a hundred or so townsfolk were amassed. The spiritually diseased people of Winter's end were armed with whatever weapons they had found. Some wielded scythes or hammers. Others had more proper weapons like rifles and hunting knives. All, it seemed, were waiting for the train to arrive and for some invader to step off of it.
Hank and the old man took cover behind a barber shop and scoped out the lay of the land. The cultists were fixated on the train depot, waiting for some holy event, such as the ritual murder of Confederate soldier and a former slave, to take place.
The church, which Hank still couldn't look at for more than a few seconds at a time without feeling dizzy, was less than a sprint away. Better yet, they had a clear shot it. All they had to do was stay quiet. That was when Hank saw the look of madness in the old man's eyes.
***
This was it. Thurs waited for him, almost in shooting distance, within the confines of the thing that posed as a church. The mad witches of Winter's End were gathered by the train depot, their backs turned toward the enemy for whom they waited. Sneaking by them would be child's play, and he could then conserve his energy and ammo for the alien god who'd taken his boy.
That was what the rational part of the old man—the human part—said. There was another voice within him that spoke louder. This was a primal, rage-filled aspect, accentuated by the poison in his blood. It was the part of him that was weak to the magic of those what lay beyond. It was that easily manipulated, animal aspect of him that blotted out all reason as he pulled his guns and opened fire on the witches crowded by the railroad tracks.
A boy stood near him, a friend maybe, screaming something. The words were lost beneath the sound of gunfire. It was unimportant, whatever the boy was saying. All that mattered was tearing the life from these vile things before him.
The old man fired both pistols until the explosions turned into clicks. A moment later something jabbed him hard in the ribs. His head whipped around to see the brown child pushing the muzzle of a pistol into his side.
What he saw when looking at Hank was not the boy he'd come to care about. No, what the old man saw was a little nigger pup, the kind that had sunk the Confederacy, threatening him with a deadly weapon.
"What the fuck are you doing?" the boy gasped. The words sounded alien to the old man, and he couldn't quite pick out their meaning.
With his attention fully on the pest beside him, the old man dropped his .44 to the earth, and reached back for his sword.
"You need to wake up! That shit in your blood is making you crazy!" The brown-skinned animal was nearly in tears as it spoke its gibberish.
His massive blade unsheathed, the old man raised his arm for a blow that would cut the child-thing in half.
"Your son is right there!" it pointed at the church, screaming. "Emmett needs you"
Emmett. His son. That was right. He was here to save his son.
The tidal wave of rage and hatred receded from the old man's mind. Reason began to take back hold of him. He shook his head back and forth, trying to exorcise the touch of the Devourers from his soul.
Hank grabbed his hand and tugged him forward.
"We need to run, now!"
The old man looked back to see a mass of witches stampeding tow
ard them. Each wore madness on their face. It was a madness that he had become intimately familiar with. They waved their weapons and shouted curses and evoked the name of Thurs himself. A few fired rifles with wild fervor, but the shots either hit other witches or buried themselves into nearby buildings.
No longer was he compelled by the maddening poison in his veins to waste his time or ammunition on the witches of Winter's End. Now thinking lucidly, he hightailed it to the doors of the church, grabbing Hank up in his arms along the way. The old man was fast, despite his age and the abuse his body had taken. His stride was enormous, given his unusual height, and the boy's added weight was almost imperceptible to him. He easily outpaced the witches.
Unceremoniously, the old man barreled through the doors of god’s house—doors that appeared both concave and convex all at once. They were not locked and swung open freely, revealing a massive temple, far larger than it had any right to be, given the confines of the exterior space.
Directly in front of the door lay a walkway of dull granite, riddled with blue veins of lapis lazuli. The walkway stretched out above a churning ocean that existed only inside the church. Pillars of ice stretched upward from below the water to a seemingly endless height on either side of the walkway. These pillars were without number, spaced unevenly out to the right and left of the doorway. At the walkway’s end, which seemed to shift distance between only a hundred yards away and some distance barely visible, was the thing called Thurs.
Even in human skin Thurs was something of a giant—at least as tall and wide as the old man. It was kneeling before a primitive stone altar. The creature wore no clothes and its skin was the color of rust, with deep cracks riddling its body. Coarse raven-black hair, like the bristles of an ill-maintained paintbrush, reached down to the floor.
Just through the door behind them, yet as far away as the stars, was the sound of the lynch mob closing in. The old man took his eyes off of Thurs and slammed the doors shut before the oncoming witches could make their way into the church. On this side of reality, the doors were made of black iron and stretched twice as high as the old man. To ensure that mass of witches stay outside the old man shoved his artillery sword through the steel handles of the doors. With the entrance firmly braced, he could focus on the real enemy.
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