“You can do it,” the little girl said through a weak smile. “Just pick it up.”
Phil’s hand closed around the key. It was so much easier when someone else told him what to do.
“Good. Stand up.”
The hand on the gears in his brain was not his, but that was all right. She was soft, gentle. He could just let her do the driving. He stood up, key clenched in his fist.
“Go on,” Lashey said, smiling. “You know what to do.”
And he did. Phil felt the thoughts lining up as neatly as dominoes.
Put the key in the lock. Turn the key. Open the cell door.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Tears fell from her big eyes. “Thank you, so much!”
Phil did not have the emotion left in him to smile back. He was doing what was right, even if he was still doing what he was told. It was going to be all right.
He lifted the little girl from the cell then cradled her in his arms. The carved spikes embedded in her flesh flared with light as he carried her away. She whimpered, but curled into him and hugged him tightly.
This was the right thing to do. He would take this girl out of this hole.
They would kill him; he knew that. The bad girls would never let him do this without making him pay for his disobedience.
But that was okay. He could do this one right thing. It would be good to end his life doing something that was not rotten and broken.
He would take this girl back to the surface; back to the light.
And God help anyone who tried to stop him.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
A thin carpet of smoke drifted across the cavern floor, flowing around the stirring mob. The screeching woman kept her finger aimed at Savannah, blood dripping from her shredded forearms as she pivoted on the spot to follow the Root Woman’s progress.
Savannah had no illusions about her chances in a straight-up fight against a mob of drug-addled adherents. There were a hundred or more angry folks with knives down at the bottom of the cavern’s bowl, out of their minds on meth, molly and some breed of marijuana Savannah had been lucky enough to have never smoked. If they caught her, Savannah knew they would slice her to pieces and eat her for lunch.
But she did not plan on getting caught. She dug deep for the last of her strength, putting it all into a run she prayed would get her past the mob before it had a chance to rouse itself and get in her way.
Savannah sprinted, leaning into the wall as the path shrank and descended into the cavern. Her legs were wobbly; her balance shaky; but she could not stop. Giving up meant death – not just for Savannah, but for her entire family. She had no illusions about what would happen to Lashey or about what the adherents would do to Rashad and Carter when the smoke cleared. She was the only chance her people had.
The mob was still gathering when Savannah hit the cavern floor. The screaming woman kept her finger locked on Savannah’s trajectory, but the other adherents were slow and sloppy. They tripped over and shoved into each other, moving toward Savannah in a disorganized mob that was as much a danger to itself as to her. Tweaked out on dope and driven by burning fury, they lashed out without thought or concern for who they were cutting. Blood flashed in the air, splashing from curved blades; dripping from grimy skin.
A young man with rotten teeth and yellow eyes burst from the pack then threw himself at Savannah with a high-pitched, quavering cry. He carved his knife through the air – a clumsy swipe that missed Savannah by a yard and sent the man into an off-balance stumble.
Savannah did not break stride. She pointed her pistols at her attacker then squeezed both triggers.
One bullet ripped across the back of the man’s neck, rending bone and muscle. The other bullet speared the man’s cheek, then exited through the crest of his head.
The rotten-toothed adherent’s chin collapsed forward onto his chest as the air above him turned red.
Savannah was just a few yards away from the cavern’s sole exit, moving as fast as her weary legs would carry her.
A girl with a pair of knives exploded toward Savannah.
The pistols roared.
The girl spun back, the side of her face dancing on her shoulder. Her remaining eye snapped shut, then she fell, unmoving.
Another yard.
Savannah could hear the adherents gaining on her. She turned on her heels then fired a shot into the crowd. The bullet plowed into an old man’s hip, blasting it out of the socket.
The old man tumbled back into the crowd. A second shot punched through another man’s chest, then exited from his back with enough force to drop the woman behind him.
That gave the crowd pause. Those in front stumbled in their haste to avoid a bullet in the face. Those in the back stampeded into the rest of the posse. A moment later, they were falling all over each other, legs tangled, knives slicing.
Savannah ran for the cave exit, guns clenched in her pumping fists.
The tunnel out of the cave was narrow and winding. Savannah raced along the treacherous limestone, shoulders brushing against the walls.
The crowd was in the tunnel now, but the narrow opening would slow them, keep them from coming at her all at once. Savannah fired blindly behind her. A moment later, adherents screamed and cursed.
Savannah grinned despite the throbbing pain and numbing exhaustion. “Think twice, fools.”
The light in the tunnel faded as Savannah ran. The little patches of glowing mushrooms were spaced farther and farther apart. The already dim light weakened to a dull glow. The tunnel faded into a gray blur.
Savannah smacked her shoulder on a stone outcropping she did not see in the gathering gloom.
Her feet slipped out from under her. She fell into the blackness, landing hard enough to drive the wind out of her chest.
Savannah hunkered in the dark, belly heaving as she struggled to draw some breath back into her lungs. She could hear the adherents coming, their angry cries rising above the humming in her ears.
Savannah closed her eyes then fell into her thoughts. There was a glimmer of power within her; the barest trace of the strength she had once known. The mayor was weak, but he was not dead. Savannah grabbed that power with all her concentration and pulled on it.
Her breath came back in a whooping gulp. She could feel the mayor’s power, pulling her back from the brink. She stood up.
“Root Woman,” the singsong voice drifted down to Savannah. She looked up and could make out a slightly darker shadow in the gray gloom. “Took a wrong turn?”
Savannah eased back until her shoulders came up against a wall. She realized, too late, she had dropped the pistol she had held in her left hand. “Come on down and find out.”
A hand hooked around Savannah’s throat. “Already here, bitch.”
Savannah’s breath was locked up in her chest, turning to poison as her heart thundered in her ears. She could not see how many there were, but she could feel rough hands on her arms and legs, knocking her off her feet and onto the ground. Kicks pummeled her ribs and guts; the hand was gone from around Savannah’s neck, but she could not breathe with the beating she was taking.
They piled on, crushing her under their stinking flesh, smashing her flat against the limestone floor. Savannah could not get the leverage to launch a punch or kick, so she squeezed the trigger of the pistol she still held onto.
The gun roared.
Someone shrieked.
Hot, sour breath poured onto Savannah’s face. It was too black to see, but Savannah could feel the three-pupiled eye staring at her. “Huh-hello-oh, Savannah.”
The Root Woman turned her head to the side. A pair of hands yanked her head back straight so hard she saw stars sparkle in the darkness. “Ee-you-oo can end this.”
“Screw you!” Savannah snarled at her tormentor through gritted teeth. Every breath she took was tainted by a nauseating stink. The chemical tang of mole rat and raccoon shit mingled with the ripe perfume of rot.
Someone pulled Savannah’s leg out st
raight then rested her ankle on top of a domed stalagmite.
“Don’t do it!” Savannah growled. “Get off me now, and I’ll think about letting some of you bastards walk out of here in one piece.”
Tittering laughs mocked Savannah’s threat.
Someone grunted, then the bones in Savannah’s lower leg snapped. Savannah felt them tear through the skin, jutting into the cool subterranean air. Pain raced up her leg then exploded behind her eyes.
“Ee-you-oo fight.” The voice thrummed in Savannah’s ears. “But ee-you-oo can make i-it-t-t stop.”
They swung Savannah’s leg out, resting her knee on a rounded lump of stone. A foot pressed down on the middle of her thigh, bowing the bone.
Savannah wailed in agony.
The vermin god was back in her head. Its three pupils blazed with black light in the darkness of Savannah’s thoughts. Where the mayor’s strength was dim and remote, more remembered than real, this was something else. A live wire, a shot of raw power, just waiting for Savannah to grab it. All she had to do was reach out for it; embrace its primal strength. Serve a new master.
“No,” she growled. “I ain’t turnin’. Not after all I’ve been through to stay on the Here Road.”
Savannah held onto the words, leaning against the strength of her convictions. She braced for more pain.
In the back of her mind, she remembered waking inside the pig. She remembered the burning, itching mark on her forehead. That infernal, nagging pain and her blinding rages should have tipped her off. She had been fighting this for days now, and did not know how much longer she could keep at it. She had been tricked; manipulated into coming down here in the dark where she could be destroyed.
Her femur cracked. Savannah vomited, choking on stomach acid. The pain was beyond anything she could imagine. Her tormentor stomped down hard on Savannah’s leg, grinding the raw, broken edges of the thick bone together. Savannah tried to scream, but sprayed puke instead.
The entity was still with her. “There is nuh-nothing-ing but pain. Ee-you-oo have felt muh-my-eye strength within your soul. The two of uh-us-s-s could not be stopped.”
Savannah reached for the mayor’s power, the gift of the Root Woman’s office, but the wicked thing held her back; blocked her from reaching it.
Someone had Savannah’s right index finger. They torqued it right, then wrenched it back to the left, dislocating it in two places. Savannah bit her lip until it bled.
“Thuh-this-is.” The voice hissed rancid breath into Savannah’s nostrils, “Is what thuh-they-ay want. They will always hate ee-you-oo for your strength and authority.”
“Just like I’ll always hate you evil bastards.” Savannah panted against the pain.
A blade dug into the flesh below her eye. Savannah felt it split her cheek, then bite into the fragile tissue of her eyelid. The point was sharp and cold against her eyeball.
The knife dug in. Fireworks danced in the darkness of Savannah’s sight.
There was no pain, just sudden warmth and emptiness in Savannah’s head. Her eyelid fluttered against the sticky shell of her ruined eye.
I’m going to die here, Savannah thought. They’re going to torture me; slice me to ribbons… I’ll die screaming. I’ll die ugly. But I’ll die a grown ass woman. I WON’T turn to the There Road.
“Such a wuh-waste-st-st,” the voice hissed.
Someone pulled Savannah’s left arm out straight, then straddled it. More hands grabbed Savannah’s wrist then twisted it. The bones in her forearm gave way with two wet snaps.
Savannah howled. The pain chewed at her, burrowing into her skull.
They snapped her hand back the other way, wrenching the broken bones counterclockwise until their splintered ends speared through her muscles and split her skin. Fingers plucked at the wounds, prying them apart, stroking the broken bones and shredded muscle.
“Muh-my-eye pets,” the voice whispered.
Tiny clawed feet skittered in the darkness. Savannah felt something sharp and cold touch her forearm. A mole rat. Something prodded against the edges of one of her wounds, shoveling its way under her skin.
“Goddamnit!” Savannah screamed.
“There is no guh-god-od before me,” the voice whispered. “No salvation, save through muh-me-ee.”
Savannah tried to ignore the snapshots that came to life in the darkness of her thoughts: Ray-Ray, screaming as the mole rats and raccoons ate him from the inside. Carter, begging Savannah to let him loose; to not let him be eaten.
Decayed breath gusted against Savannah’s empty eye socket. “Take muh-my-eye hand. Walk with muh-me-ee away from this torture.”
The mole rat shoved its whole head into Savannah’s arm. She could feel it plowing through the broken shards of bone, biting, tearing hunks out of her muscles and skin.
Another mole rat latched onto Savannah’s arm. Then another. And another. A whole colony had come to feast.
Savannah spat, hoping it would strike whoever was whispering in his face. “I’ll see you in hell.”
“Yuh-yes-s-s,” the voice was a sigh. “Ee-you-oo will.”
A fingertip hooked inside Savannah’s right nostril, digging in until her nose felt stretched and raw. Pressure built, then Savannah felt a trickle of blood run out of her nose. Skin tore; her face was on fire.
The vermin chewed their way into Savannah.
“You won’t be uh-alone-own,” the voice whispered. “I’ll bring your man-witch and your beast.”
A long, wet tongue slithered up Savannah’s cheek, then swirled its tip in the bloody crater of her empty eye socket.
“But I’m keeping the luh-little-ittle one.” The voice chuckled. “Such fuh-fun-un we’ll have!”
She could feel Rashad out there, rushing toward an ambush; Lashey, desperate for rescue, near death; Carter, falling into a darkness he had spent his whole life struggling against. Savannah saw their deaths, vivid and more real than her own pain. The weight of her failure crushed the last bit of strength from her; left her hollow and cold.
She had fought the fight she thought was good and just. She had done her best.
And it had not been enough.
Despite all the good she had done for the SWATS, Savannah still ended up at the bottom a hole, with all the people she had tried to save tearing her apart; punishing her for trying to protect them from their own stupidity.
Savannah realized the truth. In the end, none of it mattered. All she had to hold onto was the tattered remnants of her family; the ones who loved her even when she was the worst monster they had ever met.
She could not let them die.
“Stop,” she whispered.
The finger jerked out of her nose. The tittering laughter died. Savannah could feel the adherents backing away from her. The heat of the mob faded, leaving Savannah to shiver on the cold stone floor, huddled against her agony and the weary sorrow of defeat.
She had been so stupid; so blind. Serving a master who came up lame when push came to shove. Doing a job that no one wanted done. Trying to save something that had been rotten and dead for longer than Savannah had been alive.
One leash felt much like any other. Savannah wanted to be on the winning side, for once, not just the right side.
“What did ee-you-oo say?” The voice was right there; right in her face; rich with death, promising an end to the pain; a new kind of life.
“You want these fools? You can have them. I’m sick of them.” Savannah shuddered as years of responsibility dropped away; shed, like a too-small shell. “I’ll be your goddamned hand. I’ll be your goddamned whip!”
The eye widened in Savannah’s mind, the darkness of its three pupils spilling out like a flood of ink.
Savannah screamed as the dark god filled her to overflowing. She could hear another voice screaming along with her.
The mayor, still part of Savannah, felt it all.
Savannah grinned, the pain suddenly a welcome punishment for her shortcomings and for the failure of the mas
ter who had let Savannah’s whole life come apart at the seams.
“Let it burn,” Savannah croaked through cracked and bleeding lips.
After years of struggle, a lifetime of trying to live up to an ideal she had never quite achieved, Savannah closed her eyes and let herself rest.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Papa Marcel’s trick knee clicked like an old metronome. Click. Step. Click. Step. Each step he took reminded him of his long years and the continued pain of living. He just wanted to sit down on a comfortable stump, smoke his pipe, and wait for the end to catch up. God knew he had been racing ahead of it for long enough.
But there were other folks relying on Papa Marcel. He could not let them down. He did not agree with all the things Savannah had done over the years, but Papa Marcel knew the Root Woman was doing her best now to make amends for her wrongs. Papa Marcel would do his part, no matter how much his knee ached. It was the least he could do for a woman struggling to save her little corner of the world.
A Haunting in the SWATS (The Savannah Swan Files Book 1) Page 29
