by N. D. Wilson
“Oh . . .”
The giant tree rocked above her, but she didn’t notice. She stood up on the wall slowly, still looking down inside.
“Sam,” she said. “I . . . I don’t understand. It’s like my whole life in a pool. Like time is—” She broke off suddenly. “Mom? Mom! Look at me!”
The tree branches tightened. The stone wall heaved. And Glory fell.
Sam raced forward, but the earth shivered beneath him and a ripple of turf threw him to the ground. All the trees were shaking now. The earthquake was coming.
Sam jumped up and attacked the swaying wall. Desperate, while the branches tensed and heaved, he climbed faster than he ever would have on a ladder. At the top, he threw one leg over the wall, and sat on the uneasy stone like a horse.
And he forgot the quaking earth around him.
He was looking down into a pool of time—crystal clear, as clear as spirit, swirling just below his boot. At the bottom of the pool, he saw the world. He was looking into the garden of everything. And then, slowly at first, it became the garden of everyhim.
Tiny trains crashing into tiny canyons. Miniature mountains and forests surrounding a miniature white house in West Virginia. Miniature ships at the docks in Baltimore, and a miniature Sam in the arms of a miniature old man who had been his grandfather.
But it wasn’t miniature. The pool was just so very, very deep and so very, very clear and so very, very fast. The scenes at the bottom slid away faster than Sam could recognize them. He leaned down toward the surface, hoping for a glimpse of his oldest past, for a flash of where he truly belonged.
The tip of his boot touched the surface, and in a flash of cold, it disappeared. Sam jerked his leg back up. The boot tip was gone. Sliced cleaner than any blade could ever achieve.
“Glory?” Sam said out loud. What had happened to her? He searched the pool, but everywhere he looked, his miniature selves were busy dying. He grabbed a branch above his head and leaned further over, lowering a fingertip toward the surface.
Cold pain shot up his arm and he flinched away. The skin on his fingertip and a slice of his nail were completely gone. There was no blood. No wound. Perfectly flat, perfectly smooth skin where part of him had just been erased.
Sam looked up at the two dark trees swaying above him, bent and flapping at the sky—like a massive vulture’s wings. He looked back at the weather vane. A vulture. Spinning.
Sam took one big breath. And then a second. His stomach heaved like the ground.
What else was he supposed to do?
Holding his breath, he tumbled into the perfect cold.
Sam slammed onto his back, knocking the wind all the way out of him. Gasping in pain, he rolled onto his side, gripping cool grass.
The air was rippling. The grass was writhing, twitching and lashing its blades with insect quickness. Rows of tombstones marched from one wall to the other. There was a stone bench near the center. Behind it, something was flashing in the dim light. Sam sat up. A gold clock like a large pocket watch was spinning through the air, swinging in an orbit at the end of a gold chain anchored to a sundial.
Sam drew his right gun and shot the clock. It skidded to the ground in an explosion of gears and springs. As the echo of the gunshot died, the air stopped rippling and the grass stopped its itching. The moment had settled.
Sam rose to his feet and looked around.
“Glory?”
Nothing.
He looked up at the trees above him—great wings now stretching high and quietly into a hazy sky.
“Glory!” Sam moved quickly toward the bench. As he went, he saw the names on all the headstones, and he immediately slowed. He had found the bodies that went with his daydreams. The bodies that had lived his jumbled memories. All around him. Beneath the thick turf. And every stone marked a different version of his story.
Metal rattled behind him, and Sam spun, gun raised, letting Speck guide his aim. Cindy twitched toward hers, but Sam managed to keep her still.
A brass accordion door clattered open in the small building.
William Sharon, hatless and coatless, stepped into the light and stopped when he saw Sam with his gun already drawn and pointing. Seven gold watch chains glittered against his vest. Perfect pearl-handled revolvers hugged his narrow hips.
“Well,” he said. “Well, well. You came. And alone. No priest? No earnest young posse? I expected you at the hotel and assumed that you would show a little more . . . effort. I don’t know whether I should be thrilled or furious.” He pointed at the wreckage of the clock behind Sam. “That mattered.”
Speck cocked the hammer. “I’m here for my sister.”
Mr. Sharon rubbed his loose neck and smiled. “Peruse her many graves. Leave a flower. Or thirty. Is that all? Your sister? After all that you’ve achieved, and all that you’ve escaped, and all the priest has sacrificed? Surely there was some kind of plan. Amazing.”
“What’s so amazing about it?” Sam asked. “Tell me where she is.”
“What’s amazing,” Mr. Sharon said, “is how hard that fool of a priest has worked to make you something other than what you are. You are the same fish hitting the same hook for the same bait every single cast. Poor Tiempo, all that effort, all that dying, and you’re still just you.” He waved his hand at Millie’s graves. “You’ve already found her. I told you. Here she is.”
“I want her alive,” Sam growled. “And you dead.”
The Vulture laughed and the grass rippled. “Of course you do. But that will be difficult,” he said. “On both counts. I’m not afraid of you, which means your threat does nothing to motivate me to give her to you.”
“Oh, you’re afraid of me,” Sam said. “How much time have you spent hunting me? How much of your own effort? How much worrying? Flattening an entire city? Sending Tiny after me when I was just daydreaming at a youth ranch? I scare the Vulture. And I should. I have a gun pointed at you right now. I am the plan. These arms are the plan. And if you can’t give me my sister, why shouldn’t I just shoot?”
Speck was steady, but Sam let Cindy slither out away from his body, and he watched the Vulture’s eyes as she did. He showed no interest. No fear. No surprise.
Anger and worry surged through Sam, and Cindy’s rattling grew. Should he have followed the plan? Should he have let Father Tiempo measure all the risks?
Mr. Sharon pulled out a gold watch. It had shattered. He tapped gears and glass out into the grass, and then pulled out another, winding it. And then another. And another. Carefully tucking each one back into its own pocket. When he spoke, his voice was hushed and hard.
“You are holding that gun in your right hand, Samuel Miracle. I have heard about your right hand. It won’t shoot me. But even if it tried, before you pull that trigger, I could put six more bullets in each of your ghoulish arms.”
“Try,” Sam said. “My hands are faster now.”
“I am El Buitre,” Mr. Sharon snarled. “My hands are faster than time.”
Sam knew that was true. He’d seen it. He doubted if even Cindy was fast enough. He knew for sure that Speck wouldn’t finish the fight. And if he’d been unsure of his choices before, he was absolutely certain now—the Vulture had to die. Now. Here. No matter what. But how?
El Buitre and Poncho stared at each other in a graveyard full of Miracles. Sam’s rattles hummed. El Buitre cracked his knuckles.
Sam had been unexpected. That was his only advantage. He had to stay unexpected. And crazy.
Sam lowered his gun and holstered it. Both of his arms crackled with anger, but he just managed to control them. Cindy was pure fury, tightening his arm until Sam’s broken joints screamed with pain. She went deathly silent, her rattle still, but Speck grew louder.
Just wait, Sam thought. Be ready.
Sam showed the Vulture his palms. “What if I surrender? Kill me or don’t. Take my heart if you have to, or just keep me. Just let my sister go and this thing between us is over right now. Once she’s free, you can pi
ck your ending.”
William Sharon’s eyes were hungry. “You want me to release her. But it isn’t that simple. When? Into what time?”
“Wherever she wants,” Sam said. “Whenever she wants. Deal?”
The Vulture stepped to one side, and three men emerged from the building, led by Tiny. All three had guns raised.
That changed things. Sam bit his lip, frustrated, but he was in it now.
“You’re lying,” El Buitre said. “You have to be.”
Sam fought to extend his rigid arms out from his sides and then slumped to his knees. He shut his eyes tight.
“Do what you have to do. But be quick,” he said. “Please.”
Breathing slowly, Sam tried to quiet his pounding heart. He wanted to feel what his hands felt. He wanted to ignore his own eyes and sense what they sensed.
“Knock him out,” the Vulture said. “And then bring him.”
FIGHT flooded up his right arm.
KILL roared up his left.
YES, Sam thought. Attack! Strike! But he locked his own muscles as tight as he could, holding the snakes back.
SAM’S HANDS WATCHED THE THREE MEN MOVING TOWARD him through the graveyard. He couldn’t see the men, but he could locate their warm outlines, even with his eyes shut. They were right in front of him.
And then a pistol butt cracked him on the skull, and sensation vanished.
SAM MIRACLE WAS UNCONSCIOUS IN THAT MOMENT IN THE garden. But his soul knew many moments. And it was praying in all of them.
His hands weren’t unconscious at all.
Tiny drew a long knife, and with a snarling smile he bent cautiously over Sam. He nudged the tip through Sam’s poncho, through his shirt, and into the boy’s chest.
No response.
William Sharon stood with his arms crossed, watching with a suspicious smile.
Tiny looked back at him. “Best champagne tonight, Boss.” And then he crouched to pick Sam up.
In a flash, Cindy whipped Sam’s gun out and his arm up. The barrel thumped against Tiny’s heart as she fired. Before the big man even had time to fall, she had dropped the next man, and the next.
Speck pulled Sam’s other gun.
But El Buitre was fast.
Cindy and Speck flopped Sam’s body forward onto his belly, hiding behind Tiny.
Cindy missed the blurry cold shape of the Vulture with three rounds, dropped her gun at the first click, and then darted under Tiny’s coat for the dead outlaw’s gun. She emptied it through the back of his coat at the cold retreating man shape.
She missed.
But Speck didn’t. Aiming for the Vulture’s gun, Speck hit thigh and then grazed shoulder before the outlaw disappeared.
The graveyard was quiet.
Cindy buzzed her rattle just in case, but nothing moved. Speck dragged Sam’s limp fingers beneath her, nuzzling Sam’s face with her cold rosy scales, but his eyelids didn’t even flutter.
The two snakes wriggled forward, grabbed turf with Sam’s fingers, and then dragged his body facedown through the grass. Speck moved nose and knuckles first. Cindy tossed Sam’s elbow out, sidewinding.
They were following the cold man, dragging Sam one slow foot at a time.
They were both still tugging him forward when Sam opened his eyes. His head felt like a bear-swatted beehive.
“Did it work?” he asked. He looked back over his shoulder. Three bodies. But no El Buitre. It had worked. But not well enough.
He grabbed the grass and slid himself forward. Grabbed and slid. Grabbed and . . . what was he doing?
Sam stood up quickly and then blinked as his brain blood swam behind his eyes.
El Buitre was gone and he was still missing his sister. And Glory.
Grabbing two still-loaded guns from one of the dead outlaws, Sam ran through the doorway into the little building. Something was missing. An elevator? A mining cart? The building was small, but the space inside was massive and timeless. The door was a gateway into pure dark confusion.
Twenty steps in, Sam was lost. The darkness was heavy one moment and light the next. He felt like he was floating, teetering, slipping, and then suddenly pushed down. It was like sinking through a floor or falling off a building or being thrown up into the sky by the sky. He was dizzy. Tripping. Turning in place, he couldn’t even see light from the door he had entered.
This wasn’t darkness; this was nothingness. Sam shut his eyes tight and immediately felt a little better. Eyelids aren’t much of a view, but they’re something.
Cindy and Speck both tugged him in the same direction.
Glory, Sam told them. You know Glory. Can you find her?
Both snakes veered to his left immediately. Sam walked where they led and they pulled harder. Faster. Still with his eyes clamped shut, he ran.
One hundred yards. Two. Or maybe the distance was six months. Or seven yesterdays. But suddenly, a cloud of warmth flashed in front of his feet, and he tripped over something and fell. With nothing else in the world to sense, the heat image the snakes gave him was perfectly clear. It was Glory. She was curled up in a ball and crying.
Glory screamed and Sam yelled. Cindy tried to pull a gun.
Sam managed to stand, and then tried to pull Glory to her feet.
“Sam?” Glory laughed and sobbed at the same time. “If we have to die in here, I’m glad we’ll die together.”
“Stop being so cheerful,” Sam said. “We’re not dying. I’m pretty sure this is the kind of place where things get stuck not dying forever. Shut your eyes and grab on.”
Glory twisted her hands into the back of Sam’s poncho. Sam shut his eyes, held out his hands, and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.
The cold one, Sam thought. Find the cold man.
Cindy went left. Speck went right.
Sam hesitated. Without Cindy, Sam would be dead. And he knew she only had one violent interest in life. He liked Speck, but the young snake was just as likely to be chasing a butterfly. Not that there were butterflies in the outer darkness.
“Okay, Cindy,” Sam said out loud. “You steer.”
Sam ran, and Glory eventually managed to match his stride. They veered right and left, they climbed slow slopes and staggered back down. The darkness was uneven and soft, sometimes sucking silently at their shoes, and sometimes jagged and sharp, nicking ankles and stubbing toes.
In places, the air was thick and foul, in others thin and weak and gaspy, but Cindy never doubted where she was going, not even when shapes slid quickly away from them, strange shapes that Sam would only have believed in his nightmares.
“Are we lost?” Glory asked.
“No,” Sam said. “Not at all.” He could feel the tickle of Cindy’s tongue, wriggling beneath the skin of his hand, trying to flick between his knuckles.
That was new. He tried not to think about it.
And then, finally, when his legs were burning, Cindy reached down and pulled his gun.
“Hold on,” Sam said, and then he exploded into light.
Chess pieces slid across the floor. A lantern was suspended above a small broken table and a splintered chessboard. There were two empty chairs and a spiral stairwell set into the floor behind one of them.
“What is this place?” Glory asked.
But Sam didn’t answer. Screaming echoed up the stairwell. Sam raced to the twisting stairs and tumbled down into a round, opulent room completely lined with windows. There were map shelves and telescopes and tables crowded with globes and chains and strange brass instruments. Sam didn’t give any of it much of a look, and Glory was right behind him. The room was empty and the screaming was coming from below.
Cindy tugged Sam toward wide marble steps recessed into the floor. Sam jumped down them and slid out into a bedroom with a massive black bed in the center. Vultures were carved pretty much everywhere.
Millie was barely conscious on the floor. William Sharon, bloody and limping, was dragging her by the hair toward a large open chest. His guns we
re holstered, but he had a long knife in his free hand. Six watches floated around him. The seventh had a smashed face and dangled limply from his vest. His eyes jumped when he saw Sam.
“How?” he asked. “The dark is pathless.”
“Hello, Sam,” Millie mumbled the words quietly, and smiling, she shut her eyes.
Cindy began to fire, but everything in the room seemed to suddenly slow down. Everything except the Vulture.
The man slipped left and then twisted right. His watches lashed the air faster than Sam’s eyes could track. As Cindy’s bullets missed, windows exploded behind her swirling target. A storm of shattered glass floated slowly down while Speck aimed. And aimed.
In the blur, Sam saw the Vulture draw one gun. He saw the barrel spit fire. Twice.
Heat ripped across the left side of Sam’s neck and he staggered backward. The second bullet sliced through his shoulder just above the collarbone, and he slipped, falling into Glory. She tried to hold him up, but he dragged her with him to the ground.
The Vulture was suddenly still, knife in one hand, gun in the other. The watches dropped out of the air, bouncing around him on their chains. Glass shards hit the floor all at once, skittering to a stop.
Millie was crying. Cold wind hummed through the open windows. Sam was on his back, shocked and gasping. His left arm should have been useless, overwhelmed by pain. But the arm was no longer his. Cindy was still pointing, cocking, and pulling the trigger on her empty gun, ignoring the brutal pain roaring in Sam’s shoulder.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Smiling grimly, William Sharon moved over Millie, and then spun the knife in his hand.
“Don’t,” Sam gasped. “Please.”
The Vulture’s blade flashed down. Glory screamed.
Sam’s right arm jerked.
Speck fired once. Twice.
The Vulture’s knife spun away across the room and his gun sparked as it jumped from his hand. Fury boiled in the outlaw’s eyes.
“I will end you, Miracle,” El Buitre snarled. “I will flatten every city you enter, I will kill your every friend. If you ever close your eyes, expect me.”
