Prescott paused in his chanting, looking to the nearest headstone. His voice rang clear above the combat as he took advantage of the security his shield afforded him.
"Jacob Parr! Your tomb awaits you! May God watch over you, and may you rest with no further interference!"
The spirit of a farmer standing in the third rank of those surrounding the reverend smiled and vanished.
"You can't win!" Danner yelled back. "I can raise them faster than you can put them back down."
He leaped and capered on his vault, the lantern light reflecting from his skin. Words like broken glass spewed from his lips, and overhead clouds slid across the face of the moon. The darkness spread to the scene, leaving a chill in the air. The ground fog increased, grey wisps clinging to everything in sight.
"You failed before we even arrived!" Prescott shot back. "If even one of your spirits can turn against you, they all can."
Prescott turned his attention to the ground, kneeling and placing his fingers onto the earth as he began a chant of his own. Where dead brown grass had been beneath his feet, fresh green began to poke through the soil. An aura of gold surrounded him, merging with the edges of his invisible shield. Where it touched spirits, they faded and disappeared.
Jericho slashed and stabbed, sending spirit after spirit returning to their oblivion. His duster swirled around him like a cape as he twisted and turned, thrusting, slicing, and carving. His hands ached and he realized that each spirit he was encountering was becoming more and more solid in form, slowing his attacks as they surged forward to overwhelm him with their numbers.
Danner laughed, his face turned to the sky. "You think she matters?" he called to the still-kneeling reverend. He scanned the battlefield before him, seeing the wave of spirits crushing the gunfighter, and his eyes fell upon the softly shimmering form of Nancy Hawkins where she drifted behind Jericho.
"Whoever kills that whore goes free!" he screeched, pointing at her.
There was a lull in the struggle that Jericho took advantage of, battling his way back from his position of near-collapse and clearing a small space around himself. The spirits were moving away from him, and he turned to see them diving headlong for Nancy Hawkins.
"Not today, you sons of bitches!" he roared, throwing himself between the surge of spectres and the woman who had acted to safeguard him in the hotel. They hit him in a mass attack, arms and legs flailing and ripping at him. Both knives were torn from his grasp and sent to the fog-shrouded ground. He felt as though he had submerged his body in a frozen lake. His body was cold, aching, and screaming at him to give in. It would be easy, he knew, just to stop and let them have her. They were moving through his body anyway, and soon would overtake her. He was only prolonging what was a foregone conclusion. If he just quit and let them have her...
His eyes flared as he realized Danner was gesturing at him and a steady stream of unintelligible syllables rolled past the lips of the man. The bitter eyes of the stable hand were fixed on him. The words that echoed in his mind, urging him to surrender, were those of the mad man himself.
"I ain't quittin', damn you," he said. He planted his feet and drove his arms around him, striking one spirit after another. He might only gain a moment rather than defeat them as he did with the knife, but it was breathing room. His extremities tingled as though circulation was only now returning to them. "You take your buzzard bait cronies here and you can --"
A powerful blow struck him in the chest and sent him reeling backward. His head smacked wetly into the edge of a monument, and the world erupted into brilliant flashes of colored lights. He rolled aside in time to avoid the stomping boot of the mountain man from the hotel.
Prescott had taken advantage of the attention paid to Jericho and Nancy Hawkins. The golden glow had spread beyond him, enveloping dozens of spirits and releasing them from bondage. He walked slowly forward now, and everywhere his boots trod, fresh new grass erupted. He spoke in a steady stream of scripture, his voice never wavering. Like never before in his life, Reverend Zachariah Prescott knew what it meant to be a vessel. He turned his cross toward the dead, seeing their forms become mist. Ethereal music seemed to wrap him in comforting caresses of sound, blocking out the screams of his foe and the constant droning of the spectres that even now continued to arise.
Jericho rolled back the direction he had come, avoiding another angry stomp, and then the mountain man was reaching down for him, hands outstretched to grab the gunman.
A brilliant flash of light erupted, sending a spike of pain into Jericho's tortured head. Nancy Hawkins stood between him and the mountain man, and raw energy boiled off her like steam. A beam of white spat from her open mouth, transfixing the mountain man. The remaining spirits still crowded in, each intent on getting to her and being awarded their freedom. Their hands raked at her, scattering her form into silken eddies, but she remained steadfast, refusing to leave the gunfighter unprotected.
Jericho put down a hand to lift himself from the ground and a wicked smile split his features as he felt the form of his Bowie knife. Aching fingers wrapped around the hilt and he pushed himself up with his right hand. Stepping forward, shunting aside grasping vapors by the intensity of his presence, he brought the knife around in a whistling arc from left to right. It passed over the shorter form of Nancy Hawkins, the keen blade ripping the top of the mountain man's head cleanly off. It slashed through two more spirits that were reaching for the rapidly-dissolving form of the restaurant owner before Jericho reversed it and drove it point first into the ear of the buffalo hide-clad giant. Silently, the enormous spirit dissipated into grey-green motes of energy.
"Your time is at hand, sorcerer!" Prescott called. He had advanced his sanctuary out by another ten feet. He held his cross before him, the lantern light reflecting off the metal surface. "Divine justice shall rain hellfire down upon you!"
Turning away from the image of Jericho stabbing his servant, Danner sneered at the reverend. He bent and lifted the enchanted knife from beside the book. It flashed in his hands and sent blood splashing from his arm onto the stone upon which he danced. Black vapors rose from the droplets, and sinister laughter seemed to carry on the wind.
"By the time you reach me I will finish the ritual!" he taunted. "Soon an army of the dead will flood the streets of Phoenix and I will stand at --"
The gunshot echoed across the cemetery. A black hole appeared in the middle of Danner's nose. The back half of his head seemed to explode outward and he dropped in a heap. Surrounded by dozens of spirits, Jericho Sims stood with his arm outstretched and a smoking Colt revolver clutched in his hand. Prescott stared at him, mouth hanging open.
"Shoulda done that when we walked in," Jericho said, quickly reloading the empty chambers before slipping the pistol back into the holster.
Silence reigned in the cemetery. The spirits had stopped their moaning sounds, Prescott was no longer praying and chanting, and Jericho was keenly aware of the pounding of his heart and the breath in and out of his lungs as they labored to take in oxygen following his exertions. He arched his neck, looking to where Danner's body lay slumped on his makeshift altar.
"I told you that was a bad idea," Prescott chastised him, regaining his voice and using it like a whip. Jericho made an obscene gesture.
"It worked, didn't it? Look around. Everybody's just waiting on you to make the dirt all holy again and such."
"Do not blaspheme," warned the reverend.
"Hey, now. Let's not forget who just made that shot."
Ahead of them, the vault where the shattered corpse lay erupted into flames. Everywhere that Danner had painted one of his twisting symbols, the lines flashed and ran hot with fire. The cemetery took on a ruddy glow. Atop the altar, the fiery form of Ben Danner staggered to its feet. From head to toe it blazed with an unholy light, and Prescott gagged at the wave of raw hate that spun out in a circle from the thing. It was a palpable force, a physical attack as plain as a slap across the face.
"I see it!"
Jericho shouted. "I know, I know, you told me it was a bad idea!"
The blackened body shattered into pieces. What remained was a twisted monstrosity of spectral force. It stood to its full height and glared out at the pair of men from eyes that glowed with a yellow flame. Massive arms and a barrel chest flexed as it stretched, and feet that had become wide, clawed things pressed it upward from the altar.
"I tried to warn you!" Prescott reminded him, brandishing his cross before him as he advanced, calling upon every protective scripture he could think of.
"Your plan didn't have as many giant critters as mine!" Jericho called back, laughter overtaking him as he looked upon the thing that was now stepping down from the top of the vault. First he had heard disembodied voices, then been attacked by barely solid phantoms, and wrapped it up by fistfights with ghosts that left his body aching as never before. Now what was this new horror? Even looking directly at it left him feeling sick and dreading what he knew was to come. This monster, this thing that was before him, seemed to have crawled its way straight from Hell, and judging by the way it stomped toward him, had decided that it wanted to drag Jericho back with it. Worse yet, he thought, was how he was accepting it. Had he truly gone mad?
Feet seeming to rest on the ground, the beast raised its arms to the sky and roared. Every spirit that stood between it and Jericho scattered like leaves in a gust, moving aside so as not to block the path of the terrifying thing.
The Colt jumped and bucked as Jericho fanned the hammer through five lightning fast shots, all of which tore into the thing before him and then passed through with no appreciable damage.
"Had to try," he said, flipping the revolver back into his rig.
With another ear-shattering roar, the creature charged forward, angling away from Prescott and toward Jericho. It seemed to the gunfighter that every running step shook the very earth, but he knew it lacked the solidity to do such. It scooped up nearby spirits and dragged them to its mouth, jamming them inside and seeming to grow with every screaming one it devoured.
"God be with you, Jericho Sims!" Prescott shouted.
What had been Ben Danner shrieked in an otherworldly tone, raising fists like sledgehammers as it closed in on Jericho. For the briefest of moments, the thing seemed almost comical in the way it ran, leaning its body from side to side with every running step as its arms waved around over its head.
The fists came down in a rush intended to crush Jericho into the ground. Jumping forward, Jericho put himself inside the arc of the attack and drove his shoulder into the stomach of the monster. He felt the air blasted from his lungs as the left elbow of the thing slammed into his back.
He rose up hard, remembering too late that he had already bounced his head from a tombstone. When the back of his head struck Danner on the chin, Jericho nearly blacked out. His vision blurred and he felt he would vomit.
Before he could recover, he felt massive hands grab him and he was suddenly airborne. He landed in a heap, tumbling backward and ending up jammed into the side of a waist-high vault similar to the one Danner had danced on moments before his death. He got halfway back to his feet and shook his head to clear the fog from his vision, groaning as the motion drove spikes into his brain. For the second time he felt bile rise in his throat and he choked it back, forcing himself back to a standing position.
Yards away, Prescott was consecrating the ground as quickly as he could, and the spirit army was slowly dispersing as they returned to their rest. Jericho knew he had to buy the man some time. He spat blood onto the ground and raised his hands in a beckoning motion.
"C'mon then, you sumbitch," he slurred. "Send you screamin' back to Old Scratch."
He staggered forward a step and Danner let out a laugh that chilled him. The lambent yellow fire in the demon's eyes intensified as it stepped over a tombstone and reached for Jericho once more.
A scream erupted from its mouth and it drew back a hand that spurted a thin black ichor from the suddenly shorter fingers of the hand. The last joints of each one were scattered on the ground at the feet of the gunfighter who grinned as he brandished his knife.
"That's gotta hurt."
The other, undamaged hand of the beastly thing came around in a devastating slap that Jericho mostly avoided. He was buffeted back against the vault, rolling backward over it and landing on his feet on the opposite side. His eyes rolled as he fought the pain in his head. It was getting harder to think, and the environment was growing fuzzy in appearance. Elusive sleep beckoned him.
He slashed at Danner, the blade only cutting a thin line where it should have disemboweled the monster. He tried to focus more, to hold his will in sharp clarity as he had before, but the pounding in his skull had become too much to ignore.
The Danner demon swept Jericho up in its grasp, lifting him from the ground and pulling him toward its mouth. Jagged teeth gnashed there, and Jericho could smell a charnel scent that was worse than any he had smelled on any battlefield. A twisting, slimy black tongue flipped and flopped within the wide mouth.
Jericho kicked out, trying to block the progression of the mouth toward his aching head. He had seen what happened to the spirits taken into that mouth and had no desire to be added to their number. He stabbed with the knife, hoping for at least a lucky strike. When he planted the blade in Danner's left eye, he managed to do enough damage to get him dropped. He stumbled back a step, took a deep breath and concentrated. It felt as though his brain was on fire.
Nancy Hawkins was at his side then, or at least what remained of her. She had been ravaged by the rending claws of other spirits and her form was torn and weakened, but she stood beside Jericho and managed a smile. She reached out and touched his hand, her cool finger sliding forward until she caressed the naked blade in his grasp. He knew as clearly as if she had told him what she was planning. Her intentions were implanted directly into him, and he choked back a cry.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
There was no hesitation in her expression.
"Do it, then, and thank you."
With a soft sigh of relief, what remained of the woman transformed to a brilliant field of silver energy that enveloped the Bowie knife, wrapping around it and sealing it with her own essence. Jericho felt the calming presence he had felt earlier. For a moment, all was crystal clear and he knew that what he needed, she had given him. That moment of clarity in the face of the onslaught of Danner's demon allowed him to focus without pain, without the distraction, and he poured all his gratitude for the woman into a single hard thrust that buried the blade deep into the heart of the beast.
Danner's head snapped skyward and a gout of flame jetted from the mouth and eyes, illuminating the entire graveyard for a moment before shrinking down to the size of a candle flame and then transforming to smoke. The body of the thing, now nearly eight feet tall after having consumed the spirits, began to fall apart, bits of burned flesh falling away like charcoal and turning to black dust on the ground. As the knife broke free of the disintegrating monster, Jericho slumped to the ground. His body was begging to give out. The boost of energy and clarity that Nancy had provided was gone as quickly as it had come, and he held the big knife in his hands, a single tear falling to splash on the blade.
"Thank you," he whispered. His head felt as if it would shatter.
"Are you all right?"
Jericho jerked and realized he had passed out for a moment. The words came from Zachariah Prescott, now standing over him and looking down.
"I've had better days." His words seemed to come from somewhere else.
He stumbled to his feet, guiding his way up by holding the closest stone to him. Prescott was holding a lantern, and the light made Jericho wince.
"We must get you to a doctor."
Even the sense of urgency in Prescott's voice was not enough to prevent the shudder from rolling its way down Jericho's spine. He laid a hand on the black linen sleeve.
"No doctor," he said. "Finish up here. I'll sleep some."
"No sawbones touches me. Burke. Get Burke. Ain't met a sailor yet what can't sew."
Staggering forward, he took the lantern from Prescott and swept it back and forth at knee height until he found what he was looking for. With infinite care for the pain it was causing, he lowered the hat back onto his head. He sat on the nearest vault, standing the lantern beside him.
"Finish what you started, padre. I'll be right here."
EPILOGUE
"I am sad to see you leaving," Prescott said. Across the table Jericho managed a smile. It had been four days since the events at the cemetery. Somehow no one in the rest of the entire town had taken notice of what was going on, and even those that saw something simply brushed it aside as something it was not. Even the caretaker of the cemetery simply claimed that a lightning storm had rolled through in the early evening hours.
"Preacher-man, I'm getting out while I can. Y'all are too fast-paced for an old country boy."
"You more than held your own."
"You too," Jericho said. "I'd never have been able to do anything without your help."
"I was only an instrument for His glorious works, as, in fact, were you. We were needed to cleanse that evil and cleanse it we did."
"Seems cleansing is a mite painful."
Phantoms of Phoenix: A Jericho Sims Tale (The Adventures of Jericho Sims Book 3) Page 5
