by Sam Witt
Joe took another step back, trying to keep himself equidistant between his enemies. He wasn't sure who was the bigger threat here, but he knew he was well and truly fucked. He hadn't anticipated facing both Itsike and the Long Man at the same time. His plan hinged on the idea that they wouldn’t work together, that they were as much enemies of one another as they were of him.
Itsike smiled at him. "I can feel your fear. Please, there's no reason for hostilities."
She extended her hand toward Joe, and the spiders burrowed into her skin as if diving into a bowl of cream. "Take my hand, and let us discuss your concerns."
Joe shrugged. " If you think I'm touching you without spraying you down with a healthy dose of Raid, you're nuts, lady. And if you believe that this is going to end with the three of us sharing some tea and talking about the good old days, you're wrong on that count, too."
The Long Man chuckled, his voice grating on Joe's nerves. "Three?"
A trio of burning orbs suddenly appeared in the shadows between Itsike and the Long Man. They swirled around one another in chaotic, frenzied patterns. Then they snapped into position within a larger burning ring, and the room filled with an ammoniac stench.
It was worse than Joe thought. The Long Man and the Haunter in Darkness had been playing him for the past few days. They’d been working together in secret, manipulating Joe and keeping him off balance. While Joe'd been busy converting Itsike’s followers into his followers, his old enemies had been working with her to lay an ambush. Joe felt like an idiot, but he wasn't going to let them see that. It was time to improvise. "Well, well. I guess all the assholes are here. Which one of you wants to eat it first?"
Joe forced a smile past his terror and wished he’d brought his shotgun along for the ride.
33
The Haunter in Darkness made the first move. Its three-lobed eye unleashed a blast of primal flame that roared through the room like a derailed locomotive. A swarming torrent of ravenous demonic bats unfurled behind the fiery blast, and their screams were deafening.
Joe threw himself flat and scurried away from the fireball. He wasn’t armed, but he was still faster and stronger than the crazed bat god expected. The blast blew a hole in the Lodge’s floor, and the bats shrieked past Joe. The fireball singed the skin on the right side of his face and peppered him with splinters of the floor, but Joe didn’t let that slow him down. He sprinted across the room, trying to stay ahead of the Haunter.
The burning eye followed Joe’s escape, and the bats swirled into the air for another attack. Joe reversed his sprint at the last second and dove to safety behind one of the Long Man’s overstuffed sofas. The fireball meant for Joe plowed into the spider goddess and hurled her at the Long Man’s horned throne. She stumbled across the room, leaving a trail of dead and burning spiders behind her. The Long Man leapt from his throne, but couldn’t avoid a collision with Itsike.
Itsike screamed at the Haunter and whipped her arm in its direction. Glittering silk burst from her palm and wrapped around the Haunter. “You filthy beast,” she roared. “How dare you?”
Joe took advantage of his enemies’ distraction and raced toward the Haunter. He ripped his knife from his satchel and charged toward the burning eye. Tangled in Itsike’s web, the mad god was helpless before the Night Marshal’s attack. Joe buried the blade to the hilt in the monstrous bat’s blazing eye. At the same instant, he unleashed an attack through the connection he had with the Haunter in Darkness.
The bat god screamed, and Joe ripped his knife free and stabbed it again and again. The enraged beast finally tore free of Itsike’s webs and lashed out at Joe. A shadowy wing sliced through the air and sent Joe skidding across the floor with his head ringing like a struck gong. The bat god roared and lunged at Joe, smashing the floor with its claws and swinging its wings with abandon.
Joe scrambled away from the attack, narrowly dodging the Haunter’s claws. His original plan was to deal with each of these assholes one at a time. Since they’d decided to dog pile on him together, he had to improvise. Part one of the new plan was pissing off the Haunter and hoping its flailing and screeching would keep the other two from mounting a successful attack on Joe. So far, so good.
The Haunter’s fire crawled along the walls and chewed at the timbered ceiling and the army of spiders that lurked above. Burning arachnids fell like falling stars only to splatter against the marble floors. Bats swooped through the air, confused and enraged by their god’s chaotic attack. As many of them went after Itsike and the Long Man as went after Joe. Unlike the Night Marshal, the two of them were standing still, fury and confusion warring on their faces. Joe grinned and threw himself behind the sitting room’s massive bar. He had a feeling shit was about to get good.
A feminine screech pierced the din and told Joe that the spider goddess was back on the warpath. He heard both the Haunter and Long Man respond with shouts and curses. Thunderous cracks and eye-blistering flashes of hellish light told Joe his plan was working; he just had to keep his head down long enough for the three of them to kill each other.
But his luck didn’t last. After a few minutes of raging at one another and spraying the walls with curses and bolts of raw power, the trio paused to take a breather.
Joe poked his head around the corner of the bar. The three of them were arrayed in a loose triangle in the back corner of the sitting room. They glared at one another, but none of them moved. It looked to Joe like they were evenly matched and knew it. They’d come to a stalemate, which meant their attention was about to turn to him.
He decided not to wait for them to go on the offensive.
He launched another mental attack through his connection to the Haunter. Joe pulled power through his ties to the Long Man and Itsike and rammed that, along with all the rage and hate he could muster, straight into the Haunter’s soul.
The bat god screeched, and its pain echoed through Joe’s mind. Joe snarled and redoubled his efforts, putting everything he had or could steal into the assault. Unprepared for this change in tactics, Itsike and the Long Man were stunned by Joe’s brazen attack.
And then Joe felt everything shift. The Long Man stopped fighting Joe and pushed power through their connection. The sudden flood of strength overwhelmed Joe’s defenses. It was like trying to drink from a fire hose, and Joe could feel himself drowning in the surge.
Itsike joined the fray moments later. Her strength was raw and barbed and venomous; it lashed the inside of his skull like a cat-o’-nine-tails made of high-voltage wires.
Then the Haunter in Darkness jumped in on the action, and Joe felt himself sliding down into a darkness filled with hungry bats.
Overwhelmed, Joe fell to his hands and knees. His enemies were inside his head, slashing and burning everything they could reach. Their hate boiled inside his skull. How could he have thought he could defeat all three of them at once? He should have run. He’d never stood a chance.
Black feet clad in chitinous plates and tipped with thorny spikes entered Joe’s view. A carpet of spiders swirled around them and nuzzled up against Joe as if looking for the best place to start biting. A voice humming with an undercurrent of a thousand insectile chirps taunted him. “What were you thinking? That your righteous indignation would be enough to kill me? That stealing my connection to the most pathetic of my followers would armor you against me? You are nothing, Jonah Hark.”
The pain was too much. Joe flopped onto his belly and found himself on the thick, warm bodies of Itsike’s spiders. They squirmed as they fled from being crushed then turned to race up his arms and crawl onto his back.
The Long Man’s voice seemed lower than a whisper, but to Joe it was as if the old fucker were breathing the words into his ear. “Things were good, Joe. You should have worked with me. We were so close to changing Pitchfork forever. Then you had to ruin everything.”
Something gave way inside Joe’s head. Something warm and wet trickled from his eyes and ears and nose. He tasted it in the back of his thro
at. Blood.
The Haunter unleashed a fury born of its pain. It roared from the space between worlds, a mindless howl of madness that plowed through the shreds of Joe’s thoughts like a wrecking ball through an abandoned building.
34
Down in the darkness, Joe found a light.
The oily wrath of his enemies poured down around him, but he was beyond their reach now. Down here, at the very bottom of his mind, he was only aware of them as vague, angry presences. He was safe, for the moment, but he knew it wouldn’t last. They were killing him, and this blessed moment of peace would soon come to an end. He hated them for what they’d done to him and hated them for what they would do to Pitchfork and its people.
That was his light. A cold, blue anger that burnt with ferocious strength at the very core of his being. He crawled toward it and hoped it would be enough.
There were others gathered around the flame. Men and women and children who’d fallen under the sway of the Left-Hand Path and met their ends at Joe’s final judgment.
They watched him crawling through the darkness, coming into the little circle of light that had been his strength all along.
A little boy with a bullet hole for a face reached for Joe with a bloody hand. “Gonna let ’em win, Mister?”
Joe’s hand crossed into the blue circle of light, and its radiance soaked into his battered flesh. A little further and he was able to pull himself up enough to sit cross-legged before the fire. Sparkling white eyes observed him from the darkness. They watched him, those he couldn’t save and those he’d killed, and the weight of their judgment was almost too much for him to bear. “I’ve never let anybody win anything, kid.”
But just because he wasn’t going to let them win didn’t mean they weren’t going to win. The trio hammered at Joe, trying to destroy all that made him who he was. He didn’t know how long he had to get back to the real world, but he knew if he hung out down here among the dead and the forgotten, there wouldn’t be much left of him before long.
An enormous shadow shifted in the darkness beyond the light of Joe’s rage, and the other shades parted to let it through. Joe could tell who it was before the man’s heavy-jowled face swam out of the darkness and into view.
“Surprised to see me down here, Joe?” Preacher Walker hunched over the light like an enormous toad. “Not half as surprised as I am to be here.”
Joe should have felt vindicated to find the preacher down here in his private hell. He’d always believed the Red Oak was just another one of Pitchfork’s demons, albeit one with enough brains and cunning to disguise itself as the kind of god men wouldn’t be afraid to worship. Walker had always believed he was following the one true path. Joe had always thought him a fool.
But all Joe could feel was a deep sadness and disappointment that his cynicism had proved more accurate than the pastor’s faith. “Decided to crawl out of your hole and mock me now that my chips are down? Get in line.”
Walker leaned so far across the blue flame that it tickled the dangling bulk of his belly. “Seeing me here ought to wake you up. Ought to make you see the truth. You’re not in your head, Night Marshal. You’re in Hell with the rest of us.”
Joe didn’t want to be so close to the preacher. He didn’t want to breathe the stink of sulfur and burning meat wafting out of the dead man’s mouth. He didn’t want to see the green-glowing worms wriggling in the fat man’s eye sockets. But he was more afraid of stepping back out of the light. “All seeing you does is make my belly ache. Why don’t you go on and get out of here so I can get back to business.”
The preacher moved so fast, Joe didn’t have time to react. Dead hands slick with the juices of decay closed on either side of his face, and the preacher’s bulk flattened Joe. The preacher’s face was too close. Joe could taste the odor of death on the back of his tongue as the corpse spoke. “I still hate you, Night Marshal. But I love the people I left behind even more. Which is why I’m telling you this: You can’t let those foul creatures beat you. You’re the only thing standing between our people and endless night.”
“If it was just you, I’d happily watch you rot down here. Nothing would please me more than to see you tormented by all the poor souls you’ve condemned. But this isn’t about you anymore.”
Joe tried to hold his breath and talk at the same time, but it was a losing battle. He croaked out a few words, or tried to, then had to go suck in a big breath of Preacher Walker’s grave stink to get the air to make himself heard. “You think I want to die? I’d be happy to kill those fuckers. I just don’t know how.”
The fat man sprang up to his feet and dragged Joe upright with him. He held the Night Marshal by the collar and kept their faces close together. “Don’t be so arrogant. You can’t kill them. Not by yourself.”
Joe couldn’t hold back a barking laugh. “That’s fucking helpful.”
Then the dead creature lifted Joe off his feet and threw him back into the darkness. His final words trailed after the Night Marshal. “You can’t do it alone. But you’re not alone up there, now are you?”
The wood floor was cold against Joe’s face, and he could feel splinters digging into his cheek. He cracked his eyes open and saw the gleaming orbs of countless spiders staring back at him. The preacher’s words rang in Joe’s ears, and he realized the dead man was right. “That’s enough of this shit.”
The pain in his head was like nothing he’d ever experienced before, and Joe was amazed he wasn’t dead. He could feel the minds of his enemies burrowing into his own like rabid weasels tearing into the flesh of a road-killed doe. But he wasn’t dead. Not yet.
The Long Man chuckled. “Welcome back to the party, Night Marshal. We were hoping you had not shuffled off your mortal coil. It was just starting to get fun.”
Joe didn’t have the strength for a quick comeback. It took most of what he had left just to get his boots under him. What he was about to say wouldn’t be very believable if he said it while he was lying on his belly covered with Itsike’s spiders. He forced a grin that felt as shaky as his knees. “Not near as close as you shitheels would like. Look, I don’t feel like killing all of you, so I’m going to make you a deal.”
The Haunter in Darkness roared from its shadowy roost. The Long Man and Itsike shared a quick, amused glance then turned back to Joe. The spider goddess smiled and crooked her finger in Joe’s direction. “Make me laugh, and maybe I will kill you quickly.”
The pieces were falling into place for Joe. What Zeke said was right: The ties that bound worshipers to their gods were hard to shake. It was a bond that only death could sunder. “See, I reckon we’re all tied together in a nice little knot. You’re all in my head, and I don’t figure you quite know how to pull out. Because if you did, then at least two of you motherfuckers would’ve done it by now.”
The attack on his mind faltered. Joe’d got a second wind, and the power he’d stolen from his enemies was enough to hold them at bay. He’d made the mistake of trying to push back against all three of them at once. But he didn’t have to do that. It was much simpler just to turn the power he’d stolen back against those he’d stolen it from. He didn’t have to fight them. They’d fight each other.
Which was why they were listening to him now. The truth of his words was sinking in, and the fact that he knew that truth gave them pause. He could feel their attention on him, and the weight of their eyes was almost reassuring. As long as they were listening, as long as they were paying attention to what he had to say, then they weren’t trying to kill him. Joe licked his lips and continued. He shifted his attention to the Long Man. “I used to think you were afraid that if I died, I’d take a little piece of you with me. But there’s something else, isn’t there? Something you didn’t think I’d figure out.”
The Long Man stared at Joe, eyes brimming with hatred. “Tread carefully, little man. Don’t think that the fact you’re still alive means we can’t yet kill you. You are not as clever as you think.”
As he finished
his little speech, the Long Man’s eyes flicked toward the corner where the Haunter in Darkness lurked. It wasn’t much, but it was the only confirmation Joe was going to get. His old boss knew that Joe had figured it out. He was willing to get onboard, at least until they could clean out a little of the competition.
Joe shrugged and walked toward the middle of the room. He wanted to be sure that when he was looking at one of them, the others couldn’t see his face or the face of the one he was addressing. He turned toward the Long Man and shrugged. “I’ve been in this mess a long time. And I think I’m just now starting to see things clearly. The way I see it, I’m not going to be near as easy to get rid of as you assholes think.”
Joe rotated his head on his shoulders and cracked his neck. As he did so, he shifted his eyes toward the Haunter.
The Long Man sneered and lunged forward. His outstretched hands slammed into Joe’s chest and sent the Night Marshal skidding across the wooden floors on the heels of his hobnailed boots.
The Haunter roared as Joe slid toward its corner. It lunged out of the darkness and stretched its clawed wings out into grasping arcs. A distorted mouth filled with fangs like tenpenny nails gaped open to rip out the Night Marshal’s throat.
Joe hoped the Long Man wasn’t fucking him over. If he’d misjudged the rotten old monster’s intentions, his gamble was not going to pay off. He had to rely on the fact that the Long Man wanted to be free of Itsike and the Haunter more than he wanted to kill Joe.
