Cavenaugh strode directly toward it, shoved it back against the stone wall, and pressed the barrel of the rifle to its forehead.
The figure seemed not to even notice as it slapped its hands across its face and chest in an effort to smother the flames.
"Look at me!" Cavenaugh shouted. "You killed my little sister. Why? For the love of God, tell me why, or so help me, I'll let you stand there and burn to death. Tell me and I can make the pain stop."
A pair of milky eyes rolled upward to meet his.
Cavenaugh gasped and took an involuntary step away. He shook his head in disbelief.
Gabriel saw the flash of the knife in the flaming hand a heartbeat before the figure thrust it into Cavenaugh's abdomen.
***
Cavenaugh fell to his knees. He held his attacker's wrist in a firm grasp, and dragged the figure down in front of him, their faces a breath apart. Gabriel heard Cavenaugh whisper a single word.
"Jenny."
Gabriel dashed to where Cavenaugh had dropped the rifle and leveled the barrel at the scorched face. All of its hair had burned back to its skull and the cracked skin wept blood and pustulates. The clothes still crackled, but the flames had diminished. The figure's black features tightened and there was a sucking sound as it jerked back the knife and stabbed Cavenaugh again.
"Let go of the knife!" Gabriel shouted. The rifle trembled so badly the barrel tapped against the thing's temple. "Do it now or I shoot!"
The eyes rose and looked at Gabriel.
Shamrock green eyes.
Suddenly he understood.
"Why are you doing this?" Cavenaugh asked. His voice faltered and a rivulet of blood drained from the corner of his mouth. His brow crinkled and his eyes narrowed as though trying to read the answer in her face. "I've been looking for you for so long....and now I.... What have I done?"
Cavenaugh's shoulders shuddered and tears streamed from his eyes. Despite the blade embedded in his gut, he wrapped his arms around his sister's shoulders and drew her into his embrace.
Jenny's screams turned to sobs as she buried her face in the crook of his neck.
"Please forgive me," she whispered. Her voice was garbled by the pain and her closing windpipe.
Gabriel didn't know what to do. A moment prior he had been prepared to blow a hole through the side of her head, and now.... If Jenny was still alive, was it possible that...?
"No one can ever know," Jenny whispered. "None of us can ever leave here."
She withdrew the knife and stabbed her brother again.
"Anything can be forgiven," Cavenaugh whispered. "You...you were the one who told me...God forgives everyone."
"That's the problem." She started to cry harder. "There can be no forgiveness. There can be no more---"
Gabriel stepped forward and pressed the barrel against her head behind her ear.
"---hope."
He stared down at Cavenaugh, whose jacket had already begun to burn. Tears streaked through the soot on his cheeks and blood trickled from his mouth and down his chin. The expression on his face reflected a level of pain the likes of which Gabriel had never seen before. Cavenaugh turned his attention back to his sister and stroked her cheek softly.
"I love you," he whispered, then turned and gave Gabriel a single nod.
Gabriel squeezed the trigger.
***
The report echoed through the cavern, and beneath it Cavenaugh's gut-wrenching cry. Gabriel could only stare at the body lying on the ground beside Cavenaugh. The entire upper half of Jenny's head was gone, replaced by a sloppy mess of tattered skin, bone fragments, and gray matter, from which blood poured into an ever-expanding pool. Flames spread from her shoulder over the side of her face, where they took root and began to consume her.
As Cavenaugh watched, his features twitched and twisted while he ran the gamut of emotions. His hands worked at the hilt of the knife until they were finally able to pull it free. He wavered in place before finally toppling onto his side. He reached for his sister's hand, and closed it within his.
Gabriel grabbed Cavenaugh's other hand and tried to drag him away from the fire, but the stronger man jerked it away.
"Get up!" Gabriel yelled. He looked to Jess for help, but she just stood there, paralyzed by shock.
A shadow separated from the smoke and flames behind her.
"Jenny!" it shouted. The figure shoved Jess out of the way and threw itself to the ground beside the smoldering corpse. It tried to lift her head, but only succeeded in dumping the remaining contents onto the ground. With a pitiful moan, it whirled to face Gabriel. The firelight exposed a face masked by a scraggly beard and wild hair. The man's eyes narrowed to slits and he bared his teeth.
Gabriel stumbled backwards and aligned the barrel of the rifle with the man, whom he recognized with a start.
Levi Northcutt. Kelsey's son.
He had slit his own father's throat.
"Stay right where you are!" Gabriel yelled. His mind was reeling. Levi and Jenny had been alive all this time. Was it possible that his sister was somewhere nearby in the darkness? But there had been so many bones...and her cross was hanging from the wall over the pallet where the carcasses were butchered. What could possibly have transpired that would have led Levi and Jenny to kill all of their friends, and then the family members who had come to search for them? What could have happened that would have forced Levi to kill his own father and Jenny to repeatedly stab her brother?
No one can know, Jenny's voice repeated in his head. None of us can ever leave here.
What did they find in this cavern?
There can be no forgiveness. There can be no more hope.
"You don't know what you're doing," Levi said. He rolled to a crouch and tensed in preparation of launching himself at Gabriel. "You don't understand. No one can find out about this place. Ever."
Gabriel didn't want to ask the words that came out of his mouth next, but he had to know. He needed to hear it.
"Did you kill my sister? Did you kill Stephanie?"
The expression of anger on Levi's face never faltered.
"She would have told."
Gabriel felt his heart break, and in that instant he wanted nothing more than to shoot Levi in the face. Not just shoot him, but destroy him, obliterate every last inch of him.
"For God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment," Levi said.
Jess drew close to Gabriel and stood at his side. She raised her rifle and pointed it at Levi.
"Do you think we wanted this burden?" Levi asked. "Without faith there can be no God, and without God there can be no hope. What would happen if you stole the hopes of millions, the hope for the entire world?" He pulled a long, serrated hunting knife from his jacket pocket. "There would be no reason to exist."
"Don't move!" Gabriel shouted.
"If you kill me, the responsibility falls to you."
Levi adjusted his grip on the hilt of the knife. The blade pointed downward from his closed fist.
"Don't," Jess said. Her voice quivered.
"Once you've looked upon the face of God, there's nothing left to live for but the perpetuation of the lie. The lie upon which all of our lives are built. Everything's a lie! The bible?" He scoffed. "That's what led us here. To the fallen angels. They were right where it said they'd be."
"You're insane," Gabriel said. Something had broken inside Levi's mind, splintered into incoherent pieces. There were no angels and this had nothing to do with God. This man had killed his sister and her friends. His own father, for Christ's sake!
"Drop the knife," Gabriel said.
"I can't let you leave here. No one can ever learn the truth."
Levi sprung from his haunches like a panther. Gabriel saw a flash of reflected fire from the blade of the knife, the crazed look on the younger man's face. Wide eyes. Screaming. Gabriel pulled the trigger at the same moment Levi slammed into him. The
rifle clattered from his grasp and Levi's weight drove him to the ground. His head slammed against the rock floor. He barely had time to throw his hands up to ward off the coming attack.
Another flash from the knife and Levi raised it high over his shoulder.
Gabriel grabbed for it, but it was well outside his reach.
A small shape leapt from the pile of rocks and landed on Levi's back. He whirled in surprise and a flurry of claws tore into his cheek. Hissing and slashing, Oscar turned the entire right side of Levi's face to a sheet of blood before he was able to grab the tabby by the scruff of the neck and hurl it against the wall.
By the time Levi turned back to Gabriel, Jess had brought the barrel of her rifle to bear on his forehead.
There was no look of fear on Levi's face. Only resignation. Or perhaps relief.
One second Levi's head was there, the next it was gone, and Gabriel was wiping warm fluid from his eyes. The body wobbled and then fell down onto him.
Gabriel tried to scream, but his mouth was full of Levi's blood.
He scurried out from under the corpse and looked up at Jess, who stood frozen in place, a twirl of smoke rising from the barrel of the rifle, her face pale.
The weapon fell from her hands.
***
Cavenaugh burned where he had fallen. There was nothing left of his clothing but ash and charcoal, and his skin had already blackened and cracked. He still held his sister's rigid, clawed hand within his own.
Gabriel had to look away. The beauty was painful to behold.
Jess took his hand. He had never been so grateful for such a simple gesture in his life. So many years of constant torture and longing and hoping, and now it was over.
Now he would have to truly mourn the loss of his sister. No more deluding himself, no more hoping for a miracle. He faced the daunting task of collecting her remains and committing her to the earth in the Christian fashion she would have wanted.
There was so much death. All around him. So much loss. And for what?
Oscar limped away from the cavern wall. His right rear leg was broken in such a horrible way that it pointed straight behind him like a second tail.
Gabriel crouched and held out his hand, which only startled Oscar, and sent him hopping deeper into the cavern.
"Damn it," Gabriel said.
He released Jess's hand, walked into the smoldering fire, and found where they had abandoned the lantern. When he turned, he could read the expression on Jess's face, but he couldn't forsake the cat now. Oscar was the only part of his sister left in this world. The tabby had saved him. It was only right that he return the favor.
Raising the lantern, he staggered away from the smoke and flames, the scent of burning flesh, and pressed further into the mountain.
***
Gabriel felt dead inside. The sense of loss he now experienced, the horror over so much death, was sending him into a state of shock. He could only focus on finding the cat. Once he had done so, he knew he would fall apart.
His legs moved of their own volition, leading him into the rapidly cooling depths of the earth. The air was still and dusty, as though even the breeze feared to violate the darkness. After several minutes, or it could have been hours, of stumbling on numb legs, he found himself before another collapsed section of the tunnel. There was only a small black gap between the rocks and the ceiling through which to crawl. Considering he hadn't encountered the cat, that left only one option.
He turned at the sound of footsteps to find Jess staring at him with the same distant expression he was sure he must have worn. Without a word, he started climbing the haphazard pile of stones. He held the lantern out before him and slithered through the gap.
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.
His mind failed to rationalize the scene before him as he descended the other side. The flickering lamplight played off a rounded chamber, only rather than highlighting the imperfections on a granite surface, it died on smooth walls thick with a layer of dust. Cobwebs were strung from the ceiling and walls as though some great spider had filled the room with an intricate network of webs. The dust in the air hung like a mist. Suddenly Gabriel felt as though he couldn't breathe.
Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
He raised his other arm and brushed away the cobwebs, which clung to his skin and jacket.
"What is this place?" Jess whispered from behind him. She reached to her left and ran her hand along a straight edge that resembled the side of a doorway. Her hand came away gray with dust, but the surface she had just cleared shone like stainless steel.
Thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
Gabriel turned back to the room before him and held up the lantern. The walls weren't as smooth as he had initially thought. He walked all the way across the chamber and brushed off another section of the wall to reveal an instrument panel with a flat-screen display, beneath which was a series of buttons resembling a keyboard.
His heart was pounding so hard he could hear his pulse.
He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Gabriel headed left, the ground beneath him making a sound like buckling metal under his weight. The lamp highlighted several large mounds of dust-covered debris in the middle of the room. As he approached, the lantern drew contrast on the shapes. It looked like a cluster of high-backed chairs with headrests and---
There was a crackling noise ahead of him and a soft meow.
Gabriel followed the sound around the first seat and glanced down at it. There was Oscar, curled up not on the chair, but on a pair of spindly, desiccated legs. The cat looked up at him, the reflections from his eyes twin golden halos.
Jess drew a sharp inhalation.
Gabriel followed the legs to a collapsed abdomen. The hip bones poked through the mummified gray flesh. A five-point harness crossed a bare chest, thick with dust. The parchment skin peeled away from the buckle to reveal the thin manila bones of a ribcage.
For God spared not the angels that sinned...
He reached across the harness with a trembling hand and tipped the head up by the chin.
"Oh my God," Jess whispered.
Gabriel couldn't find any words for the face upon which he now stared.
...but cast them down to hell...
The orbital sockets were far too large, ovular rather than circular, and set too low on the face, to creating an abnormally long and broad forehead. The eyes themselves were absent and the skin had peeled away from the deep black pits. A triangular ridge of bone between them formed a nose far too small for the face. And beneath was a thin mouth. The lips had shriveled and retracted from the bared teeth, which were small like kernels of corn to fit the tiny mouth. There was only a bump of bone at the base of the weak chin.
...and delivered them into chains of darkness...
He wanted to jerk his hand back, but he couldn't tear his gaze from the face.
The bible had led his sister and her friends to the location where the angels that had been cast out of heaven struck the earth.
...to be reserved unto judgment.
Where they were bound for all eternity, not in chains of darkness, but in their harnesses.
He understood now the secret that had been important enough to kill to protect.
No one can know, Jenny had said. None of us can ever leave here.
Their entire existence was built upon the perpetuation of a lie.
There can be no forgiveness. There can be no more hope.
These weren't just the fallen angels of Christian lore, the defeated faction from the insurgence in heaven, that his sister and her friends had found high on the northern slope of the mountain after following the stones of fire into the very mouth of hell.
The face into which he now stared was not that of a mystical angel, but that of a being from another world entirely. A being whose existence had provided the f
oundation for the greatest lie ever told, a lie upon which countless lives depended.
"It doesn't even look human," Jess whispered. "What do you think it is?"
"An angel."
"If this is an angel, then..."
Her voice faded to nothingness.
Gabriel turned away from the remains, looked into her eyes, and finished her thought for her.
"Then what the hell is God?"
Epilogue
Jess held Gabriel's hand as together they stood before the crimson spring, looking up toward the mountain peak where the cross had been erected to memorialize their vanished siblings. They had just mounted another placard beneath the first to commemorate the more recent lives that had been lost in the search for their missing family members. The warm June sun shined down on them in slanted rays through the wavering branches of the ponderosa pines. Only spotted patches of snow remained beneath the densest thickets. Otherwise, the ground was dry, the kindling and leaves crackling as they rustled on the slight breeze. Soon enough, the rains would come, heralding winter's inevitable return. This was their window of opportunity.
The Search & Rescue copper had airlifted them down from the mountain the following day as soon as the storm had broken. Jess and Gabriel had joined the police, FBI, and countless volunteers over the ensuing week in a futile search for Maura Aragon, Brent Cavenaugh, Will Farnham, and Kelsey Northcutt. None of their bodies were ever found and they were eventually written off as victims of the cruel mountain and the wicked storm. It happens in the Rocky Mountains every year, the authorities had said. Eventually, their remains would be found.
Gabriel was certain they never would.
They had rolled a number of stones into the hole above the spring where Oscar had entered, sealed it with gravel and dirt, and wedged the largest stone they could lift over the top. That had been two days ago. Ever since, they had done nothing but roll boulder after boulder into the spring to block off the underwater tunnel. The red water now overflowed the granite banks and cut twin streams to either side down the slope.
The Mad and the MacAbre Page 20
