“Shelly! Where is Shelly?!” he yelled. He hopped again, and this time he felt the legs beneath him flex a little. “Robert! Robert! Get the fuck back in here! Where is Shelly?!”
Chapter 22
Warden Ben Tristan wasn’t sure where he was. In fact, he wasn’t at all sure what had happened to him. The last thing he remembered was the horrible scene of his friend, of Father Callahan, being torn apart, and Carson Ford performing some sort of black, voodoo magic to keep him alive.
And then the square-headed bastard pushed him into the void, and he had awoken on a beach, of all places.
Am I dead? Is this heaven?
It certainly felt like heaven. It had been a long time since he had been to a beach—a beach outside of the rocky shores of Seaforth Prison, that is. Having spent most of the last decade squirreled away inside the gray cement walls of the prison, Ben was as pale as they came and he didn’t do well in the heat. But the weather here, wherever he was, was simply perfect: warm and sunny, without being overbearingly hot.
And the sand was like velvet pearls beneath his feet and between his toes. He looked down then, and was surprised to see that he was barefoot. He was still wearing his warden uniform, which was strangely not uncomfortable even though it was designed for a much cooler climate. His pants were rolled up to the bottom of his calf—his calves were too thick for them to be rolled any higher—but he couldn’t remember doing that.
Ben turned his head to the surf next, his smile slowly transitioning into a frown. Even if he had forgotten everything that had happened before arriving on the beach, even if he remembered driving to the beach, looking at that surf, he would have known that something wasn’t quite right.
It was the waves; the water broke exactly the same way on each and every wave. As he glanced along what appeared to be an infinite shoreline, Ben saw that, like some sort of bizarre optical illusion, the waves were always the same. Exactly the same.
Ben blinked hard, then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
I’m either dead or unconscious; in a coma, maybe.
He shrugged. Either way, there wasn’t much he could do about it now.
“Hello? Hello?” His voice reflected across the identical whitecaps and bounced back at him. He cupped his mouth with his hands. “Hello? Anyone out there?”
Predictably, his call went unanswered.
Ben moved toward the water, testing it first with his big toe. It was incredibly warm and inviting, like bath water.
He put his entire foot in next, and before he knew it, he was up to his ankles.
A thought suddenly flashed in his mind.
Replenish the stock, give up yourself for the greater good.
Ben scrunched his face. It was such a weird thing to pop into his head at that moment, so foreign, that it made him stop his forward advance and look around.
The water rippled about his ankles, even though he was no longer moving, and the perpetual waves seemed to have calmed around him.
Ben shook his head and took another step forward. It seemed that the deeper he went, the less feeling he had in his legs, as if the warm water was like Novocaine for his skin.
At first it was pleasant, but as he continued to move, it became unnerving, a sensation that gave him pause.
What the hell am I doing here?
The water was close to his rolled-up pants now, and when he looked down to see if the hem had gotten wet, he noticed something in the water.
At first, Ben thought it was a fish, a bright green fish of some sort. Intrigued, he bent at the waist, trying to make out the details. It certainly shared the same shape as a fish; it was about six or eight inches long, with a large head and a thin tail. The tail itself was made up of bright yellow fins, with iridescent webbing between the individual spines. In his limited spare time, Ben had been an avid fisherman, although with his post at Seaforth, he hadn’t been out in a long while. The last time he had been fishing had been in early February, when he and Quinn had drilled a hole in the ice and had a few beers. The only thing they had caught was a buzz and a chill.
Quinn…
Ben shook his head, not wanting to go down memory lane in this strange place. Instead, he focused on the fish, which, the longer he stared, seemed less and less like anything he had ever seen before. For one, it didn’t at all appear intimidated by him; instead, it seemed energized by his presence, weaving in and out of the space between his legs. It was a broad fish, and from his vantage point, it looked to Ben to only be about the width of a slice of bread. It was hypnotic the way it fluttered through the water, vibrating along its length, but when it passed in front of him this time, it stopped moving and seemed to hover. A strange compulsion suddenly overcame Ben, and he went to grab for it.
But he never touched it. Instead, as soon as his fingers neared the surface of the water, something changed.
The fish suddenly flipped onto its side and its color transitioned to a whitish green. For a split second, Ben thought that it had died, that it had undergone the paling process that all dead fish did as they floated to the surface.
But then the side of the fish flickered, and a dozen eyes suddenly opened.
And they weren’t fish eyes. They were human eyes. In fact, they looked very much like the blue eyes that Carson had held in his palms what seemed like a decade ago.
Quinn’s eyes.
Ben retracted his hand and stood bolt upright, his heart racing, sweat instantly forming on his brow. The fish righted itself, and then with startling speed darted out of sight.
Swallowing hard, Ben tried to understand what he had just seen. But nothing he could think of helped him rationalize the experience. Suddenly feeling uncomfortable in the warm water, he started to backpedal toward the shore. He was almost on the sand again when he heard a voice from behind him and whipped around.
“Hi.”
Ben squinted against the bright sun and exited the water completely.
A mirage?
The kid before him looked real enough, though, complete with Coke bottle spectacles. Thin, young, and pale despite the sun.
“Hi,” he repeated, his expression neutral. “My name’s Allan. Allan Knox.”
Chapter 23
“Wake up! Carson, wake the fuck up!”
The words filtered down to him as if through a long tunnel or a tin can.
“Carson!”
He felt his body rocking, as if he were surfing on the very waves that he and his father were so desperate to avoid.
I can teach you…but it’s not without risks, consequences.
A smile appeared on Carson’s lips, and he slowly opened his eyes. Bella was hovering over him, her face inches from his. Her fingers dug into the tops of his arms.
“Carson?” she said, repeating his name as a question this time. She released him and tried to pulled away, but Carson reached up and wrapped his arms around her waist. Then he kissed her full on the lips. She grunted, and then wrangled herself free.
“Carson, what the fuck are you doing? Get up!”
She scrambled to her feet, and Carson stood beside her. He was nude, and reached for his underwear that sat atop his pile of clothes. As he put them on, Bella started to ramble.
“Fucking hell, you won’t believe what the fuck happened when you were out. The goddamn guy Vinny brought cops back with him! They’re upstairs right now, and they’ve got Michael.”
She was breathing heavily, on the verge of hyperventilating. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her like this before.
“Calm down, Bella. Calm down—I can barely understand you. The cops? They’re upstairs?”
Bella nodded, her eyes still wide.
“Michael’s stalling them, but I can hear them talking right outside the door. They’re gonna come inside, Carson. I don’t know what the fuck Vinny said to them, but they’re here—and they know that you’re here, too. I don’t know how, but they know.”
Carson frowned. He wasn’t fond of cops for obviou
s reasons.
“How many are there?”
“Two—two that I know of. But you know cops. Always calling in their friends. Could be more on their way.”
This eased some of Carson’s anxiety. The last time he had been taken in, it had required a baker’s dozen boys in blue.
“Two men.” He drew in a deep breath, then shook out his entire body. “Okay, Bella, let’s go.”
She screwed up her face.
“Go where? Did you not hear me? Did you lose your mind talking to the Goat?” She gestured about the soot-covered crematorium. “We’re trapped down here. They’re upstairs, just outside the door. Unless you know of a secret passage, we are fucked.”
Carson eyed Bella.
“Have you no faith, Bella?”
“Faith? Faith?”
Carson ignored her incredulity. Then he strode toward the staircase.
“Carson? Carson? Fuck!” Bella shouted.
But as he made his way up the stairs, she followed close behind.
His smile returned.
***
“Keep those hands up,” Carson heard someone say from directly outside the door. The glass was one-way, designed to keep prying eyes out of the crematorium. From his vantage point, Carson could only see Michael from the side, his hands high in the air as instructed. He couldn’t see who had ordered him to stay put.
Carson turned to Bella.
“You sure that Vinny brought bodies back?”
Bella nodded.
“What are you going to do?”
“You’ll see. Just stay behind me.”
Before she had a chance to protest, Carson threw the door wide and stepped out into the muddy afternoon.
“Gentlemen,” he proclaimed, his arms out wide, showing that he had no weapons. “What seems to be the problem here?”
“Freeze!”
Carson ignored the command, and continued walking until he was standing next to Michael, who was looking over at him, a strange expression on his face.
“Freeze or I will shoot!”
This time, Carson stopped and surveyed the scene.
Two men stood about ten feet away from him and Michael. They were typical cops, or maybe detectives. One of them was older, early fifties, maybe, wearing an ugly plaid blazer. The other was younger, handsome, and obviously green based on the way he was holding his pistol as if it owed him money. Clearly, they had been waiting for Carson to come out of the building, otherwise they would have taken him into custody by now.
“And now, the obligatory man in his underwear appears,” the younger man said with a grimace. Carson heard the door open behind him, but didn’t turn. He kept his eyes locked on the younger detective’s.
“Ah, and of course, there you are. Brutal haircut, by the way. Why don’t you go stand in line there beside your boyfriends?”
Bella did as she was instructed, her arms preemptively held high. Carson shot her a look, a reassuring smile, letting her know that everything was going as planned. She shook her head.
“And now we just need the pedo in the Mickey shirt and we’ll be all set.” The young man cast a glance toward the door that Bella and Carson had come out of moments ago. “He in there with you?”
“Who? Jonah? Yeah, he had a bit of an accident.”
“Accident?”
Carson shrugged.
“Someone blew a hole in his chest.”
Neither detective reacted to the comment.
“Let me ask you something, detectives—is that right? You are detectives, aren’t you?”
They didn’t answer, but the older man’s expression relaxed for a split second.
“Ah, yes, detectives. Listen, you guys deal with a lot of death, right? I mean, you”—he indicated the younger man with his chin—“look like someone from New York or maybe Chicago? That about right? Yeah, I can see it in your face. So you must’ve seen a lot of death in your time. Have you—?”
“Enough small talk,” the older man instructed. “Get on your knees and interlace your fingers behind your head.”
“It’s rude to interrupt,” Carson told the man. But he did as he was ordered, his knees making a suctioning sound in the mud. In his periphery, he saw Bella and Michael do the same.
“I hope you have a fucking plan,” Michael grumbled just loud enough for him to hear.
“When you’re young, they tell you things, teach you about what they think is right, about life and death. They tell you—”
“Hey, Preacher Tom, shut the fuck up and put your hands behind your head, okay?”
Carson interlocked his fingers. He let his eyes wander between the two detectives, his focus now on the back of the cube truck, the door of which was still raised. Inside, he could see the outline of several bodies. There were heavy shadows, indistinct, but he counted at least six of them.
More than enough.
And for some reason they weren’t even in body bags.
Even better.
“Growing up, they tell you that life is precious, unique, that you should savor every moment. They tell you that when you die it’s a one-way street.” As he spoke, he closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply, just as Leland had told him. The detective said something, but he focused inward, and didn’t pick up the words. He reached out for the Marrow, remembering the brine in the air, the soft sound of the waves crashing.
“They tell you that once you get to the afterlife, you will be rewarded, you will be given your little fucking slice of Heaven. But what they don’t tell you is that what you experience is actually Hell.”
Carson’s mind skipped along the waves, and he slowly started to draw up an image of the back of the truck, the outlines of the bodies. As his focus deepened, he began to make out forms on the beach; not six, but eight figures, all standing, heads low, not speaking, not moving.
Got you, he thought. I got you all.
“They lied,” he continued. “Death isn’t a one-way street.”
With his mind, Carson locked on to the lost quiddity, and then he took in a giant breath and returned to his body.
Only he didn’t come back alone.
“Jesus fuck!” he heard someone shout, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps on the truck bed. He opened his eyes just in time to see the younger detective spin around as one of the dead literally fell out of the truck. Awkward, like a newborn calf, it tried to rise, but collapsed again.
“What the fuck!” he screamed, falling backward as the rest of the dead in the truck pulled themselves to their feet.
He pinched off two shots, one of which struck the closest corpse with a dull thunk, while the other one pinged off something metal.
“Ed! Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck!”
The other detective, the more seasoned one, had been diligent, controlled, keeping his sights on Michael the entire time his partner was screaming and firing. But now he made a fatal error.
The man that the younger man had called Ed looked to witness the horrors shambling from the back of the truck. It was a subtle gesture; he didn’t even turn his head all the way around.
But it was still too far.
Bella sprang to her feet and then literally flew across the distance between them as graceful as a ballerina, only far deadlier.
She grabbed the man’s front shoulder and spun him, while at the same time taking up residence behind him. The man twisted to one knee, and that was when she slipped the blade out and pressed it to the base of his throat.
The man dropped his gun.
“Greenhorn?” Carson said, rising to his feet. “I think you should follow your partner’s lead and drop your gun, don’t you?”
“So much for just fucking ‘detecting,’” Carson heard the younger detective say before dropping his gun to the ground.
Chapter 24
“Robert, you have to let me go. Please, I need to go see the Cloak. There’s been some sort of…mistake,” Sean pleaded. His mind was working a mile a minute, trying to figure out a
nd understand the implications of their error.
Robert had since rushed back into the room where Sean was held captive, if for no other reason than to get him to stop yelling. Only when he appeared, his face wasn’t etched in fear as Sean had hoped it would be; instead, his eyebrows were lifted high on his forehead, his reaction one of surprise.
“Who the hell is the Cloak?” he demanded, to which Sean just shook his head.
“Please, I need to speak to him. I need to see the book again.”
The mention of the book had clearly piqued his interest, but Sean decided to take a different approach.
“Look, you take me to see the Cloak, you let me read the book, and if after all that you still want to hunt down your brother, I’ll help you.”
Robert’s eyes narrowed, and Sean wondered if he could see through his lies.
“So you know where he is.”
Sean shook his head.
“I didn’t say that. But I can…I am very good at finding people, Robert. You of all people should know that.”
Robert seemed to mull this over, chewing his lip. But before he came to a decision, Cal sidled up to him and whispered something in his ear. Robert nodded to his friend.
“Well? Are you going to let me go?”
Robert glanced to Aiden next, who had resumed his post by the door. There was a silent exchange of sorts, of the like Sean was not privy.
“Who the hell is this ‘Cloak’? Is it another one of your goons? Is this all a ploy to get one of your henchmen to come and take us out?”
Sean sighed.
“Robert, it—”
Robert stepped toward him again.
“A few minutes ago, you were yelling that you should have killed me”—he gestured to the others in the room—“that you should have just killed all of us. And now what? I’m supposed to believe that you’ve had a change of heart? What gives, Sean?”
Sean pressed his lips together defiantly, and Robert turned to Cal next.
“What’d you say to him?” he said, his words dripping with accusation. Cal averted his eyes and shrugged.
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