“Let’s trade off watching,” Steven said, “and the other can catch a nap. We’re going to need it if we’re going to be driving all night.”
“Alright,” Roy said. “You go first. I’ve got this.”
Steven left Roy in the car and returned to his room. He checked on Jason and his IV. He tried to sleep, but the curtains in the room didn’t block out the light very well, and he was anxious about the pending events that night. After a couple of hours he traded with Roy, and they continued to switch off as the day wore on. Steven left Roy briefly to get dinner and bring it back; they both ate again in the car.
“Something bothers me about St. Thomas,” Steven said, searching websites on his phone while Roy finished his meal. “The man in Orderville said they thought the land itself was bad. Is that why it lives on, fully formed in the River? He didn’t say how it got that way.”
“He mentioned someone whose ancestor had a journal,” Roy said. “Maybe there’s more information there.”
“Well,” Steven said, “we won’t need it. After we get Jason out tonight, we’re outta here.”
Roy was a little surprised at this. “You’re satisfied with Winn’s thinking that after six months they won’t care anymore?” he asked.
“Why not?” Steven said. “He seems to know what he’s talking about.”
“Doesn’t it seem like we’re leaving another problem behind?” Roy said.
“A thousand miles away and fading,” Steven said. “That’s a lot better than Michael living down the street from us.”
Roy considered this. Suddenly things seemed to have flipped – now he was the one advocating for a more thorough solution instead of Steven. Steven seemed gun-shy. Frank Wilmon changed my thinking, Roy thought, maybe that gash on Steven’s arm changed his.
“I’m just sayin’,” Roy said, “it seems like we’re leaving a group of ghosts angry at us, instead of just one person.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin, anyway,” Steven said. “Taking down St. Thomas and all these creatures? We’re outsiders. We wouldn’t stand a chance. I don’t think even Winn and Deem would try.”
“Just sayin’,” Roy repeated.
“And anyway, we have to get Jason out of here,” Steven said. “That’s the top priority.”
“Yes, priorities,” Roy echoed. Jason was a priority, that was for sure.
“One thing at a time,” Steven said, waiting for Roy to reply, but Roy didn’t say anything. Unusual, Steven thought. He never lets me have the last word.
◊
Winn and Deem showed up on schedule at midnight. Roy didn’t want to lose sight of Michael’s motel room, especially after having staked it out all day, so they met in Steven’s car and ran through the plan one more time.
“He’s up there?” Deem asked.
“Yes,” Roy said. “He came out around noon and we followed him around town. Then we saw him go back in. He’s been in there ever since.”
“Alright,” Winn said. “Deem, Steven and I will go up to his motel room, where Jason is. You come with us. Roy, you stay outside Michael’s room. Once I’m at St. Thomas, Deem will come over to you, Roy, and the two of you can enter Michael’s room and finish him off. Get the body down into Deem’s truck, then come join us in Steven’s room. By then we should have Jason back and you’ll head out. Everything packed?”
“Yup,” Steven said. “Everything’s in the car. As soon as we can get Jason down here, we’ll be gone.”
“Any questions?” Winn asked. No one had any. “Alright, let’s do it.”
They all left the car and walked to the motel. Roy peeled off from the group and walked to Michael’s door. The motel was silent and dimly lit; Roy made sure to stay out of the light as he waited, to minimize the chance of being seen by other people.
Steven, Deem, and Winn entered Steven’s room. Winn placed a metal frame on the table by the TV. In the bottom of the frame he emptied the contents of a canvas bag, which looked like a finely ground powder. He pulled a small plastic bowl from his backpack and placed it on the metal frame, suspending the bowl upside down over the powder. Then he removed a small glass bottle from his backpack and sprinkled its contents over the powder.
Steven didn’t see anything happening, but Deem and Winn were watching the powder intently. He slipped into the River, and saw what they were looking at – fine, thin wisps of a white substance, almost like a mist or fog, slowly floating up from the ground topaz. At first he thought it might be smoke, but the wisps were too substantial and slow moving to be a gas. The wisps collected in the bowl, and once it was done, Winn removed the bowl from the metal frame, positioned it near his face, and slowly lifted an edge of the bowl until one of the wisps rose from its edge and began to travel upwards. He held his face forward and inhaled, sucking the wisp into his nose. He continued this until he’d exhausted all of the wisps in the bowl. Then he moved to the bed and stretched out on it.
Deem moved in next to him, and held her palm down on the center of his chest. Steven waited in the River, watching Winn enter his trance. He saw the familiar bubble form around him, the same bubble he’d seen form around Roy whenever he tranced. After a few moments the bubble became translucent and Winn’s image began to fade. Deem removed her hand from Winn’s chest and Steven left the flow.
“I’m going to go to Roy now,” Deem said, looking at Steven. “You stay here and keep an eye on him. If we’re lucky, Jason will be back in ten minutes or so.”
“Alright,” Steven said. “Good luck, and you two be careful, please.”
“I’ll keep an eye on your old man,” Deem said, smiling. “We’ll both be fine.”
Deem left the room and Steven moved between the two twin beds. Winn was lying on his right, as still as a board, and Jason on his left, similarly stretched out. This has got to work, Steven thought.
Deem walked down the cement walkway in front of the motel rooms until she met Roy. “Winn’s left,” Deem whispered to him. “Let’s wait about ten minutes, then we’ll go in.”
Roy checked his watch and the two of them stood patiently outside Michael’s room.
Steven began to pace at the foot of the two beds. He looked down at Winn, appreciative of what he was doing for Jason. If this works, I owe him, Steven thought. And Deem. They’ve been nothing but helpful. Then he looked at Jason. And I’ll have to start training Jason right away, he thought. He’ll be anxious. We’ll talk on the way back to Seattle.
Steven checked his watch. It had been ten minutes. Any time now. He continued to pace.
Outside Michael’s motel room, Deem turned to Roy. “How long has it been?” she whispered.
“Over ten minutes,” Roy whispered back.
“Then let’s go,” she said, pushing Michael’s window open and slipping quietly inside the same way she’d done the day before. Within a few seconds the door opened and Roy stepped inside. They quietly moved around the bed, looking for Michael.
Something’s wrong, Deem thought. The bed is wrong.
She reached for the light and turned it on. Michael’s room was empty.
“The adjoining room,” Roy said to her. She reached for the door to the adjoining room and opened it. They walked into the second room and turned on the light. It, too, was empty.
“What the fuck?” Roy said. “He didn’t leave. I know he didn’t.”
Deem walked back into Michael’s room and began to search. She walked into the bathroom at the back of the room and found an open window. She pulled herself up to the window and slipped halfway through it, looking down. Twenty feet below the window was flat, arid Nevada soil. In the moonlight she could see tracks below. She fell back into the room and turned to Roy.
“He went out this way,” she said. “He must have known you were watching him.”
“Fuck!” Roy said. “What now?”
“Let’s go back to Winn and Steven,” Deem said.
They left the room, pulling the door shut behind them, and walked back the sho
rt distance to Steven’s room. They knocked, and Steven let them in.
“Did you do it?” Steven asked.
“No,” Deem said, “he wasn’t there.”
“Jason’s not back yet,” Steven said, letting them enter the room.
“How long has it been, Roy?” Deem asked.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said.
“Let’s wait,” she said. “Be patient.”
Steven resumed his pacing.
“When Jason comes back, we’re fucked,” Steven said. “Without Michael out of the picture, they’ll know we’ve gone to Seattle. How did he get out of the room? We watched it like hawks.”
“Back window,” Deem said. “He had to have known you were watching him.”
“Do you think he suspected we were up to this?” Roy asked Deem.
“I don’t know,” Deem said. “Winn has extracted several people before. I know he was worried they might be catching on.”
Steven kept pacing. “How long now?” he asked Roy.
“Twenty minutes,” he said.
“I’m not going to freak out until it’s been thirty,” Deem said. “Winn might have run into a problem with Jason. He’ll come back and let us know.”
“What if things have gone wrong?” Steven asked. “What if Winn and Jason are in trouble?”
“We don’t know that yet,” Deem said, watching Winn for any signs of movement.
“But what if they are?” Steven asked. “How could we help them, if we have to?”
“I suppose we could go to St. Thomas and see,” Deem said. “But trust me, that’s a last resort.”
“Fuck!” Roy said again. “This is going sideways.”
“Roy, can I have one of your beers?” Deem asked. “I could use something.”
“Help yourself,” he said. Deem walked into Roy’s room and returned with a beer. She popped it open and took a long draw.
“Time?” Steven asked Roy.
“Twenty eight minutes,” Roy answered.
Deem walked over to Winn and set her beer down on the nightstand by his bed. She sat down on the bed next to him, and pressed her hand to his chest. “Winn?” she said. “Winn? Can you hear me? We need you to come back. Michael wasn’t here. Come back.”
Winn’s face didn’t change. Steven looked at Jason – no change there, either.
“We’ve got to do something,” Steven said. “If we go to St. Thomas, how would we do that?”
“We’d all trance, just like Winn,” she said. “You’ve all seen it, so you know how to get there. We’d trance to the hotel, and try to figure out what’s going on.”
“I think we should do it,” Steven said. “This isn’t what Winn said would happen. And Michael’s missing. Something’s wrong.”
“I agree,” Roy said. “Let’s go.”
“Deem, why don’t you take the second bed in Roy’s room,” Steven said.
“Steven,” Roy said, walking back into his room and rummaging through his luggage, “I think we should share the other bed in here.”
“Should one of us stay here,” Steven said, “and keep an eye on our bodies?”
“No,” Roy said as he pulled a hunting knife from his suitcase. “We’ll all go.”
“What’s that for?” Steven asked.
“Insurance,” Roy said, “just in case Michael turns up. I’m going to do a split-trance.”
“A split-trance?” Steven asked.
“You can do that?” Deem asked enthusiastically.
“I’ve done it once or twice,” Roy said.
“Wow,” she said, marveling at Roy. “I’ve never met anyone who could do that. Can you just go both places at once?”
“No,” Roy said, “it’s one or the other, but you have to start the trance with the split in mind.”
“What’s a split-trance?” Steven asked.
“I’ll travel to St. Thomas with you,” Roy said, “but I’ll do it with only part of myself. Once we get there, I’ll sort of ‘trance back’ to my body here, with the other part. That’ll make me a little weaker in St. Thomas, but we’ll just have to deal with that. I’ll be able to see through my eyes here, and have some limited movement. I’ll know if someone comes in the room, and we can return and deal with them.”
“Excellent!” Deem said.
“Alright,” Steven said. He watched as Deem laid down on the bed and closed her eyes. Then Steven and Roy crammed into the twin bed closest to the door.
“You got that knife?” Steven asked.
“Right here,” Roy said, raising his hand, showing the knife to Steven.
Chapter Nine
Steven was worried he’d taken too long to achieve the trance. He was still a newbie at it, and easily distracted. His trance kept falling apart. After what seemed like a dozen tries, he finally found himself at the edge of St. Thomas, looking at the building he’d seen when Winn first showed them the town.
He walked through the streets, looking for Deem and Roy. When he reached the town’s main street, he saw them waiting for him at the hotel. He hurried over to them, looking for ghosts as he went. They should all be down for the night, Steven thought. They shouldn’t be out on the streets. But something is happening, something is wrong - so who knows?
The hotel was dark and silent, just like the rest of the town.
What took you so long? Deem thought.
I’m not as good at it as you two, Steven thought back.
Never mind, Roy thought. Time to enter this hotel and see what’s going on.
The three of them walked up to the main doors of the hotel. Steven instinctually reached out to open the doors, but he saw Deem and Roy pass through them, so he followed them. It felt strange to move through the door and suddenly have a view inside the lobby, knowing half his body was still outside the front of the hotel. Well, not my body exactly, he thought.
The lobby was dark and quiet.
Have you been here before? Roy thought to Deem.
Once, she said. That’s why I didn’t want to come. We can’t afford to wake up the ghosts here. We don’t have an EM gun, and our only chance will be to flee out of the trance and back to our bodies in the motel room, OK? If you see me go, just follow!
Alright, Steven thought. Lead on.
Deem moved through the lobby, past a grand staircase that led up to the second floor.
Callers up there, she thought.
She moved past the staircase and towards the back of the lobby, going through a set of double doors into a back room that looked like a dining hall. She passed silently through the space, heading to the doors in the far end of the room.
Steven and Roy followed. Steven couldn’t help but look at the paintings on the walls. They were scenes from the hotel’s past. Before it was under water, he thought.
Deem moved into a hallway. Straight ahead was a kitchen, but Deem turned and walked down the hallway in a different direction. They came to a door, which she passed through. On the other side was a stairwell leading down.
Here we go, she thought. Try not to make any disturbances.
Steven wondered how exactly he’d do that, given the state he was in. He decided it meant to shut up – perhaps their thoughts might be overheard by the ghosts, and wake them up.
Once they reached the bottom of the wide stairwell, it opened into a large room. Steven could see cots lined up against the far wall.
Jason has to be in one of those, Deem thought, moving towards the cots. I wonder where Winn is?
Steven felt the sensation of someone coming up behind him. He turned and was met with a branding iron. He screamed as the iron pressed into him, going right through his shirt and into the flesh of his chest.
There’s no flesh here, he thought. Whatever this is, it’s all immaterial. But damn, it hurts!
He was aware that Roy and Deem were being similarly attacked. Deem began a physical fight with her attacker, but was quickly subdued as two more men moved up behind her. They held her as another man finished brandin
g her.
Steven saw Roy fall to one knee as he was branded. No! Steven thought, rushing over to Roy. He felt himself grabbed from behind, large strong hands pulling him back. Steven watched as more dark figures grabbed Roy from behind, holding him still.
A man emerged from the shadows of the room in front of them. He wore black clothes and a silver necklace that caught in the dim light. There was something about his face that was off. At first Steven thought it was the play of the shadows of the room on his face, but the more he stared at it, the more he realized the face was moving, shifting.
The man approached Steven and stood in front of him. The shifting intensified. The cheeks, eyes, nose, mouth – they all altered shape slightly, every second, as though he was constantly morphing. It was a hard face to comprehend.
Welcome to the Gentry, the man thought. Did you have a reservation?
The men holding them chuckled. Steven twisted in their grip but it just caused them to hold on tighter. From the back of the room, two more men brought Winn to join Steven, Roy, and Deem in front of the tall man. Steven could see a glowing brand on Winn’s neck, similar to the marks he could see on Roy and Deem.
I’m Emmett Holmes, the tall man thought, and I run this town. You’ve sprung our trap. Why?
My son Jason is here, Steven thought. I’ve come to take him home.
I don’t see any Jason here, Emmett thought. You must be mistaken.
We know that Michael brought him here, Steven thought. We’ve seen him, we’ve talked to him. We know he’s here.
Oh, THAT Jason, Emmett thought, his face continuing to shift. I remember now. Michael told me about him. So naïve and easily manipulated. He’s changed his mind, decided to stay.
I don’t believe you, Steven thought. He wouldn’t do that.
You don’t know your son very well, Emmett thought. He came back and told us all about your plan. Told us all the details, so we could meet you here tonight. Sold you out.
No! Steven thought. I don’t believe it.
So he’s decided to stay, Winn thought. Let us go!
Nah, Emmett thought, turning his attention to Winn. You’ve been doing this far too often, haven’t you? I think you’re the reason we’ve lost so many trainees lately. I’m not going to release you just to go back out there and keep fucking with us.
Devil's Throat (The River Book 6) Page 10
