Blackwater Lights (26 page)

Lily’s voice. She had been standing behind him. “The invocation. You will help us bring
them through the doorway, Ray.”

“You’re going to die,” Ray said. “Both of you.” It came out of him without thought and surprised him.

The two looked at each other and laughed.

“We’ll see you soon,” Crawford said. “Rest up. You have a big night ahead.”

Lily winked. Crawford turned out the lights as he left.

He tried fighting the drugs, but drifted back into unconsciousness.

He woke up when the light came on. Billy and the guy in the acid-washed jeans, White Sneakers, had come to get him.

“Hello, assholes,” Ray said.

They said nothing. Billy extracted him from the chair, and the other man tied his arms behind his back. Billy held the gun, and his hand was shaking. His jaw waggled back and forth as if completely unhinged. Whatever he was on was tweaking him hard. “Let’s go,” he said.

They led him up a flight of stairs, through a windowless corridor, and into a candlelit room. A man in a robe stood in front of him. The robe was long, deep red, and hooded, and the folds of the hood hung over his head, hiding his face. Just like in Micah’s video. It would have been comic in any other situation, a Halloween costume, a cheesy horror film cliché come to life.

“Spooky,” Ray said. He had little energy left, but he’d mock them until the bitter end. One thing he’d learned was that they didn’t like that. His swollen-shut eye was proof.

The robed figure didn’t speak.

“You gonna offer me up to your dark lord?”

No word.

“Oh. You’re the ghost of Christmas future. I get it.”

Silence. He could have been talking to a mannequin.

Billy pressed the gun against the back of his head. “You’d better shut up.”

“Look at yourself—playing dress-up. Well, fuck you. You don’t scare me. You’re a piece of shit.”

Billy reached over and pulled the man’s hood back.

Ray’s breath caught in his throat.

Kevin. His glasses reflected the candlelight. His nose was swollen and purple and his cheeks were bruised from the self-administered beating. He seemed dazed. “Ray … I’m sorry.”

The room swayed. Ray swallowed, his mouth dry. “Kevin … why? How can you do this?”

Kevin’s Adam’s apple rose and fell, but he didn’t speak.

“Jesus, say something to me. It’s
me
.”

Nothing.

“Kevin, for fuck’s sake, talk to me.”

Billy laughed.

Lily walked into the room, in her shimmering crimson robe. “Oh, how cute. Two old friends having a little chat.”

“Why don’t you die, bitch,” Ray said.

Lily snickered. “Kevin, go help our new arrivals get dressed. It’s almost time.”

Kevin’s eyes went blank. He turned and left the room, his robe sweeping along the floor.

“You’re not one of them!” Ray shouted after him.

Lily laughed some more. If he had a knife, he’d cut her tongue out to make sure she’d never utter that jagged sound again. “He’s not the person you used to know,” she said. “He hasn’t been for years. He’s family now.”

“Your
family
can’t just do this.”

“Oh, no? Maybe the Negro Cub Scouts will save you?”

“They’ll get you,” he said. “Maybe not before I die, but they’ll get you.”

“Oh, Ray,
please
stop scaring me,” she said.

Now Crawford entered, dressed in his robe. “Bind him,” he said. Billy wrapped the rope around his arms, cinching it until Ray cursed in pain. Not only were his hands bound behind his back, but his entire upper body was immobilized.

“It’s time,” Crawford said.

Billy nodded. He yanked Ray up by the back of his shirt and walked him through the
house and out the back door in the gallery. Two cops in uniform stood guard. They both glanced at him and turned back to the garden and the woods beyond. They’d witnessed this scene before. Many times, perhaps.

Ray shivered. It was getting cold, and the mist settled on his skin, threatening to draw out his last bit of strength.

The rest of the group emerged into the night air. One at a time, all in their red robes with the hoods hanging over their faces.

“Follow me,” Lily said. She walked slowly into the gardens, followed by Crawford and the rest.

“Move,” Billy whispered. He pushed, and Ray stumbled forward. He followed the procession through the gardens, along a stony path past the pool, and into a grassy field. His feet sank in the mud. The others followed.

His foot caught on a rock and he fell on his face in the dirt. He turned his head and spat out a mouthful of mud.
Damn
. He’d cut his cheek—he could feel a sharp sting and the warmth of blood.

“Up,” Billy hissed. He lifted Ray to his feet.

They marched on. Through the field, past two more armed guards, into the woods, and up a hill. Billy held the ropes across Ray’s back to keep him steady. Ray could barely see the robed figure in front of him through the fog, and the path they were walking on was rough. The hill grew steeper.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ray thought he saw an arc of light zipping across the sky. Billy didn’t seem to notice. Then he saw it flash again—just over the treetops.

He stumbled again, but Billy caught him.

On they went, deeper into the trees.

After a long time, an orange glow burned ahead. As they moved closer, the glow danced, illuminating huge, gnarled trees and a very familiar arrangement of rocks.

Of course.

The fire from within the Hand had burned away much of the fog. The group stopped and
parted in front of one of the jagged rocks, and Ray cried out.

On a flattened slab in the center of the circle, in a thin white robe, tied up, spread-eagled and blindfolded, was Ellen.

Ellen
. The sight of her was like a kick in the chest. He was glad to see her alive, but this was too hard to take—the woman he’d dragged into this nightmare, blindfolded and tied like a goat for slaughter on a slab of ancient rock. William was nowhere to be seen. Ray prayed he was okay and hadn’t witnessed whatever had been done to his mother.

Above Ellen, hanging upside down by her feet, eyes glazed and lifeless, was Sara. She spun slowly, mere feet above Ellen’s blindfolded face, suspended from a rope stretched between two of the gnarled trees—a puppet hung up after a children’s show. Her long gray braid hung like an exclamation point, and her face was bruised and swollen. They’d beaten her savagely.

They had tied Ellen’s wrists and feet to thick rebar stakes in the ground, spreading her across the central altar. The bonfire behind the rock shadowed her face, but Ray saw enough to understand she had shut down completely. Her head rolled slowly back and forth, her mouth wide. Maybe they had drugged her. He hoped so. If she was drugged, she might not understand what was happening. If she wasn’t drugged, he couldn’t bear to imagine what they had done to drive her nearly catatonic.

All at once, he felt a cold clarity. He’d need to be alert and take advantage of any opening, any possible slip-up or mistake … or he and Ellen, and William, would die.

All is not finished. While we live and breathe, there is hope
.

Micah was right, of course. But this sure looked like the end.

Ray scanned the assembly. At least twelve in red robes. On the outskirts, facing outward, four guards in flak jackets with rifles. A skinny man in a black ninja-like suit, holding a video camera. Crawford was making a movie of it all. Probably another training film for another of his—what had Micah called them?—franchises.

Something slipped over his neck, and he felt a sharp tug. He coughed, but the air stuck in his chest. Metal bit into his neck. Billy had slipped a dog collar—a choker chain—around his
neck, and jerked on the leash. His vision contracted and blurred, until he felt like he might pass out.

Crawford stepped in front of the slab, obscuring Ellen. The firelight cast an orange aura around him.

“My family,” he said. His eyes were on fire. Whatever he had drawn out of Ray’s head had changed him. “I welcome you all to this special place on this sacred night, my children, under the canopy of stars.”

The group of red-robed congregants stood still. A few nodded.

“The sky is alive tonight, wouldn’t you say?”

Ray hissed, and Billy lifted the chain just enough to cut off his air. Crawford turned to him. “Our guest of honor has given me a gift of extraordinary significance. And I will, in time, give him a token of my appreciation. But first, we must prepare the offering in the manner of our ancestors.” He nodded. “Mother.”

Lily moved behind Ellen’s head, silhouetted between the fire and the altar. Her elongated shadow fell across Ellen. She lifted her arms out at her sides, palms up, and the long sleeves of her robe slid down to her elbows.

“M’shug’um g’zaflghna msuzlk,”
she said.

“G’zaflghna msuzlk,”
the others replied. Piggish, guttural, and jarring. More like barking than speech.

“The Great Mother calls you.” She lowered her arms and put her hands together, palms up, in front of her.
“Samael, daaghna uzzül’uüš.”

Crawford stepped to her. He held a long black-handled knife. Lily took it carefully.

Ray jerked forward. “No!” he screamed, his voice ragged and harsh.

Billy yanked the chain again. Ray stumbled and fell to his knees, his face and lungs nearly exploding.

“Ray?” Ellen cried. Her voice weak and slurred. “Ray?”

Lily bent and whispered into Ellen’s ear.

Ray tried to stand, but Billy shoved him back to his knees. He pushed himself backward into Billy with all of his strength, but Billy stepped aside and Ray fell sideways into the wet soil. The chain links bit into his neck.

Lily’s eyes latched onto his. She held the knife at her side. The blade was long and
sharpened on both edges. A dagger, with a handle of polished black stone. She whispered something—a prayer?—and stood, lit by the flames, over Ellen’s head.

Ellen moaned.

Lily approached Sara. She pulled the dead woman’s dangling braid, stretching the neck. Sara’s empty eyes were cloudy, and her swollen tongue hung out between her teeth. The entire forest became silent.

Lily brought the knife forward and sliced Sara’s neck. Quickly. Deeply.

A gush of blood erupted, splattering on Ellen, then coursed out in a thick stream.

Lily swung Sara’s corpse, back and forth, side to side, and the blood fell on Ellen’s white robe, turning it bright scarlet. A cameraman swooped in for a close-up, tracking as the body swung. The rope squeaked as Lily swung the corpse.

Ellen moaned again. She was drenched. Blood ran into her mouth. Steam rose from her skin and the sodden robe.

It would be so very easy to give up. To retreat. To disappear into himself, somewhere far away, where it was dark all the time. Just as he’d done long ago. Go back to Grandma’s farm, under the blue starless sky, where nothing bad ever happened and it was never night. Just empty, quiet, and safe.

It would be so easy.

But he couldn’t … not while there was still blood in his veins. Not while Ellen lay on that rock, drenched in Sara’s blood. Not while William was still alive.