The Dead Run (15 page)

 

CHAPTER 25

E
ric caterwauled, aflame with pain, and Sherry ran her eyes up and down his body, trying to find the source, the injury, desperate to fix it.

Before his screams roused Buchanan.

If the felled monster was still alive.

She ought to march over to where he lay, Sherry thought, and finish the job. Pummel him until blood poured. Roll his body off the ledge, watch the darkness eat it whole. Get comfortable and listen as the rats sniffed out his corpse, stripped the meat from his bones. But there was Eric to think about. He hadn't abandoned her yet, and she couldn't walk away from him now, not even for a moment. She knew too well how that would feel.

And she knew how stupid she was being. Every fiber of Sherry's body screamed at her to end it, to consign Buchanan to hell or oblivion or the fucking happy hunting grounds. Anywhere but here.

It must have been an equally powerful force, then, that held her back.

It was more than loyalty, more than Eric. It was something inside her, and all at once, Sherry was grateful for it. This was not a weakness, but a different kind of strength. Taking Buchanan's life would bring her no peace. Would only increase her burden. She flashed on something her father had said once when she was a little girl, seven or eight, climbing all over him like he was her personal jungle gym, scaling the heights of his shoulders and swinging from his biceps like a monkey.

You're so strong, Daddy! I bet you could beat anybody in a fight!

His normally relaxed face had drawn tight around the mouth.

I'm strong so I don't have to fight.

“What's wrong?” Sherry asked now, pulling her friend into her lap. If somebody had told her this morning that she'd be rocking Eric Lansing like a baby by midafternoon . . .

Sherry dismissed the thought. It was meaningless, the musing of a girl she no longer was, could never be again. “Where does it hurt?”

The sound of her voice seemed to punch through his suffering. “My shoulder,” Eric gasped, tears streaming past his cheeks. “It feels like it's broken or something.” He lifted his head slightly, peered down the length of his body, fumbled vaguely toward his leg. “Something's wrong with my knee, too.”

The sound of approaching footfalls froze them both. They were coming loud and fast—two people, running. Maybe three. Sherry caught Eric's eye, lifted a finger to her lips, and crept into the shadows bracketing the mouth of the cave.

Then she thought again and darted out to grab the sack that had felled Buchanan. The sack she refused to think about in any other terms. It was a weapon now. That was all. She twisted the fabric around her knuckles, like a boxer's wraps, and waited for whatever came. The sound of her own breath was loud in Sherry's ears. The sound of Eric's, sharp and shallow as he fought the pain, was deafening.

Anybody could be coming, she told herself, Cub Scout to killer. It could be Aaron fucking Seth himself, swinging on over to find out what was taking so long. She gripped the sack even tighter, edged forward until she was inches from the shaft of light angling into the cavern, muscles tensing as the steps drew closer.

“Leave me,” Eric whispered, shattering her focus. “Go now, Sherry. I'm just gonna slow you down.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” she hissed.

“I'm hurt. And you're the one in danger. Get out of this fucking place, while the getting's still good. Here.”

He winced and jammed his left hand into his right pocket. Hooked his key ring with his longest finger, slid it free, dropped it atop his chest. Exhaled a shuddery draft of air, sapped by the effort.

Sherry watched the metal glint in the pale light, rising and falling with his breath.

“We're leaving together,” she said.

Then, for the second time in half an hour, the voice of an unknown man called Sherry's name.

And for the second time in an hour, her bones turned to ice.

“Sherry Richards! Can you hear me? This is Sheriff Bob Nichols. Are you here?”

She managed to turn her head, to look at Eric. He shook his, violently, a convert to Sherry's way of thinking.

We can't trust cops
.

She looked down at the sack and doubled up her grip. Gritted her teeth and got ready to go down swinging.

The air thickened, and then it thickened some more. And then the most wonderful sound in the world cut through it, like the bow of a ship easing into warm home waters.

“Sherry, it's Ruth! Where are you, sweetheart?”

“Ruth!” The name jumped from her like a sob, and Sherry threw herself into the light, toward the voice, with an abandon, a carefreedom, she could have sworn she'd never feel again.

The next thing Sherry knew, she was wrapped in Ruth's arms, her body gone slack as a puppet whose strings have been cut. She barely took in the handsome, care-lined face of the man standing beside the psychiatrist, Sheriff Whatshisname.

Ruth pulled back and took stock, pressing her hands to Sherry's face, her arms. “Are you hurt?”

“No, but he is.” Sherry pointed behind her, the sweep of her arm taking in not just Eric but Buchanan, behind him. The sheriff was already walking toward them, arm crooked and elbow cocked, fingers just brushing the handle of the gun in his holster. He looked from one to the other—trying to decide what had happened, maybe. Or whom to tend to first.

“I hit him,” Sherry heard herself blurt. The sack slipped from her fingers, and the tears were falling now, hot, stinging her cheeks. “He, he . . . tried to . . .” She gave it up, squeezed her eyes shut as Ruth's glance roved over the sack, took in the bloodstain seeping through the burlap.

“I'm here now, baby. You're safe.” Ruth embraced her again, and this time Sherry felt her legs go rubbery and eased down to the cold stone floor, bringing Ruth with her. She buried her face in her friend's neck and wailed, not caring how she sounded or what any of them thought.

She'd never have enough tears for this. Never be able to cry her way to any kind of peace.

“This is gonna hurt like hell.”

She opened her eyes to see the sheriff kneeling over Eric, and before reason could kick in, she'd jumped to her feet, shrieking.

“No! Don't touch him! Leave my friend alone!”

Nichols froze, Eric's arm clutched between both his hands, and looked over at her.

“His shoulder's dislocated,” he explained, voice soft and rough at the same time. “I've got to pop it back in, is all. Okay?” The sheriff held her gaze, making sure she understood, and Sherry felt her breathing slow down. There was something gentle in Nichols, something she trusted on instinct. Ruth probably would have said that Sherry saw some glimmer of her dad in him, some echo of the father she pined for. Ruth was always saying shit like that. Probably because it was true.

Nichols turned back to Eric. “On three,” he said. “Ready?”

Eric nodded, shut his eyes hard.

“One. Two.”

Eric's scream drowned out the final word. He bucked against the floor as Nichols wrenched his arm back into place, and then sat up, breathing hard, relief painted all over his face.

“Jesus Christ,” he panted, clutching the bad arm with the good. “Holy fuck.”

“Enough with the sermon.” Nichols smiled, standing now, hands resting on his belt. “Next order of business, Mr. Marshall Buchanan over here. Not exactly the easiest sumbitch to move, but . . .” Nichols brandished a set of handcuffs and started toward him.

Bent, grunted, flipped the monster from his side onto his stomach as if he were an old mattress.
Click. Click
. Steel encircled his wrists, and Sherry let go a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

“That's a start,” Nichols said, standing back to admire his handiwork. “Now, let's get you two someplace safe. The rest can wait.”

Nichols offered Eric a hand up; Ruth draped an arm over Sherry. Slowly, the four of them walked toward the light.

Hobbling. Quaking. Sobbing.

Alive.

Sherry felt the warmth immediately. She closed her eyes and lifted her face toward it—inviting the sunshine in, imploring it to dry her tears to salt. The heat was her new god. It would sustain her.

No longer
shall I walk in darkness, but rather seek the light.

Suddenly, and absurdly, a sense of peace came over her. She was alive: Sherry knew it as she never had before. Felt it with a new majesty, a new depth.

Then she opened her eyes, and saw two policemen pointing guns at her.

“Hello again, Sheriff,” the bigger one crowed, aligning his weapon with Nichols's chest. He blinked at Ruth with watering, flame-red eyes. “Doctor.

“Cuff them all,” he barked to his partner, and Sherry felt the warmth drain right back out of her.

 

CHAPTER 26

T
hat smell . . . it cannot be.

Cucuy sat bolt upright in his tub, the blood streaming down his ancient face in thin rivulets and pooling in the deep lines of his skin.

He leaned back his head and inhaled—a human habit, one of the scant few he had not yet discarded. With time, the Ancient One's senses had grown diffuse, learned to function independently of their assigned organs. He no longer heard with his ears or saw with his eyes; instead, his entire being assimilated stimuli, in ever more subtle and sophisticated ways.

And thus the shocking, terrifying odor suffusing his consciousness was not one he could easily escape, even if he wanted to.

Which he did not.

On the contrary, he was compelled to track it to its source.

The Great One extricated himself from the tub, a seeping tide of blood unfurling before him like a red carpet. He walked across it, toward the smell.

The impossible smell.

For the first time he could remember, Cucuy felt fear. Though the sensation was unpleasant, he surrendered himself to it, allowed it to wash over him. Breathed in its bouquet as a connoisseur might a fine wine, and allowed it to transport him back across the centuries.

The wedding ceremony.

Held in the blazing sunlight, before a thousand prosperous guests.

His bride, resplendent in a saffron dress. Bejeweled and dazzling. Her eyes shining at him. Always at him.

This woman was the prize of an entire empire, bestowed upon its favorite son in a perfect union of beauty and power, flesh and spirit. Auspicious beyond all imagining.

She was the scion of a prosperous clan of merchants, dealers in everything from gold to spice; they had been wise and savvy with their wealth, ridden it to political prominence, curried favor with the right people for decades—and now, the right people curried favor with them. Her mother and grandmother had been renowned beauties in their own times; she was every bit their equal, and also her clan's sharpest young business mind, her father's right hand and presumed successor.

Cucuy had loved her fiercely before they ever met, and she'd fulfilled his every expectation when they did. This moment should have been the culmination of all desire, the apex of all triumph. Instead, he was alone amidst the throngs, the well-wishers, the celebrants. Instead of drunk with elation, he was stiff with a fear so paralyzing he could scarcely move. Each look she cast his way was an arrow. Each trill of her honeyed voice threatened to bring him to his knees.

A doom invisible to all but he hung over her.

Over them both.

The god was cruel, and Cucuy was his priest.

His fear was unbefitting. He would conquer it. Do what he must.

The sacred knife lay waiting by the bedside, sharp as death. He knew what he would say.

My heart dies with you, my love.

The vision faded from Cucuy's mind now as the smell grew stronger. He passed through a long stone passageway, damp with mildew, and then the priest was standing in the cavernous, rough-hewn antechamber his minions used to test prospective Messengers. Once, the wills and bones of infidels had been broken upon these racks. Now they might never taste blood again.

The smell was dizzying—intoxicating, as only danger could be. How had he failed to distinguish it earlier? Perhaps it had been mingled with too many other odors, the distinct, noble notes blunted by the brutish strains with which they competed.

Or perhaps, Cucuy thought with a sudden, cold-eyed sobriety, his abilities had eroded more than he realized. Perhaps the melancholy that had surrounded him like a mist of late—the persistent, unwelcome thoughts of
her
that flooded his mind, even as he stood at the precipice of monumental change—had clouded the Timeless One's awareness.

He brushed the notion away, strode to the spot from which the smell radiated, and eased his aged frame down to the cool stone floor.

The most powerful creature still drawing breath in this diminished world, supplicating himself before a spatter of blood.

Cucuy's mouth opened, and his long black tongue snaked forth until the tip touched the spot. The blood was dry now; his taste moistened it and unleashed the aroma's full potency.

The Great One collapsed onto his side, stars dancing across his field of vision.

It was just as he had dreaded. An oversight of ruinous proportions.

He and the Righteous Messenger shared a bloodline. It was distant, the man one-sixteenth Aztec, a debased and diluted descendant of the Sacred House of Priests. Galvan and Cucuy were separated by some twenty generations, and the blood signature did not suggest that he was the priest's progeny, but that was insignificant. They were genetically linked; whether Galvan's line had been sired by a sister, a cousin, a brother, did not matter.

He was a threat.

Were this insignificant mestizo thug, this pathetic accident, to realize who he was—what rarefied blood beat, even weakly, through his veins—he could jeopardize all that Cucuy had schemed to bring to fruition.

The assiduous grooming of Aaron Seth could not be wasted—not at this late stage. He was Cucuy's final true son, his last pure descendant. The priest had spent decades nurturing Seth's belief, strengthening his grasp of theology, feeding his lust for power. Stoking the furnace of his ambition until the child could think of nothing but his impending godhood, the assumption of his father's power. The world he would inherit, and the transformation he would wreak upon it.

Until all suspicions had been eradicated from Aaron Seth's mind.

The child would give himself over willingly. He would consume the heart and be obliterated even as he exulted in his triumph, so blinded by his own lust that he failed to consider his father's.

God did not die for man.

Man died for god.

As his soul disintegrated, Seth's corporeal shell would become a new vessel for Cucuy's spirit—an infinitely stronger one.

Able to travel without limitations.

And sire infinite sons.

To bring this world to its knees—to say nothing of the traitorous god in exile.

But if Jess Galvan were to consume it?

He would not be banished to the Dominio Gris, the grim domain of the soul-stripped living. Nor would he be annihilated, as a direct descendant would.

The truth was, Cucuy did not know what would happen. To Galvan, or to him.

He rose slowly to his feet, the flavor of the mestizo's blood still burning his tongue. It tasted of danger and of the unknown. Neither was a realm the priest traversed willingly. He turned and walked swiftly from the chamber. There was work to do.