Throne (37 page)

Pushing myself to my feet, I tried to remember what had happened. Then it hit me. Josh. I ran forward a few steps, stopped and stared at where the smoldering ruins of the church stood, smudges of smoke rising into the sky.

“Hey,” said a voice, and I turned around to see the girl sitting on the hood of the truck, long legs extended before her, crossed at the ankles, one of our blankets from the back of the truck wrapped around her shoulders. My shotgun rested in her lap. Her face was pale in the dawn light, her black hair mussed. She gazed at me with large, dark eyes, and I saw that she had washed the blood from her face.

“You feeling better?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Where's… where's Josh?”

“He's down there,” she said, nodding to the other side of the truck. I walked around, and saw that she had wrapped him up in the largest of our blankets. He looked pitiful, a long, swaddled shape, only his boots and a tuft of his hair extending from each end.

“I'm sorry,” she said, sliding off the hood of the truck to stand next to me. “I couldn't find the keys, and I didn't know what else to do.”

“You did good,” I said, and reached out to touch her shoulder. She flinched away, so I dropped my hand.

“I'm sorry,” she said after an awkward pause.

“It's all right,” I said, and smiled sourly at her. “I haven't showered in a couple of days. I understand.”

“It's not that,” she began, but stopped when I shook my head.

“Just joking.” I walked to the back of the pickup and looked at the second canister of gas.

“I'm Twain, by the way.”

I nodded, and hefted the can of gas out. It sloshed, more than half full. It would do. “Nice to meet you, Twain.” I set the gas down next to Josh, and wiped my hands on legs of my jeans.

“And you are?”

“Jason. Come on, give me a hand.” I began to walk towards the closest building, a shed made of ashen boards, gaping holes where window and door should have been.

I'd taken about ten steps before she jogged to catch up with me, shoes crunching on the dirt, and took hold of my arm to stop me. I turned and looked at her, and she crossed her arms over her chest, the tattoos on her left arm dark and fascinating.

“Look, where are we? I need to know what's going on—what was that thing?”

The strain was taut in her voice. How she'd managed to sit on the truck through the rest of the night, waiting for me to awaken, surrounded by the darkness I had no idea.

“There's no easy way to say this. We're in the desert. You were kidnapped. And… that thing was a demon.” I should have broken it to her easy. Sat her down somewhere and told her the truth over a mug of tea. But I couldn't focus on much more than taking care of Josh right now.

“A demon,” she said. “You're saying I was kidnapped by a demon.”

“Yup,” I said, stopping before the shed. I reached out, gave it a push. The whole mass of boards creaked. “Sounds crazy, but you saw what you saw. Would have been a whole lot worse if Josh and I had arrived any later.”

Twain stood silently behind me as I began to kick at the shed, planting my heel into the boards, breaking them and kicking them free. The shed swayed alarmingly. “What are you doing?” Twain asked, moving up to stand next to me.

“Going to use this wood to build a funeral pyre.”

“Are you serious?” I could feel her eyes on me, but ignored her, giving the building's side a solid kick again.

“You can't… you can't just burn him. What about his family? The police?”

I stopped, turned on her. Something in my gaze made her step back. “Josh's family is dead. And what am I going to tell the cops? That his throat was slit by a demon that brought you out here to torture you to death? That they wouldn't be able to see, even if it danced around singing in their station?”

She stared at me with a flat, angry gaze. I could see her mind fighting to preserve her old world view. Knew the feeling well. Old certainties imploding, new terror leaching in and irrevocably staining everything. Her eyes began to tear up, and then with a growl she stepped past me and lashed out at the shed with one booted foot with enough force that the whole structure collapsed suddenly with a despairing groan, simply falling down into a mess of timber and wooden slats.

“Damn,” I said. She turned back to me, and I could see the anger and panic still fighting across her face. “Look. I'm sorry. My head's not in a good place right now. And I'm sorry this happened to you. You don't deserve this, nobody does. But it happened, and you're going to have to deal. No way around it. Okay?”

She fought for control, and finally, by slow and painful degrees, raised her chin. She straightened her back, and combed a lock of black hair out of her face. “All right,” she said with a strange dignity. I was impressed. She'd just forced her fear to heel right before my eyes. “But after we get out of here you're going to tell me everything you know. Agreed?”

“Sure.” I said, and she nodded as if we'd agreed on a formal deal. We turned back to the remains of the shed and worked on creating a bier for another ten minutes as the sun rose ever closer to the horizon, the east lighting up with smears of buttery yellow tinged with hints of rose. Finally we had what looked like a respectable mass of wood piled up, and I walked back to the truck for the gasoline. Given how the church had gone up last night it probably wasn't needed, but you needed an intense heat to burn a human body through and through. Chalk that knowledge up to bitter experience.

When I was done, I walked over to where Josh lay. Twain followed, and crouched across from me when I got down to slide my arms under Josh's stiff body. “Hey,” I said. “You don't have to do this.”

She fixed me with a stony gaze. “He helped save my life,” was all she said, and that was enough. He was heavy, but we managed to lift him with a grunt. We walked back to the bier, where we lay him on the unsteady pile of wood. I stood still then, looking out over the town. In the morning light it appeared unreal, melancholy.

I reached out and unfurled the blanket from around Josh's head, revealing his waxen, still face. It seemed strangely settled, softened, his eyes having already begun to sink into their sockets. I pursed my lips, eyes burning, and lowered my head. For a long moment I just clenched my jaw, and then looked up to where the sun was rising.

“I'm sorry,” I said, voice quiet. I knew I should say something more. A eulogy, describe how through patience, strength and sheer bloody determination he had pulled me back from the edge. How I had learned so much from his calm presence, his ready wit, his companionship down long highways and through the dark nights. How under his tutelage I had transformed myself from the suicidal wreck that he had met to the functional wreck that I was today. I looked down at his face, his bloodless lips, and could almost hear his wild laughter from the night we had driven away from the kill in Oakland. His eyes, grave and probing when he had hauled me out of the street that night, demanding that I get my act together.

Gone. I shook my head, words tasting like ashes in my mouth, and instead drew forth my box of matches and lit one. The flame was pale, almost invisible, and the fire that roared up around him was tinged with blue, an undulation of intense heat about him. Reaching down, through the nascent flames, I pulled the blanket back over his face, and stepped away.

“Cook out?” asked a voice from behind me, and I spun around to see a spindly homeless looking man mincing out from behind the closest building. He was of a strangely indeterminate age, skin wrinkled by time or too much sun, dressed in cast away clothing, his hair unwashed and iron gray. There was cunning in his face, a false sense of deference in the way he clasped his hands together, hesitancy in his shuffling steps. Eyes burning, he sidled across towards me, his dirt encrusted hands washing themselves over and over again.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked as he drew closer, my hand going to my machete. He kept coming, advancing in erratic bursts. Twain circled the burning bier, revulsion clear on her face.

“Master, I confess myself confused,” said the homeless man, pausing to stand swaying like a weed buffeted by cross winds. He canted his head to one side like a bird, “Maybe you'd look the same if I saw you through the eyes of a raven?”

“Get away from here,” I said, but he began to advance again, extending one long skinny leg and then drawing the rest of himself up behind it. Something in his sly expression, his half smile caused anger to flare within me. I had a good idea as to who he was, or what he must be. When he got close enough I ran forwards a few steps and punched him across the jaw, snapping his head around and dropping him like a sack of potatoes. Twain let out a cry, covered her mouth with her hand, and I kicked the man in the ribs.

“Stay away from me, you piece of crap,” I said, and he turned his stubbled face up to me, eyes clouded with pain, mouth opening to reveal brown stumps of teeth in a perverted grin. “You come close to me again, I'll kill you.” He laughed then, a thin, watery sound, and shook his head from side to side as if to clear it of circling flies. Then he scrabbled to his feet, spun away, arms extended as if in a dance, his laughter spiraling up until he disappeared into one of the larger buildings close by, swallowed by the darkness in the doorway.

“Who was that?” asked Twain, voice shaking.

“I'll tell you later. Get in the truck. We've got to get out of here.”

The flames were dancing and spiraling off the bier, the blanket around Josh's body turning black. The heat was tremendous. I turned, looked back at where he lay.

“So long, buddy,” I said, and turned away, leaving him behind to burn.

I revved the pickup truck's engine, and drove off down the dirt track that led to the distant highway. Twain held on to the oh-shit handle as we jounced and rocked across the uneven path, the truck's tires bouncing on rocks and ruts. We left a plume of dust behind us, which rose up to obscure the rising sun.

I felt strange, my mind numb, my body jacked as if I were riding a caffeine high. I should have felt like a hung over mass of bruises, but instead I felt as if I could run a four minute mile. Adrenaline, I thought. Desperation. I held tightly onto the steering wheel, and when we reached the highway I turned onto it without breaking, the pickup truck sawing out into the far lane before I pulled it back. I stepped on the gas, and we began to accelerate.

We drove in silence for a few minutes, the truck's engine thrumming, and then I looked over at Twain and pursed my lips.

“Hey, apologies. I wish I'd had a better way to break all this to you. I've been where you are right now and I know how screwed up the world suddenly seems. I'm… I'm not feeling too great myself.” Understatement of the year.

“No, I understand,” she said, voice quiet, almost pensive. “It's just a little much for me to absorb all at once.”

“No kidding. I nearly killed myself when I first found out. Thought I had gone mad.”

Twain laughed, a small bitter sound, and turned tight smile at me. “Yeah? That about sums up how I feel right now.”

“Worst part is,” I said, “that you'll reach a point when you wish you
were
mad.”

“Great,” Twain said. “You know, you really suck at this reassuring thing.”

“I know,” I said, and grinned mirthlessly. “But after what you've seen, I doubt you'd believe me if I told you everything was going to be all right.”

Rays of sunlight were beginning to flood the cabin of the truck, pouring in over Twain's shoulder, casting long shadows across the desert to our right, each small bush or rock rooted in yards of darkness.

Twain reached up, rubbed at her face with both hands, and then placed them in her lap and looked down at them. “So, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you again. It's just not sinking in. Demons. I was kidnapped by… a demon.”

“Yeah.” I frowned and then shrugged. “That's what I call them, but they're not the religious kind. Or if they are, they're mighty good at ignoring crucifixes, holy water, prayers and whatever. The first time I threw a bottle of holy water in a demon's face, I don't know which of us was more surprised. The demon over my main attack being a glass of water, or me over its not giving a damn.”

Twain snorted, and turned to look out at where the desert was speeding by. “So you and Josh were, what, demon hunters?”

I didn't answer at once. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, and mastered the spike of grief that shot up within me. “Were. I don't know if I can do this without him.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, reaching out to touch my arm tentatively with her hand. “Thank you. I don't know if I've thanked you at any point, but thank you.”

“No sweat,” I said.

There was a moment of silence, and then Twain shifted in her seat, gathering her questions about her. I could feel them coming. I decided to head her off at the pass.

“I can imagine what you want to know, so I'll just cut to the chase and tell you. I don't know where they come from. I don't know why it picked you. I do know what it was going to do, which was torture you to death. It's not pretty, but we—I—think they feed off pain, or misery, or sheer terror. Which is why it carved that spiral on your chest.”

Twain reached up, pressed her fingers lightly to where the blanket was wrapped over her heart, glancing down before looking back up at me. “The spiral?”

In response, I unbuttoned the top three buttons of my shirt, and pulled it aside so she could see my own. A spiral of scar tissue, similar to hers, was white against the tanned skin but for the two fresh slashes the demon had carved right over them in a bloody ‘X'. “They do that to the people they want to be able to see them. They're invisible to everybody else. Josh had one, too. It's so that they can torture you better. Scare you more.”

“So… you were also kidnapped? What are those new cuts?”

“I don't know.” I pulled the shirt closed. “The demon tried to do something to me back there. Felt… like it was taking something out of me, like, hell.” I shook my head. The whole thing seemed blurry. “I've no idea what happened. For all I know it was eating my soul. Then Josh shot it, interrupted whatever it was trying to do. Saved my life.” I shifted my weight in my seat, both arms straight, hands at ten and two o'clock on the wheel. “Anyways, yeah. I was a reporter back in Baltimore. Feels like a long time ago. There was a huge manhunt going on for a sick monster who'd been kidnapping people and torturing them to death.”