Velvet Rain - A Dark Thriller (59 page)

A cold finger ran the nape of his neck. It all came back to him in a rush. All of it and more.

Brikker,
he thought.
That’s what Rye had told him. The guy who was after the Ghost.

His mind reeled. He was too late to stop the fire from starting again. He could only pray he wasn’t too late to stop
them.

Ben climbed into the cab as the flames lit up the sky. He threw the truck into gear and stepped on the gas.

~ 8

“
Christ Almighty.
”

“… Allan?”

Georgia Hembruff raised her head from her husband’s lap; she had just dozed off. The tears had barely dried on her cheeks.

Big Al steeled himself against the pain. It came hard—maybe the hardest yet—but he would not give in to it. He started to rise, and his wife saw him struggle. Saw his fear. She tried to settle him back in his chair.

“
Allan! What in Heaven’s name
—”

The big man forced himself up. His left arm swung and upset the table, the beer and the flowers crashing to the deck.

“
ALLAN
—”

She saw it now as he hobbled past her.

“
Call the fire department.
”

She stood frozen, fragile hands cupped over lips.

“
DAMMIT, WOMAN! MOVE!
”

He watched her go and then headed down the steps. He was almost halfway to his flatbed when he realized he didn’t have his keys. He turned back to the house, and just as he did, nearly collapsed. He staggered, clutching his chest. He slipped to his knees. All he could do was watch the fire grow.

“
ALLAN!
”

Already she was out the door and on her way to him.

“
Keys
—”

“You can’t—”

“
Get … my KEYS.
”

Tears were pouring from Georgia Hembruff’s eyes. She turned quickly, moved her old bones as fast as she could, and when she returned, keys in hand, she had to help him up.

“
Call them,
” he told her, and she nodded.

Al Hembruff managed to his truck and climbed inside. He looked to the sky and felt his heart cry. And then, with tears welling, he turned to his wife, for what he knew was the last time.

He could only mouth the words through the glass.

I love you.

~ 9

The black car eased left, onto the dark country road that would lead to its destruction.

“I’m telling you,” Christensen said again, tapping his wristwatch. He’d been going on about it for nearly five minutes. “No way it’s nine-thirty.”

Strong glanced up at the rear-view, then brought his focus to bear on the road. He seemed quite put off with the private’s obsession with the current time, even more put off by the ill color of his own bloodshot eyes.

“Just shut the fuck up.”

The private almost said something about the lieutenant’s skin, which was quite unpalatable now, what with its odd blister here and there. The young man studied it a moment longer, then simply turned and faced the road.

They drove into the darkness. After a short leg, the driver shut the air vents.

“I can’t take this no more,” he said. “Smells like cow shit, for Chrissake. Fucking hick towns.”

Christensen disagreed as he rolled up his window. “Naw, it’s more like a dump. Sir.”

Brikker was not surprised at the darkness. What surprised was that foul odor; the hideous transformation of Strong. The man rarely suffered but minor aches and the occasional bout of nausea, but how the Turn had affected him in
this
manner, yet showed not the least in the private, was a puzzle. Perhaps it had something to do with the homosexual gene (of which he was certain existed and could be eradicated in time), but that was only speculation. More likely, the queer was simply one of the fortunate few who suffered no ill effects of the Turn, unlike the vast majority predisposed to certain side effects of the magic. And thus it did not surprise him when he reached up and touched his cheek and found it blistered and worn. He could smell his own blood from the open sores. Could taste it on his lips.

What most suprised—and intrigued—was this strange turn of events. Richards had struggled, clearly, to summon the magic, had nearly destroyed himself in the process. Had nearly destroyed all of them. He could still see the burning bodies in his mind, the fall from human to human waste, terrifying. He could not recall such horror, nor such agony. And from this moment onward, he would remember the agony.

The world was different now; of that he was certain. Perhaps a rebirth of ten minutes had come … perhaps fifteen. Nonetheless, the effects would be far-reaching in every sense: there would be mild chaos and confusion for a radius of several miles. Miles of wasteland, yes, and perhaps that would serve as a saving grace. But what he did not know, could not possibly know, were the full implications of this strangest of Turns. Richards had not only struggled, he had suffered the loss of his greatest strength:
control.
Grasping Time’s Wheel and drawing it back without thought, with no guiding hand … who knew its danger. The Turn itself had been unsure in its mission, and already this new world had taken a darker path. The air reeked of filth; Strong was a fright, as was he. He would heal, surely, his nausea would pass, and his eyesight, of which he had never suffered the least ill, would clear. Yet the question tasked him: What darker surprises awaited?

“Sir.” It was Strong.

“Shit,” Christensen muttered. He was struggling to read the directions on his crumpled notes.

Brikker lowered his window. At least all had not changed.

In the distance, the farmhouse burned.

“That’s the place,” Christensen said. “Jesus.”

In the other direction, far to their right along the road perpendicular to them, Brikker saw a pair of headlamps cutting through the blackness. The vehicle was moving at quite the rate of speed.
The bumpkin who would be hero,
he thought.
Or was it the farm boy?

It mattered little. What mattered was avoiding another collision.

“Slow down,” he snapped.

“Slow down?” Strong asked. “What for?”

“
Do it.
”

Strong relaxed his foot on the gas and brought them under the speed limit. Christensen almost turned to look back, but seemed to know enough not to.

Brikker nodded to himself as a second pair of lights appeared, perhaps a quarter mile behind the first vehicle. It was closing quickly.

All three vehicles converged toward the intersection. The first, a flatbed, Brikker now discerned, had slowed as it approached. It was still a hundred yards shy.

“Stop,” Brikker said. “Let them pass.”

Strong hesitated, clearly wondering why, but followed the order to the letter. The black car slowed, creeping up on the intersection. It finally stopped, a safe thirty feet from the stop.

And waited.

~ 10

Angina pectoris
—a condition characterized by chest pain, when the muscles of the heart receive an insufficient supply of oxygen due to
arteriosclerosis
—what most call the hardening of the arteries—did not kill Allan Jefferson Hembruff.

Ben Caldwell did.

The nitro had done its work. He had managed to deliver a pill in time, and the pain he now could bear. His numb arm was still numb, his bum leg still bum, but he could carry on. The fire stoked him.

He could only hope he could get there in time.

Time … time had turned, he was certain. It was the only way to explain the sudden darkness. And if Kain Richards
had
worked his magic, something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

A car approached the intersection coming the other way. It pulled up short along the side of the road.

Then, in the rear-view, he saw the light.

Ben Caldwell’s pickup emerged from the night like a phantom, passing at breakneck speed and whipping sideways in front of him. The boy had hit the brakes hard, not to stop, but to turn, of all things,
turn,
and when the rear of the pickup clipped the front side of his vehicle, with only one good arm he could not keep the wheel straight. The flatbed spun out of control, its rear fishtailing, and when its wheels caught and the whole mess flipped over, careening into the ditch and the steering wheel crushing him to death, the last thing Allan Jefferson Hembruff saw was not light, not hope … only darkness.

~ 11

Ben saw the black car.

It was slowing to a crawl.

He had not expected that; he
had
expected it to speed through the intersection. But now it had stopped, well short of it.

Brikker knows,
he thought.
He knows there’s going to be an accident.

And he was right.

“All steak,” he said. “No sizzle.”

Ben put the metal down and pulled out beside the flatbed. He had no idea what had happened to Rye and his family in the other timeline, but he hoped Al Hembruff had a good set of brakes, that the man would make the most of the time he was about to buy him. He gave it some more and passed the flatbed, and just as he was about to turn his pickup into an off-road vehicle, he hit the brakes and cranked the wheel, accidentally clipping the flatbed with the rear corner of his truck. He whipped sideways, the flatbed, too, their lights dancing through the darkness. He did not see the flatbed flip in his rear-view, and as he regained control and stuck to his plan, in the next instant he was plowing through a field and rocking out of a ditch, flying toward the side of the black car.

~ 12

Christensen died instantly.

Strong made the play of trying to back out of the path of the pickup hurtling toward them, but the wheels failed to grip. The Valiant had no chance. The truck struck broadside in a thunderous din of steel ramming steel, crushing the passenger side as easily as one could crush an airplane made of paper. Glass exploded as both vehicles shot to the middle of the road and scraped to a halt. It was over in a breath, and in the ensuing moments after the wreckage settled, only a faint hiss could be heard.

Strong groaned. A shard of glass stuck in his jaw. He reached up, and it came free with a curse. He led his hand down his leg and braced himself, then bit down hard as he yanked on the hot metal that had impaled him just below the knee. It wouldn’t come, and he uttered a guttural sound that was almost inhuman when his hand slipped, the steel fragment slicing clear across his palm.

“Bloody
FUCK,
” he stammered, to the smashed headlamp staring him in the face. Christensen was laid up against his shoulder, one eye splayed wide; the right half of his head was soundly crushed by the bumper thrust into him.

The lieutenant turned his head as far as he was able. The back seat was empty. He regarded the private with disdain, muttered
Faggot,
then struggled from the vehicle, whereupon he nearly collapsed on his injured leg. Already he had his weapon drawn. He surveyed the damage quickly, and then suddenly limped round, his .38 poised to kill.

“Jesus,” he said, and stood down.

Brikker stood cold. His thoughts tasked him. He had expected the boy to pass as he had before, for him to carry on to the fire, but it would seem he had been caught completely at a disadvantage. To be sure, he could not have anticipated such a bold move (he had to marvel at the randomness nonetheless), yet as quickly as he had seen the pickup change direction, he had placed a hand to the door release. He had made it out just in time.

Clearly this simple farm boy knew what he was doing. It would seem that he knew a good deal.

Strong turned and started for the pickup. Blood seeped from his jaw and from his hand, which Brikker found oddly amusing—and troubling—for the man had suffered similar injuries under completely different circumstances in the earlier timelines. Fate seemed to find a way.

Brikker raised a hand to his trained monkey …
No.
He surveyed the wreckage. The boy sat slumped over the wheel. Dead or alive, he was inconsequential; the farmer just as so.

What did matter, was Richards. Nothing more.

“Fate,” he whispered, and whispered it twice.

He would find a way.

The good Doctor turned about, and Strong followed.

~ 13

Kain could not be certain of where—or
when
—he was.

Night had fallen, and for all he knew, it could be yesterday … or last week.

Only now had his vision begun to return. His eyes still burned, still failed him by offering only indistinct shapes. He moved in staggered steps, for he had tried to rush down this dark and unfamiliar road, only to find his mind and body in anguish, his will wanting, so wanting. He had fallen, more than once, and it had taken everything to rise to his feet; indeed, he had very nearly blacked out from the pain. His stomach had come twice, and in the act of wiping the mess from his lips, he had felt the sores there. Letting his fingers roam along his face, he had discovered hardened skin and bloody blisters. The air was dirty and rank, and only minutes ago he had tumbled into a ditch in a stupor, only to find the grasses nothing more than sand. He was no longer that man who could do magic. He was now the destroyer of worlds.

The gauzy light from the farmhouse guided him. As he moved farther along, he discerned more of his environment. The dark rise of the barn against the stars. The small bulge of the guesthouse. The fleeting outline of the house itself. He could see lights upstairs now. He turned round to certain his bearings, saw another light far in the distance, and took comfort in its familiar glow.

Still, he had no idea of Brikker’s location; the man could be a thousand miles distant. Or one.

Despite the agony, he quickened his pace, for he clung to the belief that the Turn had cast but minutes with its random die. And if that were so, then Ray Bishop had to be stopped.