The ride from Bradford’s Ridge to the cave entrance Ariel had told them about was quiet. As Jack drove through town, he and the others saw early trick-or-treaters, mostly very small children out with their parents before sunset. Toddlers in pumpkin suits, two-year-old Spidermen and three-year-old Little Mermaids. They carried grocery sacks to collect their loot and would be picking through it on the kitchen table before the big kids came out after dark. Andi should have been one of those kids, should have been knocking on doors with a gang of friends, crying “trick or treat” instead of on her way to confront a real demon from hell.
Jack took Bethel Park Road, which followed the riverbank for a couple of miles before it connected to US 31, the road that’d brought them into town. He was thinking about Ariel’s description of her attack on Daniel, how she’d waited for him, then left him unconscious on the walking path. That was when one of Chapman Whitworth’s minions had kidnapped him and taken him—where?
Jack turned south on US 31, heading toward a landmark that had been a part of his life for all of it that he could remember. Milkstone. They were almost there when they saw the smoke. A gray pall—dark as a ten-penny nail—hung like a shroud above the treetops on the hills.
“Something’s on fire, a big something from the look of that smoke,” Crock said.
“It’s not smoke,” Andi said softly from the backseat.
“Is this the darkness you saw hanging above Bradford’s Ridge when we first drove into town?” Jack asked. “Why can I see it now when I couldn’t before?”
“It’s the same thing,” Andi said. “But it’s…worse, so bad, so evil anybody can see it. It’s coming up out of the caves like the other. It’s so dark and thick I can barely see through it.”
She shivered. For a moment he regretted not telling her to wear a jacket. But the autumn chill was not what she felt. A jacket wouldn’t have warmed her.
“It’s colder, too,” Andi said. “Can’t you feel it?”
Jack could see only a thick gray fog, not a malevolent darkness. And it struck him that what Andi could see was reality. A reality to which he and Crock were totally blind. The bright sunshine and the blue sky—with white puffy clouds tethered like hot-air balloons to treetops dressed in autumn splendor—protected them from the horror. Almost every human being on the planet had been born, lived their four-score-and-ten, and died without ever seeing what reality actually looked like.
He pulled off the road onto the grass, trying with no success to conjure up memories of being here before with the Bad Kids, with Daniel or Becca or Mikey. No memories came.
Milkstone was an outcrop of pure white limestone that extended into the Three Forks River, a popular haunt for generations of teenagers, who hung out on the riverbank and swam in the deep pool formed by the rushing water around the rock. The mouth of an enormous cave gaped in the hillside next to Milkstone, a hundred feet tall and probably twice as wide, completely blocked in the back by a rockfall. The little house where Becca had lived before her mother died and her father built the mansion was on the opposite side of the mountain from Milkstone, only a couple of miles away as the crow flies. Ariel’s grandmother lived a quarter of a mile down US 31.
Ariel had described how she, Rusty and Cassidy had been in the open field next to Milkstone, kicking a soccer ball. Rusty had whacked it really hard; it had taken a crazy bounce and had flown into the cave and disappeared in the pile of boulders that stretched from the cave floor to the roof in the back right corner. The three children had clambered up the pile of rocks, looking for the ball.
“You can’t see it from below,” Ariel had said, “but there’s a crack in the rock up there at the top behind a big boulder.”
Rusty had spotted the ball first, snatched it up, but Cassidy’d tried to take it away from him. In the scuffle that followed, they’d dropped the ball and it had rolled away from them into the crack. The cave beyond the crack was dark, but the ball was only a few feet away, lying in the spill of light from the entrance, and the children went in to get it. When they turned to leave, their path back out had been blocked.
“It was just there, between us and the crack,” she’d said and shivered at the memory. “A huge rattlesnake was coiled up, rattling, ready to strike.”
The children had bolted away from the snake into the cave, going deeper and deeper with the sound of the rattling snake always behind them. The light from the crack faded and soon they were in absolute darkness, terrified, feeling their way through a labyrinth of twisting and turning tunnels until a red light began to glow, to pulse, in the black cave ahead of them.
Jack parked next to a falling-down split-rail fence that might once have been somebody’s attempt to keep teenagers away. He was pretty sure it hadn’t been there when he was a kid and its condition testified to its ineffectiveness, as did the litter of cans, trash and campfire-blackened marks in the dirt in front of the cave.
Even before the car had come to a full stop, Andi leapt out the back door and ran through the swirling fog to a light the fog didn’t make fuzzy, a light so bright Jack should have had to squint to look at it—but he didn’t.
“I knew you’d be here, Princess Buttercup,” Andi cried.
Jack got out of the car and watched the light envelop Andi. The light grew brighter by the second until the whole world around Milkstone was filled with a golden luminescence, a sourceless incandescence that lit every surface, the tops and bottoms, without forming shadows. The autumn leaves, blazing in bright yellow, gold, red and russet on the nearby trees burst into even brighter colors, as if a Christmas light had been turned on inside each individual leaf. The Three Forks River became flowing gold glitter, sparkling as it cascaded past them.
What he saw at the center of the light was a young woman with long blond hair in a single braid, wearing jeans with a hole above the right knee, and a denim jacket over a T-shirt with words he couldn’t make out printed on the front. And yes, she did resemble Princess Buttercup.
“Where else would I be?” she asked.
The voice of the young woman in the light was so rich and pure Jack thought wildly that if he’d had a wineglass with him, just the voice’s normal tones would have shattered the glass into a million sparkling shards.
Crock got out of the car on the passenger side. Jack couldn’t read the look on his face, lit a golden hue by the light that enveloped Andi. Surprise, shock, awe—certainly. But it was almost as if…Crock had spotted an old friend.
When Crock limped around the front of the car, Jack’s concern returned. They’d have to climb up that rockfall and then find their way through the labyrinth of caves beyond to the chamber where the efreet lay. It was going to be hard on Crock, all that climbing and walking. Jack hoped he was up to it.
Though when it came right down to it, Jack doubted that any of them was up to what lay ahead. He felt so unprepared. Until half an hour ago, he’d been counting on Theresa and Becca to bring or do or say whatever was needed. They were the experts; they were the generals. Jack was just a foot soldier. He was prepared to take orders; was he now expected to give them?
He watched Andi, her face lit by the light, and he suddenly found himself praying. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d prayed.
God, please don’t let anything happen to that little girl. Keep her safe.
Right, safe. We’re about to do battle with the devil—there’s no such thing as safe.
It was Jack’s job to find the snake and cut off its head and trust that without the direction and power of the efreet, its plans to kill Daniel would fall apart.
And it was his job to take care of Andi, to give his life for her if he had to.
The words of Todd Beamer, the young man who’d led the passenger revolt on United Flight 93 that went down in the Pennsylvania countryside on 9/11 came to mind and he whispered them to himself.
“Let’s roll.”
Once he’d got the whole place lit up right, Billy Ray stepped back to see how it looked. It was only then that he noticed that the black chalk lines on the floor fit together into complicated shapes with points and circles. The table was on a bare spot in the center of all the shapes. Why had Whitworth gone to the trouble to draw all that stuff on the floor when you wouldn’t even see it in the video of the beheadings?
And the other stuff—the chanting Billy Ray was supposed to do, the words he was supposed to say and the numbers.
What if he just didn’t do it, any of it?
How would Whitworth know?
He peered around the cavern. The shadow shapes on the walls extending from those pointy stalag-things on the floor shifted and moved as if the lantern light were flickering—but they were halogen lanterns. They didn’t flicker. Still, the shadows danced like they were alive. Were they watching, maybe? He looked up at the sharp points coming down from the ceiling and then at the ones rising up from the floor and he saw them as jagged teeth in a huge open mouth, ready to bite down and chew him up.
All at once, he couldn’t be in here alone anymore. He leapt up and went to where Daniel and Kendrick stood linked together by the rope tied in nooses around their necks.
“Get down on your knees,” he commanded, then held their arms for balance so they didn’t fall over and choke each other when they did. Once they were both kneeling, he started ripping the duct tape off Kendrick’s face. He had to have somebody else in the cavern with him, even if it was the somebody he was going to behead in a few minutes.
Yanking off the duct tape pulled out hunks of Kendrick’s hair, stripped off most of his left eyebrow and dragged his broken nose across his face. Kendrick cried out in pain, but Billy Ray didn’t slow down until he had all the tape off.
“Open your eyes and look at me,” he commanded. Kendrick opened the one eye that would open and stared at him. Another person here, alive, awake. Not alone. Yeah, that was better.
Kendrick turned his head as best he could and took in his surroundings while Billy Ray went to work on Daniel. Daniel lost some hair, too, and the tape left a huge raw spot on his left cheek when Billy Ray yanked it off. But Daniel didn’t cry out. Wasn’t as painful as a broken nose. All in all, Daniel’s face had fared better than Kendrick’s—just the bruises on his forehead and the black eyes from the rock—and that was good. Daniel was the one that mattered, The Man had said—which didn’t make no sense to Billy Ray a’tall. Seemed to him like beheadin’ a big-shot lawyer would be a bigger deal than some minister. But Billy Ray hadn’t been consulted.
When both of them were looking around like chicks just hatched out of their shells, Billy Ray made a grand gesture that took in the whole cavern.
“Welcome to your new digs—your last digs.”
“Where are we?” Daniel asked. He raised himself up off his heels and looked around, turning his head from side to side, taking it all in.
“The last place you’re ever gonna see, that’s where.”
Billy Ray looked at his watch. He still had plenty of time—even counting how long it would take him to get back to the boxcar and out of the cave into the open where he had coverage so he could send off the video. Even so, he was in a hurry. And if he didn’t do all that crap Whitworth had said he had to do, he could be out of here in half the time.
“I ain’t gonna do it,” he said out loud. That talking-to-himself thing again. “Gonna chop off their heads and get out of here. I ain’t gonna do all that crazy stuff. He’ll never know.”
He saw Daniel shoot Kendrick a brief look; then Kendrick said, “You mean Chapman Whitworth? You know who he is, don’t you? What he is? You’ve seen it, haven’t you, Billy Ray?”
“I ain’t seen nothing. Shut your mouth. Me and him’s partners, and when he’s president, he’s—”
“Partners?” Kendrick sneered. “With Chapman Whitworth? Demons don’t have ‘partners,’ Billy Ray. Demons have slaves.”
Daniel wasn’t saying anything, just looking around at the marks on the floor with a strange expression.
“You think I b’lieve in fairy tales. Ain’t no such thing as a demon. Ain’t—”
“Do you know what these are?” Daniel’s voice sounded like he’d got the wind knocked out of him. And the look on his face—he was scared worse’n he’d been when Billy Ray’d told him he was gonna chop his head off!
“Them marks, aw, they don’t mean nothing.” But Billy Ray wasn’t sure of that. Not sure at all.
Daniel turned to Kendrick. “Jeff, these are pentagrams.”
Kendrick was startled, then looked, really looked, and all the color drained out of his face, too. “Pentagrams…” His voice was as thin as a mouse’s whisker. “That’s what Becca said…”
Daniel started in on Billy Ray then. “Chapman Whitworth told you to do some things here besides cut off our heads—didn’t he?”
How’d he know that? Billy Ray’s mind started jumping around again—bouncing—couldn’t think with it doing that. He put his hands up to his temples, as if pushing in on them would somehow keep his head from exploding. He bit down hard, clamping his jaw to keep that whimpering sound in his throat from leaking out his mouth.
“That’s what you said you didn’t want to do.” Daniel’s voice drilled into him. “Because it was crazy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re the one’s cra—”
“You’re supposed to start at that altar.” Daniel nodded toward the flat rock on the pile of stones.
Altar? The table was an altar?
“And he’s given you words to say there.”
Billy Ray found he could only take short, shallow breaths.
“They’re not really words, though, at least not English words. They don’t sound like any language you ever heard.”
Billy Ray was going to shut him up, yes, sir, put that tape back over his mouth so he couldn’t say nothing else. But Billy Ray couldn’t move.
“Then you’re supposed to go to the five points of these stars—”
“They’re upside down,” Kendrick said. “The point of a pentagram is supposed to be at the top.”
“When it’s upside down, the points are hooves. They’re called the ‘sign of the cloven hoof’ or the ‘footprint of the devil.’”
Daniel turned back to Billy Ray, who found he couldn’t seem to make his mouth form words anymore.
“Each point of the star has a name—earth, fire, water, air and spirit. You’re supposed to call out its name and then say—”
Billy Ray finally found his voice, a wave of emotion erupted from his throat—panicked confusion—but it came out as rage. “Shut up!” he screamed in the voice that ever since his twenty-ninth birthday had been so hoarse it sounded like he had laryngitis. The words echoed off the cavern walls—up…up…up…“You shut your mouth or I’ll cut off your—”
He fumbled to get the knife out of its sheath, but his hands were trembling so badly the knife clattered to the stone floor in front of him. He got to his knees to pick it up.
“The books in Bishop’s office…” Kendrick said. His voice was all airy like, the way you talk when you can’t catch your breath. “When I went to Theresa’s after the bugs, Becca said…” His mouth kept forming words, but there was no sound and finally he quit trying to talk altogether.
“The day before we came to Bradford’s Ridge, she told me about that part,” Daniel said to Kendrick.
Then he turned back to Billy Ray. “Your daughter knows what all this is really about. The beheading part is window dressing, to scare people into believing Chapman Whitworth is right about domestic terrorism. But that’s not why we’re here.”
He gestured with his chin at the shapes on the floor and spoke very slowly. “First, you draw an upside-down pentagram in a circle on the floor…” Daniel paused, like he was waiting for Billy Ray to look at him. But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t!
“And then you say certain words.” Daniel paused again and this time Billy Ray did look at him—didn’t want to, didn’t intend to. He just found himself lifting his head. He was staring dead into Daniel Burke’s eyes when Daniel said, “That’s how you summon a demon from Hell.”
His words plowed into Billy Ray’s gut with the force of a sledgehammer.
“But you have to have one more thing besides the right words and a pentagram,” Daniel said. “You have to have a human sacrifice. You have to have the blood of a murder victim.”
There wasn’t no air. It’d all got sucked out of that cavern by Daniel’s words, and when Billy Ray tried to breathe, it was like his face was covered in a plastic bag and him trying to suck in air pulled the bag tight across his nose and mouth. His eyes bugged out, his face got red, and the tendons on his neck stood out like ropes.
A black frame formed around the edges of his vision and began to close in on him. The sides of the frame rushed at him, and when they slammed shut in front of him, the world vanished and Billy Ray was trapped in the black hole of his memory, alone and naked. What was there in the darkness came for him then. It’d been lurking in the shadows for years, hungry, fangs dripping. Now, there was nowhere to run from it, nowhere to hide.
The marks on the floor. The table…altar! The shattered amulet—the one he’d filled with Isaac Washington’s blood…after he’d murdered him.
The monster in the lake of fire.
It happened then. His mind tore apart. You could almost hear the sound, like the cry of ripping fabric. The terror and horror had finally burst the stitches, the ones he’d sewn in desperation half a century ago to close the rip. When the threads unraveled, he came apart, his senses, his wits, who he was…it all floated away, leaving behind only scraps of sanity that dangled in shreds, twisting and fluttering listlessly in a cold wind. He caught a single breath, the last breath the man who had been Billy Ray Hawkins would ever draw. It was a giant lungful of air, and he used it to scream.