See your opponent clearly.
—PA ABNER
Tossing back the folds of his filthy robe, the Reverend slid off the sarcophagus and placed his bare feet on the limestone floor. He winced a little, seemingly at the touch of stone on his naked soles, then stretched, his ancient joints creaking. A slight smile grew on his lips.
“Seems the Fang still has work to do,” Rose said, his voice grating but sharp, the sound of shattering glass. He touched the bone hilt of the Fang of Barachiel protruding from his chest, and a small chortle escaped him. “Decades of decay require more effort to mend than a mere cut.”
“Reverend! We’ve come to stop you!” Keech yelled, hoping his voice carried enough courage to send a message of resolve. “We’ve defeated the Big Snake. Now it’s your turn. It’s your judgment day.”
The Reverend stepped around the sarcophagus and faced the Lost Causes, who formed a semicircle at the top of the basin, around the gaunt sorcerer. With every step, Rose seemed to grow stronger.
Keech considered their options. As far as he could see, they had only one hope to stop the devil: the Prime-infused blade waiting in Doyle’s satchel.
Pivoting so that his movement would be less noticeable, Keech slid his hand into the bag and wrapped his fingers around the blade’s hilt. His palm felt a tiny thrum of electricity.
The Reverend scowled and shook his head, reminding Keech of a disappointed parent. “Blackwood. What do you know of judgment?”
“I know you’re nothing more than a no-good thief who walks on others to find your way,” Keech growled. “You plunder tribes and lands and call it strength. That’s not strength. That’s a plague. You’re no better than the Withers, Rose.”
The Reverend nodded, as if earnestly contemplating Keech’s tirade. “I have endured more than you could possibly fathom, boy. These last two decades, trapped here in the Palace, have felt like a curse.” Rose tugged at his long beard with a slender hand. “But now I am whole, and nothing else can hurt me. Especially not the exhortations of a simple orphan.”
Feeling his body tremble with rage, Keech glanced back at his trailmates. “Bad Whiskey and Big Ben thought they were invincible, too, didn’t they?”
“They sure did,” said Duck.
“And old Ignatio thought he’d never see the Long Trail, either. Am I right?”
“Right as rain,” answered Quinn.
Keech turned back to Rose, Cutter’s blade in hand. “But we found a way to bring them low. And we’re gonna do the same to you.”
The Reverend’s eyes ignited into brilliant green orbs as he fixed a deadly gaze on Keech. They could have been the eyes of a dragon, newly born and ravenous, and Keech realized he’d seen them before. In Bone Ridge Cemetery, when Rose had taken over Bad Whiskey’s body.
“I promised you, Blackwood, that on the day we met, you would know true fear.” The Reverend then stretched out his arms, lifted his face to the dark ceiling, and muttered words that Keech recognized as Black Verse.
A terrible thunder erupted all around and grew in volume. Suddenly, hundreds of misshapen crows burst from the adjacent tunnels, cawing furiously. They swept through the dark temple like a tornado, shrieking in unison and circling high into the upper shadows.
“Find cover!” Quinn screamed. Together with Duck, he helped Strong Heart limp toward a heaping pile of rocky debris.
Even armed with the amulet shards, there was no way they could survive such a rampage of crows. Their only hope was to stop Rose. And he held the only way to finish the job. Still clutching Cutter’s blade, he turned to his brother. “Sam, remember your mad dash into Greely’s?”
“How could I forget?” said Sam. The day Tommy Claymore attacked Frosty Potter’s office in Big Timber, Sam had scurried into Greely’s General Goods to cause a distraction for Keech on Main Street.
“On the count of three,” Keech muttered.
But Sam didn’t wait for the count. Shouting a curse at Rose, he leaped over the edge of the basin and slid toward Rose’s left side. The Reverend’s wicked gaze followed. Without hesitating, Keech dashed the opposite way with Cutter’s knife held high.
Somersaulting over the sarcophagus, Sam landed on one foot and kicked out at Rose’s knee with the other. Though his boot glanced off without effect, the distraction seemed to work. The Reverend swiveled and reached for Sam with his good hand. He gripped the boy’s shoulder and squeezed. The fingers tore into Sam’s flesh, and even over the clamor of the crows, Keech heard Sam’s howl of pain. The boy tumbled to the floor in a faint.
Keech leaped at Rose’s back, the magic knife leading his attack.
But the Reverend spun around with lightning ease, quicker than any human could move. He caught Keech around the forearm, stopping the steel mere inches from his neck. “You shall not take vengeance,” he murmured, and squeezed Keech’s arm. Keech heard a dreadful snap! as his bones cracked.
The shock of pain that shuddered through his arm overwhelmed him, but even as darkness gathered at the edges of his vision, Keech bellowed defiantly in Rose’s face. The sound that spilled from his throat was a mixture of fury, agony, and despair.
As Keech dangled, Rose used his free hand to peel Keech’s fingers from the blade’s bone hilt. He lifted the Prime-corrupted knife and smiled, as if admiring it. “This is the knife that killed Ignatio. I wonder if it could have hurt me?”
Keech tried to mutter something, but the pain was too great.
Then he saw the Fang of Barachiel lodged in the Reverend’s chest.
“This blade is too dangerous for children.” With a smooth flicking motion, Rose tossed Cutter’s knife across the temple, where it tumbled into the chasm.
Keech felt himself lifted higher.
“And now for you, Blackwood.”
Before the Reverend could toss him, Keech grabbed the bone handle of the Fang. Rose released him with a surprised growl, and Keech tumbled over the sarcophagus. He crashed to the floor beside the unconscious Sam.
He was gripping the Fang.
From the opposite side of the sarcophagus, the Reverend Rose glanced down at his chest, clearly surprised by Keech’s sleight of hand. He touched the slit in his filthy robe where the Fang had been planted. “Clever boy!” he sang. “But keep the Fang. I no longer need it.”
Ignoring the Reverend’s taunts, Keech plunged the dagger into his broken arm. He felt no pain at the insertion, only that strange healing warmth. As soon as he could move his hand again, he jabbed the Fang into Sam’s bloody shoulder.
Sam shrieked, and his eyes flew open. He glanced down at the dagger sticking out of his body, and his eyes teemed with fear. “Keech, help me! I’ve been stuck!”
“Sam, don’t worry! Look.” Keech yanked the Fang free and held it up. There was no blood on the blade.
Sam opened his mouth, no doubt to mutter questions, but Keech stopped him. “No time to explain. We have to help the others.”
Reinvigorated, they hurried up the slope of the basin. As soon as they stepped out onto the temple floor, a flurry of crows descended on them, blocking any sign of the Reverend on the other side of the bowl. They swatted at the birds with their amulet pieces. The few monsters that Keech’s fragment touched exploded into a slurry of feathers and gore, but most of the creatures sailed past with bloodstained claws.
Quinn and Duck had taken cover behind a pile of broken stones, standing over a battered Strong Heart. Rose’s relentless offspring flitted down from the ceiling and pecked at the trio, but their own amulet shards were staving off the assault.
As soon as Keech and Sam reached them, Duck flung her arms around Keech’s neck. “We thought you two were goners!”
“We nearly were, but we fetched this instead.” He showed her the Fang, then he turned his attention to Strong Heart, who was clutching her ribs and groaning. “Are you all right?”
Through a heavy grimace, the girl nodded.
On the far side of the temple, the Reverend Rose stopped next to the granite bridge, squatted, and seized the narrow slab on each side.
“What’s he up to?” said Quinn.
With a monstrous grunt, Rose lifted the bridge away from the chasm and raised it above his head as if it weighed no more than a feed sack. Keech watched in disbelief as Rose hauled the slab across the temple, descended the basin, and shuffled toward the Dead Rift door. With nothing more than a grunt, he hurled the slab over the buzzing portal, blocking the other world from sight. Murmuring something indiscernible, he brushed grit off his fingers, then turned back to find the Lost Causes.
“Why on earth would he want to close off the Dead Rift?” asked Quinn.
Keech worked to discern the answer, but there was no time to think. The Reverend’s eyes were flashing green again. The monster bellowed at his crows, “Pick their bones clean! Then bring me the Key! I’m ready to see the world again.”
Shrieking, the horde of birds poured down on the Lost Causes, talons extended.
Working swiftly, Quinn untied his shard. “We’ve got one move left,” he said, and held out the charm to Duck. “You best hurry.”
Huddling, the Lost Causes handed their amulet pieces to Duck as the flurry of crows slashed and chomped mere inches away, their scythe-like beaks and talons held narrowly at bay by the rhythmic pulsing power of the shards. With the five pieces resting on her palm, Duck arranged the shards into a loose circle, setting each against the next like pieces of a puzzle.
“Go faster!” said Sam. “These things are breathin’ down our necks!”
“Almost there!” Duck frantically searched for the correct pattern.
With a terrible screech, one of the creatures whittled its way closer and scored a deep gash across Strong Heart’s cheek. Crying out, she slapped a hand across the cut, but before the wound could even bleed a drop, Keech used the Fang to heal her.
“I think I’ve got it!” Duck hollered.
Resting on the ground, the amulet shards were united into a single silver plate, a flat discus slightly larger than one of Granny Nell’s teacup saucers. The etchings across the surface formed the seven symbols—the same ones inscribed on the altar in the House of the Rabbit, and again on the Palace wall.
Before Keech could ask what they should do next, a brilliant light flashed from the restored amulet. The Lost Causes tumbled back as a series of explosive claps sounded overhead. A cascade of sludge showered down on them and across the temple.
After wiping his eyes clear, Keech glanced up.
The crows were gone. Every bird had melted back into grayish goop.
Seizing the amulet with both hands, Duck lifted the plate high above her head. The large silver disc illuminated the entire chamber. She shouted defiantly at Rose, “Do you see? We’ll keep on fighting you! We’ll never give up!”
Rose’s smile looked gentle, disappointed. “What can any of you do?” Bending, he scooped up a handful of muck from the Palace floor. “Whatever you destroy, I can make anew.” With a fluid motion, he dragged a jagged fingernail across his own thumb. A bead of bright red blood formed along the cut, and Rose held the wounded thumb over the mud in his opposite hand. A tear-shaped drop fell.
As the blood mixed with the mud, the handful of clay pulsed with life. The Reverend murmured, “Ah ya nw’glewiin,” and tossed the substance across the room. As soon as it left Rose’s hand, the material sprouted a massive beak and long, crooked wings and flapped about with crimson, rage-filled eyes.
Keech clenched his teeth in frustration. Rose seemed to have no weakness they could exploit.
Then he recalled what Quinn said—Why on earth would he want to close off the Dead Rift?—and his mouth dropped open.
The Dead Rift was the answer.
“I think I know how to stop him,” Keech muttered to the gang. “But I’m gonna have to do something, the only thing I think will surprise him.”
“Keech Blackwood, what are you planning?” Duck asked, clearly alarmed.
“To throw him off balance. And here’s how.”
Without another word, Keech sprinted toward the basin, hopped over the edge, and slid down the slippery granite to the sarcophagus. Leaping onto the table, he reached for the Char Stone.
“What are you doing?” the Reverend shouted.
The moment Keech’s fingers grazed the pulsing black rock, his knees buckled and he felt himself collapsing. Deep in his mind, he heard Pa Abner screaming his old warnings about the Stone—Forget you ever heard of it!—as well as Milos Horner shouting his own admonitions in Wisdom—Avoid the lure of the Char Stone at all costs! But the deed was done. The Palace of the Thunders snuffed out like a flame, and Keech’s world capsized into darkness.