CHAPTER TEN

THE GENERAL

 

 

“EASY NOW, CHILDREN... easy now. The Lord’s touch is gentle, yes it is...”

The Pastor crooned softly, keeping his eyes on the spike as it slowly worked free. The man holding the long-handled pliers gave careful little tugs, trying to do as little damage as possible, but the blood had started flowing again despite that. Cade’s right hand was already free, and he held it up in front of his face, slowly opening and closing the fist. Every time he did it, his hand seemed to catch fire and burn, the pain igniting his nerves like electricity. He was a little amazed he could move his fingers at all, after what the Pastor had done. The man must have the mind of a surgeon.

Or maybe he’d practiced a hell of a lot.

Anyway, Cade figured he’d feel pain any time he held anything for a long time. Maybe for good.

Cade would probably come to resent that later. Right now, he didn’t mind it so much. Not now the spikes were coming out.

The spike in his left hand pulled free with a little rush of blood, and Cade raised that one too, the blood trickling down his forearm as he tested it. This one was a little harder to close – he was going to have to watch himself if he used that hand to work with, and hitting with it was going to be murder. He was going to have to test that out soon.

No time like the present.

Cade stood, his feet unsteady for a second from the long hours on his back. The Pastor watched him, careful as a hawk. Then Cade wheeled and punched the man with the pliers in the forehead, hard enough to send him crashing onto the tarmac, out cold.

The Pastor didn’t blink, but Cade did. His mouth twitched. His hand was in agony, glowing like a hot coal. He growled slightly when he spoke. “Wanted to check.”

“Oh, I understand, my brother. A soldier in the service of the Lord must test himself.” He chuckled, and it still made Cade uneasy, even after all that he’d done already. Shattered glass tumbling from a polished skull. “We should get your wounds seen to, lest the Devil enter and infect the flesh. The sin is driven from your heart, but your body may still succumb to the evils of Satan...” He smiled, and turned, shuffling up Fillmore Street towards North Point. Cade followed, leaving the man with the pliers where he lay.

Cade didn’t bother asking the Pastor why he’d had the sudden change of heart. He figured a man who liked the sound of his own voice that much would let him know the reasons soon enough, and in the meantime he’d stick with Fuel-Air’s theory – that the Pastor was testing him to see if he’d break, either nailed to the road or after. Testing him to see if he was going to try and kill the Pastor right now. Cade could tell when a gun was on him, and he figured there was a fella at a window somewhere who had orders to make damn sure that if Cade raised a hand to the Pastor it’d be the last thing he ever did.

Cade wasn’t in the mood to raise a hand to anything except maybe a sandwich and fries. After close on three days laying on tarmac with just rainwater for drinking, he’d noticed how hungry he was. Unless he got some food in him pretty soon, he wasn’t going to be much use to anybody, never mind the Pastor.

The Pastor turned his head and smiled that weird smile of his. He seemed to know what Cade was thinking.

“We have food and drink, and a place to rest in my sanctuary. My place of peace in the midst of war, where my flock gather to come together in the glory of the Lord. You have seen my purgatory, my brother, now shalt thou know my paradise, oh, yes you will. Now shall you understand the joy of service to the Lord...” He chuckled his bone-rattle laugh as they turned to move west up North Point Street, heading towards some kind of big supermarket. Cade figured that was where they were headed. It made sense. Lots of room, lots of food – hell, if they’d rigged up a generator to the PA system, he could even give sermons. Seemed like a pretty sweet setup.

He flexed his fingers a little, frowning slightly at the firestorm of agony that shot up his arms. There was still a steady throb of pain in both hands and Cade knew it wasn’t going away. Maybe not ever. It wasn’t going to stop him doing anything he needed to do, but it was an additional distraction he didn’t need.

The Pastor glanced at him. “You have a choice ahead of you, brother. Many are tested, yes, but few are chosen to serve in the glory of the Lord. Now your sins have been wiped from your soul and you are again clean, born anew. Tell me, are you still willing to serve the Lord in all of his splendour?” His voice was soft, but there was a keen edge to the question.

Cade shrugged. “Might as well.” He shot a glance at Fuel-Air, who was leaning in a doorway with a jar of Ripped Fuel, grinning that smart-ass son-of-a-bitch grin.

Told you so, dog.

Goddamn Fuel-Air. It was a little unsettling to see him again. He remembered the Duchess telling him to watch out.

Well, he hadn’t done any harm so far. Might have kept him alive, in fact.

Fuel-Air grinned.

“Got my knife?” Cade looked over at the Pastor, not blinking. He was pretty fond of that knife, and he’d sharpened it and got the balance the way he liked it, and it’d be a hell of a shame to start from scratch. If he had to start from scratch, he’d have to seriously consider snapping the Pastor’s neck and using his body as a shield against sniper fire.

He might need to do that anyhow. He hadn’t decided yet.

“We have your knife, and we have your chain – the big one with the weights, I mean. We’ve got all the tools you’ll need to be a warrior in the service of the Lord your God, and that’s what you’ll be, make no mistake.” He smiled, turning his eyes up. “The Lord your God has a mission for you, my brother, a mission of great import, oh yes, a mission vital to the work of God on Earth...” The Pastor was starting to breathe faster, his hands waving and clutching the air as he warmed to his theme, still shuffling with his broken snake-walk. “Will you follow his path, O my brother? Will you bring your sharp sword to bear on the unbelievers, the tools of Satan, the followers of the Hor-ned Goat?” The words were spat, his eyes rolling in his head in a fever.

Cade shrugged.

“Sure.”

The Pastor led Cade up Buchanan Street, around to the front of the place. “There are powers in this city, O faithful servant, yes there are... powers ranged against the glory of the Lord, powers arrayed to destroy His works, to commit acts of murder, to foment crimes of perverse lust!” He walked faster as his hands shook and danced, weaving between the abandoned cars still sitting in the parking lot.

Cade figured that line about murder and perverse lust sounded a little like the pot calling the kettle black, but there wasn’t much mileage in saying so – leastways, not until he’d got his knife back. “The hippies?”

“Lust and murder! Satanism and destruction! You saw their handiwork yourself – do you think your community will be safe if their filth is left unchecked?” He hissed it, looking at Cade with that odd ferocity of his as they passed through the doors. Cade frowned. The man had a point. If the hippies – whoever the hippies were, wherever they’d set up – were the ones doing the burning, Cade needed to deal with them.

If they were. Cade wasn’t in the habit of trusting people who nailed him to the middle of the street.

The supermarket had been gutted and rebuilt – most of the shelves had been dismantled and taken out, their place taken by a sea of mattresses, most crusted with piss and filth, and the occasional tent-like structure. Dozens of people – men, women, some of the children Cade had seen earlier – were sitting on the mattresses, some singing softly, some reading from Bibles. A couple were eating from tins, taken from the still-standing shelves on the far side of the supermarket. These shelves were stocked entirely with cans and a small quantity of canned drinks, as well as a vast reserve of bottled water – Cade figured any food with an early sell-by date had been eaten long ago. The shelves were guarded by the big men with the aluminium bats from before.

It was a crude setup. Cade could’ve put something better together in two days, and working alone at that. Most of the men and all of the women looked thin and pale – the kids looked malnourished, with that greyish skin Cade had seen a lot of. The food was probably rationed, maybe one can per meal if they were lucky. Cade looked around, and saw a set of double doors, locked up tight with strong chain and a padlock. That would be where the supermarket storage area was. Cade figured there’d be more food back there.

Unless they were using it to keep something else.

A picture was starting to develop. The hippies, the Satanists, the defilers: if they had control of the Haight-Ashbury, they’d be near Buena Vista Park, Golden Gate Park, the golf course, Corona Heights, all kinds of decent farming land. Cade had slung the word ‘hippies’ around pretty casually along with everybody else, before the bad times and after, but he knew it could mean a hell of a lot of things; some teenager with long hair, some fella with liberal views, hell, pretty much anybody in San Francisco as was, if you were standing outside it. But now Cade was thinking about communes, collectives, organised groups of people living off the land, growing crops like the Diggers in the sixties. Hell, if they had a working generator or two, they had hydroponics on their side too. As far as food was concerned, they’d be sitting pretty.

Meanwhile, the Pastor’s people – who’d maybe been used to having things done for them, used to putting their faith in a higher power and slobbing out in front of a TV set or a pulpit while other people got their snack packs ready for ’em – didn’t have a clue where to start when it came to farming and weren’t in a position to do much about it except pray and keep on praying, because their crazy Pastor had seen to it that they only had one book to read. And now food was running short – what they needed was someone to grow food for them, someone who already had the knowledge. Maybe a slave class, maybe just some warm bodies to turn cold so all their food stocks could be stolen and taken away.

Cade liked this theory. It fit pretty well, and it meant that the fella who’d killed a hundred-odd people for his Old Testament God and then nailed him to a road for three days on top of that was the bad guy in the equation. Cade’d know exactly where he stood, and that’d be pretty damn good to know. Trouble was, there was a big piece missing that Cade couldn’t get to fit.

Somebody’d burnt down Sausalito, and Cade was pretty sure it wasn’t the Pastor’s people. He didn’t trust the Pastor, and the Pastor might have been lying – hell, he probably was lying about a hundred things – but these people liked their territory a little too clean and tidy for them to be burning everything outside of it. Still, even that could be worked in. There was just one thing that couldn’t be.

Helter Skelter.

That wasn’t a Jesus thing. The Pastor hadn’t done that.

That was someone else.

Wasn’t any way around it, Cade figured. He was going to need to investigate anyhow. Might as well do it for the Pastor as anyone else.

Still, he figured he should set a couple of things straight first of all.

“You run this?” He gestured around him.

The Pastor looked at him, one eye narrowed. He drew himself up to his full height and launched into a speech: “It is my calling to lead the chosen people of the Lord to their salvation, and to bring fire and fury upon the –”

Cade cut him off. “Reckon you need a war chief. Like a General. You need them hippies dealt with – kept an eye on, at least. That‘s my job. You run things here.” By Cade’s standards, it was a hell of a speech. A regular sermon.

The Pastor scowled, which seemed to crack his face up as much as smiling did. “I have a mission for you, my friend. A chance, a very special chance, to be a warrior in the glory of the Lord. To do His will upon this earth. To be His sword in the war on the forces of Hell. Now the fool, in his vanity and pride, might want more, but to him I say –”

Cade sighed. “War needs planning. Scouting. Intelligence. Won’t get it done otherwise.” Cade was getting pretty damn tired of explaining every little thing. He shrugged. “Not like you’ve anyone else worth a damn.”

The Pastor raised one eyebrow, then looked past Cade, over his left shoulder.

Cade turned.

The man standing behind him was blond, tan and about a head taller than he was – a muscle beach type. The fella’s muscles had muscles on them. Cade figured this guy didn’t have to worry himself overmuch about food rationing – he was obviously getting a hell of a lot more than his share. There was a smacking noise as the big man slapped a steel knuckleduster into his palm in a slow, golf-clap rhythm. Cade reached into his pockets for his own.

He didn’t bother looking at the Pastor. “Another test?”

The Pastor smiled. “Meet Jurgen, brother. You could call him my General.”

Jurgen grinned, speaking slowly, in a thick Austrian accent. “Der Leader already hass an advisor to help him viz makink decisions. I am in charge of planning der long var against der Godless – he hass no need of a girlie-man like you.”

Cade nodded, looking up. The man had to be a good seven feet tall, and he was a walking advertisement for steroid abuse. Great thick veins like cables stood out on the man’s biceps. Cade didn’t say a word.

Jurgen smirked through gapped teeth. “I am talkink to you, girlie-man. I haff business viz der Pastor. If you vant to be useful, you can try cleanink der toilet. There iss a lot of sshit in it.” He smirked a little wider, jabbing a finger into Cade’s chest. “I think you vould be good at pickink up sshit, girlie –”

Cade moved.

There was a snapping sound as he yanked the finger backwards and broke it. Then he moved with his left, wincing slightly as the fist slammed hard between Jurgen’s thighs, smashing against the steroid-shrivelled bits of flesh he kept there. The punch sent a wave of molten lava up the nerves in Cade’s arm. Hurt like hell.

There was some consolation in knowing it hurt Jorgen a hell of a lot more. He doubled over, making a high-pitched whining sound as his eyes bulged, at which point Cade let go of the man’s finger and pulled back his right.

Jurgen tried to straighten up, but he couldn’t make it before Cade’s fist slammed into his jaw. Cade didn’t get angry as a rule, but he’d been nailed to the street for three days, putting up with Fuel-Air of all people, and that didn’t do much to ease a man’s temper. There was a fair amount of anger in that punch, and a hell of a lot of power, and the lead knuckleduster he’d slipped out of his pocket besides.

The impact tore the jawbone off Jurgen’s face, sending a gout of blood spattering over Cade and onto the floor, the flesh of the face torn to strips as the jawbone dangled by a thread of muscle. Jurgen’s eyes bulged, and he raised his hands to his face.

Cade’s hands got there first, closing about the dangling jaw and tearing it free. Then he swung it around, smashing it into Jurgen’s temple, sending him crashing down to the ground. The Pastor nodded approvingly.

“With the jawbone of an ass, he will slay his thousands. The Lord was right about you, brother, yes He was.”

Cade nodded. “You need a new General.”

The Pastor smiled. “Why? The old one’s still alive.”

Cade tossed the jawbone aside as Jurgen raised his head, scrabbling helplessly with his remaining fingers at what was left of his face, his tongue flapping uselessly as blood and drool mingled on the cold tile floor. Cade brought his fist down once, crashing the lead weight of the knuckleduster into the back of Jurgen’s head, smashing the skull into fragments.

Jurgen slumped forward, deader than hell. He hadn’t thrown a single punch. A couple of the children started to cry.

The Pastor turned, raising his hands to the crowd. “Be not afraid! For even the angel of death himself was but a noble soldier in the army of the Lord! Brother – name?”

“Cade,” said Cade.

“Brother Cade is here to do the will of the Lord and pro-mote his glory! Brother Jurgen was weak! The Devil was in him! Brother Cade is a strong right arm for the Lord, a man who will do works of greatness in His name! Do you not believe in the Lord? Do you not love your Lord? If you love your God, do not fear! Only the godless need fear! The hippies! The pre-verts! Satan’s own!”

The children had stopped crying. They were looking at Cade, mesmerised. If they’d seen a monster standing there before, they were seeing something else now. A biblical hero, ready to slay his weight in unbelievers.

Cade suddenly realised there wasn’t a toy in the place.

The kids didn’t have toys. He’d figured the adults weren’t allowed books, but there wasn’t even a magazine or an old newspaper. There wasn’t anything that wasn’t food or water or a place to sleep. Or a bible. He already knew nobody drank, but that was the tip of the iceberg – the Pastor had taken everything from these people except the chance to kneel and pray to his Lord.

Cade was almost impressed. The man knew how to put a cult together.

One by one, the men and women stood, bowing their heads and saying their ‘amens.’ Cade leaned forward and muttered. “We should talk.”

“In the morning, Brother Cade.” The Pastor smiled, walking into the crowd, laying on hands. Cade followed a pace or two behind. He wasn’t in the habit of feeling good about himself, and he felt a mite ambivalent now, but he had to admit he’d played this one pretty well. He had a home base now, while he was in San Francisco – somewhere he could lick his wounds, get food supplies and hopefully medical care, if the Pastor allowed things like band-aids and stitches in his handmade heaven.

He was going to need to kill the Pastor, of course. That went without saying. Probably he’d need to kill a good load of the rest of these fools into the bargain.

But he figured that could wait.

At least until the morning.