Their descent was swift and sudden. Too many crows, Napoleon guessed, for even The Gray Man to hold this altitude. Up to this point, Napoleon had been so consumed by the lava wall that he’d not taken the proper time to study what was below them. He vaguely recalled an orange haze of some kind, broken in places by misty clouds that seemed tinged with ash. The air was heavy, as if full of combustible gasses, but breathing it was harder now, as each breath he took was stifled more and more with crows’ feathers.
The hardest part was keeping his head moving. The pecking crows were working vigorously to get at his eyes. He felt warm blood running down his cheeks and neck, but he couldn’t defend himself: his arms were being held in The Gray Man’s iron grip. Napoleon knew he was a harder package to carry, jerking back and forth and kicking the way he was, but he also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the crows were out to kill him, and that if he didn’t do something to defend himself he’d never make it to wherever they might land.
Then it dawned on him: wasn’t hell a great lake of fire? He’d read that when he was younger, during the catechism classes his grandmother had made him take. The priest teaching the class had been determined to hammer home the seriousness of the consequences for those who turned away from God, “Especially for those who do so after proclaiming their allegiance to Him, as you do when you complete these lessons,” he said. He was a nice enough man with a soft, usually cheery voice, but he’d stunned twelve-year-old Napoleon that day by turning so serious, so grave all of a sudden. As if he was preparing them all for war.
Now, Napoleon realized, he had been.
And you couldn’t get any further into enemy territory than he was now.
Villa? Can you hear me?
It was The Gray Man, speaking in a steady voice from somewhere in the middle of Napoleon’s brain.
Yes. You think words before you speak them, which was good, since talking was impossible: a crow had Napoleon’s lower lip and was trying to tear it clean off his face.
I‘m going to have to disperse them, if only briefly, to find a place to land.
Okay.
But I can’t control the burst. It may hurt a little.
Napoleon didn’t even have time to brace himself before a bolt of power surged through him and outward in a quickly expanding bubble.
The crows nearest him were disintegrated instantly, and their surviving brethren shrieked loudly before disbanding and peeling off in all directions.
Up until now it had been the fresh dead stench that covered the crows’ feathers like oil that had gotten to Napoleon the worst. But nothing could’ve prepared him for the sound of a thousand crows screaming at once. His body, still stunned from The Gray Man’s power burst, couldn’t abate the agony that split Napoleon’s eardrums.
But it had worked. Most of the crows, evidently surprised that any visitors to this place could fight back, pulled away to a safe distance, as many others plummeted into the mist below, either dead or too paralyzed to fly.
Then The Gray Man, still holding Napoleon in a bear hug of sorts, took them into a steep dive.
Napoleon’s face, covered with cuts and bites, erupted in pain against the sudden friction of hot air as they dove. He closed his eyes against the mist, which burned like acid. He didn’t care. He just wanted out of the sky and to be free from The Gray Man’s grip so he could protect himself better.
Beneath the mist, however, was only a greater panorama of horror. Below them was what looked like the surface of another planet, with a pitch-black landscape carved in deep ravines and rising mountains of varying shades of black and red. Cutting across the flat lands and down into a canyon was a churning lake.
A lake of fire.
Just like the scripture had taught.
With the fire was lava, rolling with hissing heaves of steam and heat.
Napoleon craned his neck to look behind them. The remaining crows that were pursuing them now peeled off and fled upward, back up through the clouds.
When he looked forwards again he realized that The Gray Man was flying them directly into the canyon.
Hey. Angel-guy. I’m not so sure this is such a good idea.
There was a brief moment before The Gray Man replied. Do you have a better one?
Napoleon didn’t.
When they had first broken through the mist there had been a faint, high-pitched sound in the air, like a radio frequency meant for dogs or something. But now, in the canyon itself, the sound was clearer and there was no mistaking it: screaming. It was the sound of millions of people screaming, all at once.
And now Napoleon could see them too.
Swimming in the lava. Struggling against its current. Burning.
Burning alive.
Napoleon felt his head grow woozy. The immensity of it all was too much. He was going to black out.
Hold on, Villa.
I’m trying to!
But it only got worse.
Bobbing on the lava were floating boulders and standing upon them were hideous creatures, charcoal black and at least ten feet tall, faces that were a blend of jackal and human, with blood-red eyes. In their hands they held long two-pronged sticks, which they used to jab here and there at the people, who were desperately trying to swim to shore or stay afloat.
It was as if they were being herded. Like animals.
The bodies were burned mostly free of flesh, reduced to mannequins of muscle and tendons, but their faces were still human and their agony was obvious.
Then, to Napoleon’s horror, he realized that The Gray Man had taken them into a complete dive… towards the lake.
Villa. I’m going to take us through the lava.
It took a moment for the words to register in Napoleon’s mind. Thinking was getting harder and harder. What?
We have to pierce the lake. Break through it.
Their speed was increasing by the second. Are you sure?
Well. Not entirely.
What?
Villa. It’s not like I’ve been here before.
Around them a pocket of pale blue air had formed, encapsulating them in a coolness that felt blissful after the heat.
Then how do you—
Scripture. The same scripture you have been contemplating. It says that those who are condemned must pass “through” a lake of fire.
The lake was only a hundred feet away when one of the jackals noticed them. It spun around quickly, its stick coming up from the lake in an attempt to spear them. Napoleon was about to scream a warning when The Gray Man banked hard to the right, narrowly avoiding it as the surface of the lake grew closer.
But how do you know it means “through” in that sense? What if it means through as in end-to-end or—
They plunged into the lake, plowing through heat that made their blue cocoon glow fiercely as they tore past body after body stacked beneath the surface like so many logs, all of them still alive as they swam and struggled back towards the surface, the jackals forcing them down, ever down, further down, to the bottom.
Which wasn’t much of a bottom at all.
Instead it was a smooth, pink surface that ran beneath the lake. Upon colliding with it, Napoleon felt his body jar and The Gray Man’s grip loosen. The pink material stretched at first, gripping at them like plastic wrap, suffocating and unyielding, before it finally gave way and they tumbled through, the force of their fall ripping Napoleon and The Gray Man apart as they spun off in different directions, the hole behind them sealing up as quickly as it had been torn.
Everything in him told him to panic, but Napoleon, finally overcome by things he imagined he was never supposed to see, felt his eyes go dark and his body go limp.
His final thoughts were of sadness. Of this place, that was so full of sorrow, as if the sky itself was one massive dried-up tear, and for himself—that he would die beneath it.
Ashley Barton’s mother was a train wreck when she first arrived at Robert’s Liquor & Deli and she didn’t get much better as the interview went along. Frantic at first, she’d refused to listen to anyone, instead going into the store and moving end-to-end, screaming her daughter’s name, as if somehow her brother or the police had missed Ashley during their own searches.
Conch had seen this behavior before, and it was never pleasant. Mrs. Barton was beyond a three-finger shot of panic and now deep into a full bottle of denial. You could see it in her eyes; she was hoping against hope that Ashley was just locked in the freezer maybe, or had passed out in a closet. Like a gambler with a bad habit, she was betting it all on the long odds now, and who could blame her?
Conch had been betting on the long odds his entire career.
What those odds told him now was that the uncle was still a suspect, but barely, and the mother was genuinely distraught and clueless. So that really only left an angry love interest or a stranger who had abducted her.
And in this business the odds of a pretty girl who was abducted ever living to tell the tale were as long as you could get.
“Mr. Esguerra, please rein your sister in. We gotta get moving on this, okay?”
Conch’s voice sounded gloomy even to him. Esguerra spun on his heels and went into the store with a determined gait. A few minutes later he came out with his sister.
“Mrs. Barton, I’m Sheriff Conch—”
“I know who you are,” she said, her eyes red and waterlogged. “I’ve seen you at some of the neighborhood watch meetings around town.” The word “town” came out in a tight squeak as she stifled a sob. Her hands were shaking and she was pale. Figuring she was a very real risk for fainting at any moment, Conch took a step towards her without being obvious.
“Do you have any idea—”
“No! Please. You gotta find her.”
“I know. We’re trying to. We just need you to help us with a few questions.”
She was a heavyset woman with slouched shoulders and greasy hair. She reached up and wiped the snot dribbling from her flat nose with the sleeve of her purple sweatshirt, which was stained. “What do you want to know?”
“Was your daughter upset about anything or—”
“No.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She was happy. She’d just gotten her own apartment. She just finished applying for school to be a dental hygienist.”
“Does she have a boyfriend?”
“Not anymore.”
There it was. “Why not?”
“He moved away to college a few months back. Boston University. His name is Jeremy Pench.”
There it went. “Has he been back in town since then?”
“No. I mean, not as far as I know. You can ask his parents. He was on the—”
“Track team? Right?” Conch asked with sigh. He knew Pench well. He’d gone on a few ride-a-longs with Conch a year or so back and was a real, live Eagle Scout. Him dating Ashley Barton was yet another vote for the “opposites attract” theory. To the extreme.
“Yes. That’s him.”
Mr. Esguerra jumped in. “Beverly, was she seeing some other dude or… ?”
“No… no. Vance. What’s going on? Her cell phone is in there and so is her purse.”
“Maybe someone came by and she forgot them, Beverly. I don’t know.”
“No. She would never leave her cell phone. It’s brand new. She just got it for—” Her voice cracked, and then she continued, “For her birthday. She’s wanted that phone for over a year.”
“Okay. Okay. But maybe—”
Mrs. Barton’s eyes widened as she registered something. “She wouldn’t leave her purse either. Not now.”
Conch was interested in this last comment. “Why not now, especially?”
She looked a bit uncomfortable, but continued. “Because when she came by last night she was complaining about cramps. Her period had just started.”
For a moment they were all silent. Conch was working on his next question as Mrs. Barton looked back and forth, obviously thinking too hard and at too many miles per hour.
She’s gonna drop. Shit.
“Beverly, it’s gonna be okay,” Esguerra said. “We’ll find Ashley.”
Either upon hearing her daughter’s name or the deep concern in her brother’s voice when he said it, Mrs. Barton finally cracked. She looked first to her brother and then to Conch before the words poured out of her faster than her tears. “Please. Officer. Please. My baby. Someone’s taken my baby. I just know it. Please help her. Please.”
Esguerra moved to comfort her, but instead she stepped towards Conch, her hands over her mouth as if she were trying to block the words that were spilling out of her with such terror. “Please. Find my baby. She’s all I have. My husband died three years ago out on Route 18 when his rig turned over. She was his angel. She’s my angel. Please!”
Her screams seemed to startle a small crowd that had gathered down the street, a group of machine shop workers that were sipping coffee from styrofoam cups and munching on glazed donuts.
Mrs. Barton reached out to Conch just before it happened. Her eyes faded, rolled backwards and then she was falling. Conch reached out and grabbed her just as Esguerra rushed to her other side and, together, they lowered her to the ground.
Deputy Kendall left the front of the store, where he’d been standing, and rushed over. “EMTs?”
Conch nodded and Kendall called it in.
Looking down at Mrs. Barton, Conch couldn’t help but feel deep pity. He knew his job was to stay above the emotions but, well, that’s why he’d come to Beaury in the first place. Life as a big city cop in Seattle just hadn’t suited him. You had to be too hard, too callous. He’d lasted three years after academy, and then, when Mandy had gotten pregnant with Tina, she’d talked him into small town life, first in Barstow and then here to Beaury, where they’d had a son, Charlie.
Keeping Mrs. Barton’s head propped up, he asked Esguerra to keep her cool by fanning her with his jacket. Kendall kept the crowd from moving any closer as sirens sounded in the distance. Timmy would be here soon, him or one of his four-man squad, two of whom were paramedics. The fire station was only a half a mile away. That was Beaury in a nutshell: two sheriffs, four firemen. Small town life.
And now a missing girl. That was not small town life. Not usually.
Conch noticed that Mrs. Barton had worn faded jeans, which had popped loose at the button when she’d fallen. Her sweatshirt had ridden up her waist a bit and he pulled it down to cover her stomach, where the faded scar of a C-section was obvious.
His heart grew heavy. All of it seemed so unfair. You go through so much to bring a child into this world. You raise her… and then this?
He hoped he was wrong. He really did. But if Ashley had been abducted, then she most likely only had about forty-eight more hours to live.
Damn the odds. Damn them to hell.
Mr. Esguerra was calling his sister’s name, softly trying to wake her, when the paramedic truck pulled up.
It was when Timmy, and his partner Brian, ran up with their med kits and Conch was moving aside to get out of their way that he glanced down and noticed a small tattoo on Mrs. Barton’s wrist: Ps 121:5–6.
Conch had grown up in the church. His family was a “once on Wednesday, twice on Sunday” kind of family. He’d marched through the jungles of Vietnam with Jesus at his side and back home with his father’s Bible still in his rucksack, so he knew the verse well.
The Lord watches over you, the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
That’s when Conch decided that, heaven help him, one way or another, he was going to save Ashley Barton.