CHAPTER 30
Mayhew’s gun wasn’t nearly as large or penislike as Jack would have expected. It was a small Sig-Sauer, or so Mayhew told him. Jack had never found much use for guns. That was Pete’s department. She was the one who could take aim and shoot.
“You know how to use one of these?” Mayhew asked. Jack took it, ejected the clip, checked the chamber, and then slid the clip home again and flipped the safety off. Pete had made him learn that much. Almost like she’d known one day he’d be on the other end of the rescue, being the knight on the steed. He’d already slain a dragon. How difficult could this be?
“Guess you do,” Mayhew said. “You got any idea where she is?”
“That’s your department, isn’t it?” Jack said. “Come on, Mayhew. Prove you’re something more than a sad old drunk.”
Mayhew shook his head immediately. “Oh no. I don’t mess with this shit. Scrying for what tagged you is going to get me a melted brain and a bed at Cedars.”
“County nuthouse, is more like it,” Sliver muttered. Mayhew flushed, but he still shook his head.
“This is your mess, man.”
“Listen,” Jack said. “It’s been ten years. The thing that killed Mrs. Case and stole her baby to ride in its skin is
Mayhew drummed his fingers on the bar, then poured himself a shot of something clear and knocked it back. “Fine. I’m going to need something of hers.”
Jack sent Sliver to retrieve Pete’s Stiff Little Fingers shirt from her bag, then handed it to Mayhew. “It’s her favorite,” he said. “Don’t ruin it.”
Mayhew spread the shirt out on the bar, took another shot.
“Oi,” Jack said. “Don’t get pissed. We need you able to perform.”
“Being hammered is
Jack watched Mayhew pass his hands back and forth across the shirt, watched his eyes roll back in his head. Seeing somebody in a trance was always a bit unnerving—their eyes went white, and they tended to twitch and drool. It was why Jack had never put himself under in front of an audience. Simply wasn’t dignified.
Mayhew’s eyes crawled with black, and a tendril, then a second, of black smoke leaked from his mouth and nostrils. He exhaled, and the smoke formed a miasma above his head, drifting in lazy circles.
“I see her…” Mayhew rasped, and more smoke trickled from his mouth.
“Okay, that is just weird,” Sliver said. “And I say that as a wraith
“Shut it,” Jack said, as Mayhew shoved back from the bar and walked stiff-legged for the door. “He got that beast of a car still?”
“Far as I know,” Sliver said. Jack snatched Mayhew’s keys and tossed them to Sliver.
“Then you’re driving.”
The old him, the him who didn’t have the marks, who hadn’t healed himself and been through the fight with Abbadon, would have doubted himself and the wisdom of following Mayhew into the jaws of the beast, but he didn’t. Abbadon could be as cryptic as he liked, but there was only one place in the daylight world where his brood would feel really safe.
Jack had strength now, had focus, had the tunnel vision that would mow down anything that got in his way. He realized, in the same small part of his brain that had known he was on the way out, that he was dangerous. Off the track, spinning toward a confrontation he had no hope of winning.
“Where is he going?” Sliver asked as they left the bar.
“Drive,” Jack told him, climbing into the passenger side of Mayhew’s car. “He’ll tell us where to go.”
Mayhew guided them onto the freeway with guttural grunts, and they headed north of downtown. Like Jack thought, there was only one place they could be going.
The journey toward Abbadon’s ranch passed by in slices of headlamp illuminating road signs leading to places Jack had never heard of. Folsom. Lodi. Barstow. Desolate names for desolate towns, off the map of where he had to go tonight.
Mayhew came back to himself by degrees and sat up, choking. “The ranch…” he rasped. “The dead…”
“It’s all right, mate,” Jack said. “We got the gist.”
Sliver turned to look at them in the light of the dash. “No offense, but I’m not toeing off against whatever it is that has you two spooked. I’ll be the getaway driver, but you’re on your own.”
“No,” Jack said, trying to settle back against the seat. His skin was vibrating, and his mind was as clear as if he’d just taken a hit of pure crystal. “These bastards are mine.”
“Listen,” Mayhew said after a time, when the radio had faded to nothing but static, country music, and late- night preachers telling them how the world would end, “I know you and I haven’t always seen eye to eye…”
“You tried your best to fuck me,” Jack said. “But don’t worry, Benji. I’m not going to test your manhood tonight.”
The turn for the ranch loomed up in the cone of the Buick’s headlights and Jack tapped Sliver on the arm. “Just there. Park on this side of the ridge and stay out of sight.”
Mayhew leaned out his window as Jack walked away, boots crunching on the gravel. “What are you going to do?”
A single window was lit in the ranch house, and Jack saw the blue glow of a television through the tattered curtains. He lifted the Sig from his waistband and felt the weight in his hand. It was solid and real, probably the last piece of iron he’d ever touch.
“I’m going to kill every one of those sons of bitches,” he said, then started toward the ranch house.
The void in the Black still existed, but it didn’t cause a spike in his brain. That was Jack before, the Jack who was weak, who felt things and wanted heroin and wished for all of the sights and sounds of the Black to just stop from time to time, so he could rest. This Jack knew there could be no rest until he’d done what he came for.
If he couldn’t use his talent, he’d gamble that Levi and the others couldn’t either. Abbadon was clearly the bright bulb of the group. The others were simply insects attracted to the light.
He mounted the steps, mindful of the loose boards. This part had to go just right, because there were no second chances, and plenty of regrets waiting if he fucked up.
Trying the door, he found the knob locked tight.
He leaned back against the porch rail, bracing himself. Levi would be by the television, and he was too much of a fat fuck to move quickly. Teddy was immobile. That left the little girl as his primary problem—not that he was discounting her. Not that she was actually a little girl.
Jack swung his boot at the door, smashing it so that it banged against the farmhouse wall and tore a chunk from the rotting plaster.
“Hello, you bastards!” he bellowed. “Daddy’s come home at last!”
There was no sound, only the burble of a TV game show from Levi’s room. Jack lifted the Sig and fired a shot into the ceiling, causing more plaster to rain down. “Come on!” he screamed. “You wanted it, so let’s get dirty! Show your ugly fucking faces, cunts!”
A shadow appeared at the top step, and resolved itself into the little girl. She’d traded in her shorts and tee for a dress, blue with small pink sprigs of flowers. Blood streaked the front. Whatever little girl had originally worn that dress was long gone. “Will you keep it down?” she said. “Some of us are trying to get our rest.”
Jack raised the pistol, drew a bead, and fired. His shot went far wide and shattered an old-style lamp bolted to the wall of the upstairs hallway. He was a crap shot, but he didn’t let it bother him. The gun served its purpose.
The little girl didn’t even flinch. “Abbadon said you’d come. With or without him. He told us what to do.”
“Did he, now?” Jack said. The old him would be pissing himself. This him was calculating lines and angles,
