Coven

that? Wade thought. A million fucking dollars?

Lydia and Glark began to pore over thick ring bound books full of similar colored strips. Wade doubted that he’d ever been this bored in his life.

“I think I found it,” Glark announced almost an hour later. He removed a laminated sheet from the binder. Atop read the index listing: Antiquations.

Lydia looked at it and frowned. “Iron? How could it take us so long to find iron?”

“Because it’s not commercial,” Glark said. “We couldn’t find a manufacturer’s index because there is no manufacturer. This control sample isn’t exact but it’s close enough to give us our answer.”

“I don’t get it,” Lydia said.

“The tool that caused your impactation was hand forged,” Glark enlightened her. “According to this index, you’re looking for something that’s at least three hundred years old.”

—

CHAPTER 17

At the red light, the Camaro rumbled through Hooker headers and chambered pipes. Bright red tails, like liquid, reflected off the slope of the immaculate white hood. The car shimmered.

Tom stared. The sister was showing him things.

Beyond the dusk, Tom saw cities, or things like cities: a geometric demesne of impossible architecture which extended along a vanishing line of horrid black—a raging terra dementata. Concaved horizons crammed with stars, or things like stars, sparkled close against the cubist chasms. He saw buildings and streets, tunnels and tower blocks, strange flattened factories whose chimneys gushed oily smoke. It was a necropolis, systematized and endless, bereft of error in non Euclidean angles and lines. It was pandemonium. Gutters ran black with noxious ichor. Squat, stygian churches sang praise to mindless gods. Insanity was the monarch here, ataxia the only order, darkness the only light.

Ingenious, unspeakable, the monarch stared back.

Tom saw it all. He saw time tick backward, death rot to life, whole futures swallowed deep into the belly of history. And he saw people too. Or things like people.

Tom shook out of the terror’s glimpse. The light changed green and he pulled through. In the passenger seat, one of the sisters grinned. She was hideous. White faced, red lipped, and hungry—always hungry, for food or whatever. Thank God the sunglasses hid her eyes. Tom could feel the madness buried there, the sheer disorder.

—Tom, what’s that?

In the headlights, a matty white poodle sniffed at the shoulder. “It’s a dog,” Tom said.

The sister looked puzzled. —What’s a dog?

“You know, an animal, a pet.”

—What’s a pet?

Jesus, Tom thought. These bitches are stupid. He swerved and promptly ran the poodle over. Its little body was dribbled beneath the car, then crunched. The sister shrilled with delight, looking back. The crushed poodle twitched in the road.

—Tom! What’s that?

Up ahead, some big redneck looking guy had his thumb out. A cardboard sign about his neck read: “Bowie, Maryland, or Bust.”

“It’s a hitchhiker,” Tom said.

—What’s a hitchhiker?

Tom snickered. “A hitchhiker is a person who, on dark nights, gets run over by cars. That’s what a hitchhiker is.”

—Oh, replied the sister.

Tom shifted down the Hurst. The hitchhiker’s face beamed. This fucker thinks he’s gonna get a ride, Tom thought. He began to pull over, but at precisely the proper moment, he swerved and mowed the hitchhiker down. Jesus Christ, it was fun running things down! The sister shrieked over the muffled thump. Tom smiled. The hitcher’s head popped under the wheel, then his crumpled body was spat out behind them.

The sister was exhilarated, giddy and wriggling her white fingers. —I liked that! she exclaimed. —Let’s find more dogs and hitchhikers!

Tom wished he could, but he’d almost forgotten there was business at hand. He drove a ways, then pulled over. Sure, running people down was fun but it wasn’t a good idea when you had a college student in your trunk. She could bang her head or something, break some bones. Hell, she could die back there.

Tom got out and opened the trunk. She was all right, just a little jostled. “Sorry about that last bump, Lois,” he apologized. She was kind of cute. Nice rack too, he concluded when he pulled open her blouse. She would at least appreciate it all in the end. Fuck college. This was destiny.

He got back in the car and drove on. He paused to wonder. The sister had settled down, placated by her own nameless thoughts. Tom couldn’t imagine what went on in their malevolent little heads. Who were these bitches? Who were they really?

The girl in the trunk had been on Besser’s list. Lois Hartley, an art history major who lived on the Hill. Tom had seen her around. She was into the art scene—avant garde, formalism, and all that. She hung out with the campus dilettantes. They all pretended to be bored and disaffected, swank in resigned ennui. They wore dark clothes and freaky hairstyles, listened to the Communards, and smoked blue cigarettes while they discoursed over the decline of aesthetics: phony misplaced Dadaists who thought it stylish to have nothing to do.

Plucking her had been easy. They’d found her wandering the Pickman Gallery’s abstract expressionism exhibit, which always gave Tom a hoot. You could slop paint randomly onto a canvas, blindfolded, call it Mother with Child, and that would be abstract expressionism. Lois had been standing in front of a mural entitled The Fighting Temeraire Part II, which looked like someone had gotten drunk after a big Burger King meal and then vomited on the canvas. Lois Hartley barely turned when the sister put the zap on her. That was some trick. All Tom had to do was carry her out and toss her in the trunk. Mission accomplished.

But he wondered what it must be like for them, what they must feel and think during the process. What did destiny feel like?

Tom pulled up at the Town Pump. “Beer stop,” he said.

—What’s beer?

Tom didn’t bother answering. “Howdy, partner,” said the proprietor when Tom came in. “We gotta special on the Rock this week.”

“No thanks,” Tom said. “Get me two cases of Spaten Oktoberfest.”

“Comin’ right up,” the prop replied. He was chunky and old, with a gray crew cut. He wheeled up a handcart with the two cases, then rang the total. “Say, fella, you don’t look so good.”

“I know, but I feel great,” Tom said. Then he picked up the two cases and held them easily under one arm. “Thanks,” he said.

“Hold up a sec, son.” The prop tittered nervously. “You’re forgettin’ somethin’.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

Another titter. “You owe me $52.96. Tax included, of course.”

“Oh, but I’m not paying,” Tom said.

“Uh, ya mean you’re robbin’ me? Is that what you’re sayin’?”

“Well, I guess you could put it that way,” Tom agreed.

Now the prop’s voice gave way to cracks. “I don’t want no trouble, son, so do us both a favor. Just you set that beer down, turn around, and walk out that door.”

Tom grabbed the man by the throat and lifted him over the counter—the two cases of Spaten still under one arm. The man’s legs pumped like he was trying to run away in midair. “Listen, Pops,” Tom explained. “I don’t expect you to understand this, but I have to get back to the Supremate. I have destiny to tend to. You get the message yet? I’m not paying. I’ve got more important things to do right now than pay for beer.”