Covenant (20 page)

Ken heard a voice ahead of him. A woman’s voice, it sounded like. But that was crazy! Who else would come this far into the bowels of the mountain? Had somebody already staked his claim?

He redoubled his pace and came to a fork in the tunnel. The path to the right sloped downward, and he chose it without even thinking. Had to go down to go out.

It wasn’t even ten steps to the right and the tunnel thinned and came to a wall.

Damn.

He started to back up, and then saw a black spot to his left. He’d walked past it, thinking it was a crevice. But when he shone his light into the gap, he saw that it was larger than that. It widened in the middle and tapered at the top and bottom, as if a bomb had blasted a hole in the middle of the wall. He stepped over the bottom ridge and ducked his head below its upper teeth.

The ground here was sandy, as if the ocean had once reached here. He was close, then!

Maybe that’s what the voice was. A swimmer in the bay? Could he be that near? But where was the surf? He couldn’t hear it…or…

No. There it was. Distant, but audible now. He began to walk across the sandy cavern. Then he saw her.

Staked to the ground near a wall dead ahead. A raven-haired
beauty. She was in some wild-looking gold and purple getup. Baggy pants shone metallic from the light of his flash. And her blouse…three buttons were undone in front and even in the bad light of the cave he could see a hint of boob hanging out of the gap.

“
Do you want her, Ken
?”

He didn’t even question the voice this time. It sounded to him like the computer in
2001: A Space Odyssey
. Or maybe a little like that fava beans–loving cannibal psycho. But the fact that there was nobody visible had ceased to impress him. Maybe his brain was too addled from the fall. Or maybe he’d already given in.

“Yes,” he said. His tongue got wet with anticipation.

“
She’s yours. I’ve saved her here for you. Introduce yourself.
You’ll find her…most enjoyable, I think
.”

“Who’re you?” he asked, feeling a little strange about the transaction, but willing to accept the prize.

“Turn out the light,” she whined.

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” he apologized, and turned the lamp to face away from her eyes.

“Who are you?” he asked again.

She introduced herself, but he hardly heard. He was staring at the lacy black bra that he could see just beyond the opening of her blouse.

“I’m Ken,” he said, eyes never leaving the creamy skin of her chest. He was growing hot all over. The chill of the river had turned to molten fire in his veins.

“Ken Brownsell,” he added, and grinned. What a sweet prize this had turned out to be. It wasn’t a cavern to be named after him but—

“
She can make you a child that we could name after you. How
would that be, Ken?
”

He shrugged silently.

“I was hoping I’d discover a good cavern while I was here.” He couldn’t keep from putting his hands on her. They seemed to move under their own power, without direction.
He stroked her brow, and felt the sweat begin to stream down his back. He stared again at the mounds of her chest, thinking about the cave he had hoped to discover.

“This one looks like a beaut.”

“Yeah,” Angelica answered. “It’s, um, very nice. Would you mind untying my arms?”

He moved a hand to start unbraiding the knot for her, but then the voice pierced his skull.

“
No!
” it yelled in his head. “
I tied her up so that you could take
her here. On the floor. Against her will. It’s more enjoyable that way
.”

“I don’t think so,” he said to her.

And his hand slid from her forehead, across her chin, down her neck and down the front of her shirt, catching and then popping each button in turn.

“Please, God, no,” she whispered to him. Her eyes pleaded with him to stop. And yet he could see in them a certainty that he wouldn’t. He could see himself reflected in her eyes. He looked like a monster.

“
That’s right
,” the voice soothed. “
She really does want it this
way. Take her. Take her now. And Ken…enjoy yourself for me.
Let’s both enjoy ourselves
….”

Karen couldn’t shake the feeling that things were going wrong. It was indefinable, but ever present through the day. What if they had killed Angelica by tying her up the way they had? She had never wanted to kill anybody, least of all an old friend.

No, j
ust her kid
. She laughed inwardly at herself.

Thinking back on the years since they had first ventured into that secret cavern in Terrel’s Peak, she realized that they had all fucked it up right from the start. They may not have gotten out of the cave alive if they hadn’t agreed to the spirit’s bargain, but if the deal with the devil was a given, none of them had made good use of their gains.

The paintbrush will allow you to paint the most realistic artworks
you can imagine. The brush has kissed the lips of saints and copulated
with the diseased cunts of hell
.

So He had promised her, and the one time she had used the brush, she had made an indisputable work of art. Something that could have started her down a phenomenal career path. But instead, so afraid of the unnatural ease with which the brush allowed her to create, Karen had hidden it away.

Only Angelica had made much use of her gift, and even she had underused it. Why else was she living in a shack on the outskirts of town? Hell, with the talent the creature had given her, she should have been able to go national.

Although, even as she thought about that, she realized He
wouldn’t have allowed that, would He? They had all had their incidents in trying to escape Terrel. And He hadn’t let one of them leave. Trapped here by an ocean, a mountain and a jealous demon who thrived on sacrifices. The human kind. They were trapped by their choice. Trapped by their murders.

Karen shook the tear from her cheek and rubbed her eyes wearily.

Black, dead eyes stared her down, a bloody grin stretching across
Bernadette’s/His face….

“No.” She shook the image away. Not now. She closed the door behind her and walked to the van. It was a walk of finality. She wasn’t sure if she’d be coming back after this trip. Despite the promises of their spirit, she had a dark foreboding about this night. Maybe the sisterhood would close the circle of death…or in their passing, open a new one.

Still, she started the engine and eased the van out of the driveway. Perhaps Rhonda’s brutal energy would save them. Certainly Monica was of no use when it came to strength. They would look to Karen to find the answers; they always had. But she was out of answers. Her shoulders slumped as she drove the six blocks to Rhonda Canady’s house and pulled into her friend’s driveway with a jarring bump against the curb. She had served as pro tem leader of this little band for long enough. All her life, really. And she was ready to retire.

Rhonda came out of the house before she’d even put the van in park. She was grinning in a way that Karen found both disturbing and promising.

Maybe it was Rhonda’s chance to shine.

“You ready?” Rhonda huffed as she stepped up into the passenger seat.

“Yeah,” Karen answered. But she didn’t sound too sure.

“Let’s go find out where the damn kid is, then. She’s bound to be ready to talk now. After a night in that place…”

“Maybe.”

“What’s a’ matter, Kar?” Rhonda looked over and stared at her friend’s face. The lines there had deepened these past couple years. The shadows beneath her eyes were as dark as bruises.

“Tonight has to be it,” Karen answered. Her voice was beaten, quiet.

“Maybe it will be,” Rhonda answered.

“Maybe.”

Monica’s house was on the far side of town, past the decaying, ironically named Terraced Gardens trailer park and the public works water tower. There were only a few houses out this far, and not one counted its years below fifty. But the trees here grew tall and heavy, and shielded Monica’s sagging white-frame farmhouse from the nearby sagging 1950s trailer homes. She came out of the house a few moments after Karen’s honk, carrying a bag and hustling with the jerky shuffle of an old woman.

A winning crew we are
, Karen thought.

“Whatcha got?” Rhonda asked once Monica had settled herself and her bag in the backseat.

“Made some ham sandwiches.” Her voice trembled slightly. “I thought Angelica might be hungry after a night down there.”

Rhonda laughed—a big belly laugh that traveled through the seat to Karen, who smiled in spite of herself.

Bernadette laughed low and evil, salt water dribbling down the
sides of her mouth to splatter and cool the naked, blood-smeared girls
beneath….

Karen blinked the image away.

“I’m betting food isn’t the first thing on her mind right now,” the larger woman said. “Now, don’t go giving her a thing until we’ve gotten what we need outta her. Or we’ll be leaving her there overnight again.”

Monica agreed and the women fell silent, only the throb of the van’s engine filling the cabin as it sped past the main drag of Terrel and up the road to the beach. The sun was setting
across the water, a bloody orange globe pressed on velvet blue. Karen thought it was the most beautiful sight she’d seen in her life.

“Look at that sunset.” She pointed as she pulled off the road near the ocean. The other women oohed at the sight.

Let’s hope we get to see the sun again
, Karen thought, and turned the key to shut off the motor.

“Let’s go find us a kid to kill,” Rhonda barked bitterly. Nobody laughed.

In her mind, Karen could still hear the twisted, low voice of Him.

Let’s make us a little Covenant
.

“It’s chilly down here,” Cindy said, clutching her arms to her chest.

“Why don’t we go back up, then?”

“No.” She stopped and turned back to look at Joe. His eyes were worried, and she mistook the reason.

“I’m fine. You were down here looking for something, and I want to help you find it. Just keep that flashlight pointed ahead and let’s do it!”

They had been walking for more than ten minutes, the pathway leading ever downward, the air temperature dropping steadily. At first Joe had been afraid they would need to turn back because the branching tunnels might confuse them. But there had been no confusion.

There had been no branches.

The cold gray limestone passage, which was just low enough to make them walk slightly stooped, continued on and on without interruption. Their steps echoed eerily around them as they continued downward. Joe began to wonder if he had made a horrible mistake in coming here. In bringing Cindy here. What if the ceiling fell in behind them? There would be no way to go but down. And if his flashlight burned out…

He wrestled to squelch the growing alarm in his belly as they walked. But it was no good. Cindy skipped along ahead
of him, a vision of sensual youth in her skintight pants. He had grown to care for her so quickly, it surprised him. When he left Chicago, he had sworn off women. He didn’t want the responsibility. Couldn’t trust himself with it. But in the past month he had somehow become responsible for not one, but two women.

Who, as it turned out, were mother and daughter. His stomach fluttered at the thought.
Shit
. What had he gotten himself into?

“Joe, look up there,” Cindy cried. She pointed ahead and to the right.

The tunnel was widening, and in the distance, something glinted just at the edge of the dim reach of his flashlight beam. They quickened their pace and seconds later entered a wide cavern. Joe slowly made a circle, flashing his light in a 360-degree arc.

They both gasped.

Wherever his light touched, it set the room aglow with shimmering, reflecting light. They were standing in a kaleidoscope. Fed by the light, the colors splintered, amplified and bounced back at them in a fabulous rainbow. It was the most beautiful thing Joe had ever seen.

“It’s like we’re in a gigantic geode,” Cindy whispered.

“Exactly,” Joe breathed.

“It’s incredible!”

Joe shrugged off his pack and set it in the archway of the tunnel they had just left. Three more tunnels left the glowing chamber, each spaced equal distances apart. He didn’t intend to get confused about which one was the exit back to the surface. Each exited the room through gently rounded arches, each nearly identical. It would be easy to lose your bearings with just two or three turns around the room.

“They should be giving tours here,” she said, moving along the walls, gently caressing pink and clear crystal outcroppings as she went. She turned back to Joe, a huge smile on
her face. She was nodding vigorously, hands clenched to gether in a single shifting fist.

“This is where He lives,” she said.

“Who?”

“Him!” she said. Her eyes grew heavy-lidded, soft. “The spirit of the cliff.”

She turned and turned like a dancer, arms outstretched to the ceiling. “Are you here?” she called out.

“No, Cindy, don’t!”

“It’s okay,” she said, ignoring him. “I’ve talked with Him before. He’s very nice.”

In Joe’s chest, an avalanche began to fall.

He raced across the room, grabbed her shoulders and stopped her spinning.

“What do you mean you’ve
talked
with Him. You never told me!”

“I don’t have to tell you
everyone
I talk to, you know,” she said, lower lip bulging. “And anyway, I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“Cindy, that thing
kills
people! You don’t want Him to
notice
you, let alone talk to you!”

She looked around the cavern, anywhere but at Joe’s face.

“He
said
you wouldn’t understand. That’s why I didn’t tell you. That’s why I’ve spent so much time up on the peak at night. He comes into my head and just…makes me feel good. He wouldn’t hurt me. I know it.”

Joe couldn’t believe what he was hearing. All this time, he had been trying to protect her from the thing in the cliff, and here she had been communing with it. He thought about all the things he’d said to her about his investigations…had he given anything away?

“Okay, tell me,” Joe said, pushing her down to sit on the ground. “Tell me what He said to you. What did He tell you about me?”

“He says nice things. He says I’m beautiful…and…when I lie there under the moon, He makes me feel warm all
over. Loved. He wouldn’t hurt me. And He doesn’t ask me for anything either. Well, mostly He doesn’t. The other night, when you were chasing after Angelica, He did ask me to keep you occupied, because He had business to take care of with her and didn’t want you mucking it up.”

“Keep me
occupied
?”

Joe pulled back in horror. “You mean, all that stuff we did in the car…you were just doing that to please Him?”

“No, silly! I wanted you anyway. He just gave me a little…push, that’s all.”

“The same kind of push He gives to kids at the top of the cliff?”

“Yeah, probably,” she said, but there was no fear in her voice.

“Cindy, that monster killed your boyfriend! And who knows how many other people!”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He didn’t kill James—his mother did. And James isn’t dead, not really.”

She looked off into the dark of the cavern.

“I can feel him with me, even now.”

Joe shook her by the shoulders, truly afraid now. How could he protect her if she gave herself willingly to the creature?

She looked at him then, eyes glowing bright with excitement.

“He throws away their bodies, but He saves their souls. I’ve talked with them. So many of them. James, Bernadette, Bob, Bill…kids, old people, travelers…They’re all there, inside Him. Sometimes, in the dark on top of the cliff, He lets James come to me, talk to me…. I love talking with him again.”

Her voice trailed off and Joe stood up.

This was crazy. She was crazy. How could she rationalize talking to a murderous spirit as if it were some kind of gentle lover?

“
Because I am
.”

He jumped. Whirled around, peering into the dark outlines
of the tunnels leading out of this diamond palace. Cindy still sat, oblivious to his fear.

“
Over there
,” the voice directed, and Joe felt his head drawn to stare at the tunnel farthest to the left of the one from where they had entered the cavern.

“
I believe you’ll find what you’re looking for in there. I’ll be back
shortly. I’m still wrapping up my business elsewhere. Enjoy your
stay
.”

“What is it?” Cindy asked.

Joe’s heart was beating like a jackhammer.

“Did you hear Him?”

“No,” she said. “I haven’t talked to Him today. Did He say something to you?” She smiled. “Oh, Joe, that’s great! You can hear him too!”

Joe shook his head and stepped away from her. The tunnel he’d been drawn to see led to a small side room. And there he saw what the spirit had led him here to find.

A book.

The room was really a closet carved in the gray rock, barely five feet wide by five feet deep. There was a thick wood shelf set in the wall and on it, a dark leather-bound book. The dust hadn’t been disturbed in ages.

Forgetting Cindy completely for a moment, he reached out to touch it.

The cover opened with an audible creak; the pages, Joe saw, would never ripple smartly again. The cool dampness of the mountain had gummed and stuck much of the book to itself, but with trembling fingers, he gently tried to open the cover page without tearing it.

A piece of the top of the page ripped away from itself, glued by time to the page beneath. But he got the two separated, and read the blurred calligraphy beneath with wonder. And awe.

The hand had flair, a flourish that Joe found he admired. People didn’t spend much time paying attention to penmanship in this age of printers and computers.

Fascinated, he coaxed open the next page and started reading the diary of the man who’d founded this town over a century before.

It began:

The entry ended there.

What the fuck was this moron writing about?
Joe thought, shaking his head to himself.

He skipped ahead a few pages, and then carefully pried two more pages apart. The yellowed vellum separated in rippled, discolored leafs and Joe marveled again at the date. This was primary research material here! The kind of stuff they kept in the rare-book rooms at university libraries.

Joe pried again, turning the journal a few pages further.

Was this how it all began?
Joe wondered. A town’s elder making a deal with the devil to protect his people from…from
what
actually? A hurricane? A storm of vampires? And how did old Broderick have knowledge of what was to come in the first place? Could it have been just a plant? A ploy by the spirit to gain Broderick’s trust?

He leafed through the book some more, looking for other references. Much of what he found reported only on the mundane life problems of townsfolk long dead and buried. But here and there were sprinkled hints.

Joe shut the book and looked around the yellow shadows of the room. It had all begun here. Or nearby. Broderick Terrel had made a deal with the spirit to save the town from some coming blight. Real or imagined, it didn’t matter anymore. It was time for the bargain to end. And time for the spirit to stop haunting the lives of a group of girls who had had the misfortune to stumble into its lair all those years ago.

Which reminded him that the daughter of one of those women was still behind him in the dark.

He grabbed the book and moved slowly back into the main chamber. The crystals twinkled like stars as his light skipped along their surfaces.

“Cindy?” he called.

He looked around the chamber, but she was nowhere to be seen.