God of the Dead (Seasons of Blood #1): A dark paranormal crime thriller novel (17 page)

“So how...how’d he--it--become a problem?” AJ asked, unable to control the waiver in his voice. It was not a sign of fear, but rather of eagerness to learn.

“He figured out how to use His power. Until then, He had simply lain dormant, in awe of those other two parts, Enopac and Jh’aask. He was dumbfounded by what He saw, the things He knew, and the power They had, the power He lacked. And eventually, it drove Him completely insane.”

AJ felt an actual physical shudder rack his entire body, his entire
being
, with the thought that one of these three Supreme Entities was a fucking lunatic.

“He found his power, limited as it was, and began to experiment with it,” Logan went on. “Finally, in the year 1348, He gathered an army of the dead in England, and very well could have taken over the planet.”

“Holy shit,” Clover muttered. “The Black Death.”

“That’s how it was covered up, yes,” Logan said.

“There was only one man who stepped up to stop--”

“Why couldn’t the Beings, His Cosmic Brothers or whatever, stop him?” AJ interrupted.

“They cannot. This was a matter out of Their control. They deal with souls before birth, during life, and after death. Walking dead don’t fit into that equation. Again, one man rose to confront Him. This man was only a thief, but his heart was pure, good.
He
was good. And he saved us all.”

AJ looked back curiously at Logan. There had been something in his voice... “How’d he do it?”

“Ripped out Daed’s Core,” Logan said as if it were obvious.

AJ turned around fully in his seat to look into Logan’s eyes, instead staring at his own reflection in those ever-present sunglasses. “What?”

“Each Entity has a life source within them when they take physical form, something that lets them
be
. It’s called the Core and it’s located in the center of the chest, where your solar plexus is.”

“But how’d this thief guy, how’d he know that?”

“I told him,” Logan said simply. “Same as I’m telling you.”

“This is just too much.” AJ faced forward again...but still it felt like the truth.

Clover was silent.

“You
know
that it’s true,” Logan said to both of them. This part of their lives had been determined so long ago that time itself was a joke. It was fate. It was destiny.

Then AJ asked, “Okay,
Methuselah
, how old are you, anyway?”

“Old,” Logan said. “Put it this way; had the crucifixion of Christ actually happened, I could have been there. Back then my hair was black, though.”

AJ could literally think of nothing at all to say. What do you ask the guy who is giving you the secrets of the universe?

Logan kept talking. “I was given the job of helping The Next.”

AJ found his voice again. “This first guy, what was his name?”

“His name was Corbin Munroe,” Logan said and paused. “And you know, you two look a bit alike. Same nose.”

Thoughts raced through AJ’s head. He could hear his name, his
real
name
, being called out by dead voices over and over again. He tried to speak but nothing came out. His throat felt lined with sandpaper. He cleared it and tried again.

“What about the book?”

“The book was given to Corbin after he defeated Daed Sixxez and he was named Guardian. By accepting this book, these responsibilities, he forever cast the fate of his family. The book was passed down from father to son, mother to daughter, whomever was the direct bloodline...few were called upon to protect it, to serve the Purpose, but most were not. Their sole Purpose was to pass the knowledge on.”

“So why does He keep coming back? If His core or whatever was taken out?” Clover asked. Her face had taken on an odd, greyish color like an old cheese. With white knuckles, she held the steering wheel in a death grip.

“Daed Sixxez can’t be killed that way, just sent back into the Nexus in a kind of hibernation. Once the Core is removed, He returns there in a comatose state, waiting for it to regenerate itself.”

“So what happens if He gets the book?” AJ was almost afraid to hear the answer.

“He’ll read it. He’ll learn how to use His powers in ways He never thought imaginable. Worst of all, He’ll learn how to develop them, make them stronger, almost equal to that of Enopac or Jh’aask. And then...” Logan said and stopped, his words drifting off, and again silence settled into the car, and for much longer this time.

AJ sat watching the scenery go by and realizing he had been let in on the innermost secrets of life. In less than fifteen minutes time, he had been told what mankind had been trying to figure out and prove since the very beginning. He knew now in his head, and more importantly, in his heart, that the things he had been told were true.

This was his Purpose, what he was destined to do. Something that had been handed down from his ancestors in a way that was bigger than genetics or history. He turned and looked at Logan.

“What happens if I fail?”

“If Dead Sixxez isn’t stopped, Perdition will be visited upon the earth, death will rain down like a plague. The dead will rise and walk in numbers far greater than those of the living. Everyone will be put to death and resurrected as part of the army. The sun will go out and the sky will turn as red as the blood that stains the earth.”

AJ got a cigarette out of his pack but his hand was shaking too much for him to light it.

“But you have no reason to think you’ll fail,” Logan said. “None in your family ever have.”

AJ heard him speak, and understood what he said, but it was as if Logan had spoken from somewhere far away. The world swam briefly and took on a strange, dreamlike quality.

Suddenly the car was too small, too small by far. He had never suffered from claustrophobia before but he was now in the grips of it. A hot sweat broke out all over his body and he knew he was going to puke.

“Pull over,” he said but his voice was so weak at first that no one had heard. He spoke up again, feeling his stomach turn. “Clover, stop the car.”

She turned and looked at him, doing a double take. “Oh shit! Are you okay?”

I must look like the living dead,
he thought.

Hysterical laughter rose in him but another wave of nausea knocked it down. The car began to slow and pull to the side of the road. AJ was dimly aware that John had turned his flashers on behind them and was also pulling over, as was the cruiser behind him.

AJ opened the door and got out, stumbling but maintaining his balance. He heard the soft
ding ding
of the car and heard the computer voice advise that
a door is ajar
.

Lubbock stopped his car and got out, pushing his hat back on his head and scratching his brow.

AJ staggered off the road toward a grove of bushes. Everything he had eaten in the last day came up in a warm rush just as he reached the other side of the shrubbery. He grimaced at the sight of the puddle and spat over and over, trying to rid his mouth of the foul taste. He stood there a moment later with his hands on his knees until he was sure his period of regurgitation had passed. When he turned, Clover was standing in front of him, smiling.

“Looks like the fate of mankind rests on the shoulders of a guy who can’t even keep down his Lucky Charms.” AJ managed a small grin. Clover stared for a second and then broke into laughter.

“Now now...that’s not a very heroic thing to say.”

He began to feel better, the strength creeping back into his body, and he was no longer sweating.

John and Logan stood next to Clover’s car, the detective taking the opportunity to light a cigar, waiting for the kids to return.

“So. Mr.
Perish…
is it?”

“You can call me Logan.”

“I would typically introduce myself here, but it seems you already know who I am, that right?”

Logan turned and the two regarded one another.

“Jin spoke very highly of you,” Logan said. “I trust you read his letter?”

“I did,” John said. “Burned it after.”

“Good,” Logan said. “And your verdict?”

John heaved a long sigh, staring down at the smoldering tip of his cigar. To Logan he looked in almost physical pain.

“If that shit-show at the hotel hadn’t happened yesterday? Might be a different story. Then again, it might not…I seen some things these last few days that I have no sane explanation for. People that should have been—that
were dead
—getting up and walking around. Choked me, one of them. A woman that had slit her wrists and bled out in her bathtub hours before she was ever on that autopsy table. This is
after
she tried to choke out our boy, of course.” John sighed and took his hat off with one hand and ran the other across his head, his short hair rasping against his callused palm. He placed the hat back on his head and took another couple puffs on his cigar.

They paused in their conversation for a moment, to the sounds of AJ, vomiting in the bushes.

“If this was
anything
else,” John continued. “If it were
any other case
in the world that ran along the normal course of things, you’d have been cuffed to a table in a small room with no windows and a big pane a two way glass set into the wall, and you and me, we would have had ourselves a long conversation. Again,
if
it were like any other case.”

“But it isn’t,” Logan said, his voice almost a whisper.

“No,” John said. “It isn’t. Neither was Jin’s last case. Do you know anything about it? Todd Bowden?”

“I don’t know much about
Mr.
Bowden,” Logan reached up as he spoke, the tip of his finger gently running across the bottom end of the scar that started at his hairline and ended at his cheekbone. “I met his
wife
once, though.”

“No shit?”

Logan nodded. “It was, well, a
while
ago. Long before she was Tereza Bowden. I’m here to help, Detective. That’s all I want you to know, and it’s all I want to do. I’ve been in this particular line of work a long time, and it seems lately that things are getting worse. We needed Jin, same as we need AJ, same as we need you. I know that when thing’s got really bad at the end there, for Jin, when you started seeing things you couldn’t explain, I know you stepped back.”

“I—”

Logan held up a hand. “You were ordered to, I know that, and more, Jin knows that. But you felt a sense of relief at those orders, part of you did. The things you saw were at war with everything you’d learned to expect from this world, and that’s understandable. Forgivable, even. So is climbing into a bottle to try and forget those things, and to try and erase the guilt you feel for turning a back on your friend, orders or no. If it helps to know this, there isn’t a single thing you could have done to help him, at the time. Those two kids though, you can help them, but not by interfering with me. No doubt you’ve already had someone run that name, Perish, and my description, through your computers.You might have even pulled one of my prints, before we left the hotel.”

“Thought about,” John said. “I really did.”

“You won’t find anything. All you’ll do is waste time, and time is the thing we have the least. We’re on the same side here, yes?”

John stared into the distance for another long moment, thinking of the letter, and Jin’s wild theories about Mrs. Bowden. They didn’t seem that wild, now.

He turned to Logan, hand extended, knowing full way that if things went for him the way they’d gone for Jin, he would always be able to trace the sudden downward trajectory of his career to this moment.”

“I’m happy to have the help,” John said, as Logan took his hand,

A moment later, AJ reappeared, walking back toward the car, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand, while Clover held the other,

“He gonna be all right?” John asked.

“Oh yeah,” Logan said. “Happens every time.”

John looked at him and grinned.

About an hour later, as they neared their destination, John flashed his lights and all three vehicles pulled to the side of the road. He got out and walked up to the passenger side of Clover’s car. AJ unrolled the window and John motioned for one of the detectives in the squad car to join him.

“Okay, kid. You said your parents got a lot of hedges and shit out front?” John asked.

“Yeah. I figure if the two of you park there, it shouldn’t be a problem. You can’t really see the road from inside the yard.”

They all drove on.

“Take a right here,” AJ directed. Clover flicked on her blinker.

“That’s your house?” she asked. It was a huge, three-story Victorian home set in the middle of a two-acre plot. “Damn.”

The car rolled to a stop in the driveway. Only then could they see that the picture window in the living room was smashed. Splatters of what could only be blood stained the white siding below it. The front door looked as if it had been hit by a hurricane, the screen barely hanging on by a hinge.