The Faceless One (48 page)

Jimmy’s face was very pale. It was streaked with tears and blackened stains of charcoal. His chest was bleeding copiously, and Steven could see the ends of two broken ribs poking through his flesh. His arms were covered with large punctures where the spines had emerged. Some of the spines lay broken off in the snow, but they were already melting, as if made of black ice.

Stan reached down and picked up the face that had been torn from Jimmy’s.

It was the papier-mâché mask of Bobby, designs painted on it in wet blood. As he lifted it, the black eyes fell out of it and landed in the snow. To Stan, they looked like ordinary black marbles.

Steven looked at the mask, then at Jimmy. “How?” he asked, his voice a whisper.

“Mask is … a way to adopt the form …” Jimmy gasped. “Had to use his blood … sorry I … hurt him. You had to believe it. Fool The Faceless One.”

Bobby was crying. Jimmy touched his small face. “You’re very brave, Bobby Slater. I am proud to know you.”

“We’ve got to get you to a hospital,” Steven said.

Jimmy shook his head. “No time. Too much to do.”

Jimmy heard a voice, then, light and almost musical.

“How long are you going to keep me waiting, old man?”

Jimmy looked up and past them.

Rose was standing there, dressed in a blue parka she had embroidered during their first year together. On the back he knew was a design of Raven done in colored buttons.

He smiled at her. “Soon,” he said. “I guess you’ve waited long enough.” She nodded and stood patiently.

None of them except Bobby could see who he was talking to, and the adults thought he was becoming delirious.

But his eyes cleared, and his voice steadied.

As the snow around them began to melt, he told each one what they must do.

And then, Jimmy Kalmaku, last shaman of the village of Yanut, died far from his home but in the arms of friends.

Jimmy found himself crossing the aurora borealis. He felt good—wonderful, in fact. He was surrounded by millions of stars shining crisp and brilliant.

Such a place was not within the Tlingit mythology, and he was pleased to know there would be many mysteries on this side of the vale. He longed to find Rose and spend eternity just reveling in being with her.

He looked ahead and saw an immense white raven regarding him solemnly.

“Naas shagee Yéil,”
Jimmy said reverently, and was only slightly surprised to see that the raven had transformed into a man in a mask and a long cloak of feathers.

It was Uncle Will.

The old man shrugged off the cloak and mask, and they fell away. He lit his pipe and offered Jimmy a draw.

“Hello, Uncle,” Jimmy said, pleased to be welcomed into the Afterlife.

His uncle smiled. He clapped Jimmy’s shoulders and hugged him fiercely. “You have done well, Mouse. I am very proud of you.”

Jimmy again felt like a small boy, pleased to have earned praise from his uncle.

“This,” Jimmy said, gesturing to the stars and the bright curtain of shimmering lights, “it’s all so beautiful.”

“This is your reward from Raven,” the old man said, “a sight no one but the Dead usually see.”

“But I am dead,” Jimmy said.

Uncle Will smiled and shook his head.

“Even now, your son labors to keep you in the Land of the Living,” Uncle Will said, “and your friends send up prayers and blessings hourly. It seems you have many who care for you, Mouse.”

“And I care for them,” Jimmy began, “but I am tired, and I miss Rose.”

Uncle Will nodded. “I know, Mouse, I know. I would have brought her here, but there is always a danger for the uninitiated to become lost.”

“I don’t understand,” Jimmy said.

“Raven has more for you to do, Mouse.”

“With all due respect to Raven, there are many stronger, younger than I …”

Uncle Will laughed. “That is certainly true, but you have power, Mouse. And you and your friend George Watters, you make Raven laugh. He has decided to make you his champions … for now.”

“And, if I refuse?” Jimmy asked.

“Raven will let you live but only as a cripple in Golden Summer. Much like being a baby again, I suspect.”

Jimmy shuddered. Go out like a warrior or waste away. Some choice.

Fucking Trickster
.

His uncle clapped him on the back.

“Wise choice, Mouse. I will help you when I can, and Raven returns his gifts to you. Safe journey.”

The stars began to fade, and Jimmy thought he heard laughter somewhere, laughter like the harsh caws of
Naas shagee Yéil
.

It took Stan the better part of five days to reach the abandoned village of Yanut. He had said a small blessing for the place and buried Jimmy’s otter talisman at the entrance to town. After a brief rest, he headed north.

Flying would have been much faster, but Stan couldn’t risk having someone touch the backpack he wore. Even as carry-on luggage, it might be touched by a security guard or another passenger as it came through the X-ray. Better to drive and make sure he was the only one who touched the bag.

He knew that he was the focus of a nationwide manhunt, one that the FBI had now joined. He had dyed his hair red and donned a false mustache and glasses but figured it was only a matter of time until he was caught. So he drove for hours without stopping, this time by choice. Thankfully, the trip was not as long as his first, and he could eat or relieve himself when he needed to.

The worst part was the whispering.

The voice of the Big Boss was in his head constantly. Promising, cajoling, wheedling, threatening, and screaming. It never let up, and his dreams were alternately filled with grand promises and dire threats. He saw himself in lavish palaces, the object of desire. He saw himself killed in a thousand slow and terrible ways, through tortures unimagined by the minds of Man. He was both cherished and despised, fawned over and abused by the thing trapped within the mask.

He realized that this was the price Richie had mentioned so long ago. He was glad Richie had not revealed it to him at the time. He might have lost his nerve there in the Arizona desert, and the world would be covered in blood and ice.

Three hundred miles from Yanut, the terrain became a forbidding landscape of snow and rock. He found the little town of Mawlik that Jimmy had told him about. He left the car, keys inside, near a tavern, and within an hour it was gone. He never saw who took it.

He found the house where Jimmy had said it would be, and an old Haida man named Yellow Smile. Yellow Smile had replaced his incisors with gold teeth, giving him a slightly sinister look. Jimmy had told Stan he could rent a dog team from Yellow Smile. Stan was distressed to find that Yellow Smile had sold his business to an enterprising white man named
Denny Copelan, who had taken the teams down to Anchorage. There he rented them out to tourists who wanted to live out some bullshit Jack London fantasy.

When Yellow Smile found out that Stan had been sent by Jimmy Kalmaku, nephew of Will Jacoby, he had offered to let Stan borrow his own dogs. Stan was grateful, but the old man became hesitant when Stan wanted his assurance that the dogs could find their way home on their own. Yes, he had finally said, but wouldn’t Stan be able to guide them? If he was afraid of getting lost, he shouldn’t be renting a team. Stan assured him he knew where he was going. He just liked to be prepared. In the end, Stan had ended up paying him an extra five hundred, and this had quelled Yellow Smile’s doubts.

Stan set out early the next morning as the sun was just beginning to rise. The team was dependable and strong, and he made good progress. He traveled with the dogs for three days, eating spare rations and making sure he did not tax the animals. Whenever he came near them wearing the backpack, they would whine, so he often left it on the sledge. In those moments, playing with the dogs, far enough from the mask that its whispering was silenced, he was almost happy.

He had written a letter to his kids, and George had mailed it from O’Hare Airport in Chicago. It read:

Mike, who was nearly fifteen, tore up the letter in disgust. His father was the subject of gossip and rumor, and Mike had gotten into several fights at school. Other kids accused him of being perverted like his father, of being a murderer’s kid, of being weird or evil or insane. He hated his father, hated what he had done and that he left his kids to suffer in his stead.

Emily, who had just turned twelve, had retrieved the letter from the trash and carefully taped it together. She believed in magic and still believed in her father. She kept the letter, and whenever she felt sad or discouraged, she would take it out and read it. Years later, its tape yellowed, its writing faded, she still had it. Not a sunrise came but that she felt her father had somehow helped that sunrise happen, and that the world had another day, another chance, because of him.

* * *

Stan found what he was looking for at the end of the third day. A rocky outcropping that had a deep crevasse going down at least a hundred feet. Come winter, the crevasse would be covered in snow and ice, sealed forever.

After removing his luggage he sent the dogs off although they were loath to leave him. When he held the pack high over his head, they understood. The lead dog hung his head and chuffed, then the team hurried off, carrying the empty sledge toward home. By the time it returned to Yellow Smile, there would be no trace of him.

The Big Boss, sensing what was to come, began screaming at him. It was a terrible, grating sound, all shattering glass and breaking bone and sizzling flesh. Stan tried to ignore it, but tears began to stream down his face, and a thin runner of blood dripped from one nostril.

He put on a necklace of talismans Jimmy had left him, and the whispering faded although it did not subside. Feeling a bit self-conscious, he put on the Chilkat coat, the shaman’s headdress, and the octopus bag Jimmy had stolen from the Southwest Museum. Around his neck, sealed in heavy plastic, was a warning in English, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, German, and Arabic:

Steven and Liz had researched the translations on the day Jimmy died. They knew anyone who might find the mask would probably ignore any warning. They could only hope Stan was never found.

Stan had suggested they encase the mask in concrete and drop it in the middle of the Pacific. But Jimmy had told them that The Faceless One was bound to the snow and ice of his homeland. If separated from it, events would conspire to bring him back. And that would surely mean the involvement of more innocent victims.

Stan had over a hundred feet of coiled rope. They had found on the Internet how to make a knot that could be loosened from below, and he tied it to a jutting piece of rock. He put on the pack and a shoulder bag of provisions and lowered himself into the crevasse.

It was slow and torturous going, and several times he almost slipped. He had no wish to spend his final hours with a broken leg, so he was cautious. Finally, he reached the bottom, and it was very dark and very cold.

He disengaged the rope and pulled it down into the hole. Soon, there would be no trace of him above.

He pulled a glow stick from his pocket and snapped it, filling the small cavern with greenish light. There were bones down there, some of which looked quite old. That was comforting somehow.

He made himself a last meal of cold stew and a Hostess Twinkie. Richie had loved those things, and he saved a last bite for his partner.

He settled in, trying to get comfortable, the cold leeching into his system. The foul thing in his pack kept jeering and taunting him, and he began to cry, the events of the last week (had it only been a few days?) cascading over him in a torrent of grief and misery. He felt very alone and so very afraid.

There was a small sound and he looked up. The glowstick had gone out and he snapped another one, his last.

Above him on a small ledge of snow was a black otter. It looked at him with large, bright eyes.

Stan wiped his eyes, not sure if the creature was friend or foe.

“Keh-keh-keh-keh,” it said softly. It moved toward him very slowly. It was not stalking him, he realized; it moved slowly so as not to frighten him.

He held out one hand, the tips of his fingers already going gray.

The creature nuzzled his hand.

Stan smiled.

It climbed up his arm and curled around his neck. It was warm and dry, the feel of its fur soft and comforting, like a mother’s caress.

It purred in his ear, a small and happy sound that, for all its gentleness, drowned out the awful sounds of T’Nathluk.