The Remnant (35 page)

For decades there had been two powers in
California City, that of the Prophet and that of the Angels. Now
both those scepters would be wielded by the same man.

As it should be.

Shortly he would cement his authority by
making the emergency announcement to the gathered townspeople. Then
he would symbolically close the door on the past by doing away with
Ashley. It had only been while stropping the knife that he had
decided it was time to be rid of Ruth as well. She was nothing more
than a nuisance, anyway, and in the end she would only end up
reminding him of the past nearly as much as his daughter. Time to
tie up all the loose ends.

Eventually the Prophet of the LDS excused
himself to the solitude of a rear seat where he spent the final
hour of the flight mumbling into a cell phone. Then, at a small
desert strip outside Cedar City, Utah, Jedadiah, Trace, Marie and
the Mormon bodyguard transferred from the plane to a long dark
limousine-bearing the ubiquitous outline of the standing angel in
white on the bumper.

"You want to tell me your plan now?" asked
Trace.

As the car rocketed along the highway they
passed three state police cars in rapid succession, but none
offered chase.

"We are not without friends in California
City," said Jedadiah.

"That’s comforting," said Trace. "But there
are something like three thousand people there who aren’t likely to
be our friends, and who knows how many Angels who have probably
already made it back."

"Yes," said Jediadah, frowning. "Frederick
Rendt’s infamous Avenging Angels. Or rather Nehi Rendt’s Avenging
Angels. He passed them on to his son. Quite a legacy."

"A very deadly legacy."

Jedadiah nodded.

"You don’t seem all that worried," said
Trace.

Jedadiah cocked his head and stroked his
short beard, chuckling. "I’m seventy-four, Mister Wentworth, and my
God will take me when he wills. Should I fear that?"

"What if God and the devil are just playing
games? What if we’re no more to them than pieces on a
chessboard?"

Jedadiah shrugged. "Then I shall probably
find that out as well, eventually."

"It isn’t God and the devil," said Marie,
shocking both men with her self-assured, calm voice.

"What do you mean, sweetheart?" asked
Jedadiah.

The girl stared the old man in the eye until
Jedadiah’s smile faltered.

"It isn’t like you think," she said.

"What isn’t?" asked Trace.

Marie frowned, squinting through the
windshield as though seeing past the desert into some other world.
"The war started six thousand years ago between the gods."

Trace glanced at Jedadiah, but the old man
shrugged.

"Satan rose up and defied God, and because of
that he was cast out," said Jedadiah.

"That’s just a story. What really happened
was your God stole the throne," said Marie.

She frowned and cocked her head as though
listening.

"They call it usurped," she said, nodding.
"But ever since that happened there has been war."

"War in heaven?" asked Trace.

Marie nodded.

"That would explain a few things," said
Trace, nodding to himself. "Like why we get mixed signals down
here."

"How do you know this, my dear?" asked
Jedadiah.

"God tells me."

Trace noticed the frown growing on the old
man’s face, and he laughed.

"You find this humorous?" said Jedadiah.

"I find it funny that the head of the Mormon
church is just now discovering that a young girl is getting
revelations from God. That must be a hell of an enlightenment to
you. You don’t believe girls talk to God."

"I don’t talk to your God," said Marie,
staring at Jedadiah.

The old man’s frown spread. "The devil is the
Prince of Liars, my dear. He can twist and turn us every which way.
You shouldn’t listen to him-"

"I’m not. There is no devil. There never was.
There’s only your God and my God and those who follow them. Here
and in heaven. The war is almost over, and only one of them is
going to win."

She turned away to stare out the window at
the cactus and sand, and it was evident she was through
talking.

"Still," said Trace, turning back to
Jedadiah, at last, "surely
your
God doesn’t want you to
simply throw your life away... Or ours."

Jedadiah smirked, regaining some of his
composure. "You must have more faith, my son. More faith."

But when the Prophet turned away Trace could
see how the girl’s words had shaken the old man. Within this very
vehicle they carried the seeds of the destruction of the religion
Jedadiah had based his life upon. Now Marie claimed that not only
was the Mormon faith false, but the God of Abraham was a usurper.
If that was so then Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were all false
as well. If anyone believed the girl she might shake the very
foundation of western belief. And Trace feared that many would,
because
he
had been shown the reality of something
other.
It was only reasonable to believe that if a six
thousand year war for the hegemony of heaven was finally won
whoever was victorious was going to make one hell of a stir.

They passed through St. George and crossed
the border into northern Arizona, the long shadows from the yucca
and scrub pine looking like angry claws reaching toward the car.
The highway was long, flat, and empty, and when the driver pulled
over onto the dusty shoulder and climbed out to open Trace’s door
Trace felt a nasty tickle of apprehension between his shoulder
blades. Jedadiah noticed the tight look on his face and laughed
again.

"Honestly, Mister Wentworth, you’d think I
was the devil himself. James! Would you please fetch us something
cool while we wait?"

Jedadiah slipped out of the car and offered
Marie his hand. The girl followed him around to the shadier side of
the automobile where the driver was already offering Trace a soda
from a cooler in the trunk. Marie and Jedadiah took drinks as well.
The heat off the sand pulsated like embers and wavy mirages danced
against the darkening sky as Trace rubbed the cold can against his
forehead. Just as he was about to ask why they had stopped he saw
cars in the distance behind them.

A great many cars of all makes and models,
but all driving behind one state policeman with lights
flashing.

"The cavalry," said Jedadiah, smiling
broadly.

As the limo crested a rise that was barely
more than a bump in the highway Trace got his first look in four
years at California City in the distance. He had come to this
remote corner of Arizona originally in search of answers after the
massacre in Mexachuli. But he had found nothing here but a stone
wall, and after being threatened more than once by the locals he
had elected to continue his research from a distance. It had turned
out to be easier to parse information that way-tracing tax records,
travel records, even finding a source for phone records-than trying
to find anyone in the NLDS who would talk to him. Jeffords had been
a mesmerizing prophet, and even those members sent into exile for
whatever sin all wanted to return back to the fold. Either that or
they were terrified of the Angels. In any case Trace had found only
three sources who would talk to him even outside California
City.

Devotion, obedience, and terror were the
three cornerstones of the pyramid Jeffords and Rendt had built
here.

The late afternoon sun still baked the brick
homes and curled the siding on those clad in vinyl. A thousand
windows reflected the bloody glow of the sky as though the houses
were all clawing their way to a bleary-eyed, vampiric wakefulness.
At night the town would look eerily like any other, the parsity of
teenaged boy on the streets not so obvious.

Jedadiah noticed Trace’s stare and once again
read his mind.

"Seems lifeless and bleak, doesn’t it?"

Trace nodded. "There is a peculiar horror to
that place that the exterior
normalcy
only accentuates. I
noticed it the first time I was here. At the time I just figured it
mostly had to do with the sullen, oppressive form of the Prophet’s
religion. Later I learned differently."

"Please do not refer to any of them here as
Prophets, Mister Wentworth. I would ask you that in the utmost
friendship."

"All right," Trace agreed. "But you wouldn’t
like the other things I’ve called them."

Jedadiah smiled, nodding. "You have had much
reason for wrath. Do you understand how my own people have
suffered?"

Trace sighed. "I think you know how much
research I’ve done."

Jedadiah nodded. "I will not argue that our
history is spotless, nor even nearly as pure as we would like the
average member to believe. Accidents happen."

"You’re saying that Mexachuli was just an
unfortunate accident?"

"These people are an embarrassment to myself
and my faith, Mister Wentworth. But they are not members of my
church. I am only responsible for them in that I feel a
responsibility to anyone who is downtrodden, threatened,
brainwashed, or abused. And add to that the fact that many of the
hundreds of children and, indeed, adults, forced out of this
hellish town have ended up the wards of good Mormons who
are
under my purview."

"That’s why you’re here? Taking the law into
your own hands as it were."

Jedadiah stared at Trace. "Would you have me
let you out here and turn this caravan around? Or perhaps you would
prefer to borrow my phone and call the authorities
.
After
all, none of my people have any jurisdiction in this state, which
is one of the reasons the founder of this abomination moved his
congregation here in the first place."

"No," said Trace, shaking his head. "I’m
grateful for your assistance. I’m just trying to understand
it."

"
You
brought
me
the casket and
its contents."

"But I don’t think that’s why you’re doing
this."

"Perhaps because I too, feel a calling," said
Jedadiah, staring not at Trace but Marie. "For the time soon cometh
that the fullness of the wrath of God shall be poured out upon all
the children of men; for he will not suffer that the wicked shall
destroy the righteous."

"You have no idea," muttered Marie.

Both men waited, but once again the girl was
silent.

Hidden behind what sufficed for a hill in the
desert overlooking the dusty sprawl of California City the men of
the caravan gathered. The last remnants of blood-red sky over the
mountains wounded the sands below, and Trace shivered in the sudden
chill.

"Those will be Angels," said Trace, handing
the binoculars back to Jedadiah. "The younger men, standing honor
guard around the coffin on the veranda there."

"That will be Jefford’s body," muttered
Jedadiah. "We received word that he had passed away. How
convenient."

"Very," said Trace.

Jedadiah nodded, passing the glasses to the
driver and turning to climb back into the car.

"Your friend, Ashley, and her father are in
the house, now," said the Prophet. "She was seen being taken
inside. Neither she nor Rendt have come out."

"That’s only four Angels on the porch around
the coffin," mused Trace. "There are a lot more."

"Indeed," said Jedadiah. "Our best estimates
are well over a hundred. But we have information that there are as
many as sixty still in route back from the valley. It is not
logistically simple to remove such a force along with its
impedimenta and to keep all the movements secret."

Trace stared at the old man. "You knew they
were getting ready to attack the valley?"

"No," said Jedadiah, shaking his head
emphatically. "We tracked some of Rendt’s communications. We knew
something was happening. Not what. It seemed unlikely to me that he
would risk another attack."

Trace frowned. "So how do I get in there
without getting killed and get Ashley out?"

Jedadiah nodded toward a stockily built man
wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans over black boots. There was
a pistol strapped under the man’s arm and a tiny microphone hung
beneath his lip. He carried what looked like a small machine gun.
Trace noticed others, similarly clad, climbing from the other
vehicles.

"We will go and get her for you," said the
man, looking to Jedadiah.

The old man nodded again, but Trace shook his
head.

"No," he said. "I’m going, too. I appreciate
your help, though."

He noticed that Marie had sat down on the
front bumper of the car and was staring dully at the pavement. She
didn’t look as feisty as she had when delivering her revelation to
the Prophet
,
and he wondered if grief had struck her hard
again. But there was no time to comfort the girl now.

"You are not trained, Mister Wentworth," said
the man.

"The men I am sending into California City
are all volunteers," said Jedadiah. "They have all served in elite
units in the military. They know and trust each other."

"And not me," said Trace.

Jedadiah shrugged.

Trace was torn. On the one hand he thought he
had been pretty sly in surviving this long. And so far he had not
been forced to give Rendt what he wanted, thus allowing him at
least the hope that he and Ashley might still be together. She
might forgive him for giving the Casket to Jedadiah. She never
would if he gave it up to Rendt. But he had come all this way to
save her whether she ever spoke to him again or not. He had a
burning need to personally rip her from Rendt’s hands and to finish
this horror, himself.

On the other hand Jedadiah was right. He had
no training. In a fight he might be more of a hindrance than a
help, and he did not want to get more people killed trying to
protect him. But Ashley was just over that hill, and who knew what
Rendt was doing to her at that very moment? When Marie gasped Trace
spun.