God of the Dead (Seasons of Blood #1): A dark paranormal crime thriller novel (21 page)

She had looked into Steve Nielsen’s eyes when he was possessed, but what she had seen in his was a fraction of the real thing. They weren’t black, or empty or insane, it was as if they were just...gone. Two empty portals leading to an unthinkable world of landscapes bound in human flesh, the misery skies looking down upon a pulsating tumor, the dead sun vomiting its desperate green light forever. She realized she was being slowly hypnotized and found it very difficult to break the eye lock. She closed her eyes, feeling her mind wanting to crack. It held but Clover knew it wouldn’t if she had to look into those eyes much more.

“Wh-what are you?” she finally choked out in a voice that was meek and terrified.

“You already know. That white-haired fuck told you all about me.” Then He spoke in a Logan’s voice, “Daed Sixxez, Lord of the Nexus, and He’s completely insane.” At this last part He threw His head back and began to laugh. Her body seemed to soak up the sound, much the same way it soaked up radiation from an X-ray or UV rays from the sun. It made her eye swell a little more and her heart pound a little harder. You could get cancer from hearing that laugh, she would swear on it.

He stopped laughing as suddenly as He had started, His face serious. She watched a spider crawl out of His nose and into His mouth.

“I’ll have his soul. The soul of The Next, the end of life, control of a world filled with walking dead.”

“You can’t win,” she said, knowing it was a bad idea but unable to stop herself.

“Listen to me, you little bitch!” His voice was rage. He drew closer, so close she could smell Him, could see the pores of His skin. To add to her own private horror, she realized now that there was something beneath it, writhing and itching to get out, something more horrible than any mind could imagine was zipped up inside, waiting.

“The time has come. This circle is about to close, and when that little shit shows up I’ll consume his life force. I’ll eat him up and suck the marrow from his bones!” An almost dreamy look stole across His makeshift face. “I’ll make his ribs into a footstool. And you...” He brushed her hair back and ran His finger across her face, down her neck and to her left nipple, which He slowly rubbed between His thumb and forefinger. “I’ll make you my mistress. How’s that sound?”

“Go to Hell!”

“I don’t need to. I can bring it to us.” He laughed again and leaned forward, sticking His rattlesnake tongue out and licking it across the side of her face. It felt like sandpaper coated with mucus. She could still feel the path that finger had traced down onto her breast, as if it had left a trail of hot slime in its wake. She knew that if He wanted her, He would take her.

She closed her eyes.
Hurry, AJ, I need you
.

CHAPTER TEN

Hurry, AJ, I need you
.

AJ sat up straight and looked around the room, wide eyed. He shook his head to clear it. He had heard Clover’s voice. Except that wasn’t quite right, was it? He hadn’t really heard anything. It was almost as if he had thought it. The words, her words, had suddenly been in his mind, and he had
sensed
her, damn it. He now knew she was alive, there was no doubt about that. But for how long?

AJ could still feel the time running out and he was, for now, unable to do anything. He felt small and helpless, like a child. He looked up as Logan came out of the bathroom.

“You all right?” Logan asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“You look like you saw a ghost.” Logan turned to the cop that was sitting at the small table. “Can we go now?”

The officer nodded and stood. AJ got off the bed and found his shoes. The three of them went outside and got back into the police car and headed to the hospital.

* * * * *

John adjusted his bed so he was more or less sitting up, reclined. He flipped through all nine channels at his disposal, still hopelessly searching for something that wasn’t on. There was a church channel. Skip. A Spanish channel. Skip. A rerun of
Three’s Company.
Barf. Channel after channel broadcasting crap flipped by, then renewed the cycle again with
Teletubbies.

John clicked off the TV. If he’d had his gun, he might have shot it in disgust, put the fucker out of its misery. He groped for the little buzzer that rang at the nurses’ station just down the hall. He could hear it faintly as it went off, then dropped the control indifferently beside him on the bed. A minute or so later a young, pretty brunette walked in.

Real classy-lookin’ dame, John thought. It wasn’t the first thing to cross his mind, but it was one of them.

“Yes, Mr. Lubbock?”

“Call me John, will ya?”

“Of course, John. Now what did you need?”

“Could I get something to eat?” John asked.

“Well, the lunch is served in another hour--”

“Ah, come on. I’m dyin’ here.” He gave her his most endearing puppy dog grin and to his delight it initiated a small but very sincere smile from her, and the intensity of their eye contact was bumped up a notch. It was almost as if she had just noticed he was there.

“Welllll...okay. I’ll go downstairs and see what I can find. Any special cravings?”

“How ‘bout a doughnut?” John said, the words popping out before he could stop them or say anything else.

Are you fuckin’ kidding me
? John thought, wishing now for his stitches to bust so he could just roll over and bleed to death.
A fuckin’ doughnut, you fat fuck?

“I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not promising anything.” She smiled at him again and his pulse quickened.

“Thank you, uh...”

“Sherri.” She stuck her hand out to shake and he took it, then in a flash of boldness that was totally unlike him, he kissed it. “Thank you, Sherri.”

She blushed and took her hand back. “Well, it’s good to see you have some of your energy back.” She laughed and turned to go. John watched, admiring the way she swung her hips. The door shut behind her and the moment was over.

John blinked twice and then looked down at his arm. He tried to clinch it into a fist. A dull, throbbing pain began in his shoulder and spread like a fever down to his tingling fingertips. He was able to close it about half-way, but you had to be positive in a situation like this, right? Sure, he was worried about his arm. But he was more worried about last night. He had blacked out shortly after being shot and had no idea what had happened. Again he tried to stay positive, to believe the best possible scenario until he was told something else: Terrance came back to normal, then he and Logan shot Steve full of so many holes he whistled when his body fell lifelessly to the ground. Yeah.

John continued to think these things over until his door opened again and Sherri poked her head in.

“Good news, John.”

“What? My stocks are up?”

She giggled and he fell for her all over again.

“No...I got you some doughnuts. And you have some visitors,” she replied and swung the door open, stepping inside and letting AJ and Logan in.

“John, how ya doin’?” AJ asked.

“I’ll let you all catch up,” Sherri said and set a plate containing two glazed and a sprinkled doughtnut down on John’s bed tray. She looked back at him and smiled as she left.

“What did the doctors say?” AJ asked.

“They said I’m lucky. Nowhere near the damage that coulda been done, and I guess the bullet missed some major artery by about an inch, otherwise I likely woula bled to death.”

“Jesus Christ,” AJ said.

“Kid, I’ll be fine. I’ll have to do physical therapy and all that happy shit, but doc thinks I’ll gain a hundred percent use back.” John said. “Now shut the door, will you?”

Logan closed the door and then stood, leaning against it, to keep out any surprise visitors.

“Is she okay?” John asked quietly, not quite looking at AJ.

“She’s alive, but they have her.
He
has her.”

John ran his good hand over his face. “I’m so goddamned sorry, kid. We’re gonna get her back, you understand me? Now, did they get the book?”

“No,” Logan said, pulling his trench coat back to reveal an ancient leather satchel hanging against his left hip, the strap slung diagonally across his body. The bag was taut on its strap with the weight of the book. It looked to John like some alien cocoon and it gave him the chills.

“That’s something though, right?” John asked, looking back and forth between AJ and Logan. “Didn’t you say as long as we got this book, we’re good to go, yeah?”

“It’s something, yeah,” AJ said with a sigh.

“So what do we do now?” John took a doughnut off the tray as an excuse to look away. AJ shrugged, chewing his thumbnail and looking at Logan for an answer; it was a question he had been asking himself for quite a while.

“The only thing we can do,” Logan said. “Wait for the Calling.”

AJ and John shared a look, neither knowing what Logan was talking about.

“What’s
The Calling?
” AJ asked, adding a sportscaster inflection to his voice.

John caught what may have been laughter rising on Logan’s face, just for an instant, before the man’s age and experience crushed it.

“It’s like having a dream while you’re awake, like a vision.”

“And...” AJ prompted.

“And you will speak with the Entities, with Jha’ask and Enopac. They will tell you the time for confrontation has come.”

“Then what?”

“You confront Him,” Logan said in a perfect deadpan tone. John wasn’t sure, but it might have been an attempt at humor. It reminded him of someone finding a particularly interesting tool after having lost it for a very long time. It was a little rusty, but you had to try it out a little at a time, making sure it still worked.

“But how do I find him? Do they show me?”

“No. You’ll just know, like you do with Clover.”

AJ felt more tired than he could ever remember being. He tried to remember the last time he’d had a good night’s sleep. It wasn’t that he
couldn’t
sleep, he fell asleep just fine. But the dreams, god, the
dreams
were getting out of hand. He crossed the room and sat heavily in a chair with a sigh and a slump.

“You all right?” John asked him. All at once the kid didn’t look so good.

AJ shrugged. “This is all so fucking strange, man. Every time I think I know its asshole from its elbow, it grows another arm or something, you know? It feels like I’m suffocating.”

“Listen, kid,” Lubbock began, setting his doughnut back on the tray. “You’re handling this better than anyone could expect to. Besides, it’ll be over soon enough, I s’pose.”

“I hope so, John. I really do.” AJ ran his hands through his hair and looked at the floor.

* * * * *

The pain the pain oh god the pain
was the only thought running through Steve’s head. He had entered a new realm of physical, psychological, and spiritual agony since returning to Daed Sixxez without the book.

Daed stood back, examining Steve where he hung on the wall, like someone studying their own painting. He could keep someone alive and in pain for a very long time; He had developed a talent for it.

Daed had started by pulling his eyes out. He had held the first one out in front of him and forced Steve to watch as He popped it between cold, pale fingers. He pulled out Steve’s teeth. And his tongue. Then off came his toenails, his fingernails, and his cock. He had beat him, cut him, and burnt him. The body now only vaguely resembled that of a normal human being.

Daed had gone about doing all of this one thing at a time, slowly and methodically, like a man that has many small chores to do. And he enjoyed all of it, every minute, relished every scream.

He could hardly wait to hear Munroe scream that same way, it would be sweetest music to His ears, each drop of crimson blood would be the twisted liquid joy that only one such as Daed Sixxez could feel.

When He was done with the boy, He would do something with the girl. He had big plans for her. After the circle closed and His powers were complete, He would make her a slave, a mistress. He licked His lips as He thought of all the things He would do to her and what He would make her do to Him. Images of sick, nasty sex ran through His head as He took a solid grip on one of Steve’s ears. He braced His other hand against the side of the man’s head and pulled.

Inhuman, primal screams issued from the bloody, toothless hole that was the mouth as the wet, meaty, tearing sound of the ear being separated from the head began. More blood ran out of the body, dripping and splattering the gore-streaked bricks of the grimy floor. If the holes of Steve’s missing eyes had still been capable of sight, perhaps they would have seen Daed’s grin of sadistic glee spreading wider.

The ear landed with a plop, sending up tiny splashes of blood. The focus came back to Daed’s black eyes. The grin wasn’t as wide anymore but it was still there. He licked the blood off His fingers and turned away from the ruined form on the wall, leaving it to twitch and shudder in the dark. He walked away, unknowingly stepping on Steve’s other eyeball and popping it as He went.

He had things to do now, things that must be done in order to prepare for the confrontation that was ever so close at hand. Over the last few nights, the moon had risen into the sky like a soul leaving a body. It was a fat, white orb and perfect but for one thing: it was not yet full. In two days’ time the moon would be complete, a wide, open eye to watch as He claimed His throne and brought the end to man. When it rose in forty-eight hours it would be a killing moon, a harvest moon, and it would be red like the blood He had licked off His fingers, the blood that was now trickling down His lower lip. Daed wiped absently at the rivulet, smearing it across His chin.

In two days, His circle would close forever, one way or another. He knew this was His last chance to control this level, this ring of life. He would either be triumphant and rule or be defeated and banned from this realm forever.

This seemed a little odd to Him. He didn’t know it was possible to kill a god and didn’t know how it could be done. If only He’d gotten that fucking book...

No matter. He would be victorious. He could smell it in the air, the smell of victory was the heavy, licorice stink of rotting flesh and bodies bloated with gas and time. He could taste it like the salty, coppery-red taste on His tongue.

He knew it and He knew He had to prepare. There would be no more attacks on the boy. No more undead minions would be sent out into the night, Munroe was too strong for them now, and his powers would only increase as the confrontation drew nearer. Daed would rest, conserve every last ounce of his Hellish strength, for win or lose, Daed knew the battle would be the biggest of His long and strange existence.

* * * * *

Clover stood where she had stood since she had first awakened from one nightmare into another. She had no idea how long she had been there, there was no time. There was fear, there was pain, and there was Him. She had managed some sleep, from pure exhaustion, but had been awakened by screams that held more suffering than she had ever thought possible. Clover had no way of knowing for sure that it was Steve Nielsen screaming, but she thought that it was. She wasn’t too sure how she felt about it, either. He had willingly betrayed them, had stolen her away into the night and delivered her unto the threshold of madness. This warranted a punishment, but she didn’t think Charles Manson or Hitler or even Dick Cheney deserved to go through the things that could make a man scream like that.

However, she didn’t feel remorse either. Clover was numb to it all, like her arms had become after being outstretched for so long. The numbness ended in her shoulders but a deep, dull ache spread throughout them and down into her back. She couldn’t feel her legs from below the knee, but above it they were two knotted and weakening pillars of fire.