The Brotherhood of the Wheel (26 page)

Wald nodded. “Yes, sir. They all did. Shall I fetch them? We charged them, as you requested.”

“Just this one's.” The rider pointed to Mark and then turned back to Dewey. “Mister Rears will be making a call for us to an old friend,” he said. “Then we will all be making a trip to the woods to … commune.”

Dewey's fear-glazed eyes were fixed on the rider. “You're … you serve it, don't you?” Dewey said. “The thing inside the children, the thing the shadows are made of … You're its human face, aren't you?”

“All will be understood in the woods, Mr. Rears,” the rider said. Now, I need you to make a phone call for me.”

“The phones … they don't work here,” Cole said. “No signal.”

“They will work,” the rider said, “because I will them to.” He motioned to Wald and Toby, and they took Dewey by the arms and led him away from the others. The rider took an object from his jacket, a compact disc in a hard plastic case, and showed it to Dewey.

“You will call your old friend and boss, George Norse.”

“The paranormal radio-show guy?” Mark blurted out.

“I've heard of him,” Cole said. “He's on all over the country. He's got that TV show now, too!”

The rider's face was still as stone. He looked at Wald and Toby. “If any of you speak out again, I will have these men beat you to death with crowbars.”

“Norse,” Dewey said, nodding. “Yeah, yeah … me and George go way back.”

“Yes,” the rider said. “Exactly. You will tell him that you have been investigating an occult serial murderer and you have uncovered a shocking revelation that links him to paranormal forces.”

“What?” Dewey said. “What serial murderer?”

“Me,” the rider said, “of course.”

“Oh God,” Lexi muttered.

“Tell Mr. Norse you have video that will reveal the identity of the killer the media call the Pagan,” the rider said. “Tell him you want ten thousand dollars for the video, and that your friend, Mark, will deliver it to him in his studios in Atlanta.”

Dewey was shaking his head. “This is some kind of bullshit,” he said. “The Pagan has been killing people since the fifties. There's no way that's you, man.”

The rider slid a big hunting knife from a gravity sheath under his riding jacket. The heavy, flat blade flashed against the weak light from the dirty windows. Dewey saw the odd maker's mark on the base of the wide blade—a circle with a half-moon crescent on its side above it, the curve of the crescent barely touching the top of the circle; the points of the crescent, like horns, were ascendant.

“I've been killing people for much, much longer than that,” the rider said. “Now make the call—do it exactly as I told you. Convince Mr. Norse that he needs this video for his television broadcast. Tell him if he shows it on his April 30th broadcast, then the killer has promised to call in to the show that night. Tell him the Pagan will kill someone that night if the video isn't shown. That should do the trick. Make him believe, Mr. Rears, or I will kill one of them.” He gestured toward the prisoners with the knife. “And I will do it slowly. Very, very slowly, and make you watch.”

Dewey felt his balls shrinking and retreating up into his stomach. He wanted to piss himself. He wanted to puke, and cry, and run. But there was no running. “Why me, man?” he whispered, tears and snot beginning to form at the borders of his eyes and nose. “Why us?”

“Consider it your penance for investigating his children,” the rider said. “You wanted so badly to see them, to understand them, and now you're getting your chance, Mr. Rears. Sometimes it's better not to understand.” The rider handed Dewey Mark's cell phone. “Now, make the call.”

Dewey walked away, dialing. He talked to someone for a while, very animated, his voice rising.

“Uh, sir?” Cole said. “What are you going to do with us? We just came here to get our car fixed. Our parents are probably really worried about us. My dad's pretty loaded, he owns a couple of big farms. He can pay you and your guys here if you just get us—”

“You called me a ‘fucking asshole,' a ‘psycho,'” the rider said, moving to stand over Cole. “On the road, do you remember?”

“Oh God, no,” Lexi said. “Please, don't.”

The knife was cold on Cole's skin. The edge nestled behind his left ear. The rider was down on his haunches between Cole and Lexi. “You want him, don't you?” the rider said to Lexi. “I can see it in your eyes. Hell, I can smell it on you—the stink of lust. Tell me the truth, girl. Would you want him if I hacked off his ears, his nose? Maybe a few fingers? His eyelids? Would you still desire this boy? Tell me true; I'll know if you're lying.”

“No,” Lexi said. “No, I wouldn't want him like that. Please don't, mister. He's a good person.”

Cole felt the blade trace a line down the back of his neck, behind his ear. He felt the silver sting of the razor-sharp edge of the knife, a cool shiver of pain. He closed his eyes. His heart was thunder in his chest. He was dizzy with fear; he wanted his dad there to make it all right, to shoot all these assholes and keep them from hurting him, hurting all these people. He wanted it all to go away. Then the blade was gone. The rider's mouth was inches from his ear. He could smell the man's breath—the stench of decay and the heady smell of wet moss.

“You must be intact for what is to come, or else he will be displeased and not accept you,” the rider hissed. “So for now, boy, you get to live with your miserable fear and your pretty, pretty face. Enjoy it.”

The rider was up and walking away from the prisoners, back to Dewey, who was off the phone and flanked on either side by the Scodes. Wald plucked the phone from his hand.

“You got it,” Dewey said. “George is waiting for the video. He wants it for the TV show, this Saturday, the thirtieth, and he will start talking it up on the radio. Ten grand.”

The rider smiled. He had small, white, even teeth. “Good,” he said, and then walked to his motorcycle without another word.

Wald and Toby began to roust the prisoners even as the rider kicked his bike to life again. “Now it's off to the forest with the lot of you,” Wald said. “He's eager to meet you.”

*   *   *

The prisoners were loaded into the back of the tow truck again. Dewey and Mark in the bed, Lexi and Cole in the backseat of the cab. No hoods this time. The Scodes turned right out of the junkyard lot and headed south on the two-lane. The rider, on his motorcycle once again, led them. After about two miles, the rider pulled onto a gravel road. Lexi noticed a large tree beside the road. Antlers were nailed to it, and a roadside altar rested below the horns. She leaned over and tried to bury herself in Cole's chest. The forest—mostly black walnuts and shingle oaks—deepened on either side of the narrow road. The shadows grew longer, and the afternoon sun vanished under the dark canopy. Occasionally, you could see animal bones and feathers tied to strings, gently spinning, hanging from the branches of trees.

“We're going to die,” Lexi whispered. “It's some kind of cult. They're going to kill us out here, Cole.”

Cole wanted to cry himself, but he held it together. He wished he could think of something brave or hopeful to say to her, but she was right. “I won't let them hurt you,” he muttered. They both knew how hollow the words were, but both tried to summon the dregs of belief in them. The road veered to the left, and now Cole and Lexi could see a very old house, more like a cabin, squatting among the tall trees. The rider came to a stop in the bare dirt patch in front of the house, as did the tow truck. Dusk was near, and the brilliant light at the terminator between day and night was swallowed by the darkness of the deep woods all around the house.

“Out,” Wald said. Lexi had an odd moment of déjà vu. His voice was just as cold and uncaring as it had been when he woke them all the night he towed Gerry's car to this hellish town. Wald truly had nothing but cold hate in him, except for his cowering fear of Chasseur. Wald would wring their necks like a chicken's and give it not a second thought. She suddenly flashed to those terrorist-beheading videos on YouTube, those poor frightened people, their eyes dumb with fear, as they spent their last moments in this world—this amazing world full of music, words, art, laughter, sunsets, babies, chocolate, changing seasons, the sweet ache in your chest when you fall into or out of love, ice cream, the taste of ocean foam on your lips and up your nose, making love, fucking, dancing, dogs, cats, silence, noise, love, joy. To leave this world surrounded by nothing but bitterness, simmering anger, and cool madness seemed the saddest thing in the world. The realization of how far she was from kindness, from decent human beings, cracked something deep in Lexi—something she had worked so hard to glue back together. Churning emotions—thoughts she had locked away with the help of all the doctors, all the medicine, all the will to get better, to really live—it was all seeping out again in these, her last moments. Lexi hummed inside like a box full of stinging bees. She and Cole exited the truck while Toby wrangled Dewey and Mark out of the bed. Chasseur regarded the yawning, infinite woods, then turned toward the prisoners and the Scodes. He gestured toward the house.

“I was born near here,” he said almost absently. “At the outpost.” Chasseur kept glancing into the woods. It was the first movement he had made that did not seem choreographed and practiced to perfection. He was looking for something, at something, in the darkness of the woods. “What year was that, Wald? Do you recall? Your great-great-grandfather was alive then. He was a tinker—worked for the Chouteau Brothers, if memory serves.”

“1827, Lord,” Wald said. Lexi noted the shift in Wald's voice—fear, deference, like a mean junkyard dog that had been beaten into docility. “That was the year.”

“Bullshit,” Cole said, not sure exactly where the strength in his voice came from. Maybe it was anger. He was pissed at the sheer stupidity of being led off into the woods to die at the hands of a bunch of moron redneck cultists. “No fucking way you were born in the 1800s. Where did you get your fucking bike, man? Whittle it?” Chasseur turned from the woods and his thoughts to focus his neon stare on the boy. A slit of a smile formed on his cruel mouth.

“I cannot wait for you to meet him,” the rider said, “in the woods.”

“Look, man,” Dewey said, “I swear I was researching all those kids going missing, the links to the Black-Eyed Kids.… I don't know shit about you, or your boys here, and I don't want to. I couldn't tell anyone where we really are, so you guys don't have to do anything harsh here. “Let us go and we'll—”

Chasseur removed his leather glove and placed a cold hand on Dewey's chest. The journalist gasped at the slight touch and was silent. “Places of power reflect, they echo,” the rider said. “I felt the power in these woods as a boy. Here was where I first hunted. I would catch small animals—squirrels, mice, rabbits—and I would take them apart, see how they worked. I enjoyed the sounds they made as I did so.”

“Jesus!” Mark said.

“Not quite. They said I was possessed,” Chasseur said. “I suppose in a way they were correct. They drove me out of the settlement, outcast me. They chased me into these woods and hunted me. It was laughable. I could navigate this wilderness blindfolded. I killed three of them before they called off the hunt. I was nine.”

The rider gestured for the Scodes to rally the prisoners and follow. Chasseur headed toward the back of the house. It was getting darker by the second as they passed a functioning water pump mounted in cement, several piles of firewood, and a wide low stump being used as a chopping block. The rider continued on toward the woods, and Wald and Toby pushed the prisoners forward.

“I lived in these woods for the next nine years,” Chasseur said. “He came to me first in dreams, then speaking to me in the wind slicing between the branches. I began to see his design in the entrails of the things I killed. Slowly, I began to understand what he wanted, what he needed from me, and why he chose me for this great work.”

Chasseur stepped into the tree line. Within a few steps, he was lost in darkness. The Scode brothers paused for a moment and then shoved the prisoners forward. The forest was thick around them, smothering in its closeness. It was getting darker, but that didn't seem to deter Chasseur. He moved silently, precisely, as he found the openings between the maze of green and shadow.

Dewey fell, stumbling and crashing down.

Wald growled and kicked him. “Get your fat ass up!” he snarled as his work boot knocked the air out of Dewey.

Cole was suddenly on the old mechanic, grabbing Wald's shoulder and spinning him around. “Leave him alone, asshole!” Cole said as he drew back a fist to strike Wald's scowling face. Cole suddenly felt the cold sting of a very sharp blade at his throat and heard the rider's cool, even voice behind him.

“Lower your fist,” Chasseur said, and applied a tiny bit of extra pressure to the fat pulsing artery in Cole's neck. Cole complied. The knife stayed at his throat as Chasseur turned his gaze to Wald. Even in the quickly dwindling light, the rider's eyes were burning. “Did I give you leave to harm him, Walden?” Wald looked terrified—all the bitterness and angry joy he had from laying into Dewey evaporated at the rider's soft monotone question.

“No, no, Lord,” Wald said. “I'm sorry, Lord.”

“No harm must come to Mr. Rears,” Chasseur said. “He must remain in good health. Do you understand, Walden?”

“Yes, Lord.”

The blade was no longer at his throat, and Cole exhaled in relief, rubbing his neck. Wald helped Dewey to his feet.

“You okay, man?” Mark asked. Dewey nodded and rubbed his stomach, glaring at Wald.

Scode's stonelike scowl had returned, and he gestured toward the rapidly diminishing back of the rider as he continued deeper into the woods. “Move,” he said.