“…
even as severe thunderstorms and tornadoes ravaged the southern end of the storm. The storm, which began on February twelfth, prompted the governor of Maine to declare a state of emergency, the governor of New York to call in the National Guard, and the mayor of Covington, Kentucky, to postpone Valentine’s Day…”
Ian closed his eyes and knew that what he was hearing was nothing short of a prophetic description detailing their next twenty-four hours. Not just an inclination or a feeling, he knew this as a matter of the strictest fact.
How
he knew it was another matter. He seemed to know a lot of things lately. Like the fact that Heather was carrying his
daughter
in her womb and that she was struggling with whether or not to keep her. He also knew that she wouldn’t go through with it, that Ashley wouldn’t let her.
Ashley
… Just like that, the knowledge of Ashley’s miscarriage came to him, uploaded from a tethered connection to some alien source.
What source?
But the feeling that came with knowing seemed so natural that it failed to terrify him. Information just slipped into his mind with such effortlessness that—
“
…I-78, between Lebanon County and Allentown, was shut down because of a fifty-mile backup caused by accidents and ice, stranding over a hundred trucks alone and leaving people without food, water, and heat—once their vehicles ran out of gas—for twenty-four hours. The National Guard was called in to help the stranded motorists. Other stretches of I-80 and 81 were shut down, as well as the PA turnpike the following day… Snowdrifts in the Poconos were covering roads faster than crews could clear them, and more roads were closed… The Adirondacks saw forty-two inches of snow, while the hills and valleys south of Syracuse accumulated twenty-four to forty-five inches of snow… Lackawanna County and Luzerne County in northern PA had so much snowfall that every highway had to be closed…
”
Ian massaged his arm. It hurt like hell, and the bleeding hadn’t stopped yet. Ashley had taken a good chunk of flesh, like some rabid dog or crazed zombie. He wanted to beat her with a baseball bat until her brains began oozing from her nose…even while thankful she’d stopped him from killing Heather. There was no doubt in his mind, as much as he despised the thought, that he would have surely crushed her spine.
He shook his head and tried to will this new disease out of his body. It seemed to be turning itself off and on at its own leisure, leaving him struggling for dominion over his thoughts one second and feeling perfectly normal the next. He didn’t know if there was a triggering mechanism or what it could be if there was one, but the feeling that some other entity had the capability, at will, to slip its fingers into his mind and then vanish as if it had never been there was more than unnerving. He only hoped that the uninvited thoughts would refrain from pushing him to violence again.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, willing the wave of psychosis from his body. Finally, it left him, taking with it all the insane feelings toward the people around him—people he loved. He was himself again, but he knew that he was still sick, and that he had no power in and of himself to conjure up a cure. Without help, he could be lost forever, slave to its intrusive possessing. He needed help, and his spirit wanted to cry out for it, for the God he’d rejected so long ago. But Jimmy’s broken body, lying there in that casket…
No
. He refused to go to the God who had let that happen. Free will, sovereignty, theologies that argued the whys and hows of evil… He didn’t give a damn. His brother wasn’t here, would
never
be here again, and that was an infected wound that was never going to heal.
Marcus braked when the taillights of an old station wagon glowed a brighter red in front of them. The Saab slid on the ice a little, and Marcus struggled to bring the car to a stop before kissing the bumper of the wagon. Thankfully, the vehicle behind them was also able to stop in time.
“I don’t like this,” Heather whispered. They were in bumper-to-bumper traffic, restricted to movement in small, incremental spurts, and her claustrophobia was gearing up for an invasion.
Ashley didn’t respond to her this time, her own eyes focused on some faraway place.
The voice on the radio wished everyone a safe time out on the roads tonight before issuing yet another warning for certain parts of northern Pennsylvania. The blizzard was moving in and was going to dump feet of snow on top of the ice. The voice faded to more music, “Carol of the Bells.”
Five minutes later and they still hadn’t moved an inch. Car horns sporadically honked around them, and people were beginning to yell out their windows. What they were yelling about was anyone’s guess. Whatever the cause of the backup, it rested miles down the road and well out of earshot. Ian looked behind. The caravan of lights was now stretched all the way to the horizon, and the line of cars and trucks behind them would soon be even greater. They were trapped until whatever caused the delay was removed. A multi-car pileup might take hours, but feet of snow? If authorities weren’t able to get to the scene, they were looking at a
long
night. Perhaps it would even take days to dig the miles and miles of cars from the coming snow, soldiers’ hands pulling stranded occupants from wheeled tombs.
“Try another station,” Marcus said. “See if we can get a traffic report.”
Ian leaned forward and, with his good arm, went to work scanning the airwaves. After going from one end of the dial to the other and back again twice, he gave up. “I’ll try again in a few minutes.”
“Maybe someone else knows something,” Heather said. Before anyone could stop her, she opened her door and stepped out into the freezing cold, almost slipping on the ice in the process.
Ian watched as she knocked on the window of the car beside them and spent a few moments talking to the passengers inside. The wind was whipping her golden hair around with such force that Ian feared it might pull her away, drag her kicking and screaming down the highway. The mental image of that actually happening was so strong that it sent chills through his body, and he knew that it was more than his imagination producing the scene. It was a premonition. Only, in reality, it wouldn’t be the wind dragging her by the hair.
She turned away from the Saturn beside them and returned to the backseat, shivering next to Ashley as she tried spreading the car’s heat back into her limbs with her hands. “It’s freezing out there,” she stammered.
Ian recognized that sound, the chattering teeth, the slurred speech. He had no desire to revisit that feeling. “What did they say?” he asked.
“A pile-up, five miles ahead.”
“How do they know that?” Marcus wanted to know.
“They’re talking to someone on the phone.”
Ian turned his eyes to their surroundings once more. Lights as far as he could see—white behind, red in front—and across the white earth that separated the north and south lanes, another parade of lights was lining up.
It’s coming.
He could feel the fact of it writhing with life inside him, birthed by wearing the ring. The driver of the Camaro was coming for the ring…for the end of the world.
“Here it comes,” Marcus muttered, peering up into the sky.
Ian turned and followed Marcus’ gaze to the dark heavens, to the golf ball-sized snowflakes sweeping down at them. A fierce gust of wind rocked the Saab and whipped the snow into a dizzying dance that blotted out the night.
Marcus began whispering, “‘Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? Or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?’”
“What the hell is that?” Ian demanded. “More preacher talk?”
“The Book of Job.”
“Ah.”
“This is bad,” Heather commented as she watched the large flakes land on the ground. They failed to dissolve upon impact, and in less than a minute, the road’s shiny black surface was painted white.
Ashley just kept staring ahead, unblinking, unmoving, barely breathing.
“Look!” Heather leaned forward and pointed up through the snow.
Ian squinted, trying to see something beyond the storm. Then he saw the searchlight. “Helicopters,” he said. There were two of them, coming from the north, spotlights reaching down like UFOs looking for subjects to beam aboard. They flew overhead, passing with a
whoosh
, their lights passing over the car ahead of them and next to them, but missing Joyce’s Saab.
“Police.” Heather was following them out the back window.
“We should go,” Ian said.
Marcus looked at him. “Go?”
“They could be looking for us, for the Saab.”
“In the middle of this?”
Ian stared intensely at his friend. “He’s coming.”
“Who?”
“The Crest of Dragons.”
“What?”
But there was no time to explain what he knew or how he knew it. “We need to go.”
“Go where, Ian? It’s freezing out there. We’re not dressed—”
“We’re going to be stranded here for days unless the police get us or
he
kills us. Either way, staying here is not an option. Better to move now before the snow is too deep.”
Marcus stared at him, eyes full of horrible understanding. Then he looked back at Ashley. She didn’t seem capable of traveling even five feet through the turbulence that was picking up outside.
“We need to,” Ian stated. There was no flexibility in his voice, and his eyes conveyed the assurance of his words.
The helicopters flew overhead again, their lights continuing to search.
Though Heather wasn’t looking forward to braving the elements again, she didn’t want to be entombed in the car either. She leaned over and grabbed Ashley’s shoulder. “Ash, we’re going. Come on, snap out of it. Please. We need you to walk.”
Ashley slowly turned her head toward her. “Okay,” she whispered.
Ian sighed in relief and wrestled the door open against the wind. They needed to move. He was almost here. The Crest of Dragons was almost here.
Ashley fought to gain some element of control over her mind and body, forcing open the door she’d imprisoned herself behind. The darkness it offered had been a blinding relief to horrors too great to ponder, but she knew that isolating herself from the world would only lead to more death and horror. She needed to summon a surge of willpower that might slay her warmer thoughts of retreat. She needed to go on until this was done, until the evil was put to rest. Until that dark demon had what he wanted. But even as she opened the door, she wondered why the monster would be coming for them now. The ring wasn’t with them, so…
When her foot touched the frosted blacktop, it betrayed her by shooting out from under her, propelling her down onto the hard surface and chasing the air from her lungs. She laid there on the ice for a moment, dizzy and confused, her vision fading in and out. She must have struck her head. Rolling onto her side, she tried to push herself up, but the wrist that she’d hurt skiing a lifetime ago screamed out in protest. She collapsed, gingerly holding her hand, the pain clearing her vision.
Her head was next to the Saab’s rear right tire, and as her vision began to focus, she noticed something protruding out from within the rubber tread. She almost ignored it as she struggled back to her feet, but something about it captivated her. Standing there, slightly aware of the others moving away from the car and heading down the highway without her, she stared at the tire. Whatever the object was, it kept splitting in two and drifting apart from itself. She brought her hands to her head and rubbed it, trying to force her eyes to stay focused. She squinted, stepped forward. Even as she reached out her good hand, she knew. Knew why they were still being hunted.
When her hand touched the bronze band, a streak of purple lightning coursed through her body, accompanied by a sort of revelation. A picture of what was to come. Of Heather being dragged through the snow, of soldiers and guns and dragons and hell. She saw the man who had raped her, saw his head crumble beneath the tire of a truck, exploding like a melon, those blank eyes that had stared into her own while he violated her rolling away from his head. But this was not a courtesy call from justice informing her that the universe had finally acted on her behalf. This vision was an offer, a scenario that could become reality if only she wished it to be. Fear and hatred and fury swept through her, and if she could bring about the man’s demise by simply willing it, then surely somewhere out there, at this very moment, a truck had just squashed the brains out of his diseased head, his vile eyes never to be set on another woman again.
The sensation passed. She shuddered. Marcus was calling her. Lifting her eyes away from the ring, she set her gaze over the line of cars and their glowing headlights, and peered through the clouds of exhaust that rose like the smoke of an offering to some highway god. The hatred that coursed through her terrified her simply because it was not hers, its bestial quality too similar to what she’d felt when trying to rape Marcus and chewing Ian’s arm off. She had forgiven that bastard a long time ago, back when she resolved to keep the baby. This hatred toward him now was someone else’s. Somehow, it had gotten inside her.
“Ashley!”
She turned toward Marcus and ran…without realizing that she had the ring clasped firmly in her hand.
Twenty-eight
Once one of the most trusted and able members of the Society, Jonathan sits in his pilot’s chair, eyes closed. His black chariot purrs loudly, the horses that are its engine groaning in anticipation. But there is nowhere for the beast to ride, for though it inherits many occult powers via its operator, flight has never been one of them. Jonathan sits in traffic, waiting for a sign, for a command. He can feel the ring’s presence up ahead and knows the Saab is stranded somewhere in the long line of frustrated and even scared Christmas Eve travelers.
They should be scared
, he thinks.
Tonight, hell will open beneath them and swallow them whole
. A smile tugs at his scarred lips, though his eyes remain closed behind his sunglasses.
Soon
. Very soon.