He saw the lights coming closer and could hear the sound of small engines. They roared past—men in white snow fatigues and straddling snowmobiles.
Clutching his wounded arm, Marcus grabbed Ashley. “Are you okay?” he screamed.
She nodded.
“Come on!” He pulled her after him.
She shouted in pain when he again pulled on her bad hand. “Marcus!”
This time, finally, he stopped and turned. “What?”
Tears streamed down her face, the pain so intense. “My wrist is broken!”
He looked down at the hand he was clamping with a vice-like grip and immediately let go. “Sorry,” he said, but there was no time for anything else. He reached for her other hand, pulling on that one instead.
He followed the snowmobiles’ glowing red lights as they slowly faded beneath the wintery curtain. He still had the ring in his hand, but his mind was far from it. His only concern was getting Ashley to safety. Now. He needed a snowmobile.
Once the taillights vanished and dark nothing returned to face them, Marcus turned his attention to the ground, searching for the vehicles’ distinct tracks left behind in the snow.
Ashley’s fingernails sunk into the flesh of his hand and made him look up. She had stopped moving, turning herself into an anchor and halting his forward progress with a jerk of his injured arm. Looking into her face, he could see that her attention was held captive by something up in the sky ahead. He turned to follow her gaze and saw that the wind had shifted. The snowflakes were now completely horizontal and all heading to some specific pinpoint in the distance, as if the switch to some giant vacuum was flipped, the storm sucked into its belly.
They watched as the sky before them cleared of snow, the blizzard itself called into the distance, leaving a calm, empty night in its wake.
Stars twinkled in the sky, offering enough reflection from the snow beneath them to illuminate the landscape and the scene that was unfolding across it. The snowmobiles were converging on a figure standing in their spotlights. The Dark Man, real name: James. It was to him that the snow was being summoned,
he
was the black hole sucking it all in. The snow went sweeping behind him and turned, rallying in the shape of a dragon. The Dark Man’s arms were outstretched, a sorcerer working his magic. The storm behind him coiled like a cobra, waiting for the command to strike.
“Ian!” Ashley hollered, pointing at another figure standing near the driver.
She was right. Ian was standing, motionless, mere feet from the demon…where he was in danger of being struck by bullets intended for their adversary.
But then the Dark Man closed his hands with a clap, and the coiled snow-dragon attacked, leaping forth from behind him, opening its mouth—teeth of ice glimmering in the headlights—and rushed like an avalanche toward the three vehicles.
Marcus quickly threw Ashley to the ground and jumped on top of her, shielding her from the tidal wave of snow that was now cresting twenty feet above them. When the wave hit the snowmobiles, it lifted them off the ground and tossed them a hundred feet away, toward Marcus and Ashley. The men that had been on the machines were tossed even further. Marcus put his hands over his head as the gust roared past them. It moved them a few feet across the ground before dissolving back into the storm again.
Marcus helped Ashley to her feet, once again finding himself blind in winter’s fury, the Dark Man and Ian both hidden again.
“Did you see Heather?” Ashley shouted to him.
He shook his head.
Ashley started walking forward, and Marcus followed. He wanted one of those snowmobiles.
They came across one a few minutes later. It was lying on its side, half-buried in the snow. Marcus ignored the searing pain in his bicep and used both arms to clear the powder from the vehicle and then set it back upright on its tracks. He put Ashley on it. Taking his watch off, he hastily wrapped it around her wrist. “Use the compass! Head south along the interstate until you come to an exit or rescue workers!”
“We can’t leave Heather and Ian!” she protested.
“I’ll get the other snowmobile and go after them myself! I’ll follow your tracks until we catch up!”
“What about that man? He said he was going to kill you!”
Marcus managed a smile. “He can’t!”
She frowned, not understanding.
Marcus held up the ring. “He had his chance already, and he couldn’t do it! I’ll be okay! Now go!”
She hesitated, her eyes filled with uncertainty.
“Go!” he screamed.
Then something slammed into the seat of the snowmobile, leaving a hole an inch below Ashley’s ass. Spinning around, Marcus saw a figure crouching low in the distance, barely discernable in the falling snow. It was there one second and gone the next.
Another
thud…
another hole.
“Go! Now!”
Ashley was no stranger to winter sports, but her broken wrist made it impossible to throttle once she had the engine running again. She had to reach across and use her other hand, which cost her another two seconds and a bullet through her calf.
Marcus knew that she’d been hit, that she wasn’t going to make it out of here before the soldier finally corrected his aim and sent her into the next world—a destination he had no assurance of. He couldn’t let her die. Not here, not now. So he jumped on the vehicle, sitting behind her, and reached around for the handles. He grabbed them and accelerated, shooting a stream of snow straight into the air while shutting off the light. Turning the snowmobile away from the shooting ghost, he positioned them so that his back could shield Ashley’s body from the shooter’s line of fire.
For a second, he thought they might make it. And then he felt a stinging heat explode in his back. Once. Twice. Three times the sensation hammered his flesh. But he didn’t dare let up on the accelerator. He blindly pressed on into the night, hoping against hope that a tree or a fence didn’t put an instant end to their escape.
After what seemed like an eternity, the loss of blood making him woozy, Marcus separated himself from Ashley and peered down into the space between them. He couldn’t really see anything, so he used a hand to search for exit wounds in his chest and stomach. He didn’t feel any. He switched the headlight back on and brought a circle of dancing snow hovering before them.
“Are you okay?” he shouted weakly into Ashley’s ear.
She nodded.
“Can you take over the driving?”
She nodded again and slid her hands beneath his on the handles.
“I love you,” he said. He let go and fell backward off the snowmobile.
Ashley rode on, unaware.
Lying on his back and staring up to a concealed heaven, Marcus quoted his mama’s favorite preacher. “‘Six feet of dirt m-m-makes all m-m-men equal.’” He no longer had any feeling in his body. Whether that was due to the cold, lack of blood, a severed nerve, or all the above, he didn’t know. He didn’t care. The pain was too much, the fear exhausting, and surrender to eternal rest seemed more satisfying than anything else at the moment. He knew he was dying, and a strange peace settled over him, assuring him of better things to come. There was no doubt in his mind that the next act would be a wonder, and his hesitation to leave Ashley behind slowly faded in light of other precious reunions now awaiting him. He closed his eyes.
As the world began slipping away, a cross-fade into some other time and place, he did become aware of approaching footsteps. If it weren’t for the sound of crunching snow, he would have believed the person walking to be traversing a golden street. But he wasn’t there yet.
His life flashed before his eyes—growing up as a boy in North Carolina, the old church and the gateway to hell that had been hidden in its basement, the times spent with his father whenever he was home from Washington, his precious mother and her insistence that he grow up in the faith of her enslaved ancestors, sports, college, the practice, Ashley… There were no questions about the ring, its purpose or why anyone would want it, not now…not anymore. There were no questions as to why such a bizarre turn of events had been plotted out for his life. He figured he was about to find all that out, to enter backstage where the end could be seen from the beginning and so much insanity might actually make sense. He liked the idea of that, and as his life continued playing out like a daydream, he asked only that Ashley would survive the night and find a life beyond all the pain she’d known. He thought of his mother’s face, his father…
A voice drifted through his thoughts, distorted and a million miles away. It wasn’t the voice of any angel or God Himself pronouncing, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” This voice came garbled through the static of a handheld radio. And then, as if to keep him from entering through the gates of his new kingdom, something began tugging at his hand…his finger.
The Dark Man he’d called “James” seemed so insignificant now, a laughable idea robbed of all the power he seemed to have had just minutes ago. “The Crest of Dragons,” he’d called himself. Marcus almost smiled with amusement, and without realizing it, he opened his eyes one last time. But it wasn’t the Dark Man standing beside him. It was a man dressed in snow fatigues, and he was holding something beneath the glow of a flashlight. Then the flashlight swung away from the gleaming object and settled on Marcus’ face. His eyelids closed in retreat, keeping him from seeing the barrel of the pistol being aimed at him.
He slightly registered an enormous clap of thunder in the distance, and he marveled, recalling the psalmist’s words, “The God of glory thunders.” The earth shook beneath him.
Eyes still closed, a smile appearing across his lips, he muttered, “Father, forgive them, for they know not—”
The gun flashed, and the mystery of the ring and the Dark Man was no longer his concern.
Thirty-two
Bullets strike the ground before him, splashing snow up the front of his body. He hardly notices, and instead closes his eyes. He stretches out his hands in a summoning gesture, seeking assistance from that Prince of the Power of the Air. Slowly, he rotates his hands, palms facing upward as if handling some invisible orb. Suddenly, he closes his gloved hand in a fist and pulls it back behind him in a violent jerk. The wind in front of him responds. As if lassoed, it rushes past and coils behind him like a loaded spring. It leaves the terrain clear, all things seen plainly under a dark Christmas Eve sky. Then Jonathan slams his hands together again, and the bottled storm goes rushing past, whipping at his clothes, and charges straight into the face of those he once called brethren. The unleashed weather soars in the form of a snow dragon, its teeth and talons jagged icicles opening to consume the tattooed assassins. The wall of wind slams into them and pulls them and their vehicles high into the air.
The blizzard returns, and the assassins are hidden again. Jonathan turns, satisfied that the bones of his enemies have been shattered, and walks toward the highway, back for his chariot. He has no sense of the ring’s presence now, which can only mean the black man still has it. He can’t believe that he hadn’t considered the possibility before, the reason the ring has been so elusive. He should have known. It’s obvious now that he can look back upon it. But even if the black man has the protection of angels, of God himself, he will not surrender his quest…his destiny. The ring-bearer can’t possibly know what it is that he has, so there is no reason for him to keep it. At some point, he will part ways with the relic, and when he does, the demons will call out to him again. He will be ready.
As he walks, he swears, cursing God for all the games, hating the feeling of being mocked. If God truly is the all-powerful Being He’s believed to be, why then doesn’t He just take the ring and be done with it? Why all the games through the centuries, the constant tug-of-war with His enemies? His shadowy companions tell him that this is the very evidence that proves such a notion untrue. But he isn’t so sure and can’t help feeling used.
The highway nears, and he sees no sign of helicopters. Flames dance across the horizon, blinking through the whiteout.
Something begins nagging at him, something emerging from the myriad of shadows that covers his mind…
James
.
Not even the Society knows his real name, so how does the black man know it? The last person to address him by his real name was the very person responsible for its ruination—his father, Chuck Wilson.
He’d stood there, Papa Chuck, with the baseball bat held loosely in one hand, blood dripping in great droplets off its rounded end. When he turned toward the doorway, he saw James standing there, frozen with incomprehension. Chuck had smiled at his son and wiped the spatter from his face with the back of his hand, smearing the red freckles into streaks. “You wanna take a few swings, James?” he’d asked, holding the bat out to his son.
Turning his innocent eyes from the crumpled form of his mother, her head open and pink stuff spilling out of it, James took the bat. But instead of swinging it down upon his precious mother, he swung the wood exactly how Chuck had always taught him to in the batting cages…and the stained wood made contact with his father’s chickened neck. There was a loud
crack
, and Papa went down, falling into the red rivers that were flowing out from his mother’s body. James had stood there for a moment, shocked at his own action, at the impossible speed in which his home—his entire life—had been destroyed.
Why
? he’d wondered, shaking, the feel of something trickling down his leg, tears burning his eyes. Then something broke. Something in his head, his soul. And the bat began to move again, this time coming down like an axe, over and over again. Until there was hardly anything of Papa left.
At first, some fat pastor tried consoling him with verses from the New Testament, tried getting him to “take his pain to the cross” or some such nonsense. But it was against God that James’ anger was directed, against the one who had sat back and watched it happen.
Allowed
it to happen. If that weakness was the Light, then he preferred Darkness. It mattered little to him that it was the Darkness that had held the bat in the first place, for at least the Darkness
did
something, acted out in defiance to what it opposed. Yes, the world that God made was nothing but a house of horrors, and if God wasn’t going to set it right, then he would find a way to. And so James had disappeared from the earth, Jonathan rising in his place. A year later, he was recruited off the streets by the Order. In time, they entrusted him with the ring, but his union with the mystical object changed everything. Now, with the power it granted, he actually had within his means the ability to fulfill his mission and destroy God’s madhouse. Of course, the Society didn’t share in his vision and had planned on using the ring for some other purpose, something about global empire and a New World Order.