The otter rolled on his back, nipping at his own tail, and the boy laughed. He was so funny! Bobby looked at the shed door, which was now unlocked.
Bobby didn’t want to disobey his father, but the maintenance shed had always held an allure for him. Its dark confines were filled with strange smells and exotic contraptions. And Mr. Whiskers, he was obviously a magical being, like something from a fairy tale. Kids who followed such creatures had wonderful adventures and were protected by their magic animal guides.
The otter looked at him with large, bright eyes.
“Okay,” Bobby said, “we’ll just take a peek.”
He started to turn the knob and the door swung in easily, as if on oiled hinges.
Sunlight poured through the window on one wall, its light catching motes of dust that made the air glimmer and sparkle as if it were filled with pixie dust. The air smelled like paint and mowed grass and oil and fertilizer. To Bobby, these were all smells he associated with being grown-up and using tools. It felt cool inside, much too cool for a shed in the middle of summer, but he was too young to register this anomaly. He looked around, at the stacks of paints, the herbicide sprayer, the weed trimmer, the hoes, rakes, and shovels, saws, paintbrushes, and rollers. It was a wonderful, mysterious place, and he felt like Luke Skywalker must have when
he first met Yoda.
Then he saw the old woman, and he froze.
She stood in the corner, rocking and crying. She was a ghost, he knew, because she looked as if she were made of moonlight and lacewings, and her voice was far, far away.
She scared Bobby, but she made him sad, too. So sad he wanted to cry.
“I don’t like it here,” Bobby told the otter. “That old lady is too sad. Can we help her, Mr. Whiskers?”
The otter turned toward the woman in the corner and hissed, the sharp sound startling Bobby. The ghost-woman evaporated like smoke before a powerful gust.
Bobby wiped at his eyes. He still felt so sad for the lady. Maybe this wasn’t a good magical adventure after all.
Then the otter squeaked, and Bobby saw him balance an old tennis ball on his nose. He stood on his forepaws and flicked the ball upward with a jerk of his snout. His tail swatted the ball in midair, and it sailed out of the shed and far into the weeds.
Bobby applauded, his sadness forgotten.
The otter winked at him, and Bobby waited for the next trick.
The otter scampered over to the workbench and strained up on his haunches to sniff at something.
A package.
It was a large, brown box, taped and slightly dented. Although not brightly colored, it had a mystique about it, as if it were some treasure he had discovered deep under a dragon’s cave.
A treasure.
The otter nosed at it, then squeaked at him impatiently.
“Who is that for?” Bobby asked.
for you
For him? A surprise for him? It wasn’t his birthday, or Christmas. Like most five-year-olds, he kept careful tabs on all holidays or occasions marked with presents or candy. Then he realized that no one had actually spoken. The words had happened inside his head, as if he had heard them without ever hearing them. It was a funny way to feel and not all pleasant. It was a little … creepy.
As Bobby started toward the box, he heard something behind him, an angry chittering. Mr. Whiskers suddenly snarled, not at Bobby, but at something behind him.
Bobby turned, frightened out of his wits that he would be facing an actual dragon, or a troll, or Darth Vader himself.
There at the door was another otter. It was slightly larger than Mr. Whiskers and colored jet-black. Its sleek fur gleamed like oil. It rose off its front paws and swayed slightly, like a
cobra.
“Who are you?” Bobby asked, his voice a choked whisper.
In his mind, he saw an image of himself running, running back to his mommy and daddy. The pictures came to his mind unbidden, and they were different than the words he had not heard. There was a kindness about this new message, a gentle quality missing in the previous one.
To run seemed right. Let his parents give him the gift if it was his. He shouldn’t be here; this was a bad place, a dangerous place, a place of traps and snares.
As he started to move, he felt something gripping the leg of his jeans. Mr. Whiskers had clamped down on his pant leg. Now he looked at Bobby with mournful eyes. But what registered more with the little boy was how large Mr. Whiskers’s teeth were, how sharp.
“I have to go,” Bobby tried to say, but his voice wouldn’t come.
The new otter suddenly sprang and bit savagely at the neck of Mr. Whiskers. Mr. Whiskers yelped in surprise and pain and let Bobby go. The two creatures rolled around the shed, a snarling, tearing, explosive mass of fur, teeth, and claws. Their snarls and spitting were worse than fighting cats, and Bobby ran from the shed in terror.
And into the arms of Jake Sparks.
“Hey there, kiddo,” the big man said happily.
In the garage, Steven dug out a sleeping bag and air mattress while Stan stood near the door.
“Maybe I should go,” Stan said. “Your wife is right to be suspicious.” In a way, Stan hoped Slater would send him away. If he was dead or out of reach of the little boy, he couldn’t hurt him. But part of him knew he wasn’t going to get off that easy. If Christ couldn’t pass the cup, what made him think he could?
“No, I’m not sending you out there to that thing. It’s hurt too many people already. I’m not adding to the body count,” Steven said.
Stan thought of the gun, now in the coat pocket of the old black guy. Easy enough to get to, but they’d be keeping an eye on him. But it was only a little boy they were talking about, and the detective’s hands were strong from years of working out.
Steven looked at Stan, who seemed to be staring at some point over his head. What has he gone through, he wondered, what kind of terrible places exist inside his head?
Jimmy walked in through the side door and held up a small ivory carving on a leather thong. “This is Raven,” he told Stan. “I’d like you to have it.”
Stan took it. “Thanks,” he said, slipping it on over his head. “Protection?”
“Of sorts. Your will is extraordinarily strong despite what you may think. This may help give you a clarity, a focus when things are difficult.”
Stan nodded. “Thanks, Jimmy.”
Jimmy’s answering smile faltered. His face blanched, and Stan was startled at how old it made him look, as if he were well past a hundred.
“The boy,” Jimmy said. “Where’s Bobby?”
“In his room,” Steven said.
Jimmy shook his head. “A small building … The shed!”
Dropping the sleeping bag and air mattress, Steven quickly exited the side door, followed by Jimmy and Stan.
Steven rounded the garage, fearing what awaited him in the shed. Images of Daniel and the other victims of the so-called Taxidermist flooded his mind. As he saw who was coming away from the shed with Bobby, he breathed a sigh of relief. It was Jake Sparks, carrying Bobby under one arm and a battered package under the other. Steven was pleased to recognize their
friend until he saw that Bobby was red-faced, tears wetting his cheeks.
“What’s going on, Jake?”
“Just came to get what’s mine, Steven, nothing personal.” Sparks’s tone was easy, casual. He even smiled.
“Put my son down,” Steven demanded, and began to rush toward them.
Jake shifted Bobby, so that the boy’s feet touched the ground, his small neck encircled by Jake’s large hand. “Stay where you are, Steven. I’d hate to snap his neck.”
“You son of a bitch. Why are you doing this?” Steven asked, trying to remain calm for Bobby’s sake.
“Because your brother took the mask from him,” Stan said, little details forming a completed puzzle in his mind.
“That motherfucker,” Jake spat. “When he realized the thing wasn’t a myth, he cracked me over the head, fucking tied me up. Then he and the Indians we had hired dug it out of the ice, and he ran. Knew enough to keep T’Nathluk at bay but not for long.”
Jimmy cringed at the speaking of that name. And here was Jake Sparks holding the mask, its gateway to this world.
“You must realize,” Jimmy said, “that you cannot hope to master The Faceless One. Stronger men than you have perished trying.”
Jake laughed. “Faceless One. You people are so chickenshit you won’t even call him by name. It’s T’Nathluk, ‘Face of Nothing,’ ‘He Who Is the Abyss.’ T’Nathluk!”
The sun seemed to fade in that moment, and the air temperature dropped ten degrees, then twenty. Though only light clouds had formed in the bright sky, it began to snow, light and airy flakes melting at first, then sticking to the cooling ground.
Jake laughed and started to fumble with the package so he could tear it open, a task made more difficult by holding a squirming child and keeping an eye on the three men before him. “Back off, gents. Don’t make me wring this pup’s neck.”
Stan looked for some option, but his goddamned gun was locked up in the house. Jesus, what he wouldn’t do for those two bullets now.
Steven looked at Jimmy and Stan helplessly, hoping they might have an idea how to save his son.
Jake managed to hook a finger along one of the side seams of the box and tear it slightly. The box weighed only about five pounds, but it had the heft of something larger, greater.
It was as the box began to open that Jake felt the fingers tracing over his mind, delicate spider-feet along the folds of his brain.
let the boy go
The voice was quiet, all in his head, but there was a hint of the talons in it, of red-hot
steel dragged slowly over pale flesh, of fierce and brutal claws rending tender bellies to expose red and dripping secrets within.
let him go
“It’s mine,” Jake Sparks whispered fiercely. “I am the one who should be your vessel. I am strong, and I know this world. I can wield your endless power. This boy is merely that: a puking, crying, snot-nosed child.”
his magic is greater than yours
“Make me The Faceless One, or I’ll kill him.”
Only Steven puzzled over whom Jake Sparks was talking to. Both Jimmy and Stan knew. There was a terrible, all-encompassing silence, and the falling snow halted in midair, like an image from a DVD placed on pause.
very well
The snow began to fall again, quiet and eerie. Jake tossed the kid aside, and Steven ran to the boy, grabbing him up and pulling him back to Jimmy and Stan.
Jimmy removed the small ivory otter from his pocket. It was his last talisman from the museum. He began to chant silently that they all be protected from Jake Sparks and The Faceless One.
Jake looked at them, his eyes bright and mad, and ripped open the package. As he did, his hands began to shake, and his eyes widened.
Here it comes
, Stan thought.
Jake Sparks began to whimper, and it was an eerie sound coming from such a big man. He dropped the package, and his hands went to his face as he began to scream. The sound rose in volume, impossibly loud and shrill, and Steven turned away with Bobby, hoping to shield him from whatever was happening.
The scream continued to rise, the intensity of it tearing Jake Sparks’s throat ragged. Steven thought that if he had to hear that scream much longer, he might go mad.
And then it stopped.
Completely, as abruptly as if a switch were thrown.
Steven looked back, and actually screamed then himself. He covered Bobby’s eyes, not letting him see the horror before him.
Jake Sparks had no face.
His head was as smooth and featureless as an egg yet you could still see blood vessels and musculature under the tanned skin. Jake’s hands frantically explored this new and barren terrain, but if he screamed, he had no mouth to give voice to it. He fell to the ground, writhing and thrashing like a gutted fish, and Steven realized there was no way for Sparks to breathe.
Jake continued to convulse until a shot rang out, then two. One struck Jake in the
shoulder, the other in the head; and then he was still.
There was more screaming then, and crying, and Steven felt Liz hugging him and Bobby tightly, Bobby and Liz both wailing.
Jimmy continued to chant, holding on to a talisman of Otter. The Faceless One whirled about them, unseen by all but Jimmy, then faded, its tenuous perch in this world wiped away with the death of Jake Sparks.
George walked forward, holding Stan Roberts’s gun, empty now. He handed it to Stan before checking the pulse of the faceless thing before them. It was an unnecessary gesture, but it gave George a momentary anchor, a movement grounded in reality. He moved to pick up the box, but Jimmy grabbed his arm, shaking his head.
“No one must touch it,” he said. They all drew back, as if whatever power lay in the mask might erupt from the torn box and burn them, consuming them in some terrible and spectral fire.
The snow continued to fall even though the sky was still mostly clear. Jimmy could see it collecting on shrubs and trees, forming small drifts on the ground. He saw people coming out of their homes, perhaps to investigate the sound of shots, and finding this impossible phenomenon occurring.
Steven handed Bobby to Liz, and she took the boy inside.
The men stood, regarding Jake Sparks and the package, both of which were now covered with a light dusting of snow.
Suddenly, Stan knelt and grabbed up the box, and the others gasped. It seemed to vibrate in his hand slightly, as if a weak electric current were passing through it. His mouth tasted metallic, and there was a hint of ozone and cloves in the air. After all this anticipation, he had expected some sort of malevolent force of nature, some dark god riding out of a storm like a Valkyrie or one of the Four Horsemen. This was the equivalent of touching your tongue to a transistor battery. He waited a moment, to see if his actions might bring the Big Boss, but nothing happened. He put the box back into the shed and locked it, then tested both the lock and door to see if they were secure. He walked past the others and went into the garage. He retrieved the sleeping bag and unzipped it. He walked back out and put the heavy bag over Jake Sparks.