Route 666 Anthology Read online

  Tyree looked from Quincannon to Elder Seth, comparing the Quince’s expressiveness, making handsigns as he spoke as if communicating with an indian, and the Elder’s almost mechanical impassivity. If the Josephite was offended, he gave no indication of his displeasure. Indeed, Tyree thought that for the first time she could make out a real expression on his face, like the ghost of a smile around the very edges of his thin lips.

  … and, in her mind, she had funny pictures. She thought she saw reflections in Elder Seth’s mirrorshades, but not the reflections of the saloon and its patrons. Under an open sky, in Elder Seth’s glasses, red-smeared savages ran riot, hacking at fleeing men. Flaming arrows struck home, red knives did their work, kids fell under horses’ hooves, women’s hair came bloodily loose. Tyree thought she heard the echoes of screams and whoops and shouts. And, in the midst of the carnage he had wrought stood Elder Seth, dressed all in black with red on his face, a long rifle in his hands. The ground under his boots was bloodied…

  “Leona?”

  She snapped out of it. “Sergeant Quincannon?”

  “Leona, you were dreaming.”

  Elder Seth walked further into the saloon, until he was standing directly behind Quincannon.

  “No, I…”

  The Elder’s shadow fell on the sergeant. Quincannon turned in his seat, jumping slightly, and looked up at the man. He held a fork of mule kidney up at Elder Seth, then popped into his mouth.

  “I am given to understand that the raiders who attacked us on the road are in this town, staying at the motel. These people have stolen from the Church. They have important relics. You will help me secure their return.”

  “Hold on a moment. How many of these raiders are there?”

  “That is of no matter.”

  “It may not matter to you, Elder, but I’ve got a Troop strength of four.”

  “My people will help.”

  Quincannon swallowed and stood up. He wasn’t quite as tall as the Elder, but he did his best to look the other man in the eye.

  “That’s a comfort. If it comes to preachin’ the crap out of the ’pomps, I’m sure you’ll be a big help.”

  That shadow smile was back. “In the Bible,” Elder Seth began, “it says there is a time to every purpose under Heaven.”

  “So, now it’s fightin’ time.”

  “If needs be.”

  Quincannon shrugged, and unflapped his holster. “Okay, Elder, lead the way to the motel. I’ll call Yorke in for backup with the cruiser.”

  Tyree and Burnside stood up, leaving unfinished meals, and unflapped their holsters. Tyree knew her piece was up to standard. She’d cleaned it twice since the patrol began.

  “Sergeant, I said the raiders were staying at the motel. I did not say they were there at this moment.”

  Quincannon had been halfway to the door. He turned, looking highly fed up.

  One of the gaudy girls turned on her barstool. She had an eyepatch.

  “Hello preacherman,” she said to Elder Seth, “come for your shades?”

  Jazzbeaux had been wearing the dark glasses she had taken from the preacherman’s motorwagon on a string around her neck. She had looked through them for a few minutes at a time, but—even used as she was to monocular vision—they gave her a headache. They didn’t seem to cut down the glare of the sun, and gave her the uncomfortable feeling she was seeing things she shouldn’t be. A few times, she’d considered throwing them away, but, along with the wallet of cardkeys and cashplastic, they were all the scav she had taken from the resettlers. She couldn’t remember why she hadn’t found more to take, why she’d let them off so easily. And, despite the buzz in the circuits of her optic implant, she couldn’t quite conquer her unease in the presence of the man whose followers called him Elder Seth.

  “Hands away from those guns, yellowlegs,” she said, pulling the rainbow scarf away from her semi-automatic machine pistol, “or I’ll redecorate the saloon with your insides.”

  The Sergeant and the two Troopers held their hands out in front of them, and looked at each other. Jazzbeaux would rather not fight all three, since she knew a little about the Cav weapons training, and hoped she could keep them out of it. Everyone else in the saloon was quiet. The jukebox was running down, some Kenny Rogers number slowing to a growl. The barman was backing away.

  “And keep those pretty-pretty fingers off that scattergun you got down in the slops, darlin’ dear.”

  The barkeep slapped his hands on the bar and left them there. Jazzbeaux nodded in appreciation, and blew him a kiss. He flinched. She turned back to the Elder.

  “If you want the shades, you’ll have to take them, lover.”

  Elder Seth walked across the room. Jazzbeaux felt the Psychopomps with her—Andrew Jean and two others—edge away, leaving her alone at the bar. It was between her and the preacherman. She flipped the safety catch off, and chambered a round.

  The Elder stood in front of her now. If she exerted just a hint of pressure on the hairtrigger, she’d fill his chest with explosive bullets. He’d be cut clean in two. And she had the unhealthy feeling that his face still wouldn’t move.

  She flicked her tongue in and out. “Come on, preach, give me a kiss!”

  He was as close to her as a dancing partner now, the barrel of the gun resting on his sternum. Jazzbeaux felt as if she were alone in the universe with the man. She looked into his face, and it changed in a second. The features became liquid, flowed into each other, and became features again. But different features.

  He had her Dad’s face, she realized. Her Dad’s face when he was hopped up on smack-synth, and pulling his studded leather belt out of his jeans, idiot’s drool on his chin, pain in his brain, death on his breath.

  “Jessa–myn,” Elder Seth said with her dead Daddy’s voice, “gimme the scav. Gimme the scav now, or it’ll go bad for you.”

  Her forefinger had gone to sleep on the trigger. She tried to fire the gun, but her godrotted finger was stone. It wouldn’t move. The gun shook, and she tried to gouge into the preacherman’s chest with the barrel. His hands were on her now, fingers digging into her waist.

  “Jessa–myn!”

  Her cheek was wet, she knew. She was crying. No, her optic was leaking biofluid. It wouldn’t burn. She had a feedback headache coming.

  Elder Seth had his own face back, but her Daddy’s hung just behind his skin, ready to peer through at her.

  Elder Seth took the gun away from her, and put it on the bar, between the shot glasses. His other hand crept up her side, sliding through her armpit, reaching around her back, pulling her to him.

  He leaned his face close to hers. She thought he was going to kiss her, and shuddered at the anticipation of his reptile’s touch, but he just reached up and took off his own mirrorshades.

  She didn’t want to look into his eyes. She knew she’d be dead if she did that.

  But she looked…

  … and she saw such horrors.

  Tyree didn’t believe it, but she saw it anyway.

  The Psychopomps—a creature of indeterminate sex with an orange cockatoo haircut, and two hard-faced girls—stood back and watched Elder Seth go to work on their leaderene. And he just glided across the floor and picked her up like the hero of a romance comicstrip cruising for truelove in the disco hall.

  With a deep down revulsion at herself, Tyree realized she was actually jealous of the ’pomp girl. There was something badly wrong, and Leona Tyree was part of it. Quincannon had his gun out now, but wasn’t doing anything with it.

  Elder Seth whispered something Tyree couldn’t hear in the girl’s ear and took his glasses off.

  It was as if an invisible but blinding light filled the room. Tyree involuntarily shut her eyes and found herself blinking, rubbing her eyes as water flowed from them. Everyone in the bar was doing the same thing. But there hadn’t been any real light.

  The Psychopomp was slumped over the bar, one arm hanging limp, throat exposed. Elder Seth had his glasses on aga
in. He supported the girl, and heaved her up onto the stool. She was either dead or in a dead faint. He lifted her head, and took one of her necklaces off. He held it up. It wasn’t a necklace, it was a pair of dark glasses. The old-fashioned, metal-rimmed, non-wraparound kind. He folded them shut, and slipped them into his coat. They stayed there, although she assumed his jacket, like those of all the Josephites, had no pockets.

  The Elder picked up the girl’s handbag, and emptied it on the bar. The cockatoo laid a hand on him, but backed off instantly, face clown-white under the rainbow make-up. Elder Seth sorted rapidly through the girl’s belongings.

  … Tyree could see that burning village in her mind again. Sod huts, log cabins, cattle and goat pens, all ablaze. And the Elder, on his knees now, rubbing a small dead thing into the dirt, squeezing out the blood.

  Elder Seth found what he was looking for.

  “Mine, I believe,” he said to the cockatoo, holding up a plastic card, he made it disappear in his hand like a conjuring trick, and turned away. He reached out and picked up the unconscious girl by the throat, hauling her upright as if she were as light as a straw doll. Her arms dangled, her head lolled, and her feet scraped the floor. Holding her like a plucked turkey, Elder Seth left the saloon.

  Quincannon followed him, and Tyree snapped to it, followed by everyone else in the saloon.

  The sun wasn’t down yet, but the evening bugs were in the air.

  Elder Seth carried his prize through the ranks of parked vehicles and dropped her in the middle of the road. Her head cracked on the hardtop, and she moaned, stirring a little.

  Blood was smeared where she had fallen.

  666! He heard the Number in his mind.

  There was blood on the road. The road to the Prime Site. And that was as it should be. The blood was the main ingredient of the ritual. It was there to guide the Dark Ones, to call them down, to help them gather at the City, the City of Dreadful Night, the City of the Last Days. He had the glasses now, and he had the Key.

  666! The Number of the Beast!

  The Summoner smashed Jazzbeaux’s head against the road again. The blood flew, and sank in.

  666! The Number of the Dark Son!

  He remembered New Canaan, remembered fighting alongside the Paiute. He had pulled a child out of a burning cabin. It had been grateful, but started kicking and squealing when his muleskinning knife came out. Burned flesh was no good to the Dark Ones, only spilled blood.

  666! The Number of the Apocalypse!

  He had seen so much blood, down through the centuries. He had been born in blood, and continually rejuvenated in blood. There were many places, many names, many faces, but the blood was always the same. Whether on the Mutia Escarpment in Africa, or Judea under the Herods, or Pendragon’s Britain, or Temujin’s Eastern plains or Buonaparte’s Empire or the fields of Kampuchea, the blood was always the same.

  666! The Number of the Neverending Darkness!

  In the Outer Darkness, the Old Ones heard the call. He spoke the words under his breath as his fingers spread the blood.

  666! The Number!

  He invoked the Names. He recited the Nine Names of the Beast.

  666!

  Elder Seth was methodically killing the girl, without distaste or anger, and everyone seemed only too pleased to watch him do it. Tyree had her gun in her hand, but didn’t know who to shoot.

  “Hold on there a minute, your reverendship,” shouted someone.

  Everybody turned to look. Everybody except Elder Seth.

  A short man, nattily dressed in a frock coat and a big black stetson, stood in the street, flanked by two gorilla-shaped individuals with tin stars and Cyberfeed helmets. The local heat.

  Elder Seth was tracing signs on the road with the girl’s blood.

  “I don’t know if’n you have much familiarity with the law, but we take objection to this sort of unruly behaviour in Spanish Fork.”

  The Elder dropped the girl’s head, and stood up. His hands were red, but the rest of his outfit was as clean as it ever was.

  The spectacles he had taken from the girl fell out of his coat and bounced, unbroken, on the hardtop.

  The girl rolled away from his legs, and the cockatoo creature went to help her up. She was still alive, but had a dent in her forehead, and a mechanical doodad was hanging on multicoloured filaments out of one of her eyesockets.

  The short man took his hat off. “Permit me to introduce myself. I am Judge Thomas Longhorne Colpeper, and we do things my way here. Joseph, arrest this man.”

  One of the deputies lurched forwards, his clapperclawed right hand held out.

  There was quite a crowd around them now. Most of the Josephites were there, looking bewildered but not surprised at their Elder’s activities. Yorke was with them, goggle-eyed and slack-jawed. There were more Psychopomps, pouting with indignation and fingering home-made shooting and stabbing irons. And the townsfolk of Spanish Fork had all turned out to see the show. Shutters were going up over breakable windows. And guns were being dug up and handed out like burgers at a B-B-Q. This Situation had all the fixings of a medium-sized bloodbath, Tyree thought.

  The clawed deputy reached out to take Elder Seth’s wrist. With an easy movement, the Elder pushed the big man in the centre of the chest. It looked like a playground shove to Tyree, but there must have been incredible force behind it, for she heard bones snapping and the deputy dropped like a felled tree. The Elder knelt down on him, one knee smashing into his throat. The cyberfeed overloaded, and blew its circuits. The deputy’s head caught fire, burned bright for a few seconds, then turned into a reeking, charred blob. The rest of him was still twitching.

  There was more blood on the road.

  Elder Seth said something that sounded like “sicksicksicks,” and the resettlers gathered behind him. One or two of them looked scared out of their minds, but they still backed him up. Tyree had to fight the impulse to go stand beside the Elder. She got the impression that Brother Bailie, for one, was fighting an impulse to to get out of the line-up and stand against Elder Seth. The man had some sort of unnatural influence.

  The remaining deputy shot his arm out, flat-handing the air. He had a shotgun implant, and there was an almighty bang as he discharged himself. He cocked his elbow, filling the chamber again, and fired a second time.

  “Sicksicksicks!” hissed Elder Seth.

  He had taken one of the blasts full in the belly, and the other in the right shoulder. A Brother who had been standing behind was on the ground with his face in his hands, trying to press it back onto his skull. Elder Seth was still standing, his clothes a ruin, but his body still whole. Tyree saw patches of his skin blackened from the discharge, but unbroken.

  “Sicksicksicks!”

  Elder Seth wasn’t human. That explained a lot.

  This was the site of the Great Invocation. There could be no mistake. The Summoner ignored the stinging in his flesh, and advanced on the man with the gun in his arm. The Deputy reminded him of a Roman legionary he had pulled apart when he rode with Attila. If you lived long enough, everybody reminded you of somebody else. The Roman’s insides had felt slippery and yet tough in his fist. He had been less strong then.

  He took the next blast full in the face. His hat flew off, and he shook the flattened fragments of the charge out of his hair. His shades were destroyed, so he fixed the Deputy with his eyes.

  The Deputy saw the worst thing in the world, and lowered his arm. Elder Seth tore it off at the shoulder as easily as he would rip a silk neckerchief in two and dropped the useless thing on the ground.

  The Deputy bled from the shoulder. More blood for the Dark Ones.

  They were in the air now. He could feel them. The Vanguard of the Beast.

  This would have to end now. Those who would not follow him must die.

  Suddenly, people were dying all around Yorke. They were attacked as if by invisible creatures, and torn apart. Brother Bailie, staggering away from the ranks of the Josephites, sobbing w
ith terror, froze and was pulled up into the air. His clothes ripped, and red rain fell around him. He twisted in the air as if mangled, and fell in several pieces.

  Yorke was down, his eyes hurting as if he had stared full into the sun for a full minute. His head throbbed, and someone kicked him in the side.

  Scrabbling on the ground for his gun, he found something else. The spectacles Elder Seth had dropped. Not really knowing why, he opened them and slipped them on.

  … and the world looked different.

  He screamed. He could see the things that had killed Brother Bailie, that were killing at random, and he screamed.

  He knew them for what they were. The Bible Belt had taught him how to recognize demons. They danced and circled in the air, insubstantially hideous, working violence and destruction. They swirled around Elder Seth, alighting gently on his shoulders and outstretched arms like the doves flocking to St Francis. They gave him offerings of the dead.

  Yorke screamed and screamed until his mind was gone, and nothing mattered any more.

  Judge Thomas Longhorn Colpeper looked into the eyes of the man who was killing his town, and saw the hood of the hangman. He knew what he had to do to end the bloodshed, end the lawlessness, end everything.

  He picked up Larroquette’s arm where it lay, and pressed its hand to his chin. In a reflex, the fingers curled up around his jaw, locking into his mouth. His false teeth shifted. He felt the hot aperture against the soft fold of his dewlap.

  There was a snap, and another, and another. The sound continued, like the popping of flashbulbs around a celebrity on an opening night. Men fell through hatches in his mind. Behind Elder Seth they all stood, heads loose, tongues out, eyes showing only white. He had tried and hanged three hundred and seventeen men, twenty-five women, two indeterminate and one intelligence-raised dog. They were all waiting for him. They had a necktie party ready.