The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [180]
Four black shirts dead in the hall outside.
This man is good, thought Kanazuchi.
More shouts outside and below, reacting to the gunfire, the alarm spreading beyond the House. Frank followed Kanazuchi into the concealed passage. Scuffed bloodstains led them down a flight of stairs, through a short corridor, and out a one-way door into the pantry of the House's kitchen. They paused in the darkness; Frank calmly reloaded. Footsteps and raised voices multiplied around them.
"The Reverend is not here," said Kanazuchi.
Frank snapped the filled chamber back into the Colt. "No shit."
"They took Jacob out that door." Kanazuchi pointed to the door where the stains ended. "I could not see it from my position."
"Well," said Frank, hearing movement upstairs in the passage behind them. "We can't stay here."
They stepped silently across the kitchen and out the door, through a small storage room and into a narrow alley on the north side of the house. Bloodstains and footprints ended, impossible to track farther in the dark. There was no one in the alley, but they heard a mob running toward the House of Hope from every direction. A bell started ringing at the top of the black church.
Kanazuchi led them into the tangled shanties, and they ran from the rising commotion until they left it in the distance. The huts were empty; most of the town was in the theater watching the show. The two men ducked under a shabby tin lean-to.
"Good news is," whispered Frank, "they don't know what we look like."
"Every one of them will search for us," said Kanazuchi, his expression never changing. "We don't know where Jacob is."
"That's the bad news."
Moving as steadily through the rough terrain as Lionel's riding skills would allow, they found The New City road shortly before seven o'clock. Innes took the lead, reading their map flawlessly; Walks Alone guided them through two uncertain stretches. Doyle watched Jack throughout the ride for any signs of life beyond subsistence. None appeared. He gave no response to Doyle's questions, eyes focused on the horizon, face emptied of expression.
Open desert stretched out before them, and as the moon rose in the clear sky, they accelerated their pace to a steady gallop, Lionel clinging to the lip of his saddle for dear life. Two miles along, the horses shied severely, nearly throwing Innes; something spooking them off to the right. Doyle saw dark wings circling above them in the moonlight.
"Night owls?" he asked.
Walks Alone shook her head. She dismounted and moved through a narrow path in an outcropping of rock to their right. A call came for them to follow; the party dismounted, walked their horses in through the passage. Fifty yards on, the horses balked at the final opening. Jack and Lionel stayed behind; the others crept through the rest of the way, weapons drawn.
The full force of the smell hit them as they cleared the rocks. Three dozen vultures scattered.
An afternoon in the hot sun had ruined the thirty-eight corpses in the clearing beyond the terrible outrages already committed on them. Most of the men had been shot; a dozen had suffered under knives. Carrion birds had done the rest of the damage.
Glad we got here after dark, thought Doyle; the blood looked black in the moonlight, abstract.
"Don't touch any of them," said Doyle.
Doyle looked to his left. Jack had come through the rocks and was standing off to the side, staring at the mangled bodies. His features contorted, animated by the beginnings of thought and, Doyle thought, the first stirring of rage. Something fierce in him, triggered by the smell of blood.
Doyle stepped forward and picked up a badge lying in the sand.
"Deputy," he said, reading the badge. "Phoenix."
"They're all wearing them," said Walks Alone, wading in farther.
"Lionel, stay where you are," said Doyle, kneeling to examine a body and seeing him appear in the opening.
"What is it?" Lionel asked.
"Just stay there."
"Most of them middle-aged, obviously