Peter stood at the bottom of the stairs. In one hand he held an antique double-barreled shotgun and in the other a box of ammunition. He tiptoed around the blood-soaked towels on the hallway floor, averting his eyes as he returned to the living room.
Davila had not moved from the couch. She sat with her hands tucked between her knees, her small pistol dangling from her fingertips. She had retrieved it from Gryphus's body before Brisling hauled it into the back room.
Peter hefted the shotgun. "I'm going after Saul."
Davila looked up and eyed the weapon in Peter's hand. "I'll go with you."
Brisling emerged from the hallway, rolling up his bloodied sleeves. "What did I hear you two just say?"
"We're going after Saul," said Peter.
"Like hell you are. You're lucky to be alive. We all are."
Davila chambered a round and activated the safety.
"Do you really know how to use that?" said Brisling.
She jammed the pistol into the holster at the small of her back, tugged her jacket down over it and nodded at Peter. "He's the one I'd worry about."
"Fine. But why not wait for the Feds? They should be here any minute now."
"What Feds?" she asked.
"FBI, NSA, Homeland SecurityâI don't fucking know. They've been following me for days. Does it matter?"
"Why would they be following you?"
"Stick around, and I'll tell you."
Peter had moved to the front door. "We don't have time."
Outside, it was snowing in earnest now. Two inches had accumulated on the ground. Faded footprints encircled their rental SUV, clustering near the front. Peter was just about to get in when Davila grabbed his arm.
"Look!" she said, nodding at the hood. Someone had left it unlatched.
"Gryphus?" said Peter.
She backed away, nodding.
"What did he do to it?"
"Let's not find out."
They hurried to Brisling's Jeep, but it too had been tampered with, apparently in the same way. Peter scanned the property for the Gordons' car, but it was nowhere to be seen.
"I wonder if she took it."
"Who?"
"Demi, Saul's granddaughter."
"What about that car?" said Davila, indicating a small, snow-shrouded vehicle parked behind the detached garage. It was Peter's Corolla, his mother's old car, the one he had abandoned at the ford in the river.
They approached. No footprints marked the ground. Peter opened the driver's door to a little avalanche of snow then slipped inside. Closing the door, he sat in darkened silence, taking in the faint scent of his mother's vanilla hand lotion, the echo of "Solveig's Song," her favorite composition.
Daylight flooded in through the windshield as Davila swept it clear of snow. She threw open the front passenger door and dropped in beside Peter. "Do you have the key?"
He smiled. Lowering the sunshade, he took the butter knife he kept there and inserted it into the gouged-out ignition switch. As he gave it a twist, it occurred to him that the car might not have been repaired at all, just towed back to the Gordons' house. But with a belch of black smoke from the tailpipe, the engine sputtered to life and rumbled reassuringly.
At the end of Delbert's driveway, they followed the tire tracks, now barely visible, up toward the summit of Steens Mountain. The Corolla labored in the thin mountain air. Each time its tires slipped, the engine roared and misfired.
At last, the final ridge swept into view, a craggy spine that seemed to rake the bustling clouds. There at the summit, a half mile up the ridge, a large black SUV waited. They soon lost sight of it as they rounded the base of a rocky knoll. The road grew steep, and the Corolla's front tires began to spin out of control, engine revving wildly.
Davila gripped the assist handle above her door. "Let off the accelerator!"
Peter took his foot off the pedal, and the tires stopped spinning. But they were losing momentum fast.
"Get your tires on the shoulder!"
"Which one?" To their left, a shallow ditch separated the road and the knoll. To their right, nothing but a narrow strip of rocky ground stood between them and a cloud-filled chasm.
With her left hand, Davila reached over and took the steering wheel. Peering out her window, she guided the slowing vehicle onto the right-hand shoulder. "Now go!"
Peter downshifted and stepped on the accelerator, both hands on the wheel now. The engine roared, tires spitting chunks of rock against the undercarriage. They lurched forward, fishtailing left and right before regaining momentum and returning to the center of the road.
Davila reached back for the shotgun and box of ammunition. Opening the shotgun's breach, she loaded both of its stacked barrels. "Are you sure you know how to use this?"
Peter shifted gears as he gave the weapon another quick glance. It was just like his air rifle back home. "Aim and pull the trigger," he said.
"Right, but be sure to set the stock firmly against your shoulder before you fire. And aim for the center of mass. Shoot to kill. If you need to empty the second barrel, slide your finger back and pull the rear trigger. Do you understand?"
Before Peter could answer, the Corolla bucked and shimmied toward the right-hand shoulder. He wrenched the steering wheel hard left and jammed the brakes. The wheels locked, and they slid across the road.
With a bone-rattling jolt, the Corolla's front-left tire dropped into the ditch. Peter threw the transmission into reverse and stomped on the gas, but nothing happened. The engine had died. With the butter knife, he tried to restart it. He tried again. Nothing. The dashboard blazed with red and yellow warning lights. Dropping the knife, he leaned his forehead against the steering column and listened as the Corolla's engine clinked and sighed beneath the hood.
"It's not far to the summit," said Davila.
She was right. Lifting his head, Peter reached out and gently touched the dashboard with his fingertips. Then he grabbed the shotgun, threw open his door and scrambled out.
He had taken maybe five steps toward the summit when Davila grabbed his arm from behind and spun him around, her black hair whipping in the wind. "If Jason Dayan's up there, he's already heard us. He knows we're coming!"
Peter tried to break free, but Davila pulled him to the right-hand shoulder, down into the steep jumble of boulders before the precipice. There she stopped. A thousand feet below, a tiny azure lake blinked in and out through the clouds. Facing him, she took his arms in both hands. Then she stood on her toes and lifted her lips to his. The wind and the whiteness seemed to fade away, and for a moment, there was nothing but her dark warmth.
"Courage," she said. Then she released him.
They picked their way through the boulders just below the level of the road, now and then catching glimpses of the summit ahead and the little lake far below. Slowed by her limp, Davila soon fell behind.
Peter waited for her at a sheltered ledge just beneath the summit. Someone had been digging recently, a pit and a pile of freshly turned earth and stones. Fifty feet up the steep scree, a cairn marked the summit.
A faint cry filtered down through the blowing snow.
Saul!
Peter scrambled up the loose rocks and crouched behind the cairn, his heart quick and light, the shotgun little more than a twig in his hands. He leaped out and found himself at the edge of a flat, circular space covered with snow, a turnaround for vehicles. Along the left-hand edge, thirty paces away, a black SUV had been parked facing the cairn. Jason Dayan stood in front of the vehicle wearing a long black overcoat. Old Saul knelt at Dayan's feet, head bowed over a patch of red snow.
Peter sprinted toward them and came to a sliding stop fifteen paces short, shotgun raised. "Get away from him!"
Jason Dayan looked up, his flinty eyes narrow. From beneath his overcoat, he drew a strange weapon, a green knife with twin blades that curled out from his right fist like opposing arms of a spiral galaxy.
Saul lifted his face. It was streaked with blood. "Don't let him take it," he rasped.
Peter glanced over his shoulder at the cairn. Where was Davila?
"Shoot him!" Saul yelled.
Dayan strode forward, knife coiled to strike. Peter set his feet, held the stock against his shoulder and aimed for Dayan's center of mass. "Stop! I'll shoot!"
Dayan stopped, his head cocked to one side. Then he stood straight, arms spread wide, a fey smile on his lips. Beneath the tatters of his black overcoat, he wore a brilliant blue garment. "You won't kill me. You can't kill me. I know, because my world is there, waiting for me. I remember it."
The wind fell silent, puzzled by Dayan's words. Even the snowflakes seemed to hesitate.
Then Dayan lunged forward.
Peter pulled the trigger, and the shotgun slammed against his shoulder. Boom!
Dayan doubled over, staggering back as muffled echoes of the blast reported back from every corner of the mountain. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head. Slowly, he opened the front of his overcoat.
Peter gasped. Not a drop of blood, not a hint of redâjust blue, the shimmering fabric all studded with birdshot.
Dayan filled his lungs, and the lead shot fell away like raindrops. He tightened his grip on the knife and lunged again.
Pull the rear trigger.
But it was too late. Dayan tore the shotgun from Peter's hands and flung it through the air. Taking him by the hair, he drew back his knife, the forward blade angled to slip through Peter's ribs.
Holy Mary, pray for us.
Peter stared at the strange knife, its green patina rimmed with fiery bronze, mysterious, beautiful. And a sudden calm came upon him.
Pray for us, now and in the hour of our death.
The blade lurched forward, but it seemed to catch on something.
Saul. He had rushed forward and taken Dayan by the elbow.
With a growl, Dayan lifted the old man off his feet and tossed him aside. Then he pulled Peter down, face first in the snow and pinned him there with a boot on the back of his neck.
Peter lay still, eyes closed, face buried in the snow. All resistance left his body. It was just like in his dream, that undeniable calm, that crushing peace. A million memories flashed in his mind, the joys and the sorrows, the pain and the pleasureâall melded together in brilliant white light.
But the light was shattered by a sound, a crack of thunder somewhere in the sky above. Gone too was the boot on Peter's neck. He turned his face, opening his eyes just as Dayan's strange green knife came fluttering down, settling silently in a patch of untouched snow. The man's enormous body followed, shuddering the ground like a felled tree.
Peter scrambled to his feet, head swimming at what he saw. Jason Dayan lay on his back, eyes closed, arms and legs splayed. A bloody stain spread swiftly through the blue fabric over his chest.
"Zeyde!" someone was yelling.
Demi came sprinting up the ridge road with a rifle in her hands. Davila limped behind her.
"Zeydele!" She ran to her grandfather's side, dropping the rifle. Kneeling beside him, she cradled his bloodied head in her hands. "Wake up! It's me!"
Saul's brown eyes flickered open, and he smiled at her. She took out a bandana and pressed it to the bleeding gash in his forehead. "I saw you riding in that car. You looked so scared."
The entire mountain began to spin, and Peter dropped on all fours.
Demi looked over at Dayan's body, tears streaming down her olive cheeks. "What did I do? What did I do?"
Delbert laid his hand on hers. "No. Shh. You did right."
Davila approached the body warily, pistol at the ready. She nudged it with her boot. Then she knelt in the snow and felt Dayan's throat for a pulse, her fingers trailing down to the collar of the strange blue garment. She looked to Peter, mouth agape. "I've seen this material before."
Peter came upright, hands on knees. "It has to be some sort of bulletproof material. I shot him at point-blank range." Then he turned to Demi. "But you were fifty yards away, at least."
"Is it a Ghost Shirt?" Demi asked her grandfather.
But he did not answer.
Davila shook her head. "This has to be some sort of light ballistic material. It was able to stop the diffuse energy of a shotgun blast but not the concentrated force of a high-powered rifle bullet." She looked over at Demi. "That was an incredible shot."
Demi's broad mouth hitched into a crooked smile. With her fingers, she made a trembling peace sign and pointed at her bleary eyes, just like she had that night on the river, that playful jest, pretending to see Peter's little brown dry-fly from way up on the rocks. But there was no joking now. Maybe there never was. Maybe her eyes really could see that far. Maybe she could see what others could not.
Then she buried her face in her grandfather's chest and wept.
______________
Author's note:
Thank you for reading Chapter 43!
Thank you for reading this far, and for your support.
-Frode
Image: A 1985 Toyota Corolla in the snow