know.”
“Good night, Father.”
“Whatever happens, it really is good to see you.”
“You too. Now shut up and let me rest awhile.”
A minute later Traven sits up.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”
“When I broke Megs’s neck? Don’t sweat it. Think of it like someone putting a dog out of its misery. Only he really, really hated the dog.”
“Maybe I was wrong earlier,” he says. “Maybe I can get excommunicated in Hell.”
“Pull that off and I sure as shit will let you eat my sins.”
AT LEAST ONE thing goes right. We get enough dirt to cover the blood without anybody seeing us. The rest of the night, though, Traven tosses and turns.
A few hours later, I wake to the ground shaking and a roar like Mechagodzilla. I run outside, but it isn’t an earthquake or a metal Kaiju invasion. It’s just the camp waking up and getting ready to move out. Vehicles gun their engines. Trucks maneuver out of the camp to clear a path for the cars. The semis and construction equipment get chained to the double-length flatbed carrying the tarp. It looks like complete chaos at first, but the moves are smooth and practiced. The havoc is one big, well-oiled machine.
Traven comes out of the camper and stands next to me.
I say, “Is it like this every day?”
“Not every day. We’ve camped for as long as three days while scouts have gone out surveilling the territory.”
“Hell’s own alarm clock.”
“We’re not in Hell, remember?”
“Right … I’ve been wondering about that. Why search the Tenebrae?”
He sits in the camper doorway with an old book in his lap.
“We go where the Magistrate leads us and whatever it is he’s looking for led us out here.”
He’s holding a book.
“Doing a little light reading?”
“I wish. This is an old Hellion treatise on ley lines, holy sites, and places of power down here.”
“If it points out any Dairy Queens let me know. I could sure go for a sundae.”
He gets up and heads to where Daja, Cherry Moon, and the Magistrate are studying a map spread out on the hood of his Charger.
I shout after him.
“The Magistrate seems like the Holy Roller type. Could the tarp be some kind of church on wheels?”
Traven stops.
“I doubt it. From what he says, it has to do with the war in Heaven.”
“Which side is he on?”
Traven pauses.
“Sometimes I’m not sure. He’s so full of righteous anger. Still, I like to think that, despite some of his methods, he’s one of the good guys.”
“Define ‘good guys.’”
“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
“That’s not a comfort, Father. You could at least give your flock comfort.”
He makes the sign of the cross and ends it by giving me the finger. It actually makes me smile.
“That’s more like it,” I say.
“I’ll see you in a little while.”
“A little while” is relative—the four of them go over the map for a long time. Cherry throws stones. Traven consults his books. The Magistrate plots a course using a pile of shiny Hellion tools that make it look more like he’s dissecting something than reading a map. After a half hour of good old-fashioned geomancy, the Magistrate hops onto the hood and then the roof of the car like a goddamn gazelle. As he scans the horizon with a telescope, the others gather up the map and tools he scattered all over the ground. A minute later he jumps down just as gracefully as he got up. I didn’t expect that. I’d pegged him for a desk warrior. Serves me right for assuming too much too fast. I wonder what other tricks he can do?
By now, all the vehicles are ready to go. Traven heads back in my direction while Cherry goes back to her ambulance and Daja fires up her Harley. The Magistrate guns the Charger. As it belches black smoke a small cheer goes up. He pops the clutch, turns a donut, and blasts out into the desert at the head of the havoc. When Samael was Lucifer he could have learned some tricks from this guy. The prick knows how to put on a show for his people.
As the rest of the vehicles pull out, a Mohawked Hellion woman heads straight at me. I shift my weight, ready for a fight. Instead, she walks right past me and unlocks the cab of the pickup truck. When Traven makes it back, she comes around and locks his old book in the camper. She tosses me a set of keys, then she peels out after the others.
I look at him.
“I might be in charge of the library and records, but it doesn’t mean I’m trusted with them,” he says.
“He thinks you wouldn’t run off without your books.”
“Exactly.”
“Would you? Run off? I need to know if you’re with me when I see an opening to get clear.”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“I don’t know, but I want to be ready. You with me?”
“Yes,” he says, but he’s not exactly excited about the prospect. I’m worried, but this isn’t the time for a heart-to-heart. Most of the havoc has already moved out and the half-dozen members left as our watchdogs are looking antsy. Traven wraps his bandanna around his face and steps onto his hellhound. I go back to the burned-out pickup and try the key.
Damn. It starts.
We head out after the others with our babysitters hot on our heels.
WE TRAVEL FOR hours across the Tenebrae’s monotonous plains. Imagine an optical illusion where you’re on a flat, endless road. There are mountains in the distance on both sides and low peaks in the far distance. And nothing ever changes. Nothing moves. Nothing gets any closer or farther away. You know you’re moving because you can feel the motion, but nothing ever fucking changes.
I’ve heard of souls who refused to enter Hell getting lost in the Tenebrae and wandering for years before going flat-out crazy. That’s a whole new level of fucked. Dying, escaping Hell, then finding yourself someplace worse. If the Church had afterlife travel agents, they could make a fortune. Pay now, then later see the most colorful views of damnation from a double-decker, air-conditioned tour bus. Stop for lunch at the damned soul deli, where you can try Phil, your racist neighbor, on whole wheat. Or roast hot dogs over the lava pits where crooked politicians and show-business accountants do synchronized-shrieking shows every … well … forever. Don’t forget to tip your driver on the way out or you’ll end up with the other stingy bastards, growing gold teeth and pulling them out with pliers for eternity while other stingy dumb-asses pound them into coins with their faces. Where do you think Hellion money comes from?
The other part of this Bataan death march across nowhere: I’m still in this goddamn fried truck. There’s no material left on the seats, so I’m riding bare springs all day. My bruised ass feels like it’s welded to a demon pogo stick.
I’m a little worried about Father Traven. Has he gone a little too native? There’s things you have to do to survive, but that doesn’t mean you have to believe whatever mad shit your torturer is feeding you. I don’t think he’d rat me out, but I’m worried that maybe he’s got a bad case of Knights Templar and has actually bought into the idea of a holy crusade. I’ll have to keep an eye on him. When I make a break for it, I’ll drag him by his heels if