The Gorge

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Red.

The river running red, cliffs on fire, sky filled with flickering orange.

Trumpets and screams, lava gouging a rut deep into the Earth, hot electricity sparking in the air.

Ace’s belly boiled, his head clanged with the din of Armageddon. This was Revelation’s promise made good, the seventh seal broken, the whore of Babylon rising.

The intensity of the vision sliced at him like knives at an altar, torturing a sacrificial lamb in anger over its innocence.

God was delivering. He that sat on high was dishing it out big-time.

And Ace, His servant, His vessel, His holy antenna on the mortal plane, could only accept and endure, and let the message pass through him. Coarse sand clung to his lips as he spewed forth words in a thousand lost languages. He didn’t know what they meant, and he didn’t care. He couldn’t crawl away from the thundering liquid blaze behind him. All he could do was wait for the storm to pass, or to engulf and swallow him, as God saw fit. And, oh, the red raw glory of Rapture. Praise be to Jesus, our Father who art in heaven, who laid me down by still waters, in sickness and in health “Get up.”

Ace’s tongue pressed against his jagged teeth. Blood. He’d bitten his lip.

Ace lifted his head. Red had gone to dark, though tiny streaks of lightning cracked the edges of the black shell above. The river was no longer in flames. It churned and whispered and hissed, a snake without end, sliding over the world in search of the hole that led to Hell.

“Get up.”

This wasn’t God’s voice. God had a deep, cruel, demanding voice-almost like that of his real father, the mortal man who had shot angry jism into a throwaway slut three decades before. God wasn’t talking to Ace. Not at the moment, but he’d told Ace plenty enough already.

Ace blinked. I’ve gone blind. The lion tore out my eyes.

He rose to his knees, running a gritty hand over his cheeks. Blood. Goddamned blood. He wiped, blinked again, hung between panic and surrender.

Then he saw that it was night, and he remembered the gorge, the raft, and the angels. Clara. And his baby in her belly.

And Bowie, who held Ace’s pistol. “Get up,” Bowie said a third time.

“They took her,” Ace said.

“They took other people, too. Some of them because of you.”

“You don’t know.” Ace stood, his knees weak and wobbly. “You don’t know what they’re going to do. But I saw it.”

“I saw it, too. She’s dead by now.”

“No, she’s not dead. I tell you, I saw it.” For just a moment, Bowie’s silhouette rippled and transformed, became tall and brick red, scaly, eyes smoldering with the moon’s dead and buried light.

“Doesn’t matter anymore. You didn’t kill me, and I don’t really feel like killing you.”

“They took her to the cave. Lots of bones there. Put her on the rock.”

“The rock?”

“The Changing Rock.”

“You can tell the forensic psychologist all about it when you stand trial.”

Ace laughed, from so deep in his gut that it hurt. “You think you can arrest me? Like God cares about this cops-and-robbers horseshit? There’s only one law and one order and it don’t matter shit for you and what you want.”

“Right now, I have the gun, so I’m the law.” Bowie, speaking just loudly enough to be heard over the river, his head held erect and his glare fixed on Ace like the mean teacher he’d had in sixth grade. Even in the bad light, there was no mistaking those eyes.

Jesus, the fucker means business. Forgive him, for he knows not what the hell he doeth, but the river-rat bastard is dead serious.

“They’re going to put her on the Changing Rock. They’re going to take my baby. Make it one of them.”

“They’re animals. Vicious, cunning animals. Call them what you want, make up some comic-book legend, it doesn’t change anything.”

“We got to hurry,” Ace said. He began walking away from the gun, and then broke into a crippled jog.

“Stop or I’ll shoot, you son of a bitch,” Bowie shouted behind him. “God knows, I’ve earned the right.”

“Go ahead,” Ace shouted back. “You can’t kill me. You can only make me deader.”

He ran along the river, knees and lungs on fire, blood sweet in his mouth. God had showed him where to go. God didn’t show the whole picture, because it had never been that way. Part of the mystery and beauty of the visions was that God gave him a few pieces to the puzzle and Ace had to sort out the rest. He only wished it didn’t make his head hurt so fucking much.