Scott Nicholson - The Gorge

“Rook?” He said it aloud, maybe, though he wasn’t sure his tongue moved.

You might say that.

“You sound different. But I’m glad you’re back. I was getting… ”

It’s okay, my friend and partner. You can talk to me. I’m trained, remember?

“I was getting… ”

Trust me. I’ve been here for you, even after you let me down. Brothers in arms. To the end. And beyond.

Castle thought The Rook wasn’t sounding quite like The Rook anymore. He was talking less like a Behavioral Sciences guy and more like a host on a cheesy late-night horror series. Nevertheless, the relief flooding through Castle almost flushed out the pain and dread. He could say it.

“I’m scared.” He swallowed, the last word as wet and cold and stinking as a river rock.

Nothing to fear, my friend. I’ll deliver you.

“Partners can always count on each other, right?”

Pause.

About that new assessment…

Something moved by the edge of the forest, though in the murk Castle couldn’t tell if it was just a shiver of leaves in the wind. Even after three weeks in the gorge, he’d never noticed how full and teeming the wilderness was. A world apart, oblivious of the civilized and sane place ruled by phone lines, computers, television, and highways. This was a universe that made its own rules.

And sometimes breaks its own rules.

The Rook’s voice in his head sounded louder, colder, the words taking on more reverberation, as if spoken from a deep cave.

“Help me,” Castle whispered.

Derek Samford emerged from the undergrowth, trying his new wings, licking lips that had grown swollen.

He experimented with his throat: skeeee.

The two fangs were a little awkward, but Samford-thing thought he could make them work. With a little practice. And he planned on getting lots of practice.

The FUCKING bitch!

Ace was tied up in human knots by the raft guide, Bowie. Ace was used to kicking ass, but he’d always picked his victims with care. He didn’t have size, so he counted on the element of surprise. Out of a dark alley with a tire iron, up from the backseat with a cheap pocketknife, in the middle of the night with a time bomb.

Right now, with the raft pitching and the drizzle seeping down, the fog closing in and the dumb cunt pointing the FBI agent’s Glock at both of them, with Bowie flexing muscles and rage, Ace wasn’t sure whether he wanted her to shoot or not.

First off, if she pulled the trigger, odds were even she’d miss and plug a nickel-sized hole in his guts. Second, she was such an uppity, highfalutin, educated bitch that she probably couldn’t kill somebody in hot blood, even when that somebody could take the gun away from her, hold them both as prisoners, and turn them over to the cops.

Third, she could miss them both, knock a slow hole in the raft, and they’d wallow down into the churning water, knocking against rocks and sucking for air.

Fourth (and Ace wasn’t sure he could count much higher, because the Bowie ass-wipe was squeezing off the oxygen to his brain), Clara’s eyes had gone a little cold and distant, kind of like his own mother’s eyes had looked the first time she’d caught him stealing coins from her purse.

Like she wasn’t sure.

Just like an uppity bitch, a woman, a fucking devil’s apple-eater.

All this smart talk about feelings and caring and even that ball’s-over cuntfest word “love,” a word the Bible didn’t really have all that much use for except that part in John 3:16 where the Big Love went down.

Sacrifice. That was what it was all about, and he didn’t think Clara had seen the light yet.

Fucking bitch.

He kicked upward, hoping to knee Bowie in the nuts, but the dude was too fast. Bowie brought a fist down hard against Ace’s ear, ringing tiny sleigh bells in his head.

“Shoot!” He didn’t recognize his own voice. The air from his lungs flung needles up the length of his throat.

The fading whine of the bells mingled with the constant wash of the rushing river. White noise, white might, and might always made right.

“I can’t do it,” Clara shouted, clinging to the grab loop with her left hand.

Bowie, his weight pressed on top of Ace, ripping the top buttons off his shirt, turned to Clara. “Give me the gun.”

As Bowie reached his hand toward her, Ace twisted to the side, a move he’d learned when his father had kicked the living shit out of him for dropping a carton of milk. Bowie was nothing like Daddy, because Bowie was fighting for survival and Daddy had delivered the goods just for the sheer hell of it. Daddy was a lot more desperate, a lot better at the game. Ace lifted and rolled, and now had Bowie on his hip. The tour guide, off balance because of reaching for the gun, bounced against the swollen side of the raft. Ace sprang from his knees and hit Bowie with his shoulder, knocking the ornery son of a bitch overboard.

Bowie caught the grab loop as he went into the river, rocking the raft up on its side. As Ace and Clara tumbled in the direction of the tilt, the angle grew more severe. Two of the backpacks bounced out of the raft and into the rapids, swept away in the swift, dark froth.

Ace’s belly flopped onto the same side of the raft to which Bowie clung. The man’s hand was inches away, fingers clenched around the nylon rope. Ace did the first thing that popped into his head: He opened his mouth and sank his teeth into the taut hand.

Ace’s teeth were no marvels of modern dentistry. He still had his molars, though they were cracked from his love of hard candy. From the age of seven, he had chewed tobacco, first sneaking pinches from his dad’s plug of Beechnut, soon escalating to swiping entire pouches of tobacco at the local gas station. Several years spent camping in the remote peaks of Dakota, where he’d met up with fellow survivalists, militants, Klansmen, and the occasional Charles Manson worshipper, had stripped him of any remaining hygiene habits. Those seeking to tear down society, to bring about the destruction of order viewed through their distorted lenses as oppression, weren’t much interested in brushing their teeth.

But the broken and chipped bits of enamel that stippled Ace’s gums were plenty good enough for this job.

Bowie’s flesh was salty from sweat and tasted like old fish, but the man’s blood was sweet-probably a pure-breed, from good English stock, true white meat.

So this is what them angels get all worked up about. Getting washed in the blood, hallelujah.

Clara leaned against the tilt of the raft, losing her grip on the Glock, the flashlight momentarily blinding Ace. The gun plopped into the pool of water that had collected in the bottom of the raft. Ace jerked his head back, bringing a shred of Bowie’s skin with him. Blood ran from the gaping gash in the back of his hand, but the dude held on.

Ace could almost respect him. Almost. But it was God’s job to judge, not Ace’s.

He reached along the waistband of his camou trousers, feeling blind along the soggy seams for the cold grip of the Python. He’d have a hell of time navigating the raft downstream with only Clara’s help, but no way could he trust the dude now.

But maybe he didn’t need to be in such a big hurry, since Crew-cut was down for the count, maybe dead, which would all but seal Ace’s death sentence if he were to stand trial.

But his judgment, like that of Bowie’s, would come later, in front of the Big Throne, and all his actions now would serve as proof of his faith. Because he still had plenty of the Lord’s work to do, and a few of the guilty would have to die so that many innocents might live.

The raft flopped again, riding up a white, curling swell of water. Bowie flung his other arm out of the water and grappled for the rope, but his fingers slid off the rubberized nylon. Bowie was stretched out behind the raft, bodysurfing, the Unegama battering his body as he clung to the grab loop with one bloody hand.