Matt Hilton - Dead_s men dust

The passage widened out, opening into a cul-de-sac hemmed in on three sides by the towering rock formation. There was only one way in; the ideal location for a trap. Quickly I scanned the rocks above me, my gun at the point of my vision. Nothing stirred; there was nothing to indicate that an ambush would come from above. I stepped into the cul-de-sac, circling on my heels to cover all directions as best I could. Twenty feet in, I found the hole in the ground. Steps leading down into darkness. Breath caught in my throat.

I couldn't make out anything beyond the?rst few steps. The night had fully descended, and though my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, the steps descended into a space I can only describe as being devoid of anything. It was beyond night, beyond black.

I couldn't bring myself to step into the hole. I even looked back for moral support from Rink. If he could have seen me then, he would have seen the face of terror. I couldn't allow that; I quickly stepped forward, tracing the?rst step with the toe of my boot. Then, before my desperate boldness?ed, I descended the stairs as rapidly as I could.

When I reached the bottom, I could make out the faint outlines of a door before me. The re?ection of a?ame leaked out from beneath the door. Beyond the door a lamp burned. That knowledge gave me the courage to reach out and tug on the door handle. I did so sharply, then stepped into the room it revealed, my gun searching for targets.

The smell hit me first.

I gagged. That was bad enough.

Then my eyes began to make sense of what I was looking at, and for the first time in my life, I retreated with a cry of alarm.

Oh, what an idiot. you're baring your neck to the headsman's block. You deserve to die with ignominy, you stumbling, sightless fool! To think I credited you with respect when you're as blind as all the rest. Die, cretin. Die, Jared Rington. Rink was there, no more than an arm's length from him. The big lummox's nerves were strung taut, shredded, fraying under the pressure. His head swung from side to side. He didn't know which way to look. Because of that, he didn't look anywhere. He saw everything, but in doing so, he saw nothing. His mind was so full of stimuli that it was unable to process what was right before his eyes. And that was all Cain required. He would use Rink's blindness to his advantage. He timed the rhythm of Rink's movements, watched and discerned the momentary gap where the eyes swung a fraction of an instant before the barrel of the gun followed. Into that fraction of space, Cain would insert himself. Before Rink could make any sense of his appearance, it would already be too late. A-one and a-two and a-… now. From within the shroud of blankets that was the body of the bison-skulled monstrosity to Rink's left, Cain erupted. He made as little sound as possible, and didn't so much leap out as jut forward from his waist, arm streaking down at the juncture of Rink's neck and shoulder. It was a guaranteed instant kill. The point of his blade jabbing down to puncture the heart from above. Rington would die instantly, drop like a slaughtered steer. No shout of warning to Joe Hunter.

Except Rink wasn't as blind as he looked.

He detected the shifting shadows and he jerked away. The blade still slid into flesh, but instead of finding that pinpoint where the blade could be forced down into the heart, it found resistance in the form of his sturdy clavicle. The metal scoured bone, but it was deflected away from the vitals and into the pectoral muscle.

"Sumbitch!" Rink grunted, his gun coming around. He?red in an arc, not waiting for the target to present itself before jerking on the trigger. Three times he?red. Two bullets cut chips from the rocks, one snatched at the blanket swathing Cain's form. Then Cain's knee thumped against his forearm, halting the gun, and the knife once more cut a swathe through the night. Rink staggered back, blood from his sliced forehead invading his vision.

Move, move, move. A mantra for both men.

Even as Cain extricated himself from his hiding place, Rink was?ring again. Blind, but with determination. One bullet scoured Cain's left thigh, another plucked hair from his head. But then Cain was out of the line of?re and he cut again at Rink.

Sliced to the bone, Rink kicked back. His foot caught Cain in the gut, propelled him backward. Cain was too canny a?ghter to be caught so easily. Instead of?oundering for balance, Cain allowed his momentum to take him over in a roll that brought him back immediately to his feet. And in that instant he was already coming back at Rink. Rink was big, powerful beneath his clothing, trained to deal with dangerous foes, but unprepared for one as determined as Tubal Cain, Father of Cutting Instruments. The Harvestman.

Rink shot again. But the bullet passed through space that Cain had occupied a second before. He was already two paces to the left. As Rink swung toward him, he arced his blade under the barrel of the gun. The pinching of Rink's eyes showed Cain he'd cut him. Then Cain gained the space below Rink's armpit, squirmed under and behind the big man, and looped his free arm around his throat. He jerked backward, sliced at the throat.

Rink grabbed at his knife, but Cain heard the telltale groan of someone in pain. Cain released him, kicked him away. Rink staggered and his head banged off the rock wall. Pivoting, he fell?at on his face. Blood mingled with the chalk-white sand.

Finally, Cain gave voice.

But all he had to say was "Ha!"

He stepped forward. Rink didn't get up. Cain smiled. Leaned down and plucked the gun out of Rink's grasp. Distantly, he caught the sound of someone calling his name. He turned quickly, heading into the narrow passage.

I should've expected something like this. Cain's, his story should have prepared me. The photographs of his victims viewed on Harvey's computer. The skeletons posed out there in the desert. The grotesque art daubed on the rocks outside. But nothing primed me for the chamber I now stood in.

The chamber wasn't huge. But Cain had used the space economically.

There wasn't a surface more than the width of my hand on walls or ceiling that wasn't decorated with human skulls, scapulas, or pelvic bones. Femur, humorus, radius, and ulna bones formed strange mosaics. Spinal columns had been arranged as borders to separate one insane montage from another. Interspersed between the human remains were countless bones gleaned from road-killed wildlife. And equally disturbing in their own way, myriad patches of cloth snagged from unsuspecting bodies were woven between the bones. Human rib cages dominated the far end of the room like shields on coats of arms. And there, as the living embodiment of Cain's insanity, was his centerpiece.

"Oh, my God. John?"

My voice came out as a wheeze and my arms reached out. My feet wouldn't follow them.

"John?" I asked again.

He was displayed like all the other of Cain's exhibits, attached to the walls of the cave by chains?xed to iron spikes hammered through the stone, his chest against the bedrock. Cords were looped around his throat, woven around his skull, and?xed to a hook in the ceiling. His head was forced back on his spine so that he peered upward. His arms were outstretched, the skin peeled from his back stretched taut beneath them like demonic wings. I could see what Cain was attempting to portray. He intended that John be seen as a supplicant, beseeching a higher spirit in the heavens above him. A fallen angel begging for God's grace?

Walter said that FBI pro?lers had concluded that Cain might be attempting to make amends for slaughtering his own family. Perhaps John was representative of the demon that was Martin Maxwell, and in reality, it was he who begged grace from God. Maybe we'd never know the true meaning, and everything was simply the product of his depraved mind.