Comes a Horseman (24 page)

“You cannot—” Something in his eyes made her stop. She studied his face for a long time. Gently, she patted the bedding that covered his chest. “Maybe my husband can help.” She rose and left the room.

Pip thought about how he could convince her husband to help. Just go to the train station . . . to a locker there . . .

Darkness crowded his thoughts and the mist drifted up to claim him again.

“YOU SHOT him?” Luco asked again.

Arjan stood statue-straight, his face grim. “Baducci did, yes.”

“In the head?”

“Yes.”

Luco shook his head. “I don't understand.”

“It happens. A bullet hits the head just so, and the skull acts like a helmet, deflecting it.”

“And he drove away, wrecked his car, and disappeared?”

“We found blood but no body.”

“Unbelievable.”

Now what?
Luco thought. Pip would try to get to the case file, then either bargain with it for his life or attempt to get it to Hüber. He had to get to one of them—Pip or the file—before that happened. He eyed Arjan, erect and proper. He made an instant decision: he did not want Arjan or any of his men recovering the file. One mistake was enough.

“Watch his apartment and office, but don't search them.”

Arjan flicked his eyes at Luco, puzzled.

“I will do that myself,” Luco said. “Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Tell your men to kill him on sight, regardless of where he is. Bring the body to me.”

“I understand.”

Luco doubted he did. But he knew Arjan was a professional, the consummate soldier. The man did not question orders; he only fulfilled them. He squeezed Arjan's shoulder. “I know I can count on you, my friend.”

32

A
s far as Olaf could tell, Trevor Wilson's house had darkened completely at about ten thirty, just over two hours ago. Crouched on the ridge above the community's small park, he could not see the windows on the rear or far side of the house. But it was Thursday, which meant school in the morning for the boy and work for his parents. Likely, they retired early, before midnight at least. His approach from the rear would bring the obstructed windows into view. If he saw a lamp burning or the blue flicker of a television, he could retreat and wait awhile longer. But not forever. His schedule required his arriving in Santa Fe by tomorrow evening.

As much as he disliked the task of killing a child, murdering people just because they were witnesses or tried to prevent him from fulfilling his duties was worse. A name on his list was as good as word from Odin, the god of gods: it was their time, and Olaf was the instrument of fate. Peripheral causalities, on the other hand, were tragic. Not that he would ever hesitate in bringing that tragedy about, should his mission be threatened. In fact, his training and the state of mind he worked himself into before sweeping in for a kill guaranteed a quick blade across the throat of any and all who stepped into his path.

He rocked forward on the balls of his feet, using the bearded ax as a prop to prevent himself from pitching into the darkness beyond the cliff. He'd occupied this spot under the limbs of a massive cottonwood for hours, watching as the comings and goings of residents below dwindled to stagnancy and their world shut down, window by window.

At first, knowing he had time, he had allowed his mind to wander, leaping to memories and storing new facts as images entered his sphere of consciousness. A Mercedes Benz traversing the streets below got him thinking about industry and progress, then materialism and greed. He'd watched as children came home alone to empty houses, and hours later first one parent arrived, then the other—when there was another. He'd seen the plastic bags of food transferred from car to home, where the families would eat what they had not grown and had not killed. Often, one or two or all the members of a household would leave again, returning hours later, the children sweaty and tired from having participated in some unknown recreation, the parents chatty from an infusion of social stimuli. It was as though the company of their kin were not enough; the warmth of hearth, the caress of one another's hands, the verbal sharing of the day's adventures were all insufficient to fill their hearts.

He'd concluded, not for the first time, that his own way of life, the way of his clan, was far superior. He found happiness in family and survival and duty, in knowing the gods were pleased with his devotion. He trained hard and studied hard, truly content to spend his life preparing for a duty that may have never become his to bear.

But it
had
come to him, like a fiery vision that scalds the eyes because it is too beautiful to turn away from. After centuries, the waiting was over. Now his skills, which had been passed on and honed by his father and
his
father before him, were fully needed. Joining his ancestors in Valhalla could not bring him more delight than stepping into this long-awaited role in Odin's service. It was for this duty that he had parted from his family. It was for this that he crouched here in the dark, with the tang of pines and the musk of loamy earth in his nose, his hunting ground sprawled before him.

As the sky dimmed and darkened and the moon climbed, every spark of brain activity began illuminating a single thought: the kill. Slowly, a ferocity toward humankind welled in him. Images of human cruelty, displayed in grotesque photographs and vividly rendered by tribe storytellers, fueled his hatred. Apostasy, immorality, war. What treason
hadn't
the race of man committed?

Five years ago, the remnants who fought for a return to the old ways, for a reversal of apostasy, had announced the arrival of the one who would tear down the temples of self-centeredness and false gods and unite the world as a single virtuous tribe. The forces against him, however, were numerous, cunning and powerful, having strategized and fortified for millennia. Some were malevolent warriors, others—like the boy he would visit tonight, Olaf presumed—unwitting cogs in a machine designed to crush the coming usurpation.

Olaf did not need to know in what way a twelve-year-old child threatened the future perfect world. He trusted others to see the big picture and determine appropriate actions. He was a hand wielding a sword—or more accurately, an ax. Did hands guide themselves or question why they gripped this or struck that?

And so his burning ferocity, his acidic hatred, narrowed its focus from all of humankind to one young boy. He pictured Trevor Wilson: blue eyes, hair the color of wheat tinged by the setting sun, a smattering of freckles, almost effeminate lips. He did not make the boy into a monster. In his mind, no horns sprouted from Trevor's head, no vile curses spewed from his mouth. Destruction came in all forms, some more innocent looking than others. Trevor was a cute kid. If Olaf got to know him, no doubt he'd see in him aspects of his own sons. Compassion, curiosity, big-eyed wonder at the world, love. Yet the brain in this body of which he, Olaf, was only a hand had identified the child as dangerous. His continued existence imperiled man's very redemption. He hated the boy for that, for halting redemption, whether intentionally or not.

The only dispensation he could grant for the child's age and seeming innocence was this late-night approach without the dogs. An adult enemy was always attacked when he (
or she,
he thought, though he was unaccustomed to this new inclusion of female prey) was awake. It allowed a final confirmation that the death was the will of the gods, or for the gods' granting of a last-moment reprieve. If, despite Olaf 's training, power, weaponry, and dogs, the enemy found a way to live—through fight or flight or the successful interference of others—then the prey had garnered favor from the Holy Powers. Olaf would accept defeat as divine providence . . . temporarily. Until the order was rescinded, he would strike again and again. The gods could stay his ax continually or eventually let it find its mark.

A child, on the other hand, fell under the authority and protection of his parents. If the gods deemed the killing untimely, they would inspire parental interference. Olaf saw no reason to terrify the boy, nor to simply give him an opportunity to change his fate, when that responsibility was his parents'.

So tonight the dogs stayed in the van. He felt incomplete without them, his comrades in battle. But it would go well, as it always did. He pressed one hand to the shirt Ingun had knitted for him, soft against his calloused fingertips. He touched each of the lockets his sons had given him, the
Othel
and the rabbit's foot. His wife and boys were his comrades tonight. He felt them with him. He felt their readiness for the hunt.

Olaf 's muscles tightened. His nerves became hypersensitive, his senses hyperaware. A faint breeze sifted through the hair on his arms, coming from the east. Good. He would be upwind from his prey. Below in the hunting ground, a door slammed, a dog barked. He quickly assessed their level of threat and dismissed them from his mind. His breathing became rhythmic, as training and instinct brought him to a mental and physical state perfect for killing.

He pulled the ax toward him, its blade scraping on rock, like a violin playing a harsh
sul ponticello
note. The overture to his performance. He slid his hand down the smooth wooden handle. Inches from the blade his grip tightened, and he rose. His eyes traced the route he'd take once he emerged from the wild into the park.

Boy on his mind, ax in hand, he spun and darted toward the trail that would unite the two.

33

T
revor lifted his face off the pillow and looked at the digital clock on his nightstand—12:43—before realizing it was a sound that had jarred him from sleep. He rolled over and sat up in bed. Having relinquished his Power Rangers night-light almost a year ago, he looked around a room as dark as a tomb—okay for falling asleep, really lousy for times like this. Even the moonlight had been kept out with vertical blinds, its rays poking through cord holes and gleaming round the edges. The door was ajar, as he liked it, but the hall beyond was dark as well.

“Mom?” he said softly. “Dad?”

Silence.

He cocked his head, held his breath.

Nothing.

What had woken him? He realized he had to pee. Maybe it was that and not a noise. Tossing back the covers, he swung his legs off the bed.

Clonk.
Outside the window, almost too quiet to hear.

Trevor stared, half-expecting some ferocious beast to crash through, glass and vertical blinds flying everywhere. When that didn't happen, he shook his head.

Too many movies,
he thought.

Clonk
.

Trevor gasped, then instantly rebuked himself for doing such a sissy thing, even if the nastiest monster ever to crawl out of Stephen King's head
were
trying to get him. Stephen King was pretty creepy. Trevor didn't like creepy.

“Oh, it's nothing,” he whispered and walked to the window. He noticed how a faint thread of light ran the length of each slat. He thought about bending a slat with his finger and peering out. Then he imagined an eye peering back at him from the other side. That would be creepier than pulling up the whole set of blinds and facing whatever was out there. He reached up and grabbed the plastic tassel at the end of the strings that controlled the raising and lowering of the blinds. He didn't open them right away, however. He knew any second, his courage would realize he was awake and return to him.

A flagstone path ran diagonally through the backyard, past his window. Something was sliding across the stones, making a soft shuffling sound:
sshhhooo
. . .
sshhhooo
. . .
sshhhooo
. . .

Trevor snatched his hand away from the cord. His heart pounded in his chest like a bird determined to escape its cage.

Daaaaad!!!!
he screamed in his head, but only fast, ragged breaths came from his mouth. He squeezed his eyes closed, gritted his teeth.

It's nothing,
he repeated to himself.
Nothing
. He slowed his breathing and felt the bird in his chest calm a bit. Before he could stop himself, he reached up and yanked down on the cord, running the blinds up with a plastic clatter. His eyes snapped open.

The backyard, washed in moonlight. Nothing else.

Sshhhooo
. . .
sshhhooo
. . . Closer to the house.

He looked and let out the breath he was holding. A raccoon, fat and furry, tugged with its teeth on a paper grocery bag whose opening had been rolled closed. With each tug, it took a step backward and the bag moved across the stone path six inches—
sshhhooo
.

Trevor leaned his forehead against the glass, partly to see the raccoon better, but mostly in relief.

“You . . . rascal,” he said.

As if it had heard him, the raccoon released the bag and craned to look up at the window. It lifted its front half, resting on its haunches, and sniffed the air. Then it dropped down and waddled past the bag toward the back gate. Halfway there it stopped at what was apparently another treasure it had tried to steal. A family-size soup can. Trevor remembered the chicken noodle they'd had at dinner the night before last. The raccoon lifted it with its paws, tilted it as though taking a swig, then let it fall—
clonk.