The Influence (42 page)

Ross felt uncomfortable about actually hurting anyone. Cameron Holt had always been an asshole, but that didn’t necessarily hold true for everyone here. And even assholes didn’t deserve to
die
. These were just people who’d gotten sucked into the monster’s orbit, maybe the people who’d been there New Year’s Eve when it had been shot down. Chances were, if they could pull this off and destroy that black monstrosity, those individuals would revert back to normal once it was all over. They couldn’t do that if they were dead. Or scarred by acid. 

That jackal man—
Fred Hanson?
—was already on his conscience.  

At the same time, he had no illusion that they weren’t doing the right thing. Dead, that creature had caused enough horror to justify destroying it. If it was allowed to “hatch” as McDaniels put it, to become what it was becoming, who knew what damage it would cause, what people it would kill? 

“So what’s the plan?” he asked Kevin. 

His nephew was unspooling a long length of wire. “I’ve got some det wire, here.” 

“Det wire?” 

“Detonation wire. I’m going to use it to set a fire inside the barn. If I can get in there without anyone seeing me.” 

Hec was already off, heading around the back corner of the building, presumably to check if it was empty. 

“I’m sure there’s something flammable inside there. I’ll pick a bale of hay or some old wood or a pile of newspapers, soak it with gas, spread things out so it’ll shoot simultaneously to each area of the barn, pop in the end of the det wire, spool it out here, light it and haul ass. The whole place’ll go up in an instant. That’ll bring them running. We need to be in a position at that point to swoop in while they’re distracted. I’ll soak the angel demon with gas and gel, set it off, and we’re done.” 

“What’s gel?” Ross asked. 

Kevin grinned. “Good stuff.” 

Hec came running back along the side of the barn. “I think it’s clear,” he said. “At least, I got in without seeing anyone or being seen. The door’s wide open.” 

“Any hay in there?” Kevin asked. 

“Mountains of it.” 

“We’re in.” 

Ross was impressed by the fact that his nephew had suddenly become such an expert in firestarting, but he worried that the opposite might occur, too, especially in such close proximity to the monster. What if Hec’s sharpshooting skills suddenly deserted him? What if McDaniels couldn’t aim for shit?  

It didn’t matter. They had no choice. This was the only plan they had. 

“Before we do anything, we need to find water,” Kevin said, pushing the hair out of his eyes.  

“There’ll be water in the corral,” McDaniels said. “For the horses and cattle. Might be a spring or a pipe-fed barrel, but it’ll be damn near impossible to get to. You’ll have to go through the people you’re gonna use it on to do it.”  

“There must be, like, a hose near the house, right?” 

“Usually,” McDaniels said. “But I never worked on Holt’s plumbing, so I don’t know for sure.” 

“I’ll take that chance,” Ross said. He was pretty sure he had a water bottle in the car, and he wished he’d brought it, but his nephew hadn’t said anything at the time. 

“Once everyone takes off and runs to the barn, it’s your job to keep them there. Inside, outside, doesn’t matter. Just keep that angel demon free so I can set up shop. You have six of those bottles. Use them wisely. After the first explosion, it’ll probably scare them enough to keep them back. It’s pretty gnarly. But if it doesn’t work out, and you run out of bottles before I’m done…” He turned toward Hec and McDaniels. “You two keep them in line.” 

“Try not to kill anyone,” Ross emphasized. 

“I’ll do what I have to do,” Hec said. 

He sounded tough, sounded brave, but McDaniels had said that the last time they’d come here, they’d both ended up running away, too afraid to take any action. He hoped against hope that that wouldn’t happen this time. 

“Give me a few minutes,” Kevin said, his hands full as he started toward the rear of the barn. “And maybe stay back from that wall. Just in case.” 

There was a tractor off to the left of the barn, and Ross hurried over, hiding behind it. From this angle, he could see the open area between the house and barn, and the army of defenders stationed around the metamorphosing body. McDaniels and Hec ran up next to him, rifles at the ready. Hec’s gun apparently had a telescopic sight, and he looked through it, aiming at the house. 

“There
is
a hose,” he said. “Right by the front steps. Holy shit! There’s Cameron, too.” He started grinning. “Here, bud. Take a gander.” 

Ross accepted the rifle and, using the gun site like a spyglass, he trained it on the house. Father Ramos was standing with Cameron Holt on the front porch, and Ross was not merely shocked to see the priest, but filled with a disappointment so profound it was almost sorrow. They’d rescued Father Ramos, driven him away, but he had not escaped Magdalena, had not returned with the full power of the church behind him. He had instead come back of his own accord, seduced once again by the empty promise of the
angel
. He was a part of this now, and, like Holt, one of the monster’s minions. 

Cameron Holt, for some reason, was wearing a dress. That’s what Hec had been grinning about, but even through the small lens of the gun site, Ross could see from the rancher’s face that the man was mad. 

He swiveled the rifle toward the crowd in front of the monster’s body, seeing several people who looked familiar. 

Was Jill here, too, somewhere? 

He hoped not, but he had to admit that it was possible, and he would have continued looking, trying to find her, but time was passing quickly, and if all went according to plan, the barn would be going up in flames at any moment. He handed the rifle back. 

And the barn exploded. 

It didn’t literally explode. Roof and walls didn’t fly outward in a hail of shattered wood. But the conflagration that engulfed the structure did so in a blaze of glory, flames bursting out with an audible roar, the heat so intense that he could feel it here by the tractor. The fire had the desired effect, most of the gathered throng instinctively dashing over to investigate. 

But not all of them did. 

A significant number remained guarding the encased body, and Ross realized that it was up to the three of them to do something about that so Kevin could get access to the monster.  

He just hoped his nephew had survived starting the fire. 

“Come on!” Ross shouted. 

They ran into the open. McDaniels kept his rifle trained on the front porch of the house, while Hec scrambled sideways, facing the remaining guards. 

Kevin was nowhere in sight. 

Father Ramos was bending over the front porch railing, vomiting, but Holt was starting to raise his shotgun. “Stop right there, asshole!” McDaniels ordered. “Or I’ll blow your fucking head off!” 

Some of the men who’d gone over to the barn to see what had happened looked like they were about to turn around. 

Ross ran for the hose, turning the faucet on and pulling the hose out to the center of the yard as far as it would go. He’d dropped his box of Coke bottles, but it didn’t matter. The caps were all sealed, and he quickly unscrewed one, pressed the flowing hose against the opening, screwed the cap back in and ran several yards toward the men and women shielding the body. “Get away from there!” he ordered, and threw the bottle. 

It flipped end over end, exploding in the air just before the first line of guards, the bottle bursting spectacularly, spraying acid in all directions, hitting several people and causing them to scatter, screaming. 

He didn’t have time to view the results, but immediately hurried back to where water from the hose was already making a puddle in the dirt. A bullet hit the ground next to him, splashing up mud. Another whizzed by, more felt than seen, and, next to him, Hec took a shot. Nothing else was fired at him, and when he turned around to unscrew the cap of another bottle, Ross saw the body of a middle-aged man lying on the ground. There was no time to think about it, to agonize about it, to worry if something else was coming his way. He simply filled the bottle with water, sealed it, shook it, ran and threw. 

This time, people scurried away before the explosion, and behind them, in the corral, he saw Kevin scrambling through the spaces between boards to get to the monster. 

The monster. 

It had captured his attention, lying on the open floor of what had once been Cameron Holt’s smokehouse as though displayed on a stage. He had not seen it in this state, and, this close, he saw how thin the outer covering was, how completely transparent, almost as if the body had been encased in plastic wrap. The body itself was not the same one he had seen before. Rather than that melting, devolving mess, this creature was much bigger, much darker, much more clearly defined.  

It was also very much alive. 

A single red eye stared out at him. 

He heard whistling. 

Today’s the day,
he thought. 

As he watched, the chrysalis cracked open, in the middle, and through the breach, a long black appendage emerged that could have been a tail, could have been a tentacle, could have been a feeler, could have been a very thin leg. The slimy extremity slid along the top of the encasement, searching for another opening or trying to
make
another opening. There was nothing frantic in its movement, no hurrying, and Ross watched, enthralled, as the black appendage calmly felt for a way to get the angel out of its cocoon. 

It
was
an angel, he saw now. And it was beautiful. It had not been resurrected for any malevolent purpose. Resurrection couldn’t be evil.
They
were the evil ones for trying to attack it. The angel should not be assaulted, it should be celebrated. Father Ramos had returned because he knew the truth, and now Ross himself knew the truth, and he would do everything in his power to— 

No
. 

This wasn’t right. 

He closed his eyes, fought against the thoughts that were imposing themselves on his mind. 

Kevin! 

Had it gotten to Kevin, too? 

No, it hadn’t. Ross opened his eyes to see his nephew sprinting away from the emerging demon—for that’s what it was, he had finally decided, a demon—and unspooling det wire behind him. 

“Get back!” Kevin was shouting to anyone within hearing distance. “Get away!” 

Ross and Hec heeded the advice, as did several men and women who had started to wander back from the burning barn. Whether they believed in the angel or not, they understood after what had happened to the barn that Kevin was about to do some serious damage, and their survival instinct kicked in, overriding everything else. 

McDaniels still had his rifle trained on Cameron Holt, but as soon as Ross and Hec ran by, he joined them, all three speeding past the edge of the house and down a section of the drive before a thunderous clap and a blast of hot wind at their backs made them stop and turn around.  

A massive blaze, taller than it was wide, with flames of different color flaring up and out, engulfed the black figure on the old smokehouse’s foundation, including the searching tentacle. In the fire, the remainder of the chrysalis burned away, and for a brief moment, the thing inside rose to its feet, stretching out to full size. It had thick black wings, but they clung to the spiky body rather than extending. The head, even more triangular than before, and more geometric than antlike, displayed a horrific face bearing almost no resemblance to anything human, insect or animal. From within the multi-colored flames, red eyes looked upon them with hatred and a depth of knowledge so vast that its very gaze made Ross more terrified than he had ever been in his life.  

Kevin knew what he was doing, however. Like a fire tornado, the blaze shot up, swirling around the figure, and the heat was so great that the skin began to melt. The monster screamed, but instead of a roar there was a whistle, a keening so high-pitched and powerful that Ross thought his eardrums were going to burst. 

Then it was gone. 

The burning monstrosity didn’t collapse or shatter, it simply disappeared, winking out of existence as though it had never been there in the first place. The inferno surrounding it lost
all
color for a second, looked black-and-white, and then it was a normal fire, the kind that burned houses and forests, yellow and orange. 

Stunned, confused—
was it really all over?
—the three of them started slowly back, McDaniels and Hec with their rifles at the ready, just in case.  

A lone figure emerged from behind the tightly controlled blaze, walking toward them. “Over here!” Kevin shouted. 

On the porch, a furious Cameron Holt raised his shotgun. 

Hec’s bullet took him down.  

As he ran over to his nephew, Ross wondered if Hec’s action had been necessary—the man was a sharpshooter, after all. Couldn’t he have been more precise? Couldn’t he have injured the rancher rather than killed him?—but he was grateful that Kevin was okay, and though he wasn’t sure they had ever hugged before, they hugged now, and Kevin cried into his shoulder like a little boy. 

On the porch, Father Ramos was on his knees, praying out loud for forgiveness. 

Ross was crying, too, and the hug lasted for a long time, family clinging to family for support. Around them, rifles raised, McDaniels and Hec looked out for anything amiss. 

Ross wondered if cellphones worked here now, and pulling away from his nephew with a final pat on the back, he took out his phone and punched in 911. 

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” a woman’s voice on the other end of the line responded. 

Unprepared, Ross didn’t know what to say. “There’s a fire at Cameron Holt’s ranch outside of Magdalena,” he finally got out. 

“What is the address on that, sir?” 

“I don’t know, but you can’t miss the smoke.” 

“I’m afraid I’ll need—” Before the dispatcher could continue to question him, he clicked off. 

“If the cops question you on shootin’ Holt,” McDaniels was telling his friend, “I’ll swear it was self-defense.”