"Well, I don't rightly know, but if I had to guess, I'd say it was to that big Kanye West concert in the sky where all good little South Siders go."
Matt turned.
The trooper tipped his flashlight up, gruesomely highlighting his pointed chin, hook nose, emaciated cheeks, and deep-set eyes.
Mr. Dark grinned at him. "How's tricks, Matt?"
Matt rose quickly. Without even thinking, he whipped the carving knife from his belt and flung it.
The second before it hit him, Mr. Dark split into two Mr. Darks, and the knife sailed harmlessly between them.
"Asexual reproduction, Matt. Highly underrated."
"Get the fuck out of here."
"What'sa matter, handsome? Three's a crowd?"
Three. Matt flashed a look back to Annica. She was still standing there, arms crossed against her chest. He couldn't see her expression in the fog.
Mr. Dark's four eyes followed his. "Nice little morsel you've got there." He slid the flashlight farther under his chin, so that everything disappeared but his cruel, clown-slit mouth and the hook of his nose. He looked like the skull of Mr. Punch. "Tell you what," he whispered. "I know a nice little culvert near here. Lots of atmosphere. Whatta ya say we show her a night on the town, then split her fifty-fifty? Heads for me, tails for you." He gave Matt a whoremaster's grin. "Deal?"
"The only deal I'll make with you is this," Matt said. "Listen carefully: if you divide yourself into a cop and a construction worker and an Indian chief, and do the YMCA? I will give you fifty dollars, cash."
Mr. Dark's red eyes got redder.
"You're pretty funny for a dead man, Matt."
"And you're pretty skinny for a windigo, or whatever the fuck you are." Matt took in Mr. Dark's hollow cheeks and his tight, white skin. Remembered Dindren saying, The Otherworld, Matt, has rules like ours. Under special circumstances, its citizens are required to answer truthfully.
Mr. Dark stared at him, the twin fires in his eyes glittering patiently. Like he's waiting for me to ask him something, Matt realized. But what?
The answer came to him immediately. Matt had to know if he was Mr. Dark's locus or his host. Had to. Dindren may have been batshit crazy, but if there was even one chance in a million that he was right, and there was a way to stop this carnage from happening, Matt had to take that chance—whatever the cost.
So . . . What was the question Dindren said should have been posed to the Grail? The one he'd have only one chance to ask?
Matt racked his brains. Jesus, of all the things to forget.
"I'm waiting." Mr. Dark's tongue flickered out. It was flat, black, and pointed. Matt glimpsed the back of his throat, which was lined with row upon row of sharp teeth, like a great white's.
Christ.
Suddenly it came to him, the Grail question: Whom do you serve?
He licked his lips.
"Got a question?" Mr. Dark asked.
"As a matter of fact, I do." Matt took a breath. "Who . . . ?"
Matt paused a moment. Was he the locus or the host? A lot was riding on the answer. If locus, then he'd be condemned to a lifetime of wandering alone, trying to avert havoc in order to starve a parasitic demon that he couldn't ever hope to understand. If host . . .
"Who . . . ?" he said.
If host, he'd have to kill himself. As soon as possible. Go find that carving knife, put it to his throat, and lose everything he knew, or would know, of the world. Including Janey. Because beat-up and crazy and frightened as he was, he was all that was left of her.
Feeling weaker now. The impossibility of not being weighing down his tongue.
"Who . . . ?"
Mr. Dark raised a skeptical eyebrow. Lifted his hand and mimed knocking. In a deep purr: "Knock, knock, Matty-boy?" When Matt didn't answer, Mr. Dark answered for him, in a high, childish voice: "Who's there, Mr. Dark?"
One more chance. Matt, shaking, forced it out. "Who . . . ?"
Mr. Dark, with a wide-eyed, exaggerated wink: "Who who?"
Hoo-ooh, OOH-HOOH!
Hoo-ooh, OOH-HOOH!
Matt looked up. High above him: an owl in a tree, with glowing red eyes. It spread its black wings and took flight.
Matt looked back down. Mr. Dark was gone.
He turned slowly in a circle, staring into the foggy dark.
Nothing.
Dindren's words came to mind: Ask the right question . . . You will not get a second chance.
Matt's jaw tightened as he stared into the black void around him, and the highway that ran endlessly through it.
"All right, you fucker," he said. "We do it the hard way."
# # # # # #
"Who were you talking to?" Annica asked when he crossed back over the highway.
"You mean the trooper?"
"What trooper?"
He looked at her, then looked away. "Do me a favor, kid: just stick out your thumb."
# # # # # #
An eighteen-wheeler filled with Borden milk squealed to a stop five minutes later. The driver was delighted to see Annica waving him down. He was less delighted to see Matt trudge up behind her, looking like something that had crawled out of a crypt. But when Annica made it clear that they were a package deal, he finally relented.
"Wet as hell tonight," he pointed out grumpily as Matt followed the blonde up onto the big vinyl seats and slammed the door.
Matt grunted as he scanned the driver quickly. He looked like a skinny Santa: blue eyes, white beard, wire-rim glasses. The comparison ended with his sinewy frame and Jimmy Page T-shirt, which said "Ramble On." But no lesions, wounds, swellings. He smelled of Old Spice, wore no sunglasses: behind wire-rims, his blue eyes were guileless—and unbeetled.
Matt settled in, reached for the seat belt.
The big engine rumbled as the driver threw it into gear and leaned on the pedal.
"How far you goin', missy?" he asked the girl.
"As far as he does," she said, nodding towards Matt. "I'm with him."
"Huh-uh," Matt said. "We're dropping her off at the next town."
Annica leaned close to him, touched his arm. "We make a good team, Matt," she said in a voice almost inaudible over the rumble of the engine. "Freaks like us, with no one else in the world . . ."
Matt pressed his forehead against the window. The cool glass felt good against his hot brow. After a night of battles, this was one too many. He'd find somewhere safe to leave her, someone sane to take her in. He may have failed to unlock the secret of Mr. Dark's nature, but he could at least do that much.
A silence followed, filled with nothing but the hum of eighteen wheels on wet macadam. Then the skinny Santa spoke up. "S'pose it's not too much to ask how ya bloodied yourself up like that?"
Matt sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fight over a girl," he said.
"Same old story," the driver snorted, shaking his head. "Girl comes along on a Friday night, and everybody thinks he's a hero."
"Buddy," Matt said quietly, "you don't know how right you are." And he stared through the window at his reflection and, beyond it, amid a break in the ghostly black pines, the unblinking eyes of a white stag.
THE END . . .
UNTIL THE NEXT ADVENTURE OF THE DEAD MAN
Here's an excerpt from HELL IN HEAVEN, book #3 in the DEAD MAN saga
CHAPTER ONE
Heaven.
That's what the sign at the exit said. Heaven, Washington, elevation 5100 feet, population 136. Except that the last digit had been crossed out, and replaced with a seven, followed by an exclamation point in black spray paint.