Part 8 (2/2)

1.

The preacher and the innkeeper rode to the north end of town. After William tied their horses to a sycamore, Durham dismounted. They made their way toward a cabin bathed in moonlight.

The front door swung open and for a moment William imagined the black doorway was a portal of some kind, but then Daniel, whom he'd heard so much about but had never seen, filled the doorway, a large man in every respect. William stopped in his tracks beside the preacher and covered his mouth. His skin p.r.i.c.kled. He wouldn't realize until later why his blood had chilled-he only sensed some connection between this ma.s.sive man who lived on the edge of town and the angular man of G.o.d standing to his right.

The cabin was humble and built of logs. Even from 30 feet or so away William smelled tar, sawdust and vagaries he couldn't place-some sort of alcohol, perhaps. Jutting behind it, a chicken coop housed what he guessed would be food enough for a year. Above it a thread of smoke filtered into the sky. Inside the door, just behind the huge man, books were stacked from the floor to the ceiling.

”It's late,” the preacher called out, his normally commanding voice made small by the open s.p.a.ce. Or it might have been deference. William sensed a history between the men, a past he couldn't yet grasp.

Daniel merely smiled.

”Do you not sleep during the Devil's hours?”

”And who's to say that these,” said Daniel, gazing into the night sky, ”are the devil's hours?”

”They took Our Lord from the garden during these hours, did they not?”

”Our is such a presumptuous word, Reverend,” said Daniel, somehow producing a cigar from his trousers. ”But then, you are nothing if not presumptuous.” He smiled again, stuck the cigar in his mouth. A flame appeared in his palm.

William blinked, shook his head. It was some sort of trick. Had to be. Then the preacher glanced knowingly back at him and said, ”Pagans cursed our town this evening.”

”Must have been an eventful night.” Daniel took a drag, exhaled a stream of smoke.

”Are you mocking me?”

”Heavens, no.”

”They asked for you,” said Durham, jutting his chin out now, as if he expected the man before him to grow wide eyed and afraid; or as if he desperately wished him to.

But Daniel chuckled, still paying more attention to his cigar than to Durham. ”Nothing like a band of curious pagans.”

Durham took a step closer and finally Daniel glanced up. His eyes, which had been filled with nothing but contempt, now showed a vague concern. ”I warn you . . .” began Durham.

Daniel moved quickly: He spit out his cigar and leapt from the front stoop, landing in the dirt directly before the preacher. Durham stumbled back, collapsing onto his backside.

”Hey now!” yelled William.

Daniel eyed him, raising a finger, and the innkeeper stepped back. Then he turned to Durham. ”And you,” he whispered. ”You should have known better than to come here.” Daniel turned, hopped up the steps. ”Do what you will, Nathaniel,” he said, his back to them.

Then he slammed the door.

William moved to help the preacher, but Durham smacked his hand away. ”I swear to the Lord Jesus Christ that man will die by my hand.” The preacher turned toward the horses, spit on the ground and glanced up at the moon. ”Let's ride,” he said.

The innkeeper hesitated.

Durham whirled around, fisted his hands and screamed, ”Now!”

2.

Daniel collapsed into his only chair. Before Nathaniel had come, he'd been awakened by dreams of dying livestock and premonitions of the girl. Now, upset and shaking, he clamped his teeth down on another cigar and stared into the fireplace, trying mightily to make sense of his brother's visit. He'd known the girl was coming, but he had begun to believe her parents wouldn't bring her. He'd seen them-seen being, for Daniel, an action best done with closed eyes-checking into the inn, but he'd also seen the way the innkeeper had looked at them over the counter, the way he'd sneered when they'd mentioned his name.

Daniel cupped one hand beneath his cigar, rubbing it like a genie's lamp, and with his other hand he absently fondled the armrest. He stared through the fire, into the black recesses of the hearth. The flames, blue near their origin beneath the log, curled yellow-red over the dying wood. Sparks drifted toward the chimney like lightning bugs. Aside from everything he'd seen, fire had been very much on his mind. His visions were surrounded by flames, his sight a blinding column, around which a conflagration swirled.

”You can stay,” Nathaniel had told him when he'd somehow made it here, years ago. Having survived a beating and the water treatment, barely, back in Salem, he had set out to find his half-brother. After seven months of living off the land, he'd arrived in Tempest with nothing but rags hanging from his bones, stinking of the flesh he'd spent getting here. His moccasins had long since shredded; his footsteps left a wake of blood and pus. Near madness, he trudged through the dirt streets, screaming over and over, ”I am Marnie Durham's son! Does a man named Nathaniel live among you?”

But the day went white before anyone answered, and he awakened days later in a bed. Then his brother leaned over him, not smiling, his eyes full of an abiding worry, asking if he could survive travel. Nathaniel didn't wait for an answer before hurrying him into the back of the wagon. At the edge of town, he yelled at the horses and they rolled to a stop. Daniel crawled to the edge, pulled aside the curtain at the back of the bed, and immediately let it drop back into place; the sun seared into his eyes like a brand. With a voice like the rustling of ancient parchment, he asked his brother where they were. But Nathaniel didn't say. He only helped him down, then turned, spread his arms against the sky and said, ”We'll build the cabin right here.”

And so it was. After they completed it, Nathaniel came by every few weeks, his wagon full of supplies; after unloading it, he tipped his hat and rode back to town: he never invited Daniel to return with him, never stepped foot inside the cabin he'd helped build. Nathaniel Durham was ashamed of his half-brother, frightened of the mysterious half of his blood.

Daniel had hoped it might be different, but he wasn't surprised. The red death had taken James Durham two summers before his birth. The next spring, a stranger came to town. He charmed the widow Marnie, then vanished amidst rumors of wizardry. A month later her blood did not come and she and Nathaniel, six at the time, fled their home during the night. The boy never forgave his mother, never forgave the unborn. Of course the unborn would know none of this until it was only history, albeit history that had taken on the quaint air of myth.

”Please, Nathaniel,” he whispered, staring past the fire. ”Forgive me.” He took the pipe from his mouth, placed it at his feet. With a groan he stood, shuffling into the center of the room, thinking of the strange feeling that had come over him lately, the sense that his past was on a collision course with his future.

Daniel leaned back, closed his eyes and saw only fire.

Chapter Ten: Three Pots of Coffee.

1.

Robert Lieber spent all Thursday undergoing an exhaustive battery of tests. Doctor Matt checked on him at lunchtime. They ate at a diner local to the Cancer Center.

Robert was insatiable. He'd weighed in this morning, a weekly habit, and had been light six pounds. Last week he'd been two pounds south of his normal one hundred sixty. To compensate he put away two sandwiches, three bags of chips and two defiantly non-diet sodas while Matt pretended not to notice. They left the diner together and the doctor promised to contact him when the results came in.

The nurses, techs, and doctors were finished with him by six. He drove home in a daze, aching from the needles and patches and the disturbing feeling that he was already a corpse, a ghost perhaps, and that he'd been surrounded all day by angels in white, seraphim readying him for transfer from one plane to the next.

Surprisingly, Veronica wasn't home yet. He checked with his next door neighbor in case she'd left Jennifer with her, but the old woman just shook her head. He nervously crossed the lawn and took the stairs to Jenn's room. He heard her voice and pushed the door open. ”Hey, baby.”

Jenn was on her bed, surrounded by dolls. It was if she was holding court with old friends. ”Hey Daddy,” she said, scooting off her mattress. She grabbed a couple of dolls, carried them to her toy chest.

”You okay, honey?”

<script>