Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter Read online

  Finally the last step came, and the passage widened into an ossuary chamber. Heaped against the far wall were unstable ricks of blackened bones, partially devoured by fire and gnawed by scuttling vermin. Maybe they were the desecrated remains of the Jews displaced from the graveyard by the excavations of the temple. Some of the bones, he noticed, were smaller than the others.

  Around a bend lay another aperture, and the floor there was soaked in reddish light. He stalked toward this light and heard the chanting and the resounding boom of a great drum echoing against the rock walls.

  Here was a new chamber, one more marvelous than any other. It was the heart of the structure, with a high ceiling supported by four columns decorated on every side with blasphemous image. The grandeur of the chamber did not fail to impress The Rider, although every carving made his soul turn. This was a structure built to withstand the ages, not simply to appease a blood mad cult of lunatics. There was method here. Purpose. He wondered how random the appearance of Cardin and his followers had been in Little Jerusalem. It all seemed to point towards some grander scheme.

  In the center of the chamber towered Joseph Klein’s vile masterwork. The old tzadik had spoken of the plans Cardin had provided him with. Here stood its fruits, as it must have stood centuries before in Ammon and Canaan, and in Babylon. As it had stood perhaps in Sodom and in Gomorrah, and in a hundred other benighted lands of the ancient world; a titanic, genuflecting nude figure of black wrought iron, with the torso and arms of a man, the head of a bull, and the gigantic eyes and feet of an owl. It was hung with brass ornamentation and was grossly obese. An uncircumcised phallus thrust up from beneath its drooping belly, flaunting the Covenant in deliberate audacity. Its great arms were stretched before it, palms upward, not in a gesture of supplication to Heaven, but of unbridled revelry. The arms were constructed as separate pieces and draped with pulleys and chains. They were built to tilt upwards at an angle. The jaw of the elephantine horned bull head was hinged and its maw gaped red, as did its two wide, owlish eye sockets, which were ringed with dark, carved feathers.

  Molech the King.

  At the base of the sculpture, between its tridactyl-clawed feet, two crimson robed acolytes stoked a pile of burning coals and salted it with what looked like sulfur. The smoke was drawn up the chamber to a series of openings in the ceiling, which vented the noxious clouds to the surface—the source of the stinking smoke that dozed along the cemetery grounds. The coal fire spread a red glow up the superheated iron and caused an unearthly scarlet gloaming in the eyes and mouth. The statue was hollow. It had to be, to receive its victims.

  The sacrifice would be cradled in the arms of the statue. Then the attendants would work the pulleys, raising the mighty arms and sending the victim tumbling into the open mouth, to perish slowly in the furnace of the statue’s iron belly. A door built into the back allowed the so-called priests to gather what remained once the deity had cooled.

  Before their god the flock had gathered. About two dozen red robed worshipers, chanted while one of their number struck an enormous hide drum. Here were idolaters. Here were Canaanites.

  A high scream riled The Rider from his thoughts, and as he watched, the Canaanites lifted their arms as one, and riding their upturned hands was a small, thin figure bound tightly in white linen, spilling yellow golden hair from her head. Their offering: the reverend’s daughter; a struggling, tear-streaked girl of no more than thirteen.

  The shrieking girl was quickly passed the length of the congregation to where a pair of men, at the head, set up a wooden ladder and received her, ascending it to place her in the waiting arms of the idol.

  The Rider moved swiftly into the chamber, and through their midst, unnoticed, until he reached the front. Then a tall man with a hooked nose and a long, curled black beard seasoned with gray, turned as though he had been tapped on the shoulder. He faced The Rider. He was ruddy skinned and cruel faced, and his lips were uncommonly red, as though forever stained with the innocent blood that had passed over them. His barbarically painted eyes glowered beneath a downturned brow, the irises almost completely black. This was their chief and the architect of the damnation of Little Jerusalem, bespangled in gold and garish finery, strong and tall, but pot bellied from a life of luxuriant wantonness.

  Hayim Cardin, as great a traitor to his race as The Rider’s own master.

  The Rider stopped, surprised to be perceived by one not inhabiting the shadow plane. He detected movement near the ground, and saw the half-corpse from the graveyard clinging spider-like to the hem of Cardin’s robe, peering up at him like a child chastised by a stranger.

  The ceremony continued, few of the other worshipers taking note of their leader’s demeanor. Then The Rider heard the voice of Cardin, although his lips made no movement.

  “You have no place here, Rider!”

  “Hayim Cardin,” The Rider answered, squaring his shoulders and savoring what he said next. “Idolater and Canaanite. You have broken the mitzvah against avoda zara and betrayed the Lord, your God. It is you who have no place. Anywhere on this Earth.”

  The shambling corpse thing traded nervous looks from its master to The Rider and back again, as The Rider’s hand once more poised above his pistol.

  Hayim Cardin smiled, and imperceptibly at his side, his left hand closed into a fist. The two outermost fingers extended, the red jewels on his rings glinting in the furnace light. It was the cornuto, the beast’s horns, normally employed against evil. The Rider could almost hear the dark power buzzing as it generated between Cardin’s fingers, arcing like red lightning across his clenched knuckles as he turned his palm up.

  “I was told to expect you, Rider. You will have the honor of dying upon holy ground, on the threshold of the new kingdom.”

  “What new kingdom?”

  “The kingdom that is to come; when the Hour of Incursion strikes and The Great Old Ones take their place beside the infernal lords as masters of this insignificant world.”

  “Would you build a carpet of murdered children to welcome your masters upon? You’re a fool, Cardin. You’re worse than dead. You’re damned.”

  They stared at each other for a moment, the corpse the only spectator to their duel.

  Cardin’s hand came up first, jabbing at The Rider, sending a wild chain of scarlet energy roping towards him. The Rider pivoted as he drew his pistol, and felt the violent, crackling field of red lightning sear as it snaked past. He squeezed off one shot, and a brilliant blue white hole appeared in the center of Cardin’s chest. Against a physical form, the ethereal pistol was not fatal, but its fire was a psychic shock to the individual’s soul, which resulted in a brief arrest of the body and consciousness. It would do little more than stun Cardin, but it opened him up to other attacks.

  Cardin flew backwards, arms flailing wildly, and struck the stone floor hard. Instantly the corpse hopped over the body of its master and sprung, its eyes rolling back as it lashed out. The Rider’s second shot cut the undead thing dead center, blowing it to greenish bits, the weapon more effective on creatures of unnatural composition.

  The Rider dropped the Volcanic back in its housing, as he rushed towards Cardin’s body. He did not notice that upon releasing it, the ethereal pistol vanished entirely.

  * * * *

  They flowed from the Moderado, into the dark avenue. Hallen, the old black lamplighter, shrank from the mob and its burden, as he had from a similar scene in his youth in Alabama. He’d seen the white folks plant a black ditch digger in a cottonwood tree for stealing from the big house. He knew the voice of a lynching, knew the smell and the sound. He didn’t know what poor bastard was being dragged around at the center of that rush of angry voices, but he didn’t want to get in the way of it. He ducked into an alley and let them pass, catching a glimpse of a limp, bearded man being dragged along. He caught snatches of mad words and the sounds of blows and nervous, too-loud laughter.

  Then they were gone, headed off down the street looking for a tree or a
beam to set the man dangling. Hallen shook his head and went back to the street lamps. Mister Mayor paid him a half a dollar a week to keep the lights, and he was looking forward to a chicken dinner on Saturday.

  Clubber Morrow, from the Lazy S, lassoed the Pure Life Picayune’s sign and jerked it down to free up the sturdy beam, while Martin French, the bank clerk, called again for somebody to lend a horse to the condemned so nobody broke their back hoisting him up.

  As Clubber set to work tying his reata into a hangman’s knot, Cut Tom grabbed it from him and shoved him aside.

  “Let me do it,” he said, and waved Bull over.

  “You can use my horse, Tom,” said Clubber, still eager to be of help.

  “That nag’s gonna finally be good for something,” said Heck Barstow, one of his pards, guffawing as Clubber led the animal up onto the boardwalk.

  Burly was there, scratching his head.

  “Shouldn’t we wait till Shivers gets back?”

  “Show me a law book says it’s against the law to lynch a Jew,” Tom said, working at the knot.

  Dan appeared just then, and shouldered past Burly to get nearer to the Jew.

  “Can’t argue with that logic,” he muttered. “Hang on. I believe we had a deal.”

  He reached out and neatly plucked the pistol from the Jew’s belt, and hell and be-damned if it wasn’t honest to God gold and silver, stamped with all kinds of Jew writing and seals. What kind of man carried a fancy iron like this one? In a half a minute’s deliberation, Dan had the answer.

  “You hang on, fancy man,” Tom said, letting his hand fall to his own gun. “The deal was for his money, not that gun. That’s mine and Bull’s.”

  Dan took a step away to avoid being clocked by Bull and raised and cocked the Jew’s pistol, pointing it right at Cut Tom.

  The milling crowd shrank back. The men who’d been pushing their way in from the outer edges to get a good look spun on their boot heels and ran off down the street, holding their hats on their heads.

  Cut Tom was so surprised he only had time to drop his jaw before the hammer fell on the Jew’s gun.

  Nothing happened.

  Dan smirked and spun the pistol on his finger, pulled the trigger twice more and then offered him the butt.

  “Damn Jew gun is deactivated, Tom,” he chuckled. “And it ain’t even gold, just brass and nickel. He must’ve carried it just to keep people at a distance. If you still want it, you can have it. But I’ll give you both ten dollars to let me hang it over the bar for a laugh.”

  Tom hesitated and looked at Bull. The big man shrugged.

  “Ten dollars?” Bull asked.

  Dan nodded.

  The mob started to step closer again.

  “I don’t care,” Tom said after a minute. “Gun that don’t shoot ain’t no good to me. Take it, but you owe me ten dollars.”

  Dan smiled and tucked the Jew’s pistol in his pants and thought about how swiftly a fool and his money were parted.

  “How are you tyin’ that rope, Tom?” Clubber asked, looking skeptically over Tom’s shoulder at the half-finished noose. “There ain’t gonna be enough rope left over to tie his arms.”

  “Don’t hardly need to tie him up do we?” Bull said, shaking the limp form of the Jew and giggling.

  “Judo maldito,” Trujillo muttered, and struck the Jew full in the face. There was a dribble of blood from his lips, but still no reaction.

  “Christ,” said Heck Barstow, “he ain’t even gonna wake up till he’s in hell.”

  Tom shook his head. This wasn’t a bit satisfying. He flung the length of rope in Clubber’s face.

  “Aww, do it your damn self, Clubber, you pup.”

  “Get him up on the horse!” somebody yelled.

  Tom just stared holes in the Jew while Bull carried him to Clubber’s horse.

  * * * *

  The Canaanites clustered around their fallen leader. Even the two acolytes manning the chains of the idol halted at Cardin’s collapse. The girl in its black arms screamed shrilly.

  Cardin’s eyes fluttered and opened, looking all around.

  “Hayim?” whispered one of the red robed cultists, tentatively.

  They pulled Cardin to his feet and he wobbled unsteadily on his legs, saying nothing.

  “Are you ill?”

  Cardin shook off his delirium, then turned to look at the idol. With a sudden violent motion, he pulled his arms free of the men and lurched drunkenly forward. He gained the ladder and scurried up the rungs before anyone could react. When he reached the left arm of the idol, he straddled the thick forearm and began to drag the bound and screaming girl from the statue’s grip.

  Shock gave way to alarm. The Canaanites rushed to stop their crazed leader. The two coal-tenders ascended the ladder. The first reached the top and leapt upon Cardin as he tore the linen wrappings of the sacrifice. After a brief and precarious struggle, Cardin kicked the acolyte in the stomach. The man desperately tried to regain his footing, but stumbled backwards and fell headfirst with a terrified shriek into the open mouth of the statue. His robes caught fire immediately and he was heard banging against the inside of the reddening iron throat and screaming before he landed with a heavy thud in its superheated bowels.

  Cardin turned as the second cultist reached the top, and with another kick, tipped the ladder over and sent its clinging ascendants crashing to the floor below.

  Cardin lifted the writhing girl on his shoulder and prepared to leap from the arms of the idol, when all of a sudden, his eyes rolled up in his head and his entire body seized and went limp. The hysterical girl and her captor fell from the statue down to the stone floor below with a sickening sound, like a dropped sack of dry kindling.

  At first, The Rider had no inkling of what had happened. The spells on the pistol had weakened Cardin’s natural psychic barriers, making it a simple thing to possess his unconscious body. The fiery blue hole punched in those defenses had formed a mystical entryway to Cardin’s body, into which The Rider had dove, rapidly bending and compacting his ethereal form. He had then used his will to nudge aside Cardin’s dazed consciousness and seize the unfamiliar controls of his physical machine, effectively donning him like an ill-fitting suit. He’d known, of course, as soon as he’d freed the girl the acolytes would turn on him. All things considered, he’d thought he’d been doing well before he’d suddenly found his ethereal body plucked from the nape of Cardin’s neck like a kitten from a basket of yarn.

  He looked with concern past his dangling feet at the twisted body of Cardin sprawled on the stone below. Thankfully Cardin’s thick frame had broken the girl’s fall. She wrestled with the tangled remains of her bonds, one long leg kicking free of the wrappings with an audible rip. The bewildered cultists were already gathering about their fallen leader and the escaping sacrifice.

  Then, The Rider felt the hot breath on the back of his neck—something he shouldn’t have been able to feel considering his state. He heard the heavy bellows of titanic lungs, accustomed to the intake of fire and brimstone, and smelled the fetid breath, laced with the harbor stench of pollution and burning abortions, beating down upon him.

  He looked into the bugging owl eyes of Molech, the King of Gehenna, Son of Lilith and Marshal of the Demonic Order of Thamiel.

  The immense demon stood on its weird avian legs half out of the glowing iron statue. The colossal, speckled brown wings protruding regally from its back, not depicted in the carving, were all that remained to mark its long ago heritage among the ranks of the archangels. Now, Molech was entirely demon, twisted and made bestial by the blasphemous offerings of its worshipers like a fattened hedonist marked by his many vile propensities. It held The Rider with one massive, flabby arm. Twin strands of shimmering black mucus, like crude oil, hung almost to the floor from its flaring nostrils, matching the inky sheen of the row of tombstone teeth clenched between its curling animal lips. The inanimate image of the statue and the knowledge of its purpose had been horrible enough. Seeing
that which had inspired the sculpture and the vile practice that was tied to it was enough to stop the heart of the most resolute man.

  Fortunately, The Rider’s heart was elsewhere.

  It boomed at him in the language of the infernals, a cacophony like the wailing of dying children mewling in the bellies of ten thousand baying curs. Its voice was the roar of ravenous, unnamable beasts thrown into a pit to tear each other to pieces. He understood, rather than heard its outrage at his interruption of its vile adoration ceremony.

  The Rider quivered beneath that gaze, simply being in the presence of such a malignant force made his very soul wither. Without his mystic training and the protection of his pentacles and seals, his spirit would have been obliterated at the touch of an infernal presence of this magnitude. He had once before encountered Molech in the lower worlds, and had managed to elude him. It was disconcerting to be in the demon’s very grip, particularly here. The Rider could feel its pestilential influence spreading from its fingertips and mortifying his ethereal elements like a tactile plague. When the angel had spoken of Molech being in this town, he hadn’t thought she meant literally. He was woefully unprepared to do direct battle with a marshal of hell. What was Molech doing in the Yenne Velt? Why had it chosen this place and time to manifest?

  It took all the courage he could muster, all his faith, just to answer.

  “Don’t you remember me, old baby burner?”

  The grotesque infernal’s brow slackened for a half an instant, apparently shocked by the tiny apparition’s defiance. Then, an expression played across the horrible face that could only be recognition. It was as if Molech recounted the loss of the impudent soul, and its glaring, pop-eyed face became a mask of hatred at the memory.