Merkabah Rider: High Planes Drifter Read online

  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, 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 it. 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.

  Molech stepped wholly from the statue and dangled The Rider like a morsel high over its head, the hot, fell breath wafting up around him like a volcanic updraft.

  Its baying voice took on a mocking tone, like the high pitched bellows of a pack of hyenas. What it said The Rider couldn’t catch, but its intent was clear.

  The Rider stared down into the widening jaws of Molech and imagined the slivered bones of infants jammed between its teeth. There was a hope his wards would make his soul indigestible. If they didn’t, despite all his training, he truly had no idea of what awaited him in the demon’s belly. He imagined the shriveled infant souls that already passed through its fires and began to rapidly utter the ninety-first Psalm as he reached to free his pistol, hoping its Solomonic attributes would be enough to expel the evil spirit.

  “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night…”

  That was when his ethereal hand closed on the empty space where the butt of his pistol should have been.

  The demon seemed to notice his distress and elicited a shrieking crone-like laugh that shook its thick shoulders, causing its vile body, made hermaphroditic by its brushy haired, sagging, atrophied chest and disproportionate nether regions, dance revoltingly. That terrible sound threatened to drown out The Rider’s recitation.

  “Thou shalt tread upon the lion and asp, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample...”

  Molech continued to laugh. The Rider saw the girl in the arms of the robed figures again. Two were righting the ladder and struggling to secure her bonds and reset her in the arms of the idol. The rest were puzzling over their leader.

  With a jolt, Molech lowered The Rider towards its jaws and seemed to address him, its voice taking on a more human aspect, but uttering guttural words of a language that could not have been a far cry from the animal grunts of the first stooping men. Men who made war with fists full of rock and broken tree limbs, and who drove the sharpened ends of animal bones into the bellies of their enemies, then described their conquests on the cold, hidden walls of caves in crude paintings of blood and berries far beneath the earth.

  It mocked him again, this eater of stolen babes, this bather in blood and fire. It seemed that The Rider could almost understand its speech, could almost hear it asking how he could have expected to come into its presence for a second time and live.

  The Rider paused in his incantation and stared at the incomprehensible visage.

  Then, with a flick of his wrist, the alchemically enchanted silver Derringer strapped to the inside of his left forearm slipped into his hand. It was a minor tool compared to the more powerful Volcanic, but it was inscribed with strong offensive runes. This was one of the tools his teachers would have dismissed him for. Now it, and his faith in the Most High, were all he had.

  He jammed it into Molech’s eye and fired, resuming his recitation, his own voice ringing above Molech’s laughter as the explosion of mystical force cut short the demon’s mirth.

  “With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation!”

  Blue-white fire, from the muzzle of the little silver pistol, flared and filled the eye of the raging bull god. A stream of murky black ichor spilled from the wound, which continued to burn and flare like it held a live firework.

  Molech let out a scream and released The Rider, clapping its hand to the spurting wound.

  Its cry of pain was like the lowing of bulls being slaughtered, the howl of lions ripped asunder.

  The Rider hovered for a moment between the
arm of the statue and the flailing, wounded god. Down below, amid a mass of blood, he was amazed to see Hayim Cardin stir and slowly turn at the call of his master.

  But Cardin was a shattered vessel. No good to anyone. His warnings went unheeded by the distrustful brethren, who were returning to their murderous ceremony, drawing away the ladder from the idol and ignoring the bubbles of blood that frothed at Cardin’s lips.

  The Rider sought his only avenue and dove for the top of the girl’s head.

  It was not as easy as possessing Cardin had been. The girl’s spirit was strong and in distress. It took a maximum effort to drive her hyper-aware consciousness to the background. But then in a rush, the unearthly roaring of Molech was gone, replaced by the chanting of the Canaanites and the booming of their great drum as he descended once more into the physical world. Hot, sulfur laced air filled the girl’s aching lungs and the smells of the temple were all around. The arms of the idol were searing to the touch, and the heat coming off it was not unlike the oppressive air of the demon itself.

  In the body of the girl The Rider twisted with new vigor, the acolytes put their weight into the chains that draped from the idol and its arms jerked upwards. She rolled, straight for the open mouth, but turned and stopped, bracing her bare feet against the scalding iron jaws.

  The girl’s terror had leant her body strength, and The Rider’s resolve doubled that. They had repaired her shredded linen wrap with silken cords taken from the waists of their robes. Now the flames that licked from the aperture caught the cord between her ankles.

  The Rider prayed for an infinitesimal measure of the strength God had granted Samson in the temple of Dagon.

  It was enough.

  The Canaanites watched awestruck as the slip of a girl disrupted their most sacred ceremony for the second time and scrambled to her badly scorched feet, pulling her hands free with her teeth and clinging like a white monkey to their god’s upraised arm. She sprung from the statue and seemed to float suspended for a half a moment in the acrid air above the congregation, her broken fetters whipping wildly about her, the torn linen filling with air, almost angelic. Then she landed full with her heels on the crumpled form of Cardin as he fought to rise, gripping the robe of one of the worshipers and gesticulating desperately at empty air. There was a final crack that was audible even above the enraged exclamations of the worshipers and the faltering beat of the drum.

  The tarnished soul of Hayim Cardin fled its broken shell.

  The Rider/girl spared no time, but fell to her hands and scurried like an animal through the legs of the men who lined up to recapture her. Breaking through the other side of the congregation, she plunged out into the relative cool of the ossuary. She scrambled over scattered bones, and bounded up the hewn stairs that led to the stinking cemetery.

  The Rider was forced to contend with the terrified girl’s limitations. The stairs had been a negligible thing in ethereal form, but encased within this small and exhausted body, it was rigor. The cool steps were no relief to her scalded bare feet. Every step was a newborn hell coursing up her burned legs, singing an endless ballad of pain whose purpose was to sway her wavering fortitude, begging her pause to rest, to sit.

  The clamor of the Canaanites echoed up the rock passage from below, and grew louder. There could be no rest. No respite, without death.

  Then, something happened somewhere down below in the belly of the sanctum. The Rider could only surmise it was the departure of Molech. An earth shaking tremor and clamor of sound like two steam engines colliding, followed by an explosion of fire and heat and screams, belched up the passage, almost knocking the fleeing girl to her hands.

  It was the statue, The Rider knew. The symbol of Molech’s influence and power had toppled like the one in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. What had physically occurred hardly mattered. The defeat of Molech in the Yenne Velt required a corresponding action in the physical world. Or perhaps the indelicate treatment of the arm mechanism had caused some imbalance when the girl had jumped.

  Whatever it was, he heard the screams of the stragglers in the temple and knew the fire that had kindled in the guts of the idol had vomited forth when it cracked, engulfing those who had strayed too far behind. The drum had ceased. Now there were only the curses of the pursuers as they renewed their chase.

  The girl emerged from the passage coughing and stumbling, blinking at the bluing predawn sky. Inky smoke flowed from the passage, joining the foul smelling vapors that swirled on the ground from the temple vents. The angry shouts of the Canaanites had become cries of fear and desperation as their lair filled with wafting death.

  Down below, they scrabbled like rats, pulling at each other to escape, trampling, catching handfuls of their fellows’ robes and jerking them down the stone steps in their haste to ascend. Some collapsed from exertion, thirsty lungs gulping oily, poisonous smoke. They died clawing at their hot throats, faces purpling. Some crashed down the stairs, killed as if by a beating, or survived the lengthy tumble only to land paralyzed in the lake of fire that had spilled from the idol and chewed at the blackened bones of the ossuary, still eager for new fuel.

  There was a final tremor and the graveyard collapsed in upon itself in a cloud of dust and a final burp of smoke.

  Of the two dozen The Rider had estimated in the flock of Molech, only six emerged, faces blackened, robes singed, their eyes filled with a burning not from the fumes alone. They fanned out from the opening and hunted through the toppled tombstones like questing wolves, till one of them sounded a cry and pointed to the fleeting bright figure stumbling through the cemetery gate and toward the dwellings.

  Those six ran after her.

  * * * *

  Joseph nearly leapt from his skin as his front door sounded with insistent pounding. So The Rider was too late. The posse from town had come, or else the Canaanites had finally broken their bargain, as he had suspected they would.

  Rebech gripped his shoulders, and in his arms, Eli stirred awake.

  “Joseph!” came the small, hoarse voice of a child from outside. “Joseph hurry!”

  Joseph moved. He thrust his blinking son into Rebech’s arms and ran to the door, throwing up the bar and wrenching it open.

  A haggard looking yellow haired girl leaned out of breath in the doorway, clothed in ragged strips of dirty linen, her thin, trembling legs covered in scrapes and cuts. Her bare, burned feet were swollen and filthy.

  She looked up at him with exhausted eyes.

  “Joseph…”

  She fell forward. Joseph caught her, drew her up into his arms. She weighed almost nothing. As he straightened, he saw the six men, Cardin’s, come running around the corner, filthy red robes billowing about them.

  “Klein!” shouted one he knew, by face but not by name, as one who had come from the mountains with Cardin.

  “Rebech!” he called, retreating into the house with the girl. “Shut the door!”

  Rebech lunged forward and pushed the door shut and threw the bar down in time for the door to bang hard against it.

  Twice more it shuddered from the impact of a heavy shoulder, but the thick bar did not give. Y’shmael had fashioned it. It would hold.

  “Klein!” screamed the man outside like a rabid animal. “Open this door!”

  Joseph set the girl on the table. She was weaker than ever, her head lolling in fatigue.

  “God,” said Rebech. “God.”

  “Draw water for this child,” Joseph called, trying to keep the panic from his voice, trying to sound strong as he had never been, trying to drown out the violent calls of the men outside. He held the waifish girl’s hollow cheeks between his hands. “Are you alright?” he said, in Aramaic.

  The girl shook her head tiredly, a fear in her brimming eyes that was not there when he’d opened the door.

  “Who are you?” she bawled in English.

  * * * *

  They had finally gotten Martin’s goddamned horse under control, but it had taken a lot of wind out of the
proceedings. The animal had balked every time they’d lifted the Jew onto it, and once it had broken free and they’d had to chase it down. Finally Tom threatened to shoot the jugheaded animal, which almost caused a fight with the Lazy S boys.

  Dan cooled them down and reminded them why they were all there, to see the Jew priest swing. Martin coaxed the horse into finally sitting still, and at last Bull had lifted the unconscious Jew into the saddle and cinched the noose around his neck.

  Stupid Jew luck had caused this party to carry on way too long.

  Now, Bull raised one huge hand to finally do the honors.

  “See you in hell,” said Cut Tom. “Finally.”

  He thought he saw the Jew’s eyes open, but it must have been a trick of the predawn light.

  Bull’s hand slapped down on the horse’s rump and it bolted out from under the Jew. The rope pulled tight and he swung from the arm of the newspaper office sign—

  —for about the time it took a flea to fart.

  Then the Jew’s hands (which they hadn’t bound because they hadn’t bothered to rustle up the extra rope) flew up and grabbed the noose. With a hard tug, he drew it open and dropped to the boards free and clear, right in front of Dan, who looked about fit to go running after Martin’s horse.

  It was like seeing a dead man come back to life. Tom shook off the surprise and wiped away the blood that spilled from the fresh hole he’d bit in his own lip.

  “Playin’ possum, huh?” he quipped, and pulled his pistol.

  When the Jew turned, he had already yanked his own weapon out of the lip of a stupefied Dan’s trousers. So what? Fast or no, that twenty dollar shoehorn of flashy tin wasn’t going to do anything. Hadn’t Dan tried it? Hadn’t he said it was just for show, some cowardly Jew bastard’s notion of safety? It wasn’t going to spit a blue pill into him.