Empire of Dust Read online

  THE SEARCHERS, BOOK TWO:

  EMPIRE OF DUST

  Chet Williamson

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  © 2012 / Chet Williamson

  Copy-edited by: David Dodd

  Cover Design By: David Dodd

  Background Images used under the terms of the GFDL

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  To my old pard,

  Joe R. Lansdale,

  his own mighty self

  What is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? And, live we how we can, yet die we must.

  —SHAKESPEARE, HENRY VI

  PART III, V, ii, 27

  Who then to frail mortality shall trust

  But limns on water, or but writes in dust?

  —BACON, THE WORLD

  Chapter 1

  Damon had never seen anything as huge as the desert sky. Driving on the level roads in the sunlight had been bad enough, but standing under the flat black of the night was worse. He felt as though all anyone in the world had to do was to turn, and they would see him.

  The thought gave him a shiver, and the chilly night only made it worse. He had no idea that the desert could be so cold in July. But he walked on, toward the campfire, the liquid gleam in the eyes of the dozen people around it, and the three small tents pitched near it. Lucretia was muttering behind him, and he looked back and told her to shut up, then looked ahead at the ragtag crew waiting for him.

  They didn't look like the type of people the Divine would want. They were a bunch of dirtbags, dressed in dusty jeans, sweatshirts, and jackets with holes in the elbows. Most of the men had beards and long hair, and the women were just as unkempt, with stringy and unwashed hair.

  In contrast, Damon was dressed in his Lizard King look, spotless black from his leather vest to his boots. Lucretia was pretty impressive, too, in her tight red slacks and little black top under the satin jacket with the cabalistic designs stitched onto it.

  The only response their wardrobe got from the motley throng was hostility. All of them were standing now, and the largest of the men turned toward the patched tent in the center. "Ezekiel? Company," he said, then looked at Damon with suspicion.

  Damon wondered about the bad vibes. After all, they knew he was coming. He had connected with them through their website, had seen through the usual bullshit they had thrown up as a front, and figured out what they were really about.

  The Divine. The one the Catholics were holding prisoner because they knew that once he got free, the joy and liberty and blood that he would spill would wash their religion off the earth. This was the Main Man, the most powerful human being—if that's what he was—on the face of the planet, and maybe in the whole damn galaxy.

  Rumor had it that a bunch of cultists in New York had almost found the Divine, but got messed over by a small army of mercs hired by the Catholics, but rumors like that were cheap and plentiful. A rumor that Damon did believe, however, was that the leader of this bunch of desert rats had the talent, the wild Fortean brand, that let him link minds with the Divine.

  But he was with a gang of real nobodies. Hell, they didn't even have a name, and their website was just text, as low profile as you could get without dropping off the cyber-radar. But the key words were there for those who knew, who wanted to search. Unfortunately, he and Lucretia were the only ones who thought the trek to Arizona worth the effort, and Damon wasn't all that sure about Lucretia.

  Ezekiel Swain was sure as hell taking a long time to get out of that tent, and the dozen pairs of eyes regarding Damon were becoming no more friendly. Damon gave them back glare for glare, until Ezekiel Swain finally appeared.

  From his name, Damon had pictured the leader of this group as someone tall, thin, and cadaverous, almost biblical, like a younger version of John Brown. But what staggered out of the tent was a fat, bloated man in his mid-thirties, sweat popping from every pore, even in the chilly night. His red-blond hair was plastered over his forehead, and the khaki shirt he wore showed dark, wet circles under the arms and in the center of his wide, almost womanly chest. Beard stubble grew wildly across the terraces of his chins, and crooked teeth darted behind a pair of bulbous lips.

  At first he seemed as unimpressive a picture as could be imagined, and Damon nearly cursed aloud the fate that had brought him to this desolate place and this tub of a man. But then Ezekiel Swain looked directly at him, and his eyes, though hung over by moist folds of flesh, were as piercing and intent and knowing as any that Damon had ever seen, and he realized why people followed Ezekiel Swain.

  Then the fat man spoke, and Damon was repulsed all over again. "Don't tell me—you're Demon Damon. And this lovely lady must be Lucretia Borgia, right?" The words bubbled thickly, like a boiling pot of greasy stew in which the cook had tossed slimy meat and soft vegetables that should have been thrown away.

  "I'm Damon, yeah. And this is Lucretia." He took the girl's hand and pulled her up next to him.

  She held back at first, as if dreading to come any closer to the repellent Ezekiel. "My name's not Borgia," she said softly but firmly.

  "Apologies, milady," Ezekiel said. Right.

  Then from out of the tent stepped a woman the physical opposite of Swain. She was tall and slender, and though her hair was prematurely gray, Damon guessed that she was only a year or so older than Ezekiel.

  "Jezebel," Ezekiel said, with a touch of affection, putting his hand on her shoulder in a proprietary way. "This is Damon and Lucretia not-Borgia. Damon? Lucretia notBorgia? This is my sweet Jezebel." He rubbed her shoulder, and his sausage fingers stroked her swan neck as he grinned. "My only sister. Our parents had a biblical thing when it came to names. But the connections meant nothing to them—it was just the names they liked. 'Jezebel' felt so good in my father's mouth that it didn't matter to him that she was an evil queen devoured by the dogs of the street. Not that that will ever happen to my sweet sister."

  Jezebel Swain smiled at her brother and kissed him full on the lips. The sight brought a whisper of bile to Damon's throat.

  "Tell me," Ezekiel said, turning back to Damon, "why have you come to join us? What do you expect to find?"

  "You know what," Damon said, slightly annoyed, but not wanting to seem so. "The Divine."

  "Of course. Come to find God, haven't we? Or the Devil? Or something in between?"

  "You said in your e-mail that he communicates with you," Damon said.

  "Oh yes. 'He walks with me and he talks with me, a
nd he tells me I am his own.' Well, come into our humble abode." Ezekiel swept a massive arm toward the small tent.

  Inside the tent there were two sleeping bags zipped together to create one large one, exactly what Damon was hoping not to see. The eight-by-eight-foot square tent was brightly lit by a Coleman lantern. The ceiling was five feet high in the center, and the four of them sat on camp stools in a circle.

  "There we are," said Ezekiel, whose buttocks draped over and hid his stool. "Boy-girl-boy-girl, how civilized." In the bright light Ezekiel looked all the more repugnant. As if the weight wasn't bad enough, he seemed to have once been cursed with a virulent case of acne, which had left its tracks all too plainly.

  Ezekiel opened a cooler, revealing a few cans of Hamm's beer and an assortment of cheap supermarket-brand soda. He opened a can of cream soda with a hiss. "Help yourself," he told them. "Have beer if you want—I can't drink it, dulls the contact."

  "With the Divine," Damon said.

  "No," Ezekiel replied, after draining half of the can's contents. "With all the spaceships hidden behind Uranus."

  "You got any Diet Pepsi?" Lucretia said in a whiny voice.

  Ezekiel glared down into the cooler and shoved aside a few cans of the generic soda as though he were looking for diamonds among a nest of rattlers. "Gee whiz, missy," he said, "we seem to be fresh out. Can I offer you a Valu-Shop brand cola instead, in the ever so simple black-and-white can?"

  "Is it diet?" Lucretia asked.

  "No, it's not diet. I hate diet. Diet's got that shit that kills rats. This stuff's packed with real cane sugar, twelve teaspoons a serving—good, and good for ya, too."

  Lucretia took the can from Ezekiel's outstretched mitt as though she were picking a slug off a rose, then sat holding the unopened can. "You gotta pull the tab," Ezekiel said. "Diet Pepsi's the only one that opens by mind control."

  Damon took a birch beer. If Ezekiel wasn't drinking beer, he was damned if he was. All this time, Jezebel had not spoken a word, but now she looked at Damon. "I thought there would be more of you," she said, and he heard accusation in her tone. "You said in your phone call that there would be six."

  "I . . . overestimated."

  Ezekiel pointed a finger at Damon. "One . . ." Then he pointed at Lucretia. ". . . Two. So you overestimated by, um, two hundred percent, is that right? So what was the problem?"

  "People had . . . other engagements," Damon said, hating how ineffective he sounded. "A lot of them are in the film industry, and there are a couple of big event movies shooting right now."

  "Actors and actresses? Or grips and gaffers and caterers?"

  "Yeah, them," said Lucretia. "The grips and all that."

  "Well, we couldn't possibly have Tom Cruise under-gaffed," Ezekiel said. "He does need his best boy, too. Even though they had an opportunity to confront the only being on this earth that could pass for God. But I mean, when Tom Cruise calls . . ."

  "Why couldn't you convince them?" Jezebel said. "I thought you were their leader."

  "I . . . kept them together, but we didn't believe in formal leadership. It wasn't that kind of group."

  "Well, that was your major screw-up," Ezekiel said. "The mob always needs a leader. See, around here, I'm the leader. Not because I'm smarter or braver or handsomer than anybody else, but because I'm the one, see?"

  "The one?" Damon said. "The one he speaks to?"

  "That's right. Me and Jezebel, though he doesn't hit her nearly as strong as me. She's gotta work at it, but I just open up, and if he's trying to communicate, slam barn, I know it. I'm blessed with a wonderful family . . ." He squeezed Jezebel's leg, and she smiled. ". . . And a wonderful talent. Hell, I never met anybody could pick him up except me and Jezebel. Must be something in the blood, y'know? Power in the blood, man."

  "So how does he contact you?" Damon asked. "I mean, do you actually hear something?"

  "I hear him inside my head. There's a presence there, it echoes without going through my eardrums, if you can dig that."

  "What does he say?" Damon was getting excited in spite of his reluctance to appear emotional. He knew that emotions were something that Ezekiel Swain would only use against you.

  "He tells me things . . . promises me things." His hard, piggy eyes grew suddenly dreamy. "Wonderful things. Not always good things for other people . . ." He smiled, and it wasn't pretty to see. "But good things for me."

  "He tells you where to go?"

  "Yeah, he tells me. But that took a while. He wouldn't tell me where he was until he knew I had enough manpower to make it worthwhile. That's what I was hoping you were gonna bring to the party, Demon Damon, but all you bring along is Miss Lucretia here, who doesn't appear to be Michelle Yeoh."

  "I can take care of myself," Lucretia muttered, still picking feebly at the soda can tab, trying not to break a nail.

  Ezekiel grabbed the can away, stuck a thick fingertip under the tab, and jerked up. A spray of soda geysered into Lucretia's face and hair, and she gave a gasp and wiped at it frantically. "Oh yeah," said Ezekiel, "we can see you're American Gladiator material all the way. And I've been meaning to ask, what the hell is that shit sewed on your jacket?"

  Lucretia couldn't answer for a moment. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish, and then she said, "Symbols, they're symbols, man, don't you know anything? Shit!"

  "Watch your mouth," Jezebel said coldly, "Don't you forget for a minute who's in charge here."

  Damon thought about saying something in Lucretia's defense, but forgot about it when Jezebel turned her basilisk stare on him. Sometime he could show these two that they couldn't pull this kind of shit on him, but not yet. Besides, Lucretia was acting like such a chump that she deserved to get reamed. What really offended Damon was the way her behavior reflected on him, like having a dog who pissed on your host's carpet.

  "So what's the plan?" Damon said, ignoring Lucretia.

  "To write a whole new book of the Bible, my friend—the Revelation of Ezekiel. A book of total freedom and the release of the human spirit to realize its full potential, both for light and for darkness. But in order for that book to be written, the Divine has to be freed. Turning to the practical, the plan was to get more people for an out-and-out assault on the assholes holding him. But now we'll just have to find him and play it by ear, see what we're up against."

  "So where is he?" asked Damon.

  "Northeast of here somewhere. We head that way, and then he'll speak to me again, get us closer, like a hound dog sniffing out a trail . . . you get a little closer, it gets a little stronger."

  "So you don't know where he is exactly, then?"

  Ezekiel looked at Damon as though he were the dumbest thing he had ever seen. "What, you want an address? I said he's northeast. We'll find him, Sunny Jim. Now, you guys bring a tent, like I said?" Damon nodded. "Then I suggest you set it up, or just bunk down in your van. We're taking off in the morning."

  Chapter 2

  Damon and Lucretia went outside and walked to their van, past the circle of people who continued to glare at them. Several had gone to their own tents, but half of them were still sitting around the campfire.

  "I want to set up the tent," Lucretia said.

  "What? I thought you hated that tent."

  "I want to sleep in it tonight," she said, in a voice so firm that it made Damon sure that even if he found the Divine and understood the workings of the mysteries of life and death, he would still never understand women.

  But he understood at least one woman when he woke up at 6 A.M. to find Lucretia nowhere in sight. Oh yeah, now he understood, all right. If they had slept in the van, she wouldn't have been able to drive away in it alone.

  The foam pads they had brought along were so uncomfortable that he had been awake for an hour after they had gotten settled in. He had not heard Lucretia stir once during all that time, and wondered how she managed to get to sleep so easily.

  Now he knew she had only pretended to sleep, waiting for him to nod off so she
could take the keys and split. At least she'd been straight with him. She hadn't taken any of his money, and had left his duffel bag behind. He couldn't be pissed at her for taking the van, since they had rented it on her credit card.

  But what he could be pissed at her for was dissing him. He looked around desperately, dreading the time when the others would rise and he would have to tell Ezekiel Swain that the only person he had been able to talk into coming with him had gone.

  The reality was worse than the anticipation. When Ezekiel Swain heard the news, he laughed out loud. "Demon Damon! You dumb, handsome schmuck! The princess not only splits on you, she takes your van?" Then he laughed, like lava bubbling. Jezebel smirked, and the others laughed, too.

  Damon could feel a blush burning his cheeks. He wanted to tell them all to go to hell, wanted to lash out at that fat, gross pig who called himself a leader and bury his fist in the man's doughy gut. But instead he smiled, because he was where he had to be, and he had to stay there. There was a way to use this.

  "I told her to go," he said gently, but loudly enough for them all to hear. "She wasn't right for this . . . for us."

  "Wait a minute," said Ezekiel. "You saying you told her to take off with the van?"

  "Sure. It was her van. And you saw the way she behaved last night. She doesn't have the determination, the spirit, to see this through to the end. Everybody here is dedicated. I doubt there's a person among you who isn't ready to die if we have to, to find and free the Divine. But she didn't have what you all have, so I told her to leave. I'm sorry that I couldn't bring more people to help, but those like us are very few."

  He could feel them listening now, actually responding to this shit. "To leave everything behind," he went on, "and come into the desert looking for someone we've never seen, not knowing what we may have to face when we find him . . . well, it takes strong people to do that. I'm sorry she couldn't handle it, but I'm glad I'm a part of it."