Run the Day (18 page)

"It's all so much more than that, Thomas," Swift said, his voice even and calm. "And I'll be happy to tell you everything, should you survive."

"That was fucked up man."

The barest hint of a smile pulled up the corners of Swift's mouth as he cranked the car back into drive and slid out onto the road, slipping his shades back on. We were out in the country, a few miles outside the city limits. As far as the eye could see was farmland and dairies, the sun beginning to make its way down and setting off all the weird colors that only the questionable valley sky could turn. The raging pessimist in me thought now was the time to take it all in, get one last long look. Swift was right; this was going to be my last sunset. Probably wasn't a point in even going to try and stop Henry.

It's not like shooting him in the face worked out so well.

"I'm going to assume you have no idea what to do now," Swift said.

"You would be correct, sir. Want to just go grab a bite and wait for the end of the world?"

"Thomas if you let some asshole with a god-complex and a book destroy the world, I will kick your ass."

My friends are the best, always ready with kind words of support.

He was totally right, though. Of course. And it made me feel like a selfish jerk, giving up right when it got ugliest and laying down to die. All because of a damn book. The memory of it, Flesh-Thing's memory of it, was still seared into my brain. It was such a tiny, insignificant looking thing, hard to believe it was at the center of all this trouble. The memory of it...

"Son of a bitch, pull over the car!" I scrabbled to get into my bag, tossing things out of it.

"What'd you just call me?"

"Pull over the damn car!" I shot Swift my best 'I have lost my shit entirely' look and dumped my bag out onto my lap.

Swift looked like he wanted to say something, but complied and ended up pulling into a little service station off the side of the freeway. I had already started in with the cackling, pawing at the door until it popped open and I went spilling out of the car in a wave of papers and books and chalk and various assorted oddities.

"Nothing to see here folks, just a psychotic break. Carry on." Swift got out of the car and waved benignly at the scattering of folks in the parking lot. "Thomas what the hell are you doing?"

"Books man, beautiful, stupid books," I sprung on him, shoving my copy of The Golden Bough in his face. "I have books too."

"Okay, it's all right. Just…you're going to have to break it down for me. Sanely. People are starting to look nervous."

People never understand the true nature of genius, damn it.

I took a few steps back and a few deep breaths, shoving my brain into order. This plan would require equal parts heavy duty futzing about with reality, and an absurd amount of dumb luck. But it was all I had.

"Fuck with my head, Henry, I'll fuck with your head."

Chapter Seventeen

Swift was busy inside the gas station, trying to convince the manager that I wasn't a threat to myself or others and to not call the authorities.

I was busy out in the middle of the parking lot, scrawling out a hideously complex circle ringed around with runic script and shot through by non-Euclidean gibberish. I was going to have to trap a dangerously large amount of energy, and focus it into a carefully crafted hoax. Something good enough to pull a fast one on my great-grandfather, and a lot of it relied on memories from an ancient, half-insane mutant shaman that had been burned into my brain.

What could possibly go wrong?

Flesh-Thing had been the custodian of the Libro Nihil for decades; he was intimately familiar with it and its contents. Which meant, in theory, I was too. Kind of. Most of what had been shoved in my head was a gigantic, jumbled mess and a lot of it was already beginning to fade. But if I could hone in on those last moments before Flesh-Thing was attacked by Henry, I could use that.

"I told the manager you're my autistic step-brother and we're on our way to Disneyland. I promised him you're harmless," Swift had walked up as I worked.

"Why do you hate me?" I said after putting what I hoped would be the finishing touches on the circle. I was kneeling in the center of it, with my copy of the Bough in front of me; the circle with its accompanying scribbles sprawled out a few feet all around me.

"Just hurry it up. The natives are growing restless."

"You hurry it up."

Unless I botched this, which could totally happen, it should work. I could worry about the whole confronting my great-grandfather when I got to it. Dwelling on it now would just make me get scared. More scared. People do very stupid things when they're scared.

It was about as peaceful as I could hope for it to be, despite a few bewildered looks and whispered comments from passers-by, and the sounds of the freeway. The sun was dipping quickly towards the horizon, dragging the peculiar colors of the valley twilight and heralding the evening's chill. The wind was a soft, biting breeze that carried the aroma of cow shit along with the cold. I tried to empty myself of everything, pain, fear, anxiety, and absorb the world around me. I opened up that hidden part of myself that was one with the flow of Creation, fanning the energy inside me to life like stoking a flame. I focused on that energy, gathering it, collecting it, holding onto it.

I figured I had gathered enough of the stuff once my temples began to throb, now I just needed something to tether it all to, to help give it shape. With my mind empty, I filled it with the memories of Flesh-Thing that still lingered, on the Libro Nihil. On every last little detail of it, the tattered black leather cover, the curious weight that belied its size, the lethal aura that emanated from it. With my eyes still closed, I reached forward and gathered my copy of the Bough in my hands and lifted it, slowly, opening my eyes and slipping my vision across the spectrum as I did.

All around me the circle and formulas I had drawn rippled with light, a haze shimmered in the air with the colors of an oil slick inside, surrounding me, all the energy I had gathered. In my hands I held a pulsing, book-shaped object of light. So far so good, now it was just a matter of fixing the magic into the shape I wanted. I bore down on the image of the Libro Nihil in my mind, on the energy inside and around me, and I stood. It was like trying to stand with a semi-truck on my shoulders, the force pressing on me from all sides, and I was breathing heavy by the time I managed to stand straight. I stepped forward and broke the circle, releasing my hold on everything.

Instead of shredding me apart, I felt the energy roar through me and fill my ears with static. It was over as abruptly as it began and left me gasping for air. All my old pains and worries came flooding back to fill the void the magic left while I worked to catch my breath, but it seemed my efforts had paid off. In my shaking hands, instead of my familiar Golden Bough was a little black book, no bigger than a pocket Bible, with my vision still shifted I could see angry black veins of energy throbbing across it.

"I'll be damned, you did it. You really...Thomas, are you okay?" Swift came forward, shining in his true form, reaching out to steady me.

"What?"

I switched back across spectrums. There was something in my eyes, and my head was pounding with a pain that bordered on the profound. I clutched at the book with one arm, and wiped at my face with my other. The sleeve of my sweater came away wet and red with something that looked a lot like blood. My blood, I could feel it running down my face, blurring my vision.

"For fuck's sake man, sit down." Swift herded me back towards the car and got the door open in time for me to collapse into the passenger seat.

I caught a look at myself in the rearview mirror, and I laughed. It made my head hurt worse, but I laughed. One of my eyes was completely shot through with red, blood vessels burst, and a steady stream of bloody tears was streaking down my face. More of the red stuff was coming from my nose, and got into my mouth when I laughed. I coughed on it, gagged. It's entirely possibly I'd over extended myself and tried messing with more magic than I could reasonably handle, and I might've had some kind of aneurysm. That figured. I couldn't help but laugh at it.

I heard Swift listing off expletives under his breath as he fired up the GTO and tore out of the parking lot of the gas station. I looked down at the book in my lap, still clutched tightly in my hands. I totally did it, I pulled it off. For all practical points and purposes, the book I held looked like a perfect replica of the Libro Nihil. Perfect enough to fool any of the ten to twelve senses; it even had the palpable aura around it of an object of power. It was just a giant ruse, it didn't have any of the power of the real thing, but it would work for my purposes.

"We have to get to Grannok's farm," I said when I'd finally found my voice again.

"One undead livestock related near-death experience wasn't enough?"

"It's where Henry will be, it makes the most sense. The border between this side and the Other Side has already been weakened there."

"And you're sure you can handle Henry?"

"Not even a little bit. But there isn't a lot of choice, is there?"

Swift grunted in the affirmative and took the next exit that would lead us to Grannok's farm. The sun was officially down, and if I were the death obsessed servant of a colossal cosmic entity that was in the market for some doomsday, I'd be gearing up to get my evil on. Henry had probably already started laying the groundwork for the ritual, and who knew what he had done to Sarah. If she was awakening to her powers, and in the clutches of my great-grandfather, she was probably scared out of her mind. I didn't care to think about what he would do to get her to complete the ritual.

Scenery became a blur as Swift sped down the road, his foot heavy on the throttle. It all melted together, the dull throbbing in my head, the throaty growl of the car's engine. For the first time the entire day, my brain wasn't spinning a million miles an hour with a barrage of thoughts and anxieties. Mostly it was due to a world of pain and a fatigue so deep it had settled into my bones. I was on empty, sucking fumes. Hopefully I could hold it together long enough to at least make a show of trying to stop Henry. Instead of focusing on anything useful, I spent the majority of the trip thinking of all the creative ways my great-grandfather would annihilate me.

I believe it's better to be prepared for those things in the event they should happen, it lessens the trauma.

"We're close, you ready?" Swift knocked me out of my reverie, probably for the best, as he swung the car onto the familiar dirt path that led to Grannok's farm.

"Sure," I tried sitting up straight, squaring my shoulders, "you can let me out here."

Swift hit the brake more suddenly than I would've preferred, I caught myself before I could smack my face into the dashboard. My false Libro Nihil went spilling onto the floorboards and I scrambled to pick it up then shot a glare at Swift.

"What the fuck was that?"

"Drop you off? I know you're probably brain damaged, but are you stupid too? Henry will tear you apart if you go in by yourself." Swift sounded outraged, I think it was the closest I'd ever seen him to yelling.

"I have to go in alone," I was tired, I couldn't bring myself to raise my voice anymore, "so that I can get Henry's attention, so you can rain holy hell on his head from behind."

"You should've said so."

"I just did. Give me a break all right? It's been a rough day."

I pulled the pistol out of my bag and tucked it into the waist of my jeans; it hadn't proven quite as effective as I'd hoped, but I'll be damned if it didn't make me feel a little bit better. I clutched my imitation Libro Nihil to my chest as I got out of the car, groaning when my back went through a series of eye-rattling pops. Swift killed the engine and the lights as I made my way down the path.