Devil's Throat (The River Book 6) Read online

  Deem walked up to the trailer and knocked. “Winn!” she yelled. “We’re here!”

  The door opened and Winn stepped out. He was taller than Steven and Roy, dressed in a dark shirt and jeans, with the legs of the jeans stuck into hiking books that looked like they’d seen many desert miles. He was tanned, something Steven didn’t see often in Seattle, and his hair was cut short in a military style. He was well built and solid. Steven looked him up and down, reconciling what Deem had told him earlier with what he was seeing now. I wouldn’t want to get into a fight with this guy, Steven thought.

  “Gentlemen, this is Winthrop James,” Deem said. “Winn, this is Steven and Roy.”

  Winn stuck out his hand to Steven, and Steven grabbed it. “It’s nice to meet you both,” Winn said with a genuineness that surprised him. Truth be told, based on what Deem had said about him, he was expecting a bum. This guy was no bum. As Steven shook his hand, he felt an immediate attraction to the guy, as though he would be someone he would like. Deem did say he was charismatic, Steven thought. He noticed that Winn’s lower arms were covered in scars of different lengths. Some went from his wrist to his elbow.

  Winn shook Roy’s hand. “Deem tells me your son is catatonic at the motel room,” he said. He seemed genuinely concerned. “Have you been out to St. Thomas yet?”

  “No, just read about it,” Steven said. “We did meet with an old man in Orderville earlier today. His ancestors settled St. Thomas, moved from there when the Mormons left it in 1871. Made it sound like no one should ever set foot in St. Thomas. Lots of stuff about the ground being evil.”

  “There’s plenty of people around here who would agree with that,” Winn said, lighting up a cigarette. “Though they would never tell you to your face. They wouldn’t want to appear superstitious, even though deep in their hearts they are.”

  “Deem says you’re an expert on St. Thomas,” Roy said. “We’re hoping you can help us. We just want to take Jason back to Seattle.”

  “How did he wind up down here in the first place?” Winn asked.

  Steven related the story to Winn. “I regret not responding to his desire to understand the gift,” Steven said. “I thought I was doing the right thing. And we were kind of busy with some demon problems. Before I knew it, Michael was bringing him down here.”

  “Well,” Winn said, “it’s ninety-nine percent that he’s at St. Thomas, but I shouldn’t take you out there unless we’re sure. Let’s stop at your motel. I have a way to check him. Let me grab a few things, and I’ll follow you in my Jeep.”

  Winn walked back into his trailer and shut the door. From the brief moment when the door was open, Steven could see the interior was crammed full of things.

  “Seems like a nice guy,” Roy said.

  “Yeah,” Deem said, “seems.”

  “So you’re saying he can be a jerk sometimes?” Steven asked.

  “You have no idea,” she said.

  “Why do you work with him then?” Steven asked.

  “We don’t work together all the time,” she said. “Maybe half the time. I do a lot of work in the abandoned mines. He’s too claustrophobic to go in them, so he needs my help when something he’s working on involves a mine. And around here, the mines are a big deal. It’s where a lot of the trouble comes from. People dug into the earth with nothing but greedy intent, no idea what they were opening up. And then the radiation hit, fucking them up even more. Almost every single mine is different, has some weird, unique problem. I’ve got a lot of them catalogued. Winn hates them.”

  Winn opened the door and stepped out, a backpack over one shoulder.

  “If your son really is there,” he said, walking to his Jeep, “we’ll continue on to St. Thomas.”

  “Tonight?” Steven asked.

  “Don’t worry, they’ll all be in a meeting,” Winn said.

  “Who’s they?” Steven asked.

  “I’ll explain when we get there,” Winn said.

  Winn followed them back to Overton, and then into Steven’s room where Jason was lying on the bed. He set his backpack on the floor next to the bed, and removed a small square object from it. It looked like a matchbox. He lifted one of Jason’s hands and arranged his arm so that it was level, then he placed the matchbox on Jason’s wrist.

  Steven entered the River, and immediately felt the difference in the flow that Deem had described. Things seemed discolored here, and they smelled a little off, as though something was rotting in the distance. The matchbox on Jason’s wrist transformed into a bracelet that wrapped itself around Jason until it connected underneath. Then it began to glow. Steven looked at Winn and could see he had also entered the flow. Winn was beginning a trance. Steven slipped back out of the River, glad to be out of the unfamiliar surroundings. He was expecting the stab of pain in the back of his neck that often accompanied a departure from the River, but there was none. Interesting, he thought.

  Winn sat kneeling next to the bed for several minutes before he opened his eyes and stood. He lifted the matchbox from Jason’s wrist and replaced it in his backpack. “It’s like a tracking device,” he said. “I modified it from a normal one so it would work downwind.”

  “What did you see?” Steven asked.

  “He’s there,” Winn said. “It’s a special trance. I’ve seen it before. This device could bring him back if it was a normal trance, but it’s not, which is why we can’t just throw him in a car with you and send him home. We’ll have to go in and get him out.”

  “At St. Thomas?” Steven asked. “Somehow he’s there, at a place that doesn’t exist?”

  “Oh, it exists,” Winn said, smiling broadly at Steven. Steven found the smile cocky and reassuring at the same time. “But I want you to see it first, before we go there to extract him. I’ve found that people don’t quite understand it unless I show it to them.”

  “You’ve had to do this before?” Roy asked.

  “Yes,” Winn said, “I’ve pulled four or five other gifteds out. I think the ghosts there have begun to figure out what I’m doing, so we’ll have to be careful. Come on, let’s take my vehicle, it’ll handle the off road part easier. I’ll bring you back after we’re done.”

  They followed Winn out to his Jeep and waited while Winn removed a dozen CDs that were spread out all over the back seat. Then they piled in and Winn sped out of the motel parking lot and onto Highway 169, going south. “It’s about five miles south of here as the crow flies, but it takes 20 minutes to drive it. We’ll have a short hike at the end. I brought lights so we can make our way around.”

  Steven had a million questions, but he’d twice now been told he needed to see the place first, so he decided to save the questions until after. Instead of asking Winn about St. Thomas, he asked him about his past.

  “My mother taught me how to use it when I was twelve,” Winn said. “Tutored me until I was twenty. Then she died. She’d lived her whole life here, so she knew how to deal with the strangeness of it, and that’s what she taught me. When I go to other places and see how normal the River usually is, it surprises me. I wonder if I’d be able to deal with normal ghosts – I’m guessing you can’t use an EM gun on them!”

  “Don’t know, never tried,” Roy said. “Maybe it would have an effect.”

  Roy – never one to pass up an opportunity to try a gun, Steven thought.

  “I’ll make you one to take home,” Winn said. “Use it on your normal ghosts and let me know. At least your ghosts don’t turn into raving lunatics.”

  Steven thought of Anita. “Some do,” he said, “but they don’t transform. I met one that attacked with a coldness. It was awful.”

  “The ones down here attack by ripping you apart,” Winn said. “That’s one of the reasons so many people go missing down here.”

  “Talking to Deem,” Steven said, “I got the feeling that it’s more than just ghosts that are affected. Other creatures?”

  “Yes,” Winn said, “lots of others. We know what radiation does to huma
ns, the kind of abnormalities it causes. But in the River it’s a whole ’nother wild card. There’s still species being generated from it as things mutate.”

  “Any effect on demons?” Steven asked, remembering his recent night with Aka Manah, and wondering if he’d tried to contact him at his home, only to find Steven missing.

  “That’s another weird thing,” Winn said. “Demons are smarter than humans. They stay away from here. You won’t find one within a hundred miles. They protect their DNA. But people, we know it’s bad and we still live in it. Probably why I smoke. Nah – demons stay away.”

  “Refreshing,” Roy said. “I’ve had my fill for a while.”

  “Been battling a few recently?” Deem asked.

  “A particularly nasty one,” Steven said, “that killed some friends of ours.”

  “Glad we don’t have them around here,” Deem said. “Though what we do have might be worse.”

  Winn stopped the Jeep as he reached an embankment at the end of the road. “We walk from here,” he said, opening his car door and stepping out. The night had settled around them, and the sky was covered in stars. Can’t see stars like this in Seattle, Steven thought involuntarily. He gazed up at them until he felt Winn pressing a flashlight into his hand and the lights from the other flashlights distracted him.

  “Follow me,” Winn said, heading down a trail. They passed a portable outhouse and a small trailer with the lights on inside.

  As they passed, a ranger stuck his head out the trailer door. “It’s after hours,” he said. “The trail is closed.”

  “It’s me, Don,” Winn said, and kept walking.

  “Oh, howdy Winn,” the ranger said. “Go on ahead then.” The ranger pulled his head back inside the trailer door.

  “Went to school with Don,” Winn said as they walked.

  “Does he know what’s going on out here?” Steven asked.

  “Not exactly,” Winn said, “but I helped him and his family out of a scrape a while back, so he trusts me.”

  “If he knew you’ve had sex with his sister,” Deem said, “he might not be so friendly.”

  “Now why would he need to know that?” Winn said.

  “Winn isn’t one for full disclosure,” Deem said.

  “I’m for smart disclosure,” Winn said, picking up the pace. “Come on, we’ve got a half hour walk ahead of us.”

  Even with their flashlights bobbing up and down on the trail, the stars above were crisp and clear, and the Milky Way was out in full glory. On the horizon Steven could see the moon starting to rise off a line of mountains in the distance, and there were high clouds surrounding it. To the right the sky was lighter.

  “Sun’s not all the way down yet?” Steven asked. “It’s after ten!”

  “No,” Deem said, “that’s Vegas. So much light it spills over into here.”

  They walked for a while, concentrating on their steps. The path was uneven, and a twisted ankle was only a misplaced foot away.

  After a while Winn stopped, shining his flashlight on a cement foundation that rose three feet out of the ground, forming a rectangle.

  “We’re here,” he said. “This is the old Whitney home, the first house at the north end of town. What we’re going to do is move in and out of the River as we go. Go ahead and jump in now.”

  Steven slipped into the flow, and was startled to see a full-fledged house appear behind Winn, sitting on top of the foundation he had lit. He examined the house, which looked at least a hundred years old.

  Slip back out, Winn thought, and they all exited the River.

  “Never seen anything like that before,” Roy said.

  “This entire town came back in the River when the waters receded ten years ago,” Winn said. “People think it’s a ghost town, and that’s what it looks like to the tourists who wander out here during the day to poke around these foundations. None of them have a clue that the entire town is still alive and functioning in the River. What we’re going to do is walk around. I want you to see a few things, so follow me. When we walk, exit the River so you can maneuver safely. When we reach something I want you to see, we’ll stop and all jump in. Keep your flashlights on the ground right in front of you, don’t shine them around. Got it?”

  They all nodded, and Winn turned and walked past the foundation. After another minute of walking, he stopped and turned to them all, like a tour guide.

  “Alright,” he said. “Jump back in.”

  They were at the head of a street that was lined with buildings on both sides. It looked like an old main street, with store facades that came right up to the sidewalk. At the end of the street was a large building that looked like a lodge. Its lights were on, and Steven could see movement inside.

  This is old downtown St. Thomas, Winn thought. That building at the end of the street is the Gentry Hotel, which was always the biggest building in town and the center of activity. There used to be a church, but the Mormons tore it down when they left, and the residents that moved in behind them never rebuilt it.

  What’s going on in there? Steven thought. The rest of the town seems empty, but that hotel looks busy.

  Everyone’s there at the moment, Winn thought. They always meet there, every night. In a few hours they’ll all slowly start to leave, and you’ll see them drift back to the stores and houses in the rest of town.

  What are they doing in there? Roy thought.

  It’s kind of hard to explain, Winn said. I’ll tell you later. But that hotel is important, because if I’m right, that’s where Jason is right now. Down in the basement.

  Can we go get him? Steven thought.

  No way, Winn said. If we set foot in that hotel we’d be turned on by dozens of ghosts and ripped to shreds in a heartbeat.

  Can’t we use your gun? Roy asked. We could all carry one.

  Even if we did, Winn said, there’s too many of them. By the time you knocked out one or two, ten more would be on you. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.

  What do we do? Steven asked. I’ve got to get him out of there.

  I’ll explain that later too, after we leave, Winn thought. For now, I just wanted you to see this place, to understand what we’re dealing with.

  What about the tourists, during the day? Roy asked. Do they attack them?

  No, Winn thought. They’re not in the River. To them they just look like people walking around town, looking at the buildings. At night it’s a different story, they get a little more suspicious, but no one comes out here at night, the Feds don’t let them. They only freak out and attack when they see someone in the River.

  I still think they pick off a person or two, Deem thought. Every now and then a tourist goes missing.

  You’re probably right, Winn thought.

  Why? Steven thought. Why attack a tourist?

  My theory, Deem said, and Winn may not agree with this, but my theory is that they feed them to a creature in the mine east of here.

  Creature in a mine? Roy wondered.

  See those mountains, where the moon has risen? Deem thought. At the base of those mountains are the Red Hills. There was a series of mining operations there, almost a dozen shafts. Most of them are haunted by strange creatures created by the radiation. But a couple of them hold kobolds. Around here, kobolds have mutated into powerful, bloodthirsty spirits. That’s where I think the tourists wind up.

  But you can’t prove it, Winn thought.

  How else do you explain the Callers? Deem thought.

  What are you two talking about? Roy thought.

  Let’s have this discussion once we’re out of here, Winn thought. We’re going to walk up to the hotel now, so you can see into the windows. Drop out and follow me.

  Back in the dry lake bed of Lake Mead, Steven felt the crusted mud crack under his feet as he followed the others. He looked right and left, and the buildings he had just seen in the River had all disappeared – just the concrete foundations remained. This is so weird, he thought as he walked. Talk about
a ghost town – this really was.

  They walked up to a foundation that looked just like all the others, but Steven knew from its placement that it had to be the hotel they had seen in the flow. They all slipped into the River, and Steven looked up at the tall, two-story structure. He could see people moving inside, through the windows. They appeared to be sitting and listening as one of them spoke. After a few moments, Winn suggested they drop back out and follow him around to the back.

  Once there, they entered the River again, and Steven could see movement through a basement window. He walked forward, hoping to get a better view and potentially see Jason. He pressed his face up against the glass and looked inside. There was Jason, seated at a table with several others, talking with them. The person next to him was showing him how to mix something on the table. Steven resisted the urge to call Jason’s name or tap on the window. He watched Jason for a while. He didn’t seem unhappy or upset. He didn’t look trapped, or like he wanted to escape.

  Steven, he heard Winn think. Come back from there. You don’t want to be seen. Drop out.

  As he began to pull away from the window, he saw one of the figures in the room noticed the movement. It turned and walked to the window, gazing up. Steven pulled back, hoping he was far enough out of the light that the ghost couldn’t see him.

  The ghost continued to investigate, passing through the window and rising to ground level. Once it stood outside the building, it could clearly see them all.

  Fuck! Winn thought, reaching inside his backpack.

  Roy and Deem took several steps back. Steven was closest to the ghost, which was now snarling, and as they watched, its translucent quality quickly solidified and it soon became a beaten and bloody corpse, flesh dangling from its face and arms. It snarled again and this time it ran towards Steven, covering the distance between the two of them before Steven could think to turn and run. It grabbed at Steven’s arm and Steven felt it rip into him.

  Winn stepped around Steven and aimed the EM gun at the ghost. He pressed the trigger and they heard an electronic hum followed by a pop. The ghost was stunned, but continued to reach for Steven. Winn pushed Steven back, and then they both ran towards the others, the ghost following closely. When Steven and Winn reached Roy and Deem, Winn thought, Drop out and come on! and they all turned and followed him, running as quickly as they could.