The Influence(109)

“What do you mean she’s gone?”

“I came home from work yesterday and she wasn’t here. She didn’t come back last night, and I haven’t heard from her.” There was a pause. “I think she might’ve gone back to Magdalena.”

“Have you tried—”

“I’ve tried everything.”

“It could be something else. Are you guys having problems? You know, she might not be used to California…”

“She wouldn’t just run off without telling me. Not if it was something normal. Besides, her van’s gone, but she didn’t take any of her stuff. Not even clothes.”

“Did you tell the police? Maybe she’s been kidnapped.” Dave knew he was reaching for rational answers, but he didn’t want to go where he knew this was headed.

“It’s that monster in Magdalena,” Ross said. “We both know it.”

Yes, he did know it. Not logically, in his head, but where it counted, in his gut. He recalled the power he had felt in Cameron’s smokehouse, thought of Father Ramos describing how the angel would be reborn. It seemed highly unlikely that whatever it was would be contained in Magdalena.

Why had they left in the first place without first destroying that thing?

And what the hell was it?

Dave looked over at Lita’s unmoving form and was suddenly filled with rage, an emotion that felt purifyingly welcome after the numbness of the past six hours. “I’m going back,” he vowed. “I’m going to get rid of that angel, and put an end to this once and for all.”

“No,” Ross said, and Dave heard an authority and seriousness of purpose in the other man’s voice that he hadn’t before. “You stay with Lita. I’ll go back.”

“Ross—”

“I know what to do. I can get it done.”

“We’ll both go.”

“No,” Ross repeated. “Lita needs you. Stay with her.”

He spoke a thought that had been floating around in the back of his mind but until now had remained unspoken. “What if I do something to her? What if it makes me tear out the tubes she’s hooked up to…or…or smother her with a pillow, or…?”

“That’s not going to happen, Dave. And you’re safer in Albuquerque than you would be in Magdalena. You both are.”

It was true, but he felt cowardly for even thinking it. “You can’t go after that thing yourself. It won’t let you. Jorge and his men are there, and who knows what defenses it’s built up since we left? You need me.”

“I don’t. I told you, I have a plan. And I won’t be doing it all myself. You just take care of my cousin.”

Dave’s mind was suddenly filled with an extraordinarily clear and extremely unwelcome vision. “Tell me the truth,” he said. “Did you fuck her?”

Ross was brought up short. “What?”

“Lita. Did you fuck her? I know you wanted to.”

“That’s crazy!” The emotion in the denial was not as outraged as the words were. In fact, Dave thought, it wasn’t really a denial.

“Did you?” he pressed.

“Of course not!” Was he protesting too much? “This is exactly what I mean. It’s getting to you already. In New Mexico. Do you know what would happen if you went back?”

He took a deep breath. Ross was right. “This is exactly what I mean,” he said. “What if I do something to hurt her?”

“Do what you need to do, then. Stay away from the hospital if it makes you feel better. But you two need to keep away from Magdalena.”

Unwelcome images were still flashing through his brain—

Lita on her knees in front of her naked, erect cousin

—but Dave ignored them. “We shouldn’t have left,” he said. “We should have stayed and taken care of things.”

“We should have,” Ross agreed. “But maybe it wasn’t our decision to leave in the first place. Maybe we just thought it was.”

“Then what makes you think you can fight it now?”

“I don’t know. But I do. I’m going back there, and I’m going to kill that monster again, and this time there won’t be any resurrection.”

Dave believed him, and he looked again at Lita’s unmoving form and for the first time in a long while felt the faint stirrings of an unfamiliar emotion: hope.





THIRTY FIVE




Intending to take out his suitcase, Ross opened the door of the closet and found himself looking at Jill’s clothes, still on their hangers in all of their multicolored splendor.

He stared at them, wondering if she was dead.

No!

As terrible as the thought was, he had to admit to himself that it was a possibility, and though a fire had already been lit beneath him about returning to Magdalena, this fanned those flames into a conflagration. Quickly, he dragged out his suitcase, pulled a couple of shirts out of the closet, grabbed some socks and underwear from the dresser.