Endgame Redux Ethan #2
He pushed open the door and took a rapid step back.
Sure enough, a Guardian was waiting there, its wings and talons stretched wide, but the moment it saw the stone eggs in the glow of Ryan’s lighter, it went calm, just as the others had.
It regarded them, regarded the office, and stepped out of the sealed room.
A tongue darted from its serpent mouth, tasting the air.
The creature stayed in the office with them. It stood near the window, watching the trio with what almost looked like concern.
“I almost liked it better when they were trying to kill me,” Ryan said.
Ethan took the Zippo from Ryan’s hand and examined the room on the other side of the walnut door.
It held a single twin bed, a desk, a short dresser.
The walls were covered with maps and diagrams and index cards bearing symbols Ethan didn’t recognize.
A chunk of grooved white stone, like a broken piece of wall, stood on the desk, near smaller fragments of rock.
When Ethan touched it, he felt a strange warm energy leak from the stone and stir his blood, like a latent charge of electricity.
As he searched, Kyla and Ryan stayed in the office.
In the near-total darkness, a strange honesty seemed to come over the older man.
It reminded Ethan of the way he himself had lain next to Hunter—and admitted something he’d kept hidden his entire life, even to himself.
He’d admitted he wanted something more than Ellersby.
Ryan said to Kyla, “That film you found in the supply closet—I stole it from y’all’s room.”
“You what?”
“Earlier tonight, before I went to try and talk to Sarah, I heard you and Penelope going down the back porch. I was in room three. I watched through the peephole as y’all went into the cafe.
A few minutes later, I saw Fernanda doing the same.
She didn’t kill Sarah, don’t worry. She just went to rough up Stanley, probably because with Penelope out of their room, she knew she’d find Stanley alone. ”
Kyla said nothing.
Ryan went on. “I had a smoke with Hunter when I first got here—we happened to catch each other’s eye across the parking lot.
He told me the situation. He said that you two girls seemed to be on the run from Frank, and I figured that might have made y’all and myself…
allies, of a sort. But I wanted to do some reconnaissance, just to be sure.
I was trying to keep my presence here as secret as possible.
I didn’t want to spoil that for nothing.
So I went to y’all’s room when I knew the coast was clear.
Fernanda had left the front door unlocked.
I let myself in. I poked around. One of the mattresses was a little off-center, so of course I had to see what was under it. ”
Kyla’s silence was growing lethal. Ethan found a bookcase in the dim room, flipped through a few volumes.
“There was a green backpack under the mattress,” Ryan said. “It had a lot of money inside, but I didn’t care about that. There was a roll of yellow Kodak film hidden at the bottom. That got me curious.”
“So you stole it?”
“I was curious what sort of chips I could get on the board, you know? Thought maybe the three of us could use it as some sort of leverage, a way for me to get Penelope away from Stanley. But then I went next door and found Sarah Powers more than a little murdered. I figured it would look very bad to be found with a roll of stolen film on my person in case things went sideways, but before I could put it back in y’all’s room I saw Stanley coming out of his.
Your back door was locked, so I had to keep moving.
I found the supply room and stuck the film there.
I figured I’d come back once the coast was clear and get the lay of the land, but I was still in the supply room when Tabitha found the body.
One thing led to another. You know how it goes.
” Ryan let out another grunt of pain, no doubt thanks to the wound in his shoulder.
“Sarah used the same brand of film as y’all, but you probably figured that out by now.
I guess it’s not much of a coincidence. Everything’s going digital.
There can’t be many companies still out there selling actual camera film, right? ”
Kyla said nothing.
The smell of smoke grew thicker. From nearby, Ethan could hear the crackle of flames.
And then, in the nightstand of the little room, he found what he was looking for. Stepping out into the office, he showed it to the others.
“Another key?” Kyla said.
Indeed. A long silver key that looked like it belonged to a serious lock.
Ethan had a feeling he knew where that lock was.
Without any further warning, the fire reached them: in the span of a second, the whole ceiling burned to life.
The Guardian they’d released a moment ago, still standing to one side of the office, let out a SHRIEK of alarm.
With one long arm, it shattered one of the windows near the fireplace. It SHRIEKED again.
“It wants us to move,” Kyla said.
“Gladly.” With a kick of his foot to dislodge some more glass and then another grunt of pain, Ryan heaved himself over the sill and out into the dark.
Kyla regarded the Guardian carefully as she made her way past it.
The creature kept its head bowed, almost out of respect, just like the one in the cafe.
Ethan shot one last look around the office. He hurried out the window when a roof beam collapsed, crushing the desk and setting the floor alight.
Outside, the desert was colder than ever.
The hard wind from the mountain was growing stronger and stronger, goading the flames that had crowned the motel.
The fire was so bright it threw out a halo of illumination all its own, stranger and more fickle than the mercury glow of the motel’s lamps, closer than anything to the flicker of a campfire in the primal night.
The Guardian from the office clearly didn’t like being so visible. The creature leapt through the window the moment Ethan was clear and barreled into the dark.
The three guests crossed the parking lot. They had to go slow: Ryan’s steps were getting sluggish. Ethan realized, in that moment, just how much blood Ryan had lost.
Realized, also, he had no idea how to help the man.
Instead, he asked a question that had bothered him all night. “You came to my room a little before midnight tonight. You said that Penelope was good with voices.”
Ryan hesitated, as perturbed by the thought as he had been earlier. “Yeah. She can imitate just about anyone she’s had a conversation with. Stanley. Frank. You or me, probably.”
“And because none of the men here were unaccounted for, you think it was Penelope you heard at seven thirty in room four. It was Penelope using a man’s voice.”
“That’s… the gist of it.”
They neared the side of the motel. Kyla said, “Why the hell would Penelope go to Sarah’s room and argue with the woman in someone else’s voice?”
Ryan bit his lip. He pushed harder against his shoulder. “I think she was doing both sides of the conversation.”
Kyla’s eyes widened. “You mean she was playing both Sarah and the mystery man?”
Ryan said, “I think… I think…”
He was struggling to speak, but Ethan got the gist. “You think Sarah was already dead.”
Ryan nodded. “Her blood, on the pillow of her room… when I went in to speak with Sarah at seven fifty, it was almost… almost completely dry.”
“So if Sarah had died at seven thirty—if Penelope had killed her when she went to have that fake conversation—the blood would still be damp?” Kyla said.
Ryan nodded again.
Ethan said. “How long would it take blood to get that dry?”
“I’m not an expert.” Ryan swallowed hard. His skin was getting pale in the firelight. “But I read a lot in prison. I’d guess… an hour. Give or take.”
“An hour?” Kyla said. “Meaning Sarah was dead by—holy shit.”
“Yeah,” Ethan said. “What was Fernanda doing at six thirty?”
Kyla hesitated. “I was sound asleep. To be honest, I was more concerned about her not stealing the backpack and running off without me. I knew if I slept on top of the mattress, she’d have no choice but to stay.”
“Is it possible she could have left y’all’s room while you were out?”
“And gone to make sure Sarah couldn’t rat us out to Frank?” Kyla met his eye in the firelight. “Of course it is. She was in the shower when I woke up.”
“Meaning she could have been washing off the evidence.”
Ryan said, “She certainly seemed keen to keep y’all from investigating the crime.”
Kyla considered this. She didn’t deny it, but she had a question of her own. Frowning to Ryan, she said, “You still haven’t explained something.”
With a grunt of pain, he said, “Shoot.”
“Why did you go to Sarah’s room in the first place tonight?”
“Because I wanted to know what The Chief’s message meant.” Ryan let out a grunt of pain. “ ‘The mountain is getting restless.’ I wanted… I wanted…”
He broke off as the trio rounded the side of the motel and saw what was waiting between them and the old house.
The Guardians were standing in the moonlight.
They’d assembled themselves in two parallel lines—their eyes down, their wings extended tip-to-tip—forming a tunnel through the desert just wide enough for Ethan and Kyla and Ryan to walk through.
It felt ceremonious, deferential. It made Ethan think of a military battalion offering an honor guard.
The creatures were silent as the trio crossed the dark to the old house. Feathers rustled in a soft breeze. The tunnel of bodies seemed to breathe around them, in and out, with a slow steady hiss.
The mountain had grown massive, its silhouette seeming to swallow the sky. The house with its strange angles and its bright silver window was ready for them. Through the crackle of the fire, Ethan heard a familiar voice coming from the darkness of the desert.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
It sounded like Hunter.
Ethan kept walking. He looked at his watch. It was 3:09.
“You know what else has been bothering me?” Kyla said, turning her attention to Ethan. “When you first got here, Sarah Powers somehow knew who you were, but she still told that lie about meeting your mom when her car broke down. Remember? Something about an engine fan?”
Yes. Ethan remembered.
“If Sarah knew you, she would know you worked on cars. She’d know you’d see through the lie sooner or later.
” Kyla chewed her lip. They had to walk even slower: Ryan could barely handle a step at a time.
“And then Sarah told me and Fernanda about how she had a satellite phone, how she was going to talk to Frank O’Shea, even though she must have seen how jumpy we got when his name came up.
She would have known we wouldn’t have wanted her to have that chance. ”
Ethan said, “And to top it all off, she told us all that her doors would be unlocked. That y’all should drop in whenever to look at her photographs.”
Through chattering teeth, Ryan said, “It sounds like she wanted to put a target on her back.”
Another voice came through the desert, this one a woman’s.
“I will destroy that man.”
It sounded like Fernanda.
At the end of the line, they encountered a Guardian that stood a solid foot taller than the rest. It watched them approach, its feathered arms crossed across its chest, clearly unimpressed.
“Is it just me,” Kyla said. “Or do these things almost seem like people?”
Ethan held out the stone egg in his pocket. The largest of the Guardians regarded it, regarded Ethan, and stepped aside.
They climbed the steps of the old house. As they neared the door, Ryan came to a stop. He leaned against the wall and slid slowly down, coming to rest on the porch’s boards. His shoulder left a trail of blood along the house’s paint. His teeth chattered hard.
“Y’all go ahead,” he said. “All this stuff is getting… over my pay grade.”
“You shouldn’t stay out in the cold,” Kyla said.
“Just… find Penelope for me, yeah? Make sure… make sure she’s all right.”
“At least come inside—” Kyla began, but Ethan touched her arm. Ryan’s eyes had already gone cloudy.
The man let out a long, long breath. He didn’t draw in another.
Ethan stepped past him to open the front door. He said, “See you tomorrow.”