The Borderlands #2
“It will work wonderfully for me. Who cares about the other billions of fools on this rock? They’ve had millennia to ascend to something higher.
This whole world is a scam. This whole life.
There’s never enough money. Never enough time.
Never enough love. I will transcend all of that, Mister Cross.
I am the one man on this earth brave enough to grab the sun.
But maybe… maybe I can bring you with me. ”
Something in the man’s tone—a faint trace of worry, or hope—gave Ethan pause. “How do I enter into this? You have to kill everyone but yourself to break the seal of the ceremony. Including me.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I suspect we might be able to… bend the rules a little.”
Jack Allen reached his maimed hand into the pocket of his suit jacket.
He removed a leather wallet, the same wallet Ryan Phan had removed last night when they’d searched Jack Allen’s corpse.
Now, Jack Allen flipped the wallet open, fished out a photograph, slid it across the bar. “Take a look at this, why don’t you?”
Like he was in a dream, Ethan felt a sudden flood of fear with no obvious source. Something about the idea of looking at that photograph filled him with more dread than all the horrors of the desert and the mountain and the cursed motel. He wanted to look anywhere but there.
The clock. 2:02.
Ethan said, “Why bother? I’m going to stop you. I have a plan.”
“Just do me a favor, son. One tiny peek.”
Ethan tried to resist, but his curiosity got the better of him. He looked down at the photograph. He blinked, trying to look away, but it was no good. He stared.
“My daughter,” Jack Allen says. “Precious, isn’t she?”
In the photograph was a young girl, aged seven, dressed like a cowgirl: hat and boots, spurs, a pellet gun. A little Annie Oakley.
Ethan had seen this picture before. He’d seen it earlier this morning, hanging on the wall of his house.
The girl in the picture was Ethan’s mother.
“What did she tell you?” Jack Allen’s voice was suddenly soft. Almost vulnerable. “Did she say I ran out on the family? Did she say your grandfather was a deadbeat good-for-nothing? She was wrong. I never meant to leave them. It wasn’t my choice. All this time, I’ve been right here.”
Ethan looked from the photograph to Jack Allen and back. “You… you…”
“She never even told you my name, did she? I figured as much. Otherwise you would have put together our resemblance sooner. We’re not exactly restarting the ceremony, son.
We’re repairing the last one. You, Miss Hewitt, Fernanda, you’re all descendants of the last participants.
Even your man Hunter, those newlyweds who left a bastard baby at home…
well. You’ve all been gathered here. Brought together to repair the damage I inflicted on the last ceremony in 1955.
And I think that gives you and I a glorious opportunity.
If we work together, if we clear out the trash, the two of us might both be granted audience.
We’re the same blood, after all. Maybe the ceremony will see us the same way. ”
Ethan couldn’t speak. He could hardly think.
Jack Allen said, “You’ve been trapped all of your life.
More trapped than you ever thought. The power of the mountain, of the ceremony, has bent your fate, the course of your steps, day by day, to its own dread purpose.
You’ve been nothing but chattel. Meat for the sacrificial fire.
You want something new. You want to break free.
I can smell it on you. Can you imagine the sort of freedom we would have together? The freedom of gods?”
Ethan realized his hands were shaking. He thought of that explosion of silver light. He saw the shape of the fry cook in the kitchen here in Lola’s Den, thought of the cruelty that lay in store for him after this.
The fry cook’s cruelty, far outmatched by Hunter’s own.
Now every time you touch yourself, you’ll think of me.
Mark my words. This man is going to get you into the sort of trouble you cain’t never get out of.
All Ethan’s life, he’d been scrawny. Vulnerable.
Until Hunter came along, he’d never had anyone to defend him, and look at the consequences of that.
And even if they did somehow escape this nightmare—even if Ethan’s plan succeeded—Ethan would still have to keep living.
He’d committed arson back in Ellersby and broken God knows what laws to do with a corpse.
Ethan would have to live with that always on his heels.
He would be chased by all the mistakes that brought him here.
For one delirious moment, Ethan allowed himself to imagine what real power—real freedom—might feel like.
And then he realized his madness.
Ethan pushed the photograph away. He said, “You’re right. My mother never said your name. She still had the scars from where you used to hit her.”
Jack Allen’s face darkened.
“My mother didn’t hate you because you ran out on them.
She and my grandmother were grateful. When you didn’t come back from that trip, it gave them the courage to finally leave west Texas.
They ran away before you could get back.
” Now Ethan had a brutal little smile of his own.
“Mom said you were a tiny man with a tiny mind and an ego the size of a house. She said you were a tyrant who couldn’t hold down a job.
She said you were a fool who wasn’t smart enough to realize how hard he’d wasted his life.
She said you were the most loathsome bastard to walk the face of the earth. She was happy you disappeared.”
“That’s a lie. A lie.” But Jack Allen wouldn’t meet his gaze. Ethan realized he’d cut the man in a place his grandfather didn’t even know could still be wounded.
“You? A god?” Ethan said. “You wouldn’t be any better than what you are now. What you’ve always been. You’d just be a petty man in a faded suit who thinks he can make the world lick his fucking shoes.”
Jack Allen said nothing.
Ethan put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I know who killed Sarah Powers. I’m going to stop them. I’m going to stop all of this bullshit, once and for all. I’m going to break the ceremony before it has a chance to start. I’m not even going to give you a chance to turn up at midnight.”
Jack Allen tilted his head. His face grew darker.
“Are you sure about that, son? You realize that with the ceremony broken, there won’t be any coming back.
No tomorrow. Anyone who dies tonight, they’ll stay dead.
You’ll be playing for keeps. And with Te’lo’hi unfettered and no one to control him, it’ll just be a matter of time before this planet itself ceases to exist.”
“When the ceremony breaks, so will the seal on the city. I’ll go talk to this god myself. I will have audience.”
“And do what? Ask a being from beyond the stars to please not destroy the world?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I won’t be able to stop it.
Maybe the world is meant to end tonight.
” Ethan shrugged. “Or maybe I’ll be the one to ascend.
I’m not sure. But I can’t imagine the sort of hell a man like you would make with that kind of power.
” Ethan gave Jack Allen’s shoulder a squeeze.
“I don’t care who you are. I don’t care if we’re kin.
You’re a piece of shit. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to let you get away with this. ”
Very, very slowly, Jack Allen wrapped his scarred fingers around Ethan’s wrist. He pulled Ethan’s hand away. He tightened his grip.
Ethan didn’t flinch.
Jack Allen finally met his eye. There was nothing inside him.
Nothing. “My boy, I promise you this. You will witness true horror. When I am a god, I will peel the flesh from your bones. I will let creatures beyond imagination feast on your heart as you scream. I will make it last. I will spend lifetimes watching the blood pump from your open veins. I will make you wish, for days upon years upon eons, that you could go back, to this very second, and beg me for forgiveness.”
Jack Allen released Ethan’s hand. The man climbed from his stool, vibrating with rage, but he placed his hat on his head with his usual lazy aplomb. He made his way to the door of the cafe. He turned back to give Ethan a final tight smile.
He said, “See you soon, Mister Cross.”