Devil's Throat (The River Book 6) (6 page)

She listened to Winn on the other end of the phone, then
replied, “Alright, we’re on our way.”

She slipped the phone back into her pocket. “Let’s go, he’s
available now.”

“No reason to think Jason won’t be safe here, right?” Steven
asked.

“Safer than over there where it was hard to get to him,” Deem
said, “but these rooms aren’t very secure. If Michael wants to break in and get
at him, he will.”

“Alright,” Steven said. “We’ll just have to take the chance.”

They followed Deem as she drove her truck back up Highway 169
out of Overton, and crossed the interstate into the tiny town of Moapa. Houses
were scattered here and there, but Deem kept on driving until they reached the
far northern end of town. She pulled up to an old airstream trailer. A Jeep
Cherokee was parked outside, covered in mud. There were two lawn chairs sitting
outside next to a wooden cable spindle that had been turned over to become a
table. On the table was a large ashtray that was slowly having its contents
blown all over the yard.

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 humans, 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.