The Dark at the End

Jack found the home of the Thomas Mulliner Excavating and Land Clearing Service at the end of a dark, twisty path in the woods off Carranza Road. His headlights picked up a clearing with a leaning shed, scattered backhoes and earth movers, and the Dodge pickup truck he'd seen earlier. He saw no sign of a house nearby, so he backed the little Pontiac around until the headlights were centered on the pickup, and left them on.

He left his car running and approached the pickup with fingers figuratively crossed. The draped object leaning in the bed was the right size. If only ...

Using the rear bumper as a step, he hopped up into the bed and yanked the tarp free.

Yes!

The broken sigil gleamed in the headlights. He leaned in for another look at the glyphs carved into the black surface. Before leaving Weezy earlier, he'd asked her to draw him a duplicate of the glyphs she'd copied. He pulled it out and checked it again against the originals.

A perfect copy. So why wasn't he satisfied? Why - ?

A shadow moved into the edge of the light cone from the headlights and a voice said, "Hold it right there!" before Jack could move.

Shit.

He did a slow turn and saw a guy standing about ten feet away pointing a shotgun at his midsection. More than a silhouette - he stood far enough off to the side for the lights to reveal some features. Jack recognized Tommy Mulliner, holding what looked like a Mossberg over-under twelve gauge.

"The fuck you think you're doing here? Get your ass off my truck!"

"Just looking," Jack said as he sifted through ways to play this.

"Bullshit!"

"If I'd seen anyone around, I would've asked, but the place was deserted, so - "

"I know you. I seen you at the Lodge. You was trespassing there and now you're trespassing here. Get down."

Jack thought about that. The sigil was too important and he wasn't through with it. He couldn't go for his Glock without the Mossberg tearing a hole in him, so ...

"No."

In the following seconds of stunned silence, he turned back to the sigil.

"What?" Tommy finally said.

"No. It's a simple word. Also known as uh-uh, non, nein, nyet, and that's a negatory."

"I'll blow your fucking head off!"

"Well, go ahead, Tommy. I'm here only to look, not steal, but you go ahead and do what you think you have to do. By the way, you related to Luke Mulliner, the guy who used to run the canoes at Quaker Lake?"

Another pause - Tommy probably hadn't expected a question about his family right after a death threat.

"Yeah. My uncle. What about him?"

Jack knelt beside the sigil and ran his hand over the glyphs. Again that feeling of something not right, but he had to keep Tommy talking.

"Knew him when I was a kid living in Johnson."

"Easy to say."

"I know he had brothers named Matthew, Mark, and John. Their mother was into the Gospels. And you're Thomas. Another apostle. Doubting Thomas. You still doubting me, Tommy?"

"I'm doubting you've got your head on straight. Get off my truck or I shoot."

"Your family's related to Joe Mulliner, the Robin Hood of the Pines, right? Would old Joe approve of that?"

He ran his fingers over the glyphs, outlining their shapes.

"Old Joe was hung in the seventeen hundreds."

And then it hit Jack like a sucker punch to the gut.

"Oh, no."

He rose and turned toward Tommy. He didn't want that itchy trigger finger to twitch so he gave him a preview of what he was going to do.

"I'm getting off your truck and going to my car."

"Now you're talking."

Jack jumped to the ground and pulled open the passenger door. He found the pen Weezy had given him on the seat.

"And now I'm going back to the truck."

"No, you ain't!"

Tommy made the mistake of stepping in and trying to club Jack with the barrel. He wasn't experienced in this sort of thing and, before he knew it, the shotgun had changed hands.

Tommy raised his arms and cringed back as Jack pointed it his way.

"Hey, no! Don't!"

Jack lowered the weapon, saying, "Not here to hurt anyone or anything. I need about two minutes with that crazy black thing and then I'll be on my way."

He took the shotgun with him when he climbed back into the truck bed. He took out Weezy's drawing and laid the sheet over the glyphs, then began rubbing the pen over it. Gradually the writing began to appear. When he was finished he held the sheet up to the light. He leaped to his feet when his worst suspicions were confirmed.

"Shit-shit-shit!"

The same glyphs but in a different order. An optical illusion. The visible glyphs weren't the same as the carved glyphs. A different name. Rasalom had hidden his true Other Name. Had all of the Seven done that, so that even if someone outside their circle found their sigils, he still wouldn't know their Other Names? Over five thousand fake variations remained, after all. Or had Rasalom been the only one?

Didn't matter. What did was the Lady using the wrong name in the Ceremony.

He had to tell them.

He opened the Mossberg's breech and pulled out the two shells, tossed them over his shoulder, then closed it. He laid it at the foot of the sigil and hopped down to the ground again. Without a word, he jumped into the car and slammed it into reverse.

"What the fuck's going on?" Tommy shouted as Jack backed around. Jack heard him repeating, "What the fuck?" two or three times as he roared down the driveway.

WTF, indeed.