2
Prologue
He didn't feel right.
Arthur's life being what it was, he'd seen a lot of things. The unbelievable, the inconceivable, the undeniable horrors of despair and destitution. Ghost towns, the Night Folk, suicide, homicide, infanticide, any number of those –ides. It could all be explained, one way or another. Contaminated water supply, bad harvest, moldy wheat, the specific brand of crazy bred from cannibalism and incest.
But he'd died up in those mountains.
The moon had hung low and swollen. Tall pines swayed below, stretching toward the sky like a preacher's flock during a scornful sermon.
May God have mercy on my wretched soul.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Repent ye for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Arthur wasn't a religious man, but up there on that mountain he thought he could believe in something. The moon grew impossibly brighter, impossibly bigger. Shadow danced to the rustle of leaf and limb like an old pagan ritual, the wind rising, rising, rising. Wolves howled in the distance, keening to their great gold God in the sky.
His blood ran down in rivers and streams, but no wolves strayed near, whereby day they might have hungrily circled him. Everything on his little mountain top was silent, contrasting heavily with the whirlwind below. It was oppressive. Dark. Fear stole over him then, his weak heart thump-thump-thumping like a dying animal, cornered, terrified, looking frantically for escape.
His ears popped from the pressure and he struggled to breathe, wheezing desperately.
The Devil himself had come this night, he knew.
Arthur closed his eyes and died.
Or rather, he'd wished he'd died when he woke up an indeterminable amount of time later, a breeze ruffled through his hair and a tent was pitched over his broken body. Sadie Adler sat not too far away on her jacket, feeding a fire. He tried to haul himself up and nearly passed out from the pain. She'd only looked at him with that same flat expression she'd had since the day her husband died.
"Well I'll be. I'd thought for sure you'd gone and died on me when Charles dragged you down that Goddamn mountain."