Plague

your heaven?
    “This is a bad place, Jamal,” Brittney said. “I can feel it.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “Drake is a bad boy, and he goes to bad places. But better off with him than against him, I figure.”
    They emerged from the cut-through in view of a half-ruined hole in the side of a sheer rock face. There was just enough pale pink light to see that the mine shaft was blocked by tons of fallen rock. The massive timbers that framed the hole were splintered and looked as if they might snap.
    Whatever evil Brittney felt, it came from there, from that hole, that pile of rocks.
    “Where are we?”
    “The mine shaft,” Jamal said. “Haven’t you heard all about that? In there? That’s the thing that gave Drake his whip.”
    “In where?” Brittney said. “It’s all collapsed. It’s sealed up.”
    “That’s probably good, huh? ’Cause if that thing feels this bad from out here, I don’t want to know what it feels like up close.” He bit his lip and in a low voice said, “Like a big claw holding your heart. Like icicles in your brain.”
    “Jamal, if you ran away . . .”
    He shook his head. “Drake would come after me. Look, you can’t be killed, right? And he can’t be killed, right? Which means, I betray him, sooner or later he gets me.”
    “Maybe fire,” Brittney said softly. “Maybe God’s holy fire can destroy us both.”
    “Yeah, well, I don’t happen to have any of that.”
    “Only Sam can end this.”
    Jamal put up his hands in a who, me? gesture and said, “I am cool with that. If big Sam wants to take Drake out, I’m not going to say anything to stop him. But listen: all you’re trying to do is slow Drake down, girl. Him and Sam, they’re going to get into it eventually, right? So maybe you should be trying to speed him up, you see what I’m saying?”
    Brittney stared at Jamal. Was it a trick?
    Is this the devil tempting me?
    “What did the demon Drake ask you to do?”
    Jamal nodded at the cave. “He just said be here. He’s got in his head that he can talk to that thing in there. Or at least hear what it says.”
    Brittney could believe that. How could she not believe in things that seemed supernatural? Her brother sometimes spoke to her as an angel. And God was with her always. Wasn’t He?
    And she herself, this gruesome remnant of the girl she once was, she herself was something outside of nature.
    Was Sam the Lord’s servant? The very tool God had chosen to liberate Brittney? She’d begged Sam often for liberation. But God’s ways were not knowable to her. His time was not her time. His will be done.
    “What does Drake want of me?” Brittney asked.
    “Just, you know, don’t always be trying to run away so I have to tie your legs and slow us down and all.”
    “Is he going after Sam? Is that his plan, to go after Sam?”
    She thought she caught just the slightest falseness in Jamal’s eyes as he said, “That’s exactly his plan. Straight for Sam, as soon as he checks in with . . . you know.”
    “You can sleep, Jamal,” Brittney said. “Sleep until Drake comes back. I won’t run away.”
    “How am I going to trust you?”
    “Because I swear it. On the blood of the Lamb, I swear it.”
    Jamal woke to the pain of Drake kicking him.
    “What?”
    Drake was actually smiling. It wasn’t a good look for him.
    “You were asleep,” he said. “And I’m still here.”
    Jamal jumped up and quickly untied Drake. “Yeah, I did just what you said, Drake. Just like you said. I told her that you would go after Sam first thing. Then Sam would burn you both up and . . .”
    He gulped, suddenly realizing that this might be taking it too far.
    But Drake was in a charitable, expansive mood. He patted Jamal lightly on the cheek with the tip of his whip. “You did good. And I will get Sam Temple. Sooner or later.”
    Drake gazed at the mine shaft. What he felt toward the Darkness within was something very much like love. Fear, yes, but the Darkness deserved his fear. His fear and his devotion.
    If he had to pull the rocks out of there one by one, and if it took weeks, he would reach the Darkness and free him.
    “My old body’s down there,” Drake said, realizing it for the first time. “My old body is down there with him.”
    Drake felt a sudden pang of longing. He wanted to press his body against the rocks in the mine’s mouth. It would bring him closer. Maybe the Darkness would reach out to him, touch his mind, tell him what to do next.
    But he couldn’t