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By Peter J Larrivee

Hidden beneath the burning desert of the American Southwest is an ancient legend. Some seek it for their own power and glory, while others have discovered, purely by accident, the power it can impart. But only one can forge the blood connection, and become one with the ancient power. Only one can decide if humanity is saved, or damned: The Icon.

 

This coming-of-age horror borrows one of the most recognizable legends, and shows us just how alien and terrifying even our most sacred tales can be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arrival Books
• Release date: Aug 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201518721

Peter J Larrivee

Peter J Larrivee is a horror and weird fiction writer from the Land of Lovecraft. He's been published in Perihelion, Night Terrors Volume 21, the Hell is for Children charity anthology and on Trembling with Fear. In addition, he is a long time contributor to Motif Magazine, an arts and entertainment publication.   When not working or crafting nightmares, he can usually be found in bookstores or out with his family. 

Book preview

Prologue

Iraq - 1996

THE DUST COATING THE tires and inner rims clashed against the perfectly gleaming black exterior of the big shiny new Ford sedan rolling along the road. A cloud of hazy kicked-up sand trailed behind the vehicle, and the hot sun threatened the engine every second. Inside, the radio played a cassette tape of some strange Middle-Eastern music that felt, in its way, oddly soothing and hypnotic.

The woman behind the wheel, thirty or so, wearing a crisp pantsuit and dark sunglasses had the air conditioner turned all the way up, but all it did was keep her brow dry in the relentless desert sun. She’d been driving for hours now, on what little road could be found out here. Often she’d have to dodge sudden cracks and small craters that she desperately hoped were not from explosions. She knew from the news, and the multiple warnings in her briefing, that a number of different scattered fundamentalists liked to call this area their home, and as such, fought with each other over who got to be at home on any given day.

Not that she worried, of course, despite the fact that she was a single, un-escorted white woman in a war-torn Muslim country. Only a few hundred miles away, American forces were still chasing Iraqi’s away from Kuwaiti oil fields, some of which had been ignited. She could see the curling serpents of obsidian smoke rising to the sky even from here. Not even the distant mountains could hide their wind-swept cobra heads.

Before she realized it, she passed into a small village. She slowed down to check her map. This had to be the right one. She checked the odometer and the distance seemed right. Her engine started to run into the red from heat, so perhaps she ought to give it a rest. After all, it was just as long a ride back if this turned out to be another dead lead.

She emerged into the heat, and suddenly wished for the comfort of the defective air conditioning again.

She stood in the middle of a strange little shanty town built of old stone, decayed wood, and metal. Women in full burkas rushed away from her, sometimes dragging confused children.

She hated this part of the world. She didn’t hate the people, so much, as just the actual geography, climate, weather, and what it generally did to people who stayed here too long. She wondered if anyone had studied the psychological effects of being in the desert their entire lives and never seeing any place where death wasn’t around every corner.

In truth, she admired the people who did live here for their resilience, if not for their decision to remain. But, she supposed, there was a pride to be had in being a member of a people whom survived even when all of nature around you wanted you dead. Perhaps that’s why the most violent and prevalent religions were born here, their people had endurance.

A little ways up the street there sat a vendor stand with food. She bought some bread and preserved meat before heading back to the car. She was starting to attract looks. The wind-teased hair and business clothes were not only ill-suited to the environment, but painted her as a foreigner, probably with money, and easy prey. Well, the Glock in her shoulder holster would have something to say about that.

Once back in the car, she could already feel the air baking her skin. She chewed on some tough bread while checking the map. Yes, she was very close.

Thirty more minutes of driving brought her to the brink of overheating, and to the huge sandstone monument she had sought.

It jutted out from the land, a great temple to some ancient god, with spires that had bent and crumbled with time. Dozens of tents and lean-tos formed a perimeter around the dig site, if it could so be called. No digging was really necessary. Unlike other archaeological finds that were often hidden by the Earth, this one had been vomited back up by the sickened desert like a bitter pill.

This time, as she exited the car, she was greeted by a fat man and a thin, older woman. The fat man had a wide bushy beard with no mustache, and the older woman looked thin, but clearly not frail, her skin dark from many years working outside, and her lean muscle evident when she extended a long arm to wave.

Ms. Tines! called the fat man.

Mr. Akar, the woman replied, slamming the car door just enough to indicate her impatience with the journey.

Ms. Tines, thank you so much for joining us, he said, extending a pudgy, sweaty hand. Ms. Tines declined to take it. The older woman stepped up and nodded to her.

Oh, I’m sorry, this is Mrs. Abigail Hatch, said Akar, She’s the lead researcher here who made the initial discovery.

Tines nodded to her as well, and sensed a professional connection, an acknowledgment that each of them were there to do a job they excelled at. Tines almost felt a swell of pity for what she would have to do soon.

You’re absolutely certain this is what we’ve been looking for? Tines asked.

Hatch smiled and nodded. Oh yes, I’m quite sure. I dared not touch the artifacts. I know how important this is. However, I did locate them and I am convinced just by sight that these are what we have been searching for.

The temple was remarkably clear of dust and debris. The team had done good work in removing the desert intrusions, even sweeping the errant sand back outside. The stone felt cool to the touch, and proved a respite from the heat far superior to Tines’s mediocre air conditioning. The main hallway featured red and brown stone architecture carved by ancient masons into elaborate arches and tapered points above doorways. Some clay veins, like tree branches, seemed to sprout from the center of the ceiling in an organized fractal pattern. Hatch guided them past this yawning hall, into the main room, where the broken idol of some ancient humanoid figure stood, missing its head and upper chest, bearing the belly and legs of some chimeric beast of feather and fire. The vaulted ceiling above them arched in odd curves supported by strangely inlaid buttresses of older, stronger stone. Tines looked at the monstrous form that held court over the room, the space where its head used to be less than a meter from scraping the stone arch. It sported human breasts, but also animalistic belly nipples, and carried a depiction of fire in its hand like a mockery of Mohammed. The feet were reptilian, scaled, like a great iguana, but hunched and bent back like a bird.

What is that?

Who, corrected Akar, We believe it is one of the servants of the Dawn Mother.

Tines frowned and looked to Akar, I thought sun deities were usually depicted as male.

Hutch laughed at this. Not here, my dear. No, these were not your usual pagan gods of ancient Mesopotamia. In fact, I’m sure this Dawn Mother was intentionally forgotten, her statuary smashed on purpose.

We deciphered most of the glyphs, said Akar, The Dawn Mother was a dangerous, vindictive goddess, known to burn her enemies alive, or leave them to desiccate in the sands. On the contrary, it was the Dusk Father cast as the compassionate, and gentle one, but he could be cold and steal your breath.

Hot days and cold nights, said Tines, nodding in comprehension.

They also seemed to have an impressive medical knowledge, said Akar, gesturing to a wall of pictograms representing tall women pouring red liquid onto various figures lying on the ground, painted in sickly greens and with open wounds. The art style was far from the basic hieroglyphics, and had an oddly realistic property. Tines knew what open wounds looked like, the artistry was not lost on her.

But you said on the phone that you’d found the artifacts we came here for, she said, Show me.

Hutch grinned like the proverbial cat who’d gotten the canary. She stepped over to the far wall, where images of the Dawn Mother’s sun glyph passed in an arc over a desert sky. She pressed the glyph with her hand, and the sound of grinding stone rang out before the glyph receded, and in its place slid a tile with a depiction of the moon, presumably the Dusk father, as some ancient mechanism rolled behind the walls.

But the grinding noise did not cease. Instead, a huge circular slab from the ceiling began to lower on ancient hempen ropes that looked as if they could snap apart at any moment. The descent felt achingly slow, until finally the slab landed with a heavy thud that sent tiny dust demons curling away in the air.

Hutch nodded to the circular slab.

Hop on, she said.

Tines did so, but reluctantly. She wasn’t dressed for an archaeological site, and her crisp professional suit had dry dust coalescing on it already. Hutch pressed the glyph again, reversing the symbols, and the slab began to rise. Tines almost toppled off of her feet. Beneath her, the light and open air of the temple room fell away, and above darkness waited to embrace her.

When the slab slid back into place, Tines found herself in some kind of strange upper burial chamber. Light from an electric camping lantern left on the floor lit the chamber just enough to see once her eyes adjusted. She saw the ancient dusty remains before her on an elaborate gold-inlaid stone slab, the dessicated old husk of some ancient priest or priestess wrapped in glazed linen and preserved by desert air. Upon the head of the corpse sat an odd crown of thick, angular metal that shone black even beneath the layers of dust. Tines stepped forward and lifted the lantern up to examine the crown.

Three prongs extended out from the top, then turned inward at an angle and halted suddenly before meeting in the middle with a polyhedral shape. But of greater interest was the necklace, held by chains of tarnished gold, and holding a stone of obsidian.

This was it, all right. She knew enough about the exact specifications to understand that they found the very artifact her employer been looking for. Mr. Dragich would be ecstatic.

She cast the lantern over the rest of the mummy, sending shadows skittering off into darker corners like frightened insects. She looked more closely at the necklace, and could just see the markings she was told to look for, etched into the soft metal by hands long gone to dust.

Yes. Yes, this was exactly what they were looking for.

Tines removed the crown and necklace without delicacy. She yanked it off the body, taking some crumbling bone along for the trip. She returned to the slab and banged on the rock with her foot, her heel making solid and resonant thuds. With a loud clunk, and the sound of scraping stone, the slab began to sink.

Just for a second, in that darkness, Tines was sure she had seen the head of that mummy turn it’s gaping, empty eyes on her. A dark shadow moved past the rotted old teeth like a black tongue licking the yellowed fangs. The eyes, devoid of life or soul, seemed to leer at her. She’d known death, stared into its face, but that’s not what she saw now in those deep shadows within the crumbling skull.

The light changed, and she squinted at the rising luminosity of the lower chamber, her eyes still adjusting to the contrast. The cold air swept away from her, and she felt the dry desert again embrace her with the desiccating heat.

When the slab reached the floor once again, Hutch looked horrified, and Akar spat some curse or perhaps prayer. Their protests were flying through the air even before the slab returned to its natural bed in the floor, and Tines was deaf to them.

You can’t take those! Not like this! said Hutch.

Tines slipped the heavy metal crown around her arm, and began reaching into her jacket while the archaeologists approached with recriminations and objections. Their words were just noise.

Hutch was the first to see the glint of steel. She had only time to draw one final breath. Tines took aim, her look cold, professional and passionless. The thunder of the gun shook dust from the ceiling four times as Tines executed both of them.

Her instructions were clear and familiar. There could be no one left to tell the tale of what they were here for. She hoped the desert would swallow the place back up, but if that failed, the attack could always be blamed on the locals. A half-dozen men and one more woman, mostly locals, the diggers most likely, met her as she stepped into the blazing sun. She had enough ammunition to finish them all off. Even the screams were short lived. With no cover, and no warning, Tines did her job efficiently, and in under a minute. The gunshot echoes outlived the distant rolls of the dying cries.

Tines marched up to the blood-spattered car, sidestepping the corpse of a nameless teenage digger. She placed the crown and the necklace in the passenger seat while she got herself properly situated. It was a long drive back to the airport, and she didn’t think the air conditioning would hold out.

In the rearview, the temple seemed to stare at her through empty windows, and a shadow from some distant could seemed to pass over it. Or, perhaps, it was the face of death looking down on her again. She shivered and focused on the road ahead, like she always did, to stay one step ahead of that gaze.

Chapter 1

Nevada, USA - 1996

THE OLD TV FUZZED WITH static and let out a hiss of complaint while a grainy signal showed Disney cartoons over the bar.

The air had a dim haze about it from the handful of smokers and the dust that invariably found its way inside. Instead of a big mirror behind the bar, there was a huge corkboard with dozens and dozens of ID’s pinned to it, with a banner clearly printed on an old dot matrix printer that read "Wall of Shame." Not a single ID up there was real, and they ran the gamut of incredibly close to real, to laughably bad.

The board was framed by bottles of nearly every form of drink one could imagine, as well as many kinds of sugar syrup and a coffee station set up with a fairly new, but heavily used espresso machine made in a faux fifties style with shiny red chrome exterior and elaborate piping.

Of the many milling patrons, very few were of drinking age.

In theory, Faust’s was an 18+ club on the outskirts of Angelito Pass, Nevada. In reality, it was the prime hangout for every student of Elder Woods High School after 3pm and on the weekends. Over the years, the owner and bartender, Dala, had seen the shift in her clientele from the Black-Label swilling old barflies who stopped in after work at the auto plant to their aging children, who supplanted them, and the kids from the massive influx of yuppie couples fleeing the madness of city life.

These were kids who grew up in condos, and now lived in prefab homes with in-ground swimming pools in the backyard and college funds. At first, it proved to be a problem, all the minors looking to score drinks with fake ID’s, hence the wall. But as time wore on, and Faust’s new crowd began to order more soda, coffee, and virgin drinks, Dala adjusted to the times, much to the chagrin of her old clientele. But they just didn’t have the money to spend that these kids did, and espresso beans were a LOT cheaper than beer kegs for the markup. A year ago, she’d never even heard of Biscotti.

And Dala had to admit, when she’d first opened the bar in this old stone church over a decade ago, she should have known it wasn’t going to be a hot spot among the more conservative crowd. But the place went for cheap, and Dala couldn’t afford to be picky. In hindsight, it had been brilliant, anticipating the white-kid goth movement and being perfectly poised to cater to it. With almost no effort, she slid into a niche market and cornered it for years to come. There were other places in town to drink, but nowhere like Faust’s for the atmosphere, the crowd, and the fancy coffee drinks

Faust’s only sign was a sheet-metal devil head, looking like a dapper gentleman but for the red horns and forked tongue snaking from his mouth, and it at night, a single red light bulb cast a hellish glow upon its grin.

The stained-glass windows had been bandaged with bits of patchwork melted glass from beer bottles over the years, and the Virgin Mary mural on the back wall held a glowing heart of Rolling Rock in her chest. The pews had been turned into booths, with padding so people could actually sit in them. The bar itself was once a choir section, and the pulpit now served as a stage, where occasionally these kids would throw poetry slams or some other such nonsense that entertained some and humiliated others.

When kids cut class, they went to Faust’s, and would escape down through the old catacombs to evade any truant officers that might come by. Dala had been down the the catacombs a few times, but she didn’t have much interest in exploring it. There were spiders. But the kids would sometimes mill around down there, smoking pot, and hiding from their parents. Dala always covered for them, and made sure the ‘Wall of Shame,’ was always freshly stocked with new and different ID’s to show the worried parents and authorities that she ran a clean place.

Besides, the occasional drama was a lot more interesting than the 40-year-old welders who used to come in, grab her ass, and tell the same cliché jokes they’d been telling since they were teenagers. The kids didn’t get drunk, didn’t start fights... At least, not much. Dala had dealt with bigger, meaner things than teenagers with raging hormones. It was pretty refreshing, actually, and she could occasionally offer some worldly advice to the flock. She felt rewarded by that rare trust, and did the best she could to be worthy of it.

She would even occasionally look the other way for a few of the better-behaved patrons who wanted a virgin drink, but very few ever made that short list. Over the last few years, some of the students even graduated and moved on, or, in the case of one particular customer, stick around for a while, trying to sort himself out.

His name was Rand, and for a kid born in the early eighties, he sure carried himself like a greaser from the fifties. Nearly twenty, he had made Dala’s short list about a year ago for breaking up a fight between a bully and a nerdy kid who just wanted to be left alone. He’d been a senior then, just shy of graduating, and some big neckless football player had been egging on a thin, gaunt-looking boy, until the boy could no longer stand the taunting. He swung back for the punch, which was all the excuse the bully needed to send him sprawling. The skinny kid grabbed one of Dala’s lime-cutting knives from the bar and almost went after him when Rand got between them. He just shook his head at the skinnier boy, who put the knife down. He then turned on the football player. Dala didn’t hear what Rand said, but the neckless kid went pale, then regained himself and tossed a derisive laugh over his shoulder at the boy. He walked off. Rand turned back to the other kid.

It ain’t worth it, he said, "He ain’t worth it. Trust me, he’s gonna be living in a trailer park in two years."

This seemed to calm the boy down, and for the rest of the night, Rand watched from a stool at the bar. It became his spot. He could see everyone in the room, and from that night on, Dala gave him whatever drink he wanted. He seemed level-headed, even if that head was a little turned around on his personal life. But the kid had it rough, and he kept it together a lot better than his sister.

Rand’s easily recognized silhouette appeared at the door, bathed in the blazing hot desert sun, his yellow ‘The Clash’ tee shirt and blue jeans a little dusty, and his boots made a loud thunk on the old wooden floors with every step.

Hey, Rand, said Dala, automatically filling a glass with Canadian beer.

Dala, he said, taking a seat at the bar.

I heard your sister’s graduating this year, said Dala, making small talk.

Rand shrugged. Yeah. Says she’s gonna go off to some school in Massachusetts or something.

The subtext was there on his face, and it said ‘I’ll miss her.’

You know, that David kid keeps asking about her, said Dala. Rand’s eyes tightened.

And what do you tell him?

Through the open door, the rolling of tires on dust and gravel echoed from outside, and rapid-fire door slams followed. Chattering of young, energetic teenagers floated up the steps as four girls wandered in. Rand turned around to see who had come by.

The tinkling laughter was far too jovial for the setting. Faust’s decor partly echoed the old church, and partly an ironic spot of devil worship. But the group of girls entering clashed completely the environment.

Short, stout, and ginger-haired Becky Bell strode in with her clique of popular girls that were, at the end of the day, not actually all that popular, they just held their noses a little higher than everyone else. To her right stood an equally short, slimmer girl with mocha skin and dark eyes, her hair pulled into curly pigtails and wearing blaze-bright pink denim top, tied off above her belly, and a lurid green skirt. That was Felicity. On the other side stood Leah Wells and Rand immediately turned back around. The other girls outshined Becky, being taller, or thinner, or more well-proportioned, but lacked the shark-like grin and cutting personality. Most of them still wore their cheerleading uniforms with nylon jackets over the Elder Woods High School colors of ketchup red and mustard yellow, probably fresh out of a practice session.

They headed over to a table, but Rand wasn’t watching. Dala, watched, though, and shot a look back at Rand.

So, that’s...

Yeah, said Rand, Talk to Bree about it.

Dala quirked an eyebrow. Why? Does it bother you?

Rand made a thin smile with his lips. No, he said, What bothers me is the trouble she’s asking for from David.

Dala shrugged. You think she’s just trying to get to him?

Rand took a long sip from the glass before answering. "No, I think she has no idea that she is getting to him."

The two shared a brief look of concern, but Dala had a line forming at the espresso bar. The kids started filing in now, almost all from the local high school, a few castaways that had graduated, like Rand, but had nowhere to go. The corner booth, built out of a giant wire spool and the leftover pews into a huge, smoothly varnished semi-private booth, filled up with the gamer kids.