The God Machine Read online

  "Now can I shoot it?" Liz asked.

  Abe was about to answer when he heard movement. He looked back toward Massie, who had continued to work, seeming to have lost interest in their presence. Then he saw them, emerging from the shadows.

  The clockwork zombies had been activated and were coming toward them.

  Abe looked at Liz.

  "Looks like you're going to have to shoot something else first."

  Tyler Arden cut the engine of the fishing boat, plunging them all into an eerie silence. Annabel watched from her seat as her lover pushed a button that released the anchor. The splash as it hit the water was quickly absorbed by the thick mist that surrounded Gosnolt Island.

  The drones, in their long trench coats and hats, sprang to their feet, anxious to perform their programmed functions.

  "Prepare the boat," Tyler instructed.

  They had brought along a smaller motorboat, and the drones went about the business of getting it ready to go ashore. Annabel thought that her lover seemed tense, agitated by the task that Absolom had assigned them. She found it all extremely exciting. It had been close to a hundred years since she'd had an opportunity to spend any time alone with the man she loved.

  "Can you feel it, Tyler?" she asked, leaving her seat to go to his side. He was in the process of examining the map that Absolom had drawn for them.

  "Excuse me?" he asked, seemingly irritated by her question.

  "I asked if you could feel it," she said, hugging herself against the early-morning dampness. "Think of it, in just a matter of hours, a real live god will walk the Earth."

  Tyler looked down at the map. "Not until we succeed in our assigned task," the boy grumbled.

  Even though he appeared to be only eleven years of age, Tyler acted his true age, his older spirit coming through in his facial tics and mannerisms. Annabel had to smile. She found him adorable in this body. But then again, in her new body, she was actually much younger than he.

  "Do you have any doubts?" she asked, reaching out to muss his hair.

  "They stopped us once," Tyler said, combing his hair with his fingers. "What's to prevent it from happening a second time?"

  Annabel laughed, a high-pitched, little-girl giggle. "Don't be foolish. Of course we'll succeed, we've been given a second chance. We have a god on our side, don't forget."

  He didn't respond to her, folding up the map and placing it in his jacket pocket. "Are you ready?"

  She retrieved the copper-coated steel divining rods from beside her seat.

  "I'm ready," she said, trying hard to contain her excitement. She didn't want to disturb him any further.

  Their leader had provided them with a general map of the island, but her talents with locating energy patterns--especially those emanating from items of supernatural power--made her the perfect choice for this assignment.

  Tyler moved past her to the side of the craft, climbing over into the waiting motorboat. She'd felt a certain cold distance from the man that she loved since their return to mortal form. She'd blamed it on the intensity of their holy mission, but now she wasn't quite so sure.

  Annabel gazed into the boat below. Tyler and the four drones sat there, waiting, none offering her any assistance.

  Men, she grumbled beneath her breath, climbing over the side and carefully lowering herself into the boat. Even the reanimated corpses are all the same.

  "Thank you," she said sarcastically to Tyler as she carefully took her seat, trying not to rock the boat.

  It was as if she hadn't said a word.

  The boy turned to address one of the drones. "Cast off," he commanded, and it did as it was told, untying the knot that held the boat in place. Another started up the motor, and the boat began its journey through the fog toward the Gosnolt shore.

  Her lover was silent, staring sternly ahead. Annabel remembered the first time they had met. Their introduction had been made by the spirits of two old women who had once lived in Annabel's Philadelphia home, sisters who had died husbandless and had not wanted her to share their sad fate. They had acted as spectral matchmakers, finding her what she thought to be the man of her dreams.

  This man. She continued to stare at the new, young face that she was gradually starting to associate with the man she loved. He no longer looked the way he had, and neither did she. But the fates had been kind, providing them the opportunity to continue their love, even after the death of their original bodies. Their god had rewarded them for their faithfulness, and they owed him much, which was why they needed to succeed on this mission. These were the final objects needed to allow the most holy Qemu'el to cross over into this plane of reality, the last items of power that would allow him to manifest as a physical being and anoint the world with his glory.

  "I wonder what kind of world we'll be married into?" she asked wistfully, as the boat cut across the dark waters. Far off in the distance, she could hear the sounds of waves breaking upon rocks.

  Tyler shifted in his seat to look at her. "Married?"

  Annabel nodded. "Of course. As soon as Qemu'el arrives, we'll be married. And I wonder what the world will be like for us--for our children."

  Tyler laughed cruelly. "Have you looked in the mirror lately, Annabel?" he asked her. "You're a little girl--just a child. We can't be married."

  It was as if he had physically struck her, although that would hurt less than the words he had just spoken to her. She could say nothing, staring at the body of the boy, but seeing the man whom she loved--and who she believed loved her.

  "But I thought..." she began, and watched a spark of cruelty ignite in his eyes.

  "You thought wrong. You're living in the past. Things aren't the same as they were, and they're going to change even more if we succeed."

  With those final, jarring words, they emerged from the thick haze, the boat nearing a rocky and seemingly deserted section of beach.

  Tyler leaped over the side of the craft into the knee-deep water, helping to guide the boat up onto the sand.

  She was the last to disembark, still reeling from the shock of what he had said to her. Annabel wanted to cry, to curl herself into a tight ball, to will herself back to the darkness where she had dwelled after her death in Absolom Spearz's barn.

  But she steeled herself, grabbing hold of her emotions. She had a task to perform. The fate of humanity was depending on her, whether her heart had been broken or not.

  "Well?" Tyler asked her, a coldness in his tone, showing no sign that they had ever shared an emotional bond.

  Yes, she had to agree, things have most definitely changed. Annabel turned her back on the boy, lifting the two divining rods, slowly turning, using the copper-coated steel rods to seek out any source of residual supernatural energies.

  The rods moved toward each other dramatically, forming a cross as the girl pointed them toward a winding path through the woods.

  "There," she said, starting to walk. "It's this way."

  They followed her, the movement of the rods in her hands directing them to their goal. She wanted to ask Tyler what had happened to turn him against her, but Annabel kept herself strong, refusing to show any sign of weakness. If this was how he wanted it, she would never speak to him again.

  The trek through the dark woods seemed to go on forever, and doubts in her abilities, mixed with a severe sense of rejection, filled her mind. What if the rods fail? she thought, beginning to climb a slight hill. What if she wasn't as talented at this as Absolom believed her to be? What if she led them to failure, and would it really matter now that...

  But her thoughts quickly turned to excitement as she came over the hill to gaze down onto what appeared to be a town square. The rods crossed as if attuning to something of great power. What they had come for was down there, of this she was now certain. Annabel could feel the ambient energies traveling up the lengths of the metal in her hands, making her arms tingle.

  She ran ahead, her tiny legs pumping madly as she rushed down the incline from the woods onto on
e of the deserted streets, following in the direction pointed out by the divining rods. Standing in the middle of the town square, Annabel turned slowly in a circle, the somewhat pleasing sensation in her arms growing more and more intense. The small downtown appeared completely abandoned, the store-fronts boarded up tight as if they had been waiting for a powerful storm to blow through--a powerful storm that had never come.

  The feeling in her arms was suddenly painful, and she cried out, dropping the metal rods to the street. Tyler and the drones stood behind her as she rubbed the pins and needles from her arms, staring at the location across the street that caused such a powerful reading.

  "Is it there?" Tyler asked her, but she remained silent.

  She picked up the rods from where she'd dropped them on the ground and walked toward the boarded-up store. It had been called McMaster's Department Store, once upon a time, and she remembered other stores very much like this one from her life in Philadelphia, before her untimely passing. Where once it had held products of all kinds to satisfy the wants and needs of consumers, it had now become a shell of its former self, containing something far more esoteric, and quite powerful.

  "Inside," she said to nobody in particular. "What we're looking for is inside."

  She stood before the front doors, trying to see through windows crusted with inches of thick dust and dirt. A padlock and thick chains denied them entrance, but not for long.

  "Open it," she commanded one of the drones, and it lurched forward, reaching out with razor-sharp hands encased in metal. It took hold of the lock and easily tore it away.

  As she reached for the door, however, Annabel was rudely pushed aside by Tyler Arden. "I'll go in first," he said, pulling a flashlight from his back pocket and shining it inside as he stood in the open doorway.

  There was so much she wanted to say, but Annabel remained a lady and held her tongue.

  "It's a mess in here," he said, moving the beam about the inside of the filthy store. There were empty shelving units and mold-covered displays, but no sign of what they had come for.

  "Are you certain it's here?" he asked her.

  She chose to ignore his question, holding out the divining rods once again, pointing them within the store. Her arms felt as if they were on fire as she looked over her shoulder to the waiting drones.

  "Inside," she directed them, and they obeyed, pushing past Tyler into the store.

  "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded. He took hold of her arm and gave her a violent shake. "Absolom put me in charge of this mission--me--and I'm not about to see it jeopardized owing to matters of a fragile heart. I am in command of this situation, and you will report to me what I need to know. Do I make myself clear, girl?"

  Annabel was furious, recalling anger so strong only once before. She remembered a time during a seance, before the dreams of god--before Absolom Spearz--when she had allowed herself to become possessed by the spirit of a man who had been murdered by his wife, the killing disguised as an accident.

  It was just like that, only stronger.

  She yanked her arm away, resisting the urge to plunge a divining rod into one of his bulging, angry eyes.

  If asked before their deaths, she'd have believed that their love could have transcended any obstacle. She was obviously wrong.

  "Where is it?" he snarled.

  Still refusing to speak, she pointed to the back of the store, to a dust-covered sign over a door that read, APPLIANCES.

  "Thank you," he said, moving away from her. "I'm glad to see you're finally acting sensible about all of this."

  She watched him approach the door, reaching down to give the doorknob a shake. It too was locked.

  "Open it," he instructed the drones, exasperation in his tone.

  The automaton took hold of the knob in one of its hands, twisting it violently to one side, and then to the other. Annabel could hear the locking mechanism break from across the room.

  As the drone pulled open the door, a thought occurred to her. If items of supernatural power were somehow stored here, it must have meant that somebody had put them here intentionally, and if that were the case, wouldn't such important objects be protected with more than just a locked door?

  Annabel thought this just as the door came away from the frame, revealing a gigantic stone statue standing in the doorway. She gasped aloud as the rock thing moved, tilting its head to one side as it assessed them.

  The drone closest to it moved to defend them, but the monolith was faster. It swatted the reanimated corpse aside as if it were nothing, sending it careening into a display for something called Moxie, broken beyond repair. The other three automatons attacked to protect their masters, but they too were made short work of, reduced to broken pieces strewn about the dusty store floor.

  The stone giant looked at Annabel and Tyler, eyes blazing from the darkness within its chiseled face as it spoke. "Good morning," it said with a voice like two pieces of rough stone being rubbed together. "Is there something I can help you with?"

  Geoffrey Wickham hated the sea. The motion of the fishing boat as it crossed the turbulent waters made the inside of his stomach lurch, an early-morning breakfast of sausage, eggs and toast threatening to erupt from him like Vesuvius.

  He stood outside the main cabin, hoping the bracing ocean air would help to calm his internal turbulence, but the rise and fall of the horizon did more harm than good.

  Wickham closed his eyes, attempting to distract himself from the motion of the seafaring craft. His hand immediately drifted to his left breast, and he began to massage the supple flesh there. He wasn't sure he would ever be used to existing in the body of a beautiful woman, and was even less sure that he really cared. He would still be able to enjoy the company of the opposite sex, even in his new form. And besides, it was good to be alive again--to be free of the seemingly endless deathlike existence within the storage batteries. The fact that the body that now housed his essence was female--healthy and extremely attractive--was just a gift from god as far as he was concerned.

  And what future gifts were in store for them? he wondered. Once the god had made the transition to the world, would they be rewarded for their loyalty, for all of their efforts?

  His stomach roiled violently, the contents of his belly suddenly on the move. Wickham threw himself across the deck of the boat and hung his head over the side as a torrent of vomit exploded from his mouth and into the sea.

  A reward for my efforts, he thought, hanging on to the railing, attempting to recover. He wiped the foul-smelling spittle from the corner of his mouth, looking out over the water at the other three fishing boats that followed close behind, each containing parts from which the body of a god would be constructed.

  He was pleased with how things seemed to be falling into place; finding Mary Hudnell alive--still containing the essence of their lord even after all this time--had been a blessing. The fact that the woman owned one of the largest fleets of fishing boats in the Northeast was just another blessing from their god.

  Wickham sensed that he was no longer alone and turned from the ocean to see that Absolom and Mary had come up on deck.

  Even in his new body, a charisma radiated from Absolom. Standing in his presence, one knew that this was the man who would change the world.

  "Are you all right, Geoffrey?" Absolom asked, signaling that something was amiss by touching the lapel of his heavy, wool coat.

  Wickham looked down at his own jacket to see the front had been spattered with vomit.

  "A touch of seasickness, I'm afraid," he responded, ineffectually attempting to brush away the drying foulness. He wrinkled his nose at the sour stink coming from the stain.

  Absolom helped the ancient woman, who was wrapped in a heavy down comforter, to a seat on deck. She had been growing progressively weaker as the hours passed, her already protruding belly seeming larger and larger. The god inside her knew that its time was growing close and had started to feed off the life energies of its host in anticipation.


  Their leader knelt beside the chair, pulling open the comforter to expose the woman's stomach. Gently he laid a hand upon it, communing with the unborn god. His body shuddered, his eyes rolled to the back of his head, then he took his hand away.

  "He's quite anxious," Absolom said, climbing to his feet with a chuckle. "But can you blame him?"

  Wickham wholeheartedly agreed. "Yes, but even a god must have patience," he said.

  "No need to concern yourself with that," Absolom told him, coming to stand by his side. "He simply wanted me to be certain that we had brought everything along that will be necessary."

  It had been Wickham's job to inventory all the items that were to be transported to the birthing place. He had double- and triple-checked the list against the items as they had been loaded onto the fishing boats.

  "It's all here," he said, going over the manifest again in his mind. "Everything except the last items of power." Wickham felt a twinge of panic as he remembered that the responsibility of acquiring these items had been assigned to the youngest of their band. "I certainly hope that..."

  Absolom stared out over the ocean and at the boats that followed. "No worries," he said with the utmost confidence. "Nothing will stop us this time."

  With those words of reassurance, a rabid barking filled the air. Silas Udell in his canine form scrabbled up from the hold onto the deck and raced for the front of the boat. He tossed his head back and howled.

  "What's gotten into him?" Wickham asked.

  "I think we're here," Absolom replied.

  They watched as a large shape slowly materialized through the mist from the sea, a small island of grayish black, its surface spattered with years of bird droppings, rising from the sea. According to Absolom, it was a cold and barren place, void of any vegetation, of any life other than the occasional landing of seagulls.

  It was called Egg Rock, and this was the place where a god would be born.

  Chapter 12

  T he Chinook set down in the parking lot of the Roosevelt Elementary School on Gosnolt Island, its powerful double rotors kicking up a swirling cloud of dirt, dust and snow as it settled.