Revelator by Daryl Gregory

Author:Daryl Gregory [Gregory, Daryl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

alfonse drove in silence, eyes on the narrow, twisting road. The car was loud with the drumming of the rain and the slap of the automatic windshield wipers.

Then they reached the highway. Alfonse hit the gas and said, “What the actual motherfucking fuck?”

“Thanks for being there,” Stella said. “It went better than I thought.” Hendrick had given her everything she asked for. The three nested skillets lay heavy on her lap.

“What the fuck is a Ghostdaddy?”

Stella sighed. “A made-up god for a made-up religion.”

“That’s insane.”

“I tried to warn you.”

“That’s crazy hillbilly shit.”

“Again—warned.”

“You want to explain what kind of deal you struck? Because I do not know what the fuck was going on in there.”

“All you have to know is I got what I wanted.”

Alfonse shook his head. “You sure about that? I’m not sure I trust that uncle of yours.”

“Hendrick?” Stella laughed. “I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”

“Then what the hell?”

“I had to put up a fight. Make it look painful, even threaten him a little, or he wouldn’t trust the deal. You know how it is when you’re negotiating with some son of a bitch. They ain’t happy unless they feel like they’ve screwed you.”

“Yet I have no idea what you were selling.”

“More like what I was buying—time.”

“To do what?”

Kill a god, she thought.

Aloud she said, “I needed Hendrick to go, get out of the cove, just for a while. Make him think everything would go his way if he waited a couple years.”

“And what’re you going to do in the meantime?”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “I do have one more favor to ask.”

“Here we go.” But he was grinning.

“You still got cousins working that mine in Chattanooga?”

“The Bowlins are everywhere.”

“Think they’d sell you some dynamite?”

Alfonse looked at her. Put his eyes back on the road. “How much we talking?”

“Enough to—let’s call it a significant geologic event.”

“Shee-it. Is this about that cave you was talking about?”

“Maybe so.”

“How soon you need it?” he asked.

“Think you could get it in a week?”

“I’ll make some calls.” They talked over the amount, the probable cost. They didn’t talk about the legal ramifications. Then he asked, “What about that girl, Sunny? You going to let her go with your uncle?”

“Hendrick adores her. More than that, he needs her. He won’t hurt her.”

“But if she’s—”

Alfonse stopped himself. She waited for him to ask the question. But if she’s yours…?

He said, “She looks an awful lot like you.”

“It’s the skin condition. Runs in the family.”

“Mom or Dad’s side?”

“What? No. The man I called my pa has got fuck all to do with any of this.”

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