He shot the guide twice in the chest. The bearded young man flopped backward, rolled down the hill, through the bloody snow, and tumbled to a halt where the ground became hikeable.
Hakan put a hand on Walker, who knocked it away with the barrel of the gun and then took aim at Hakan. For a full five-count they stared at each other, breathing deeply, until Walker decided Hakan had not been possessed—not yet—and Hakan apparently decided he did not want to be shot.
Scrambling down the snowy slope, sliding and then trudging, Hakan fell to his knees beside the corpse of his cousin. He closed his cousin’s eyes, muttering prayers in their own language.
Walker held back with his team as Meryam, Adam, and Calliope passed them and went to stand by Hakan. Olivieri and Mr. Avci joined them.
“As soon as we get a little ways past the blood,” Walker said quietly, turning to Kim, “I want you to go. Move as fast as you can. I studied the hiking maps before we came. Camp Two isn’t far. You can probably make out some of the path based on the way the snow has accumulated, but either way, you’ll be safer on your own than you will be with any of us.”
Kim stared at him, then glanced at Father Cornelius. “I won’t leave the two of you behind.”
“You’re here to observe, not to die,” Walker told her. “We’ll be able to hike down from this point, but Cornelius can’t go very quickly. Just the way it’s got to be.”
“Walker’s right,” the priest rasped, leaning against the mountain as if he hadn’t any fear the demon would enter him next. “You should go.”
“I’m safer with the two of you than on my own,” Kim said. “But…”
Walker frowned. The weight in that one word, the thick lines in her forehead, showed just how much it disturbed her.
“What?” he urged.
Kim glanced at the others below, the handful of people gathered around Hakan while he mourned.
“What if we shouldn’t even try?” she said. “What if the demon isn’t poison, but more like a virus, and if we bring it down off the mountain we’re just setting it loose in the world?”
Walker stared at her. He had no reply. What Kim had said terrified him more than any idea he’d ever heard.
Adam held Meryam’s hand, but there was nothing romantic in the gesture. He had tried to get her to lean on him, to sling an arm around his shoulder so that he could help keep her on her feet, but she had refused. Only after she had stumbled several times and nearly sprawled face-first onto the snow-covered trail had she relented enough to hold on to his hand.
They trudged downward, some of them with hiking poles and others just aiding one another, lost in the shock of death and bloodshed. Nearly an hour had passed since the demon had made its last appearance, and Adam could feel the shock beginning to abate. He didn’t dare hope that they had passed beyond its influence, but the spark of hope was hard to extinguish, particularly since he so wanted to believe it. Every minute that passed, he saw those around him beginning to relax the tiniest bit. And to feel. To grieve. Half an hour ago, Calliope had begun crying quietly and let her camera dangle in the grip of her right hand while she used the left to wipe her tears away.
Meryam stumbled. Adam gripped her hand tightly and pulled her to him, almost as if they were dancing. Face-to-face, he crushed her against him, watching her breath mist through the cloth of her balaclava.
“Camp Two is just ahead,” Hakan called back to them.
He had taken the lead some time ago, with Calliope just behind, and Meryam and Adam trailing them. The rest were stretched out in an irregular line, but nobody more than fifty yards back.
Camp Two. The terrain would still be rough, particularly with a foot of snow on the ground and the wind still gusting, resisting their progress. But from Camp Two the trail would get easier, more pronounced, enough so that Adam thought he might be able to get down from there even without a guide. Camp Two was good news.
Don’t be stupid, he told himself. Don’t hope. There’s still a long way to go. They had hours yet, and Meryam would only grow wearier. Adam didn’t want to think about how complicated things would become if he had to carry her.
“Hakan!” he called, taking Meryam’s hand again as they began again to follow the trail. “Wait for us!”
Up ahead, Hakan turned slowly toward them.
“Wait for you?” he said. “It takes all of my will not to leave you here.”
“Now hang on,” Adam replied.
Calliope shifted the weight of her camera from one hand to another but did not lift it to begin filming.
“What?” Hakan snarled, marching back toward Adam and Meryam, glaring his hatred at them, face nearly as full of malice as if the demon had taken him. “What do you want to say to me, you two disgusting beasts?”
“Fuck you, you obnoxious—” Adam began.
Meryam put the back of her hand over his mouth to stop the words, but she kept her gaze on Hakan.
“I’m sorry,” she said, a hitch in her voice. “Feyiz was my friend, Hakan. I wish I could hear him laugh again and feel the openness and acceptance that he gave to everyone around him. But wishing won’t fix anything. This group is all that’s left. I don’t know if this is just grief or if the demon’s pulling your strings, bringing out the worst parts of you, but—”
“Slut,” Hakan sneered.
Adam took a step forward, letting go of Meryam’s hand. “That’s enough!”
“Look at the two of you,” Hakan said. “A Jew and a whore who has turned her back on God. I know the torment that awaits you both, but it is not enough. You parade yourself in front of my nephew until the stink of your sex fills his head so that he forgets himself, so that he can’t do anything but what you desire,” he said to Meryam, and then he turned to Adam. “And you… what do you do, man that you are? You seek out another whore to—”
“Hey, fuck you!” Calliope snapped.
Adam waded toward him, fists bunched, knowing that Hakan could thrash him within an inch of his life but not caring. The man needed to stop talking, he needed to be bruised and bleeding and unconscious. Even better if he were dead.
A gunshot cracked the sky, echoing off the mountain.
Hakan and Adam both spun to see Mr. Avci pointing his pistol at the clouds. The little man hunched over in exhaustion, glaring at them both. Walker and Kim came rushing down the trail, leaving Olivieri and the priest behind. Barking orders, trying to play alpha the same as he had since his arrival, Walker pulled out his own gun and leveled it at Avci.
“Get hold of yourselves,” Avci said, ignoring Walker.
Adam’s hatred seethed inside him. Hakan had been a bastard since the moment they’d met him, long before his grief and loss. But the things he’d said were unforgivable. Adam turned to Meryam.
“What do you say?”
Meryam stood up to her full height, pale but alive. When Adam reached for her hand, she batted it away, slogging through the snow so that she and Hakan were eye-to-eye. She spat in his face.
Hakan hauled back a fist as everyone began to shout. Adam rushed toward them, but he wouldn’t make it in time.
Calliope did. She stepped between Hakan and Meryam and grabbed his arm before he could throw the punch. Whatever she might have said to him, Adam couldn’t hear it. He wanted to thank her, but what could he say?
“You didn’t have to—” Meryam began.
Calliope whirled on her. “Don’t talk.”
Meryam stuttered and took a step back.