The Last God
Page 24
"So, if we go right to follow the daemon, what's to keep it from coming all the way around and leaping on us from behind."
I suppose I should have thought of that, but I had been too busy throwing myself down flights of stairs to fully ponder it. "Our collective good luck?" I ventured with a lot less confidence than any of us would've liked.
"Annnd we're back to burning the place down and running for our lives." Anton still gripped the doorknob like he was trying to leave an imprint of his fingers in the verdigris.
"We're not doing either of those things. We need to find the wytch that pulled this thing through. If they're still alive that is. Besides, we don't know if fire would actually kill this daemon. Believe me when I tell you a monster trying to kill you is not improved by that same monster shooting flames everywhere." I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath in preparation for what I knew we had to do next. "Earless. Suggestions?"
"You and I in the lead with Loretta and Anton behind. I'll check each room as we go, and you cover me. You two watch our back trail for any surprises." That last bit said to Loretta, who had pocketed her notepad and again held shotgun at the ready, and Anton who had finally let go of the doorknob to join us at the base of the stairs, nervously checking the pistol to ensure it was still in his hand.
Anton was a recent addition to the team, and I couldn't blame him for being as jumpy as he was, despite the fact I worried he was going to put a round through me one of these days because he got spooked by a shadow. He was cagey as to his reasons for joining up, but I've had enough personal traumas of my own that I get not wanting to trot them out for other people to gawk at. The kid had good survival instincts and, more importantly, access to resources we sorely needed. Some kind of family inheritance he also didn't like to talk about.
We crept up the stairs two abreast, Earless and I in the lead with Loretta and Anton nearly treading on our heels. Now that we were on the move, banter dried up. At the top of the stairs the scarred former ganger aimed her weapon down the gloom of the right-hand hallway while her younger counterpart did the same to the left. Both had attached flashlights to their respective guns, but the anemic yellow beams did little to illuminate the dusty hallways of the abandoned mansions beyond ten feet or so. It was as if the shadows pushed back against the light, displeased by the intrusion into their kingdom. The walls were covered in wallpaper of an old-fashioned pattern, once blue now run to gray. Here and there swathes of it had fallen, revealing broken plaster and beneath that, wooden slats like the exposed ribs of some monstrous beast. The air was thick from dust and I had to fight back a momentary sneeze.
We moved in silence, the only noise the soft shuffling of our feet. At each door we came to Earless would swing the shotgun around, finger on the trigger, while I kept a gun trained on the door opposite, my heart crawling into my throat as if it were some sort of safe room and my stomach gurgled as an adrenaline dump decided now would be a good time to go find a place to vacate my bowels.
Stupid bodily functions.
Even after my far too many too-close-for-comfort encounters with the supernatural, even after vowing every time that, this time, I was going to stay calm and cool under the pressure, my body would turn traitor on me.
My stomach gurgled louder.
"Didn't you go before we left?" asked Earless in a whisper as she shone her flashlight into a room that looked to have once been a nursery containing the remnants of a rotted and moldy crib along with an ancient, naked, plastic doll with only one eye. I didn't like the way that eye was looking at me and was grateful when Earless moved on to the next room.
"You know that doesn't matter. I have nervous bowels." I whispered back a little testily. The next room was a library, the ruins of mildewy and moth-eaten leather-bound books lined dark wooden shelves. The books had collapsed into each other over the years, impossible to tell where one book ended and the next began. I heard a sad sigh from Loretta as her and Anton passed the room a moment later.
"Maybe you should see a doctor." The ganger kept her voice low as she moved to a room at the right of the hallway, edging it open with her foot and shining the light inside. "I've heard of being scared shitless, but I didn't realize there was an opposite of that."
"Look can we just—" I stopped abruptly and gently touched the ganger's shoulder to get her attention before pointing down at the floor. Ahead of us were a mess of tracks, some of which were mine from my earlier ill-advised exploration and subsequent flight. Others were from something much larger. This larger set ended at a blackened doorway about eight feet further down the hall. Beyond, the dust coating the floorboards was unbroken.
I nudged Anton behind me and had a slight sense of satisfaction when he jumped a little. I pointed out the tracks and could tell from the horrified look on his face that he understood the import. Turning my attention back to the doorway I thumbed the hammer back on my revolver with an audible click, cringing as the sound reverberated in the silence of the hallway.
Collectively we held our breath and strained our ears. Absolute silence is supposed to be, well, silent. But it really isn't. It's a black low-level roaring in your ears that gains in intensity moment by moment. Like the brain doesn't know what to do without any external auditory input and so starts creating its own.
This silent roaring continued unabated as all four of us stared at the doorway ahead, listening for even the slightest hint of movement, a monstrous shuffling foot or the creaking of a floorboard under prodigious weight. The knots in my stomach tightened and a small fart escaped, echoing down the shadowy hallway like a trumpet sounding the end times.
I had no time to even look embarrassed, the roaring of nothingness replaced by an actual roaring, followed by the splintering of wood as the wall to my right exploded and a massive shape slammed into me.