Midnight's Angels - 03

by Tony Richards

  “You don’t work here anymore?”

  “Quinn, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

  “There’s nothing else to do tonight. May as well enjoy ourselves. We’ll have a big cold pitcher of your finest beer,” he told her, “and a dozen glasses.” He fished some bills out of his jeans. “And one for yourself. You going to help me with the glasses, Cassie?”

  Nadine pulled another face, then gave up and went behind the counter, such was the force of his personality.

  “You’re completely sure that we’ll be safe?” one of the women asked. “How is that?”

  Any other person might have given the game away. But Quinn turned to her cheerfully. “I know a whole lot more than you guys do.”

  “’Cause?”

  He extended a hand in Cass’s direction. “This here’s my new friend, Cassie. She’s with Ross Devries -- you heard of him?”

  A few heads nodded. Sure they had.

  “And Ross has the ear of the adepts.”

  “Those that are still left.”

  “And they’ve told him,” Quinn announced, ignoring that, “that the danger’s gone for the rest of the night, and we’ll be completely safe once daylight comes. Nothing more is going to happen. So take those sad, stupid expressions off your faces, lighten up. We get to live to see another day. And that sounds like a reason for a celebration.”

  Cassie couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing, listening to him talk like that. How could anyone be so light and breezy on a night like this? But she reminded herself he was part Raine -- the best part, apparently. It seemed to be a natural talent that he had.

  A few of them were sitting down around a table by this juncture, accepting their buddy at his word. A couple of the women kept on staring at her with a mild air of suspicion. Who did they think she was, his new girlfriend?

  “This true, Carrie?” one of them asked.

  “That’s Cassie. And yes,” she added quickly, understanding that she had to cover up for him, “every word.”

  They looked even more convinced that they were out of danger when she said that. Ross Devries’s partner? Wow. One of the men slid along and made a space for her.

  She couldn’t help but be aware of the oddness of this situation. Masses of shadows were passing by at the top of the stairs, the general population still milling around. And here she was attempting to ignore all that, a ‘thank God it’s Friday’ mood trying to envelop her.

  The record changed, Stevie Wonder yielding to Ray Charles.

  Welcome to Quinn’s world.

  * * *

  She still couldn’t believe that she was doing this when there were a whole bunch of monsters out there. Normally, she would be champing with impatience, grinding her teeth and kicking her heels. But maybe Quinn had the same effect on her as he had on the others. It was not normal for anyone to influence her that way.

  Three hours passed before they headed back to his place. They walked closely side by side. Cass could feel that she was tottering slightly. And this was one hell of an evening to go getting even mildly drunk.

  But she’d had a good time, despite her misgivings. Quinn’s people had wanted to know about her, and they’d ended up joking, laughing, swapping tales.

  O’Connell was a good deal quieter than it had been, and Meadows practically deserted. Most people had gone inside, grabbing some rest while they could.

  They turned back down the alley, stopped in front of his front door. His smile, for the first time since she’d met him, was uncertain. They had only known each other a few hours.

  Except that -- from her point of view -- ten minutes would have been long enough. That first encounter in the house, she had suspected he might be some kind of wuss. But now she realized she had gotten that completely wrong. She could see what kind of man he was. A pretty unique one. He was a free spirit, a gentle rebel, and lived his life the way he pleased. Cared more for friendship and good times than money and prestige. And nothing seemed to worry him -- he took what came at him in his stride.

  How many times had she believed she’d found that kind of guy before, only to find out he was a bum, a louse, a loser? But Quinn here was the genuine article. A familiar itching started deep inside her.

  If you really wanted something, why not simply go for it? When he opened the door she gazed past him at the futon in the corner. And said, “Hey, there’s room for two on that thing.”

  He stopped dead, looking straight at her.

  “That was pretty direct.”

  Cass held herself very still as well, her gaze not leaving his for a second.

  “This might be my last night on this earth,” she said. “So the hell with indirectness.”

  CHAPTER 38

  People had tried to explain it to him several times, but he still hadn’t entirely got it. They were living in a town where what? The ancestors of the genuine Salem witches ruled this place?

  It sounded totally bizarre. But if he was supposed to really be a cop, then that was beside the point. His job was to protect the ordinary people. Stand between them and whatever injury was coming their way. And there seemed to be an awful lot of that, from what he’d seen through his hospital window.

  Saul Hobart went out through the main entrance of the building, the automatic glass doors shushing open and then shut behind him. There was no one else around.

  An overturned gurney was lying on the sidewalk in front of him. And, to his left, an ambulance was parked against the curb with its back doors wide open and its lights still flashing. All of which told him that people had gone inside in a mighty hurry. He clicked back the hammer of the gun that he had borrowed.

  The road, stretching away from him in both directions, was completely empty too. And so sunken in darkness it might as well be running through a coal mine. But then he thought that he saw something move. He swung his aim, but it had disappeared again in the next second. And what had that been? He thought it was walking on its front and hind legs. So … maybe some kind of dog?

  The short hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Stepping very carefully, and dropping to a partial crouch, he moved forward.

  As soon as he’d cleared the hospital, the street began returning to normal. There were a couple of small office blocks, which looked fairly modern. A convenience store, with its doors firmly closed. Otherwise, it was regular housing. But nobody seemed to be at home. The whole place looked abandoned.

  He caught sight of another movement, out of the corner of his eye. And, instinct taking hold of him, ducked behind a station wagon. Then he peered out warily.

  It was another figure like the first one, hunched over and moving on its hands and feet. Except it wasn’t any dog. It had a shirt and pants on, both of them tattered looking. And a pair of soft brown shoes.

  But -- Jesus Christ! -- it simply didn’t look like any kind of human being. The way that it moved was far too sinuous and flowing. Only animals moved like that. And its face, under its thatch of brown hair, seemed extremely rigid. Twisted up, stiff and rather baleful. The eyes were glossy, and showed no emotion. Who was this?

  The man -- he supposed he’d better call it that -- stopped suddenly. Squatted down on its haunches. Then lifted his head slightly, sniffing at the air. Saul drew back, afraid that he’d been noticed.

  But the thing didn’t look his way. Instead, it opened its mouth. The weirdest noise he’d ever heard came out, an awful clicking, creaking sound. And next instant, there were more flashes of motion. Three more figures joined the creature, hunched over in the precise same way. Two of them were women. But the third, he got a vague idea he recognized.

  Burt something? He was dressed in what might once have been an extremely natty suit -- it had become so badly crumpled that it was impossible to tell. Once again, his eyes were too reflective to read anything from. But Saul got the impression they might once have been pale blue.

  No, not Burt. Kurt, he thought it might be. And the guy had to be good at something, because in the
back of his mind he kept picking up on the word ‘adept.’

  Something weird was happening in Saul’s head again. The same kind of thing as had happened when he’d started saying ‘Tyburn.’ He got an abrupt flash of garbled wording, and believed it was the creature’s thoughts. They were incredibly dark, inhuman, and made him recoil. They only lasted for a second, though. His head cleared and he remained where he was, trying to steady his breathing.

  The four creatures -- he’d given up on trying to think of them as people -- were conferring in that same strange, creaking tongue. They seemed to arrive at a decision, and went loping over to the front door of a house, throwing themselves at it until it burst open. Then they disappeared inside.

  A great deal of banging and crashing followed. Staying at a crouch, Saul moved nearer to the doorway. It was difficult to see inside. But he thought he got a vague impression of the figures, who were hurrying from room to room. They seemed to be agitated, bustling around.

  He wanted to get a closer look, but understood he’d be discovered if he tried that. So he moved on to the next front doorway, which was open too. Got there just in time to hear a huge thump, something heavy being overturned. Whatever these things were, they seemed intent on trashing the houses they had broken into.

  Or was there more than that? He recalled the way that they’d conferred before they’d started behaving this way. Vandalism didn’t take a lot of planning. So was it possible that they had something else in mind?

  There was a little chapel over at the corner of this street. He could make out the crucifix on the roof. And there were more noises coming from that place. So Saul headed for it.

  It had doors at the front and side, wider than any house’s. And so, seeing as he had a couple of decent-sized routes to escape through, Saul felt a bit more easy about venturing inside.

  Lightlessness closed over him. His heart began to bang inside his ribcage. Something could come at him in this murk, and he’d not even know it.

  But then he pressed a little further forward and, as his eyes adjusted, faint outlines started to become apparent. It turned out there was a stained glass window high up at the back, and it was letting a little moonlight in. He could make out rows of chairs, and a flat table that had to double as an altar.

  There was an abrupt ripping sound, to his right. And when he glanced across, another of those weird figures was bent over on the floor, tearing up linoleum and peering underneath it.

  Another was up on the wall ahead of him, clinging to its vertical surface like a lizard and rummaging through a cupboard up there, discarding its contents.

  It occurred to him what he was looking at. These creatures were purposefully searching for something. He had no idea what it might be, but they were being inhumanly thorough.

  He became unpleasantly aware of the fact there were eyes on him. The realization struck him like a freezing chunk of ice. And he turned back to the first creature he’d seen. It had stopped ripping at the flooring, and was staring at him evenly. He thought he saw its lips part. And it let out several clicks. The one above him stopped what it was doing.

  Then the one on the floor came loping at him. Saul’s gun swung down from beside his shoulder, and he fired. But he aimed for one of the creature’s legs. It rolled over onto its side, letting out a piercing shriek.

  The second one leapt down and charged at him. And Saul could have gunned it down as well. But he’d become aware that they were not alone in here. More shapes were resolving in the dimness. There were side rooms off from this main one, from which they were emerging.

  He retreated out onto the street, a heavy scuttling following him. And when he reached the sidewalk, he could see that there were figures coming from the other houses too. Either they had heard the shot, or there was something else that guided and instructed them.

  There was no obvious way to escape this. Then his attention went to a red sedan by the curbside, which looked like it had been abandoned without a second’s notice. Its front doors were wide open, and there was no one inside.

  Saul didn’t hesitate. He dove in through the passenger door, pulling it shut behind him. Then he slid across into the driver’s seat, yanked that door shut too and popped the locks.

  There was no key in the ignition.

  A heavy thump rocked the car’s whole frame. A dark figure was squatting on the trunk when he looked around, thumping with its fists at the rear windshield.

  Several more bangs announced the arrival of its cousins. They were hauling at the doors, scraping their fingers down the glass and jumping on the roof. Saul felt panicked, but that didn’t stop him. He reached under the steering column, dragged out a fistful of colored leads, and hotwired the car with such skill and speed a thief would have been envious. He put the vehicle in ‘drive’ and nudged it a yard forward sharply, so that the creatures around it were forced to jump back.

  Then he peeled off and sped away from them, turning sharply at the first corner he came to. Where exactly should he go? Back to the hospital?

  But no. He remembered something else. A colleague of his had come to visit several times. A pleasant and respectful young man by the name of Ritchie Vallencourt. And apparently, the guy was in charge of the police force in his absence. So it was probably best that he should be informed what these creatures were really up to.

  Saul swung the wheel again at the next intersection, heading for the glowing lights of Union Square. He glanced in his rearview mirror more than once, afraid he might be followed.

  But his luck seemed to be holding out, since there was nothing there.

  CHAPTER 39

  Northridge was lost to me. My own home was lost to me. And the fact that the people around me were in the same predicament didn’t help an awful lot. They at least still had their loved ones. I didn’t even have that. And it felt to me -- when that sank in -- as if my life were being slowly stripped away, layer by gradual layer. Not that I’ve ever been the self-pitying type. But we all have our limits, and I was finding myself being pushed right up close to mine.

  When I went back to my office to rest, it turned out that it had been handed over to some other family, a young couple with two babies, twins. It hadn’t been done with my permission, but I got a hold of myself and realized there was no way that I was going to kick them out.

  So I went back to being the altruistic soul I usually am, and managed to grab a fitful hour’s doze on a hard wooden bench. Not in a park either, since they were out of reach. The fact that the bench was inside a hamburger restaurant, which was also full of huddled people, didn’t make matters a whole load better. The sleep I got was of a weird, disjointed kind, and full of distant voices. Snatches of conversation came to me like garbled messages from the ether. And I was awoken in due course by somebody prodding me on the shoulder.

  I looked up blearily. A woman was leaning over me. She was slightly built and had a narrow, attractive face framed with voluminous copper hair. I thought I recognized her vaguely, although I could not remember, under these strained circumstances, precisely from where.

  I rubbed my face, trying to get some blood back into it.

  “Mr. Devries?” she asked.

  Her voice was high-pitched with anxiety.

  “Who’s asking?”

  And that sounded aggressive, almost rude. I hadn’t intended it to be, but in the place that I was in …

  I noticed she stepped back a pace when I sat up.

  “My husband speaks very highly of you,” she said, trying to recover ground.

  I was about to ask her who her spouse was, when I suddenly remembered. This was Nick McLeish’s wife. The last time I had seen her, it was in the dark and from a distance. And she’d had three small children with her.

  Seeing as how she was on her own, I inquired after them.

  “They’re fine. They’re safe,” she told me, smiling gently. “For now at least. They’re with my sister in the theatre.”

  Which sounded about as good as it go
t in the Landing these days. So I asked her what the problem was.

  “It’s Nick. He was helping you out?”

  Helping out the town would be more accurate, since I was merely a private citizen. But there didn’t seem to be a lot of sense in laboring the point. I listened carefully while she continued.

  “He went down to our neighborhood and didn’t come back. I’ve looked everywhere, and I can’t find him.”

  The hour’s doze had gummed up my eyelids, so I wiped at them, My vision cleared a little. I could see the woman had been crying, her gaze swollen and puffy. I had had a loving wife once, and so stuff like that plain broke my heart.

  “Nick’s a good, resourceful guy,” I told her. “So I’m sure he’ll be okay.”

  And then I took in the fact that I didn’t even know what her name was. So I asked her.

  “Denise.”

  I reached out and took hold of one of her hands. The fingertips, extremely gently.

  “Okay, Denise, it’s like this. The people who need you most in the world, right now, are your kids. Am I right?”

  She nodded stiffly.

  “So you go to them and let me worry about Nick. I’ll keep an eye out for him, and make sure he comes home all in one piece.” I forced a smile. “How’s that sound?”

  She thought about it and then told me, “It sounds like a promise.”

  Which weighed down on me heavily, but I couldn’t afford to let it show.

  “That’s what it is then.”

  Denise smiled at me, stooped down and kissed me quickly on the cheek.

  But guilt was gnawing at my stomach by the time she’d turned around and walked away. Because I had no slightest idea whether it was a promise I could actually keep.

  * * *

  It took dawn almost half an hour later to break than it had done the previous day. Which didn’t seem right, until I figured out what the problem was. Yesterday, the sun had only had to rise above the forest on the far horizon. Whereas this morning, it was forced to climb a good deal higher.