Eliza’s voice rang further down the hall. “Unless you can stop bullets with that I suggest we go.”
Ken ducked as another vine arrowed past his ribs. This one took a chunk out of the plaster. He pushed Lilith before him and ran. Milo and Mai were already near the front door, staring out.
“I hope there’s a back door,” Milo growled.
Ken jumped on the spot to see past the big brute’s shoulders, only stopping when he almost stabbed himself through the foot with the tip of his sword. He did however see what was out there. Vines, thick branches and clumps of undergrowth crawled over the doorway like snakes, as if they were attracted to the people within. Even from here Ken could sense their crushing weight. He could hear the frame of the door groaning under the strain.
“Move.” Eliza headed back down the hall.
Ken ran with her. He kept Lilith close but was aware that she showed no obvious signs of fear or distress. This girl was made of stern stuff. But then, he thought. She’s survived for God knows how long in hell.
“Got any ideas?” he asked her.
“I’ve never seen this before.” She made a face. “But running away sounds good to me.”
They raced past the open door to their bedroom. As they passed, several thick, angry shoots struck at them. One ripped through Ken’s jacket, retracting as fast as it came. Another tripped Milo, the big vampire tumbling head first and hitting the floor like a felled buffalo. Ken had to applaud the man’s grace as, with barely an inch of pace lost, the vampire rolled to his feet and kept on running.
Through a rear door and into the remains of a kitchen they ran. Dull, rotting cupboards lined the walls. Ken thought about opening a door to check its contents but was more worried about what might scuttle out. Eliza reached the back door first.
“We have a chance if we’re quick.”
She gripped the handle and flung open the door. Outside, thorny creepers slithered along the ground toward them, columns of deadly snakes, but Eliza’s perfect night vision spied a gap to the right.
“Around the side of the house. Follow the paving. Quick!”
Ken hefted the sword and ran hard. A chunky limb waved in the air and he spun on the spot before it could strike, still running, bringing the sword around and severing it in half.
A keening wail went up, the sound of a dark thing dying in pain. Ken closed his eyes for a second, shuddering, feeling his nerves rattle as the noise—a chalkboard howl of jagged fingernails—reverberated through the air. Several more branches twisted toward him, rising until they were level with his shoulders and swaying in anger.
He swung the sword, but it was Lilith and Felicia that pulled him aside as the limbs struck. He brushed a shoulder against the house, and right next to him one of the larger branches smashed right through the brick wall. The sword blade chopped it in half, its cry striking at the night like vicious murder.
“Whoa!”
Felicia cried out as a branch whipped past her stomach. Mortar exploded from the house wall. If it had connected, the limb could have gutted her. Eliza reached the far corner, peering out. Ken watched her as best he could, gauging her reaction. It could mean life or death.
“Hurry!”
She bounded out of sight, faster than anyone in their group. The other vamps followed and then Ken rounded the corner. Ahead lay a blasted, open space – what might once have been a playground or a park. A rusted swing set sat at its center, creaking as the slightest of winds passed by. They ran for the open ground, and Ken chanced a quick glance back as he fled.
The house was covered, crawling with tree limbs, foliage and waving branches. The structure was almost unidentifiable, just a mass of slithering vegetation. A second passed before he saw several limbs shooting across the ground, chasing after them like living hoses unreeling at high speed.
They weren’t moving fast enough! He hopped and skipped like he was treading on hot lava as the vines tore between them, catching up to Eliza in seconds. Everyone was brushed, touched or scraped, but the limbs entwined only around Lilith. The young girl screamed, and Ken knew they had only seconds to save her. Once she was pulled back within that waving mass she was lost forever.
He tackled her hard around the waist, lending his own weight to keep her grounded. They landed in a tangle and several of the vines detached to flick angrily at him. That gave him a chance to hack a few apart with the sword and, as he hoped, Felicia joined the fray. A fast glance toward the vamps showed them slowing but seeming reluctant to turn back. Damn them to the deepest hole in the ground.
Felicia tugged hard at a branch, the growl in her throat betraying what was about to happen. In another second of pure shock and awe Ken was witness once more to the amazing transformation this woman could make. Fur rippled over her body, claws split from between her fingers and toes. An elongated snout, high brows and fangs altered her face beyond recognition. The change gave her superhuman strength. Ken fell back as a powerful leg swatted at him. The wolf straddled Lilith, breathing hot air into her face. The message was clear.
Don’t move!
With jaws gnashing and ripping, Felicia ripped the thick tree limbs to shreds. Such was their sudden agony that they retreated reflexively, zooming back toward the house and filling the air with their protracted agonies. Felicia sat back and howled, a sound of gratification and victory, pure with the thrill of freedom. Wild and untamed, this wolf-woman would never accept slavery. Ken helped Lilith to her feet, his heart taken by another.
“Th . . . thanks,” she whispered. “I . . . I don’t know why they picked on me.”
“Never mind that.” Ken waved the way ahead. “Let’s go.”
Felicia loped beside them for a minute then gradually began to change back into human form. Ken moved to help her tie some of the rips in her clothes together to keep her modesty, but Felicia swatted him away.
“Stop that. I’m used to it. I can do it quicker alone.”
The vamps were waiting. Ken watched their faces carefully, wondering if any of them would come up with the inevitable put-down—good dog. If they did, he was ready to step up to her defense.
What had they done to help?
But Eliza briefly inclined her head before nodding over the blasted expanse of the playground. “Shall we continue?”
Lilith brushed herself off. “Another half day and we should reach the secret way. The fifth hell.” She shook her head. “Well, they only get worse from there on down.”
“I can hardly wait.” Ken shrugged.
“The scent left by Dementia does not extend this far,” Felicia told them. “When we were by the grand staircase, I sensed it strongly. She definitely descended below the fifth hell, but beyond that we should try to regain her spore.”
Ken noticed Lilith’s eyes light up. It seemed that she was about to say something, maybe give them a clue as to where Dementia might go, but then the dark clouds descended over her eyes and she clammed up. Ken said nothing. In time, he knew, she would learn to trust them.
He just hoped they lived long enough to see the day.
SEVEN
I walked through the lobby of our hotel, unable to speak. The journey back had been made in a terrible, heavy silence. All except for Natalie Trevochet, who wept uncontrollably. I still couldn’t get out of my head the fact that I had once left her to die, to be strangled by a rope, as I leaped to save Belinda. Of course, I had assumed someone else would save her—and they had—but that wasn’t the point. Johnny and I had come to an uneasy truce. Now, we had not only lost Johnny, but the demon Asmodeus and the artefact. Another of the Chosen had fallen, one of the major players, and we were lagging well behind in this apocalyptic race.
I entered our rented conference room. One whole side was laid out with an American buffet breakfast, many bowls lined up along a white-sheeted table. I headed for the water cooler, not trusting my stomach to keep the food down. Not surprisingly there were bottles of Budweiser and miniatures of Jim Bean and Southern Comfort lined up near the corner
and I stopped as if recognizing an old friend, mesmerized.
Lucy tugged my arm. “Not now. They need you more than ever.”
I grimaced, not moving. I latched on immediately to the word she hadn’t spoken. She hadn’t said I need you. She’d said they need you. I felt sadness swamp me and wondered irritably if Ceriden and Ethan were close by. If the whole world didn’t need the Chosen right now, I’d take my daughter and get away. Take her to some place where all this madness was a distant memory, a nightmare. But I was trapped.
Wasn’t I?
The gleam of the bottles seemed so much brighter, that much more enticing. Before I knew it, I had pulled away from Lucy and was another step closer. Time stood still. I saw heaven and hell waiting on either side of my next decision and thought about poor old Johnny, the second of the Chosen to have fallen since we met on Miami Beach and, I was sure, not the last.
My hand closed around a bottle of Bud. I heard an intake of breath at my shoulder then a hand clamped down over my wrist.
“Are you crazy, you whacked-out fruit and nut?” Belinda’s distinctive voice said. “What you’re doing is wrong in about a dozen different ways. It’s not easy to face death, Logan. I do it every hour of the day. But you can’t run from it. Not like this.”
I let go of the bottle, a little reluctantly. “The urge never goes away.”
“It helps you forget, not survive. It drags you in deeper, never giving you a lifeline. It changes your personality, not your position in life.”
I turned to Belinda. “We might not see tomorrow.”
She shrugged. “Neither might the rest of the world. The things we do now, the actions we take, will shape the future of mankind for centuries to come. Think on that the next time Anheuser Busch looks like a tasty alternative. You really wanna be remembered as our ‘alcoholic dropout’?”
I watched as she creaked away, joining a table with Cheyne and Giles, Cleaver and Lysette. She sat with her back to me, showing me the options. My eyes sought Lucy’s and weren’t shocked to see her in the company of Ethan. The vampire kid looked as somber as the rest of us and stared sadly at the still weeping Natalie Trevochet. Tanya Jordan had stepped up to comfort her, the Hawaiian’s easy-going, calm manner no doubt casting a small but welcome balm over the situation.
I drifted over to Belinda’s table as Ceriden approached. Cheyne had a cellphone held against her ear.
“Thank you,” I heard, and then looked expectantly as she folded the phone.
“All right.” She looked around at us. “Do you remember the Text of Seven? The archaic document that Emily Crowe stole from the Louvre. It’s how she conjured the seven hierarchy demons to earth, our realm, but it’s the source of much more than that. It holds information, valuable resources that we need to stop all this. I just spoke to the Library of Aegis,” she nodded at the phone, “and they’re e-mailing and faxing a copy across.”
“Let’s hope we can make some sense of it.” Giles rose as they heard the nearby fax-machine ring.
I placed my hands on Belinda’s shoulders and whispered, “Thank you.”
“No worries. We’re all running in the same race, Logan.”
I looked across the room toward Lucy. Her face was not as forgiving.
EIGHT
Emily Crowe, ex-lead singer of the all-girl rock group Supernatural, and once one of Gorgoth’s Destroyers, albeit a double-agent for the Devil, had tricked, conned and beaten everyone to the punch. It was she that had engineered the return of the hierarchy even as the ridiculous humans struggled and died trying to defeat the World-Ender and, in doing so, paved the way for a grand future of hell on Earth. The event was not without its hitches and glitches, but what glorious battle plan ever was?
She sat now, cross-legged in the desert, a camp fire flickering in front of her. Across the other side her new acolyte, Melissa Thorne, sat rigid in the same pose. Above them, the clear vault of the skies stretched from one side of Death Valley to the other. Old rocks and hills, and flat stretches of salt lay all around, attesting to the ancient nature of this place.
It held many secrets.
It would become her base, their base, the base of newly emerged evil. It was vast enough to contain them. The creatures of hell would come here, and from here they would conquer all. But first—the problem.
A well-established trailer park sat quite close to the national park, so close that it would have to be eradicated. Crowe had known it as soon as she’d come down here and had been looking forward to the task ever since. Melissa Thorne was a former resident of that trailer park and had divulged its details even before Crowe had worked her wiles on her. As of now, Melissa was simply struggling to remember which day it was or know the precise hour. Soon, she would struggle to remember her name, her past, and then the fact that she’d once been human.
Crowe spread her arms, chanting softly. She rose to her feet and divested herself of every stitch of clothing. Melissa did the same. Neither of them felt the desert’s night chill. Shadows began to stir within the flames and then to writhe among them. Crowe flung her head back and chanted loudly at the stars.
The night spun around her. It was at times like these that she remembered her Satanic initiation. How she and twelve others had somehow managed to raise a specter, a spiritual force, for the fun and audaciousness of it all, and then how everything had gone badly wrong. What had started out as a rock-band dare, something to take their wild-child image to the next level and maybe outdo even Fleetwood Mac, had turned into an all-too-real savage nightmare. The spiritual entity they’d raised had been taken over by something terrible, a malevolent force that had hijacked the room. She never knew how it had happened. Maybe it was a chance in a hundred million. Maybe the dire entity had been searching for a conduit to Earth. Either way, it wasted no time in exerting its brutal authority. Two of her friends had immediately murdered two others, then flung themselves atop the bleeding bodies to start an inhumane copulation. The remaining eight had found themselves spreadeagled around the sides of the room, arms and legs held apart by an implacable force, unable to even blink. A demonic visage had materialized in the center of the room, right above the rutting bodies, born out of ferocity and abhorrence, and then blasted toward them, shattering in their faces. Many of her friends had screamed, some had died. But Crowe had suddenly felt different. She’d felt whole. Capable. A woman who, since childhood, had never known family, was now part of some enormous demonic hierarchy. And she liked it. The chance to get a little revenge, a little power and a lot of fun.
She fancied she’d always been a psychopath. But now she had the power to live out her dreams and never get caught.
That night her twelve friends’ bodies were inhabited by a different demon, seven of the greatest from the hierarchy and five others. Every one of them threw her down to the floor and shamed her into enjoying their degradations, every one of them drew blood, every one of them drew a promise.
She would serve them. Always. And she would be rewarded with power and a seat beside a throne. Somewhere. When the Earth was subjugated.
Now, the time was firmly at hand. So far, her servitude had proven faultless. The hierarchy was pleased with her. The final few tasks neared completion. Her focus snapped back to the present as the shadows elongated over the flames, washing the desert floor with deep reflected crimson. They gathered, writhing up and out and around like eager serpents. They began to coil over at their apex, flowing fluidly toward both women, now wrapping and entwining their naked bodies. Crowe luxuriated in it. The intimate sensation of her flesh being touched all over by an unknown entity, by a terrible animate force, brought every nerve to life. She squirmed against them, rolling her hips suggestively, running her fingertips across her stomach. The shadows drew black energy from her, becoming even more lively, flitting and jetting about, galvanized by power.
As the force grew, Crowe opened her eyes to check on Melissa. Good, the girl was performing nicely and that meant she lived another day. The t
railer park wouldn’t. Crowe gathered all her energy and flung her arms at the skies. Instantly, the shadows zoomed like black comets up at the glittering stars, and then arced away like dark missiles, an eclipse of evil armament, with only one destination in mind.
Crowe listened hard as the sensations fell away. Melissa collapsed to the ground, heaving and spent, but eyeing Crowe with a certain amount of healthy lust. In another moment Crowe heard screams as the inhabitants of the trailer park were systematically torn to shreds or, even better, succumbed to the shadows and tore each other to shreds. Judging by the sounds, trailers were being toppled and gas bottles blown up. Men and women were murdered. Crowe had fulfilled yet another task.
Death Valley was ready to accept new residents.
Crowe turned her attentions to Melissa, walking over and lifting the girl to her feet. Her lips were full, pouting and blood red.
Crowe bit into them.
NINE
I listened in as Cheyne consulted again and again with the boffins over at the Library of Aegis. They employed a human computer geek named Nathan and a clever vampire—Taryn—who, it turned out, was Ceriden’s first thrall and first-turned. From shade to first-turned in a little over a year and now ensconced inside the relatively safe library, Taryn must be very dear to Ceriden. Belinda spoke of her as a vampire of repute, known to have carried out many selfless acts and several for the wellbeing of humankind. And, of course, when Ceriden spoke to her his voice softened and his eyes went far away.
The only other creature that introduced himself through phone and video conference was a kind of demon named Kage. He was on the run from the Devil, and from hell, and had been allowed to hide out at the library; most likely as a source of valuable information, since this kind of mole could not be ignored. I drew the conclusion from Giles’ and Cheyne’s reactions that Kage was considered a bit of a joke and was being used by Aegis. Indeed, the only thing that proved him as anything other than human were two small nubs of horn that protruded from the sides of his head, just above his ears, and a third in the center of his forehead.
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