Savannah knew what it meant. One of the conjured girls was dead, and the new god’s hold on the SWATS was weakened.
There was still a chance.
“No!” The eldritch entity howled. “There is no hope for ee-you-oo. I will devour ee-you-oo and ee-yours-ors! Ah-I-I will consume your ee-your-or lives and dreams. Ah-I-I will shit out all that was ee-you-oo!”
Savannah stared into the monster’s gargantuan eye. “Ee-you-oo need to get hooked on phonics!”
The dark god roared. Its head streaked toward Savannah – a massive blur of pink flesh and ivory teeth, opening wide to consume her in one gulping bite.
Pigmeat Porter shrieked. He tried to leap clear. He was nimble for an old man, but not nimble enough. The side of his god’s head clipped the cult leader on the hip and shoulder, sending him tumbling back into the cavern’s wall. Pigmeat hit the stone with a thud then slid to the floor, unmoving.
Savannah curled one of her arms, dragging a trio of adherents off their feet. The vermin god wanted its strength back, but Savannah was not letting it go. She threw the adherents toward the god’s gaping maw and herself away from it.
The creature’s fangs tore through the adherents, sending them flying across the cavern in a bloody pinwheel of arms and legs.
Savannah slipped loose of the others, who stood, awestruck, as their god raged and threw itself among them. Savannah ran; adherents died, their bodies splattered across the stone as the fearsome beast crashed through them in pursuit of its quarry.
The adherents screamed before the wrath of their god, sprinting down shadowed tunnels and dropping into web-covered holes; fleeing from a god who slaughtered them in its blind rage.
Savannah dodged around stalagmites and doubled back through the remnants of the adherents, splashing through puddles of blood as she tried to stay out of the gargantuan mole rat’s path.
The adherents had not taken her pistols. The weapons were terrifying things to those who followed the There Road; guns that never ran out of bullets and emblazoned with glowing runes and sigils were enough to scare off all but the most powerful There Road traveler.
She skidded to a halt behind one of the snake pillars.
The vermin god’s head crashed into the ground nearby. The impact bounced Savannah’s feet off the stone and nearly knocked her onto her haunches.
Savannah steadied herself, then pumped three bullets into the god’s head, just in front of a scalloped ear.
The mystic bullets hit like falling stars, leaving craters the size of Savannah’s fist on entry and tearing even bigger holes through its chin where they exited.
The wounds did not heal at once. Savannah could see down them to a pulsing pink brain smeared with steaming, red-black blood.
Savannah ran.
The giant beast shook its head, screeching in startled rage. The vermin god was hurt, but Savannah knew she needed to put some more bullets into it before it recovered.
She slipped around another snake column.
The great monster drew back to take a run at her. Whatever else it might be willing to destroy, it was not ready to smash into any of the glowing crystals and the mammoth snakes they held. Savannah used them for cover, tucking up hard against one to catch her breath.
She holstered her pistols then drew her revolver. She prayed it would be enough.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The conjured girl was right, at least in part. Odinga could feel it in his bones. He had served the old gods faithfully for decades, but there was nothing in him now. He had failed to protect Hotlanta Wings, a nexus for the power of the old gods and most ancient of ancestors, and the darkness had come for him at last.
But still, his faith would not die. It flickered in him; flames fanned by all the good he had done and the evil he had done, too – his gods did not discriminate – but they did not tolerate failure, which Odinga had done, and now, their presence and protection was lost to him.
He pulled his boys closer to him, and they huddled against his bulk. He took the oldest boy, Ronny, by the hand then looked into his eyes. Ronny had been with Odinga for his whole life, ever since his mother died and left him to Odinga’s care. He was young, but not so young as the others. In a few more years, he might even pass for a man.
“Ronny,” Odinga said, gripping the boy’s hand tightly. “I can go no further. The road ahead is dark, but yours is the hand that must guide the flock.”
Odinga expected the boy to shrink from the duty, to deny the charge Odinga had laid upon him.
He was wrong.
“Your time has come, priest,” the conjured girl said. “You are finished. You, your precious boys and all the rest who stand against us.” The vermin exploded away from the girl then rushed toward Odinga and his boys like an avalanche of claws and teeth.
Ronny looked up into Odinga’s face. Odinga could see an old, righteous fire kindled in the boy’s eyes. That look was almost enough to ease the sudden, mind-shattering pain.
The boy thrust his hand into the wound in Odinga’s gut, digging his fingers in to follow the swollen, bloody root that was proof of the old gods’ love.
Raccoons and mole rats latched onto the younger boys, who threw their bodies on top of Ronny, shielding him from fangs. They sang as their flesh was shredded, sweet and pure and innocent, even as the darkness drank their blood.
The girl laughed, lightning echoing her voice, striking the trees around the restaurant with such force the wood tore itself apart.
“Earth Mother,” Ronny began, his voice rising in strength with every word. “I stand upon your womb and am bathed in the milk of your breasts.”
Odinga held the boy tightly, doing his best to protect him from the vermin. Ronny said the words just as Odinga had said them so long ago. He could feel the root inside him, unwinding; being drawn forth from his body and with it, his life.
“I hold in my hands proof of your undying covenant and your eternal love for your children.”
The conjured girl’s laughter stopped. She soared to where the vermin dug at the flesh of the children. “No,” she screamed, beating at Odinga’s back and shoulders, “your gods are not here!”
“Not yet,” Odinga coughed. He grabbed the girl, wrapping his heavy hands around her neck. He squeezed, putting the last of his fading strength into holding the conjured girl and keeping her attention. He was dead, but he would not fail again.
Ronny slipped from between Odinga and the girl, standing untouched amidst the swarming vermin. Blood had soaked through his white robes and splashed against his dark skin. His hair was matted against his skull, wet with Odinga’s life.
“Cleanse me, Earth Mother,” Ronny roared, pulling the writhing root from inside Odinga. It wrapped itself around his arm, clinging to him as his prayers gained strength. “And let your love take root within my heart.”
The girl beat at Odinga, smashing her wreath of hands into his face, digging one of his eyes from its socket and shredding his cheek with her nails.
Odinga reveled in the pain. It was purifying; a baptism of agony that prepared him for his final reward. He had failed, but in his last moments he knew he had earned redemption.
Ronny extracted the last of the root from within Odinga.
Odinga gasped in ecstatic agony. Blood geysered from his sacrificial wound then splashed across the altar.
The foul blood of the conjured girl burned away with an electric sizzle.
The boy laid his hands on the makeshift altar then bowed his head. “Pasi Amai, may all your ngirozi and mweya intercede on behalf of your faithful servant and cleanse this place of all evil.”
The conjured girl screamed as she tore free of Odinga’s dead grasp. Her hair burned with golden fire, and she bobbed and weaved in the air, swerving drunkenly through the restaurant.
An angry roar rumbled from beneath Hotlanta Wings; the voice of an ancient god who had held this place sacred for eons. The voice of Earth Mother.
The girl fled before the voice of P
asi Amai. As she neared the door, however, her flesh unraveled. Unmoored from this world, the conjured girl’s skin shredded into glimmering, oily ribbons of midnight black that floated away from her then caught fire in the air.
Before she reached the door, the girl was no more. All that remained to mark her passage were the bloody, rotting fingers and toes she had stolen.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
The surviving adherents shook off their confusion then scattered like leaves before a tornado. It was one thing to want a god to answer their prayers, but it was something else to have it trample them underfoot and threaten to kill them all with a cave-in.
Even Pigmeat, for all his experience in the ways of the There Road, could do little but stare in terror as the thing he had prayed to raged out of control.
Savannah took advantage of the chaos, hurling herself through the rushing crowd, trying to get the right angle for another shot. She could feel the mayor inside, not quite as deeply now, screaming for Savannah to just shoot the damned thing already!
“Shut the hell up!” Savannah growled. She had to concentrate; had to get every bullet right in the vermin god’s brain if she wanted to finish it. She was not even sure the revolver would get the job done, but she still had one surprise left.
Savannah hid among the scrambling adherents, running through their milling mass toward the edge of the cavern. She could see a crack in the wall running up from the floor to a high ledge. From there, she might be able to see the top of the dark god’s skull; she might be able to punch some more bullet holes through it and let the light in.
She raced toward the crack then leapt as high as she could. The fissure was wide and rough, with plenty of room for her to jam her hands in and get a good foothold with the toe of one boot, as well. Savannah worked her way up along the crevice, moving at lightning speed, which was not nearly as fast as she would have liked.
The vermin god reeled drunkenly, its mad eye darting to and fro as it tried to find its prey. Whatever damage Savannah had done was sticking; the new head honcho was not healing from its wounds. The creature scythed from side to side, whipping its head around to stare at Lashey as if it could not understand how such an insignificant animal had such a hold on it.
“Come on, you ugly bastard,” Savannah shouted as she crawled up onto the ledge. She needed the monster god to come closer. “Come and get some, shawty!”
She waved her hand overhead, shouting a wordless challenge. That got the monster’s attention. It swerved back toward Savannah, lunging on its crooked wings, lashing its head at her like a cracking whip.
The second conjured girl’s death went off in Savannah’s head like an artillery shell. The mayor surged, pushing back against the power of the vermin god, clearing out space in Savannah’s soul to reassert himself.
The monster felt it, too, and tried to dart away at the last second. Its left wing crumpled under it, and it squealed in surprise as its strength was further eroded.
Savannah snapped the revolver upward. She squeezed the trigger. The bullet roared out; a streak of white fire boiled the air around it. The lance of light punched straight through one of the holes Savannah had blown in the top of the vermin god’s head then burst out the back of its neck.
The vermin god belched flame and smoke. Its tongue curled and blackened between cracked fangs. The creature quivered, a seizure of pain rolling through its massive body.
“Aw, we ain’t done yet, shawty,” Savannah said, taking careful aim.
The hole in the vermin god’s skull was enormous: an ugly crater filled with bulging flesh and oozing black gore.
Savannah squeezed the trigger, but the hammer never fell. A screeching horde of vermin fell on her hand and arm. A mole rat rammed its nose under the hammer, jamming the works with its skull.
The raccoons and mole rats kept coming, pouring over Savannah like a riptide of teeth, ripping into her until her body ran red with spilled blood.
She felt as if she had been rolled naked down a hill of broken glass.
Savannah sagged to her knees, cursing her own stupidity for forgetting about the vermin.
It was a mistake she was sure would cost her life.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Rashad could not breathe. Little by little, he was losing himself, drifting away from the world and toward oblivion. His power was there, but just out of reach. He was too dazed and injured to focus long enough to bring it into play. Stronger than he had ever been, Rashad was going to die because he could not take a breath.
The buzzing in his ears changed, becoming a mournful howl that seemed to echo through the whole of the cavern.
“You failed, warlock,” the conjured girl hissed. “All that work; all that spilled blood and dead bodies and your mama still fell short when push came to shove.”
Rashad struggled. He knew the precious coke bottle was right by his feet, sitting on top of the duffel. He just had to get it onto the heart-stone. Even if the conjured girl killed him right afterward, that would be enough. Rashad could die knowing he had done his part.
Rashad let himself go limp, stifling the urge to fight.
“That’s right,” the conjured girl hissed. “It’s over. Let it go.”
Rashad let his shoulders sag and his head loll on his neck. It was easy to play dead, now that he was so close. He wondered if he would have enough of himself left to come back from playing possum.
The conjured girl gave Rashad one last shake, yanking him left, then right. She smoothed Rashad’s hair with the back of one hand then laid him down on the cold stone floor. “So much easier this way.”
The girl laughed then, throwing her head back and howling with mad glee. She drifted away from Rashad, euphoric at her victory; insane with pleasure at what she had done.
Rashad took a slow breath, fighting his instinct to gulp air. His brain lurched into gear at the fresh oxygen, but he lay still. His heart no longer pounded in his ears, but Rashad could still hear the howling, like a pack of wild dogs.
Hope flickered in Rashad. Not wild dogs. Hound dogs; and honey badgers; and a bear.
Carter was coming.
He cracked one eye open and saw the conjured girl had turned away, still laughing. It was now or never. Rashad rolled to the side, and his hand landed right on the Coke bottle.
The conjured girl roared with rage. Rashad could feel her rushing presence like an oncoming storm front.
He did not dare look back. He swung his arm up and over, an awkward sidearm throw from the ground.
The conjured girl soared over Rashad’s head, shrieking. Her deformed hands stretched out ahead of her, trying to catch the bottle.
A sleek, feral form hurled itself into the conjured girl then buried its fangs into the back of her neck, bearing her down to the ground.
The bottle hit the heart-stone then shattered, spraying creek water down the ancient stone’s side.
Rashad heard the chanting of a thousand African men and women and a heavy drum beat that shook the cavern.
The water caught fire as it raced down the stone, cleansing the heart-stone with a purifying flame that had no color and smelled of campfires and lonely nights. The links of silver chain popped apart then flared on the surface of the heart-stone like a swarm of fireflies.
The conjured girl struggled, trying to get out from beneath Carter, but she had no chance. Her flesh crisped like fried chicken, then cracked. Gray smoke leaked out, and her body, now a crunchy shell, crinkled and cracked apart. Flakes drifted into the darkness, floating away like charred leaves from an autumn bonfire.
Carter left the greasy stain on the floor then padded, on all fours, to Rashad’s side. He lowered his great, fanged snout, then licked the tears from his father’s cheeks.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Mayor Green screamed in Savannah’s head. Get up, Root Woman! Finish your goddamned job!
Savannah felt another surge of strength accompany the command. The last of the conjured girls was dead; Savannah co
uld feel it. The plan was working; the vermin god was slipping.
The Root Woman reared up under the weight of the mole rats and raccoons. They clung to her, digging their fangs and claws into her arms, but Savannah ignored the pain. She struggled out of her backpack, shedding the weight of some of the creatures on her back.
She staggered to the lip of the ledge then stared down, her backpack in one hand and the revolver in the other. The vermin weighed on her shoulders and chest – a cloak of agony.
The vermin god swung its head toward her, its huge eye burning with raw hatred. Savannah tensed, waiting for its attack. She was twenty feet above the hard stone floor, out of places to run.
The gargantuan creature roared toward her like a freight train with fangs.
Savannah knew she would never get a shot off before it crushed her against the side of the cavern, so she did not try. She took a single step forward then fell, hurling her backpack down into the bloody crater she had blasted through the top of the monster’s skull.
The vermin god’s enormous head plowed into the stone just above Savannah. Its snout shattered. Shards of limestone shot into its gaping eye.
A Haunting in the SWATS (The Savannah Swan Files Book 1) Page 34
