The broken Harpy unleashed a single tortured scream before falling facedown into the water. The current swept her winged corpse away like a downed kite.
Pulling his hood off, Jake gazed at Ripper’s corpse. The rain washed away whatever blood there was. He had grown to like the man, and even if he hadn’t, Ripper had saved his life more than once.
Another innocent life for Lilith to pay for, he thought.
But first he had to deal with Harla. And Ripper had the only ammo for the ATAC.
30
Maria sank to her knees from despair as much as exhaustion when she reached the end of the High Line. The top of Sloane House was visible a block and a half away, but it was uphill. Floodwater gushed down to the Hudson Yards development, and she knew she couldn’t fight the current all the way.
She took out her phone, which still wasn’t receiving a signal. The streets were deserted, and through the rain it was impossible to tell which windows in the buildings had candles glowing within them. Pocketing the phone, she made her way down the stairs and waded into the water, which had become deeper than she could stand in.
Taking a breath, Maria kicked off the handrail and streamlined into the current, then swam to a pole supporting the golden arches of a McDonald’s. From there, she went to a car wash and noted cars abandoned on both sides of the street.
That’s it, she thought.
She swam across the street, battling the current with everything she had, then climbed onto the first car. Water cascaded on either side of her as she crawled across the hood and sprawled out across the roof, gasping. Lifting her head, she squinted as water sprayed her face.
Just one block.
And then the intersection.
Rising, Maria slid down the back window of the car on her bottom, dropped to the street between cars, and climbed atop the next vehicle. When she reached the other end of that one, she leapt onto the next, praying the wind wouldn’t carry her away, and slammed onto its trunk.
Holding the empty ATAC in firing position, Jake walked with his eye pressed against the scope, using the weapon’s night vision to see the deserted second floor. He had attached his knife to the barrel like a bayonet. His nylon clothes made rubbing sounds, and his wet boots squeaked on the floor, the circle of light from his flashlight bouncing around the walls and doors.
He turned a corner and then another before locating the stairwell. He had to set the gun down to open the door, then he picked it up, stepped inside, and closed the door softly. Raising the gun’s scope to his eye, he scanned the stairs above, listening.
Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound.
Jake climbed the stairs, stopping twice to rest. Two-thirds of the way to the top floor, he thought he heard something and his body stiffened. He aimed the scope at the stairway above him and listened. As far as he could tell, nothing moved up there. Climbing again, he heard the same sound and stopped. The sound stopped as well. He resumed his climb but stopped again as soon as he heard the sound: a wet hissing that continued for one second longer than the faint echo of Jake’s last footstep, which was all he needed to confirm he was not alone.
Trying to subdue his breathing, Jake stared at the stairs and landing ahead, made luminous green by his night vision scope. An inhuman shadow glided across the concrete wall and disappeared. He continued moving at the same pace, so as not to alert Harla—whatever she had become—that he knew she waited for him. He reached the landing, which was now deserted, and stopped.
Dead silence greeted him.
Jake allowed the ATAC to fall, knowing the leather strap over his left shoulder would catch it, then opened the door, stepped into the corridor on the sixteenth floor, and slammed the door shut. He gripped the doorknob and held it, waiting for Harla to make her move. How strong could she be?
The knob twisted in his hand, but Jake wouldn’t allow the door to open. A sound like a metal puncher in a factory reverberated in the corridor. A dent shaped like a cone—or the tail of a serpent—formed in the door, just grazing Jake’s face. Harla punched the metal door a second time, then a third.
Jake let go of the knob and ran for his life.
The door crashed open behind him, and the sound of hissing filled the corridor, drowning out the sound of
his footsteps.
Jake skidded to a stop and raised the gun to his shoulder. Through the night vision scope he saw a creature with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a snake bearing down on him at an incredible speed. He aimed the gun in the other direction and saw a corner fifty yards ahead. Dropping the weapon on its strap he sprinted, his boots pounding the tile floor.
Harla’s hiss grew louder and more frantic.
Jake turned the corner and slid to a stop. He freed the ATAC’s strap from around him and raised the weapon to his shoulder. Through the scope he saw Harla whip around the corner and look in his direction. He lowered the barrel over his stump and lunged forward, thrusting the knife on the barrel’s edge.
The knife cut into something solid, and Harla unleashed a hideous sound. Jake drew the blade out and thrust again, cutting into her sternum a second time. He pulled the blade out again, but this time something smacked the ATAC out of his hand with a whiplike snap, and he knew Harla had used her snake body to disarm him.
Jake backed up, ready to run, but something ensnared his ankles and jerked his legs out from under him. He landed on his back with a grunt, then clawed at the floor as Harla dragged him toward her. Lightning flashed outside the windows, illuminating Harla as she released Jake’s ankles and wrapped her snake body around his legs and torso, pinning his arms to his sides.
The corridor turned dark again, and for a moment he recalled Avademe’s tentacle encircling him. Harla squeezed the air from his lungs like an anaconda. Kicking his feet, he connected with her head, provoking an angry hiss. With the toe of one boot he located her neck, and then he crossed his legs around it and scissor kicked them together. Harla gagged and Jake locked his legs, strangling her while she crushed him.
Jake threw his body from side to side, trying to loosen her grip on him, but it was no use. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t call for help. Thunder exploded. His life did not pass before his eyes, but he did pray that Maria rescued Shana.
Then Harla’s body quivered, and a flash of lightning revealed she had stopped moving. The snake body slackened and Jake sucked in air. Struggling to get free of the tail, he found himself entangled in the legs of a dead woman.
Jake couldn’t stand without bracing his hand against a wall for balance. Lightning illuminated the corridor, and Jake saw the knife wounds in Harla’s torso and the blood pooling around her corpse. He staggered toward the ATAC.
Three down, Jake thought. Now to deal with the head dragon.
Reaching the end of her makeshift bridge of cars, Maria stood on the hood of an SUV parked at the intersection of Thirty-Fourth and Ninth. She would have to swim against the current to reach Sloane House.
I can’t do it. I don’t have the strength.
Had she come so far for nothing?
She sat on the roof and held her knees together. The wind blew her hair and the tears in her eyes. She knew she couldn’t survive this exposure for long, so she would have to try to swim across anyway. If she failed, she would find temporary refuge uptown and look for an alternative method to reach Shana.
Maria stood on the roof, and the wind knocked her off her feet. Her body slammed into the roof, and she clawed at the edge so she would not go into the water.
“Damn it!”
The sobs came harder and faster until she discerned a light down the street: a red beacon.
A police strobe, she thought.
The strobe grew brighter as a harbor patrol boat became visible through the rain. Maria didn’t recognize the first sound that escaped from her throat, a cross between a grunt and a moan, but she did recognize the laughter that followed.
Exercising caution, she rose on t
he roof and waved her arms. “Over here!”
Lightning slashed the sky and thunder cracked as Jake exited the stairwell on the top floor of the Flatiron Building. Holding the ATAC’s scope to his eye, he approached the glass door leading to Eternity Books and opened it.
He stood before the wide window for a moment. A lightning bolt zigzagged through the sky, and a horizontal bolt formed in front of the window. The double thunder blast that followed shook the building.
Jake moved down the main corridor beyond the reception desk, passing deserted glass-faced offices. He opened the door to the VIP room where he had engaged in the orgy with Lilith’s witches, and his gaze settled on a stone table shaped like a mushroom. In the center of the table lay the glass pipe he had used to smoke Black Magic, and his heart beat faster at the sight of it. Moving closer, he focused on the pipe: there was still some Magic left in it. Kneeling before the table, he held the machine gun butt out and struck the table with blind fury until he heard the glass break.
Raising the scope to his eye once more, he walked to the office at the end of the corridor, determining from its size that it belonged to Lilith. Jake counted four mirrors in the office, none of them small.
On the floor, he found what resembled a silver pancake: the molten remains of his Thunder Ranch revolver, which he recognized by its hard plastic grip. True to her word, Laurel had tried to kill Lilian. Lightning illuminated the office and thunder rattled it. He knew Lilith was close by.
She’s on the roof.
The harbor patrol boat cut across the intersection of Thirty-fourth and Ninth and pulled perpendicular to Maria, facing uptown. Three crew members wearing life vests stood in the cabin, and one of them escorted a fourth figure into the back of the boat.
Maria laughed. “Bernie!”
“Where’s your umbrella?” Bernie said over the wind.
“Where’s yours?”
The crew member tossed a life preserver to her, and she caught it.
“Come aboard,” the crewman said.
Pulling the preserver over her head and arms, Maria jumped into the water and popped right back up. The current dragged her away, but the crewman pulled her back, and he and Bernie helped her into the boat.
“Thank you so much,” Maria said.
“Let’s get into the cabin,” the crewman said.
They went into the relative shelter of the cabin, and the captain piloted the boat uptown, turned around, and headed back to the intersection.
“Where’s the rest of the cavalry?” Maria said.
“Busy trying to cope with the collapse of those buildings on Jake’s street,” Bernie said with suspicion in his voice.
“Were you going in here alone?”
“You didn’t give me much choice.”
She bowed her head against his life vest. “Thank you.”
He rubbed her arm. “Let’s get Shana out of there.”
The captain drove the boat through the water over the sidewalk along Sloane House. A crewman put a life vest over Maria’s head and secured its straps.
“We’ll be back in half an hour,” the captain said. “If you’re not down here then, we’re moving on.”
“We’ll be here.”
Bernie climbed over the side of the boat and dropped into the water. “Cold! Cold, cold, cold.”
Maria jumped in after him. “I wish I’d had this vest on my trip up.”
They swam to the door, where Bernie powered on the light on his rescue helmet, and then they entered the flooded, deserted lobby. Cushions from the furniture floated on the surface, and the doorman’s station poked through
the surface.
“I can touch bottom here,” Bernie said.
“There are two steps at the front of the lobby,” Maria said. “We’re on a raised level.”
Like astronauts on the moon, they hopped toward the stairway.
Jake emerged on the roof and saw two women standing with their backs to him as they watched the lightning dancing in the sky. The wind continued to howl, blowing their hair, and the rain slashed at their dresses.
Laurel and Lilith, he thought.
But the woman who might have been Lilith had white hair, and the woman who resembled Laurel from behind wore the same dress he had seen Lilith in earlier.
He dropped the ATAC and drew the sword from its scabbard on his back.
Laurel turned in his direction. Lightning bolts arced behind her and her eyes flashed.
“Laurel?”
She smiled.
The old woman beside her faced him. It was Lilith or Lilian Kane or maybe her mother—sixty years old if she was a day, raindrops clinging to her wrinkles. “It’s me. Laurel.”
The being who had taken on Laurel’s body said, “You’re too late. What made you think you could beat me?”
Holding the sword, Jake swallowed.
Lilith circled him, and he turned like a top to keep his eye on her. “I am Lilit. Lilitu. Lilith. I’ve walked this earth longer than anyone, and no one’s even come close to defeating me. Erika tried and failed.”
“I’m sorry, Jake,” Laurel said.
“Maybe no one’s had as much motivation to stop you as I have,” Jake said. “I’m sure hundreds of people died today.” He glanced at Laurel in Lilith’s aged form. “I know at least one person did. Ripper.”
“And you killed three of my disciples,” Lilith said.
“You shouldn’t have sent them after me. Your bad.”
“The girls found my methods extreme, so I gave them a chance to reconsider. It doesn’t matter. I have what I wanted.”
“Then call off this storm.”
“As soon as I’ve finished with you.” She approached Laurel from the other side now, her circle complete. “She came back to me, as I knew she would. As I knew you would.”
“Lilian Kane will be found dead of natural causes, and Erika Long will pick up her mantle?”
Lilith glanced at Laurel. “Something like that.”
Jake charged at Lilith, swinging the sword. She didn’t even have to look at him to freeze him in place just short of reaching her. He struggled to move, but his entire body had become as rigid as a statue.
Lilith moved closer to him. “Maybe I should allow you to live as a pussycat in my home. Would you like that?”
No, Jake answered in his mind.
“No, you’re not a pussycat, are you? You’re a doggie, a mutt.” Lightning flashed in her eyes and thunder ripped the sky. She glanced at his sword. “That’s a hell of a lightning rod you’ve got. Maybe I’ll just leave you here on the roof like a lawn jockey and see what happens.”
“You have us both,” Laurel said to Lilith. “You won. I know what’s in store for me, and I accept it. There’s no need to torture Jake. Just let him go.”
“No. You took my money from me, and he took you from me. Someone has to pay.”
“This entire city’s already paid.”
“I need more personal satisfaction.”
“Then strike him down and put him out of his misery.”
Thanks a lot, Jake thought.
“There’s no need to torture him,” Laurel continued.
“Torture is exactly what I have in mind for him,” Lilith said. She clasped one hand over Jake’s and looked deep into his eye. “No man fucks with me.”
A shock wave traveled Jake’s body from his toes to his skull, and he heard a cacophony of cracks and snaps as every bone in his body broke. His ribs collapsed and his hips split and his vertebrae popped; his fingers bent backwards and his feet shattered. The pain was excruciating, more than he could ever have imagined, and in his mind no one had ever experienced worse.
His body folded in on itself, like a deflated Christmas Santa, his skin a sack for his muscles and broken bones, his punctured organs sloshing around without an infrastructure, his muscles linking the different components like sausages. He came down as quickly and as definitively as the Edition had. Fissures split his skull. The lightning st
orm was nothing compared to the raging pain that exploded in the nerves throughout his body and the neurons in his brain. Yet his mind remained intact, his audiovisual senses functioning.
Dear Christ, let me die! A gurgling sound escaped his lacerated throat.
Laurel’s shapely leg, which he had stroked just months earlier, filled his vision, and Lilith crouched beside him. “What’s that you said?”
Just let me die! He gurgled again.
“I can’t understand a word you’re saying, which must be frustrating for you.”
Please! Gurgle.
“Now, where did that eye go?” Lilith made a show of looking around before zeroing in on his eye. “There it is.” She pushed the wet hair out of her face and leaned forward. “I can only imagine what’s going through your head, the pleading. I won’t allow you to die—at least not yet. I want every cell in your body to experience the price for interfering with my plans. I’m a living god and even Shaitan knows it.” Turning to Laurel, she rose. “Your champion.”
With a horrified expression Laurel ran to Jake’s side and pressed both hands against his quivering flesh.
In his mind, Jake screamed a thousand times; outside his body, he gurgled and drooled blood.
Lilith tilted her head back and issued a haughty laugh as Laurel massaged Jake’s lumpy form. “So that’s true love?” she said, sneering. “It’s just as foolish and logic defying as I’d imagined.”
Laurel’s healing power spread through Jake’s body like a warm drug, and the neurons in his brain reignited with agonizing pain as all the bones in his hand and in each foot reformed. Don’t do it! Don’t do it!
Lilith circled them with a look of fascination in her eyes. “Go ahead, Erika. It’s just as painful for him to be reassembled as it was for him to be broken. You’re doing a great job.”
Laurel continued to massage Jake’s body. Her arms trembled and she wept.
Jake’s head vibrated and his face snapped together.
All the king’s horses
Storm Demon Page 27
