Crashing Paradise

by Christopher Golden

He barked once, as if telling him to move his ass.

  “Look, I can’t go in there. I told you. Even if this is my fucking psychic-flash come true, I can’t walk the shadows like Squire.”

  But even as he said it, Danny started to wonder how he knew it was the truth. He’d learned months ago that he could vanish in shadows, wrap the darkness around him like a cloak to make himself practically invisible. In shadows, he could make himself unseen. His demonic abilities manifested themselves at different times and in different ways, and Squire had said that there were creatures other than hobgoblins that could walk in shadows.

  The massive hound ducked his head forward and reached up, snatching Danny’s hand gently in his jaws. The points of a hundred sharp fangs pricked his skin, but he did not try to pull away. He stared into the darkness beyond the hound, and when the beast tugged on him, he went along. Fascinated, he watched Shuck disappear into the darkness. When he stepped forward, following, and his arm slid into the shadows, he could feel himself breaking through the membrane between worlds. The Shadowpaths resisted his intrusion, closing around his arm, scraping at his flesh. Pain seared his skin, but did no damage.

  Danny hissed through his teeth at the feeling, but then he gave a throaty laugh. A lot of times he despised his demonic nature. But the whole nearly indestructible thing didn’t suck at all.

  “All right, mutt,” he snarled, forcing his way into and through the darkness, stepping into the shadow realm. “Lead the way.”

  15

  SQUIRE held his breath.

  Something moved in the maelstrom behind him. He could feel the churning darkness ripple with its passing. Slowly, so as not to create ripples of his own, he turned to look over his shoulder, and he saw a disturbance passing through the shadows, leaving a wake like the contrail of a jet across the sky.

  But its trail followed a curving pattern.

  Serpentine.

  Inwardly, the hobgoblin swore. But he would not utter a sound that might draw the snake’s attention. His chest rose and fell, and he could feel his pulse racing fearfully, a primal reaction, bred into his kind over millennia spent in terror of such creatures.

  Carefully, Squire tested his injured arm. It hurt to move, but not terribly. His legs had gone practically numb from standing still for so long, but he suspected the burns on them would be healing nicely by now. On his arm and chest, the bleeding had stopped.

  The Murawa had followed the scent of his blood to this spot, and perhaps his piercing whistle. But the darkness played tricks on the senses. The winds that moved unexplained, eddying the shadows, would shift the scent and distort the sound, at least for a while. But not for very long. The snake hunted—that was all it did. The predator knew its territory.

  Soon, it would be upon him. Unless he moved.

  Squire slid one foot forward, toward where the Shadowpaths had been before. The toe of his shoe touched nothing but soft, shifting darkness. Panic raced through him, and he forced himself to take a breath, calming down. The maelstrom always shifted. The question was, how far away had he shifted?

  With the other foot, he felt in front of him. Still nothing.

  As he began a third, silent step, he felt the ripple of motion through the darkness behind him once again, and he froze.

  Squire squeezed his eyes closed, waiting for another wave of motion. His right hand closed on the handle of his Gemini dagger, and he slid it quietly from its sheath.

  The ripple passed.

  Again, he pushed a foot out ahead of him. This time, it came down on solid surface. A Shadowpath. He couldn’t even be sure that this was the one he’d been walking before, but that mattered little. Even without being injured, he wouldn’t have been able to outrun the shadow serpent. Thus far, he’d had great luck in outsmarting it. If he could race along the path, find a fork or a sharp turn and hurl himself into the maelstrom again, he might be able to elude the snake again. He was no longer bleeding, so there would be no fresh blood to leave behind a trail.

  The hobgoblin had no choice at all.

  Squire took a deep breath and stepped out onto the path, sliding from the churning shadows. To the left would—he thought—be back the way he’d come. Dagger in hand, he bolted along the path to his right. Pain shot through his legs, not from burns but from having stood still so long. He grunted softly and gritted his teeth but kept going, moving from a staggering run to a sprint.

  Hobgoblins had always been faster than they looked.

  Squire thought it was from all the time they’d spent over the ages trying not to get eaten. The grim humor gave him no comfort. The weight of the Gemini dagger in his grip provided even less.

  His muscles ached as he ran, barreling forward, forcing himself to such speed that he felt entirely out of control.

  Misty shadows drifted across his path, but the ground stayed solid beneath him. To either side he saw churning darkness that could hide the serpent, but he spared only a glance. The path curved to the left up ahead. A clock had been ticking in his mind. Twelve seconds had passed since he burst onto the path. The serpent would have heard him, would have sensed him moving. It would be coming for him now. Squire thought he could feel its cold presence at the back of his neck, about to strike.

  That curve would be the place. He would have to leave the path. Get a running start and a good push off the solid ground and just hurl himself into the maelstrom, hoping the shadow snake would lose his trail.

  Squire had almost reached the turn in the path when the Murawa emerged from the coalescing darkness just ahead of him. It did not dart at him, only slid its head from the shadows and stared at him in silent menace, as grimly inevitable as death itself. The serpent had been tracking him all along.

  It had paced him, gotten ahead of him, and now it slithered onto the solid Shadowpath, coiling in upon itself, its head never wavering in that glare.

  Logic fled. Squire came to a total halt on the path, only the Gemini dagger for protection. He held the blade weakly in front of him. The serpent’s heavy head began to sway, its entire body formed from silken darkness. Its black tongue flickered out.

  With a deep breath, Squire raised the dagger and straightened his back. He couldn’t see any way to survive beyond the next minute, but the notion provided a certain freedom.

  Death had arrived. The only facet of it he could control was the manner in which he comported himself in its presence.

  “I’m gristle and bone,” the hobgoblin growled. “I hope you fucking choke.”

  The snake reared its head back so far that the churning darkness caressed its upper body, embracing the creature in a shadowy fog. It ceased its swaying, about to strike. Squire tightened his grip on the dagger’s handle.

  Around the curve in the path, something roared.

  The Murawa twisted itself around and whipped its head toward the sound. Squire took the moment to attack, crossing the nine steps between himself and the snake in as many heartbeats. He thrust the Gemini blade into its underbelly, gripped the hilt with both hands, and sliced downward. Moist darkness spilled out, thick, oil black organs slapping the ground.

  The snake hissed its pain and turned on him, darted its head down to gobble him up. Squire sidestepped and thrust the blade up into its lower jaw. The Gemini dagger became lodged there, and the snake whipped its body around, careening into Squire, knocking him to the ground.

  The hobgoblin looked up to see Shuck hurtling along the Shadowpath with Danny Ferrick at his side. The demon boy’s countenance terrified Squire, etched with madness and ferocity unlike anything he’d ever seen. For half a moment, he wondered how the kid had gotten onto the Shadowpaths, how he could even be here.

  Then Danny leaped at the Murawa, and all rational thought left Squire’s head. He could only stare as the snake darted its head toward Danny, fangs bared and dripping venom, and the handle of the Gemini dagger jutting from its lower jaw.

  The demon boy collided with the snake in midair, the impact knocking them into the maelstrom,
which swallowed all but the shadow serpent’s lower body in churning blackness.

  Shuck howled and bounded toward the snake, snagging its bottom coils with the claws of his forepaws. The hound dipped his head and tore into the serpent, burying his muzzle in the creature’s flesh.

  The shriek that filled the Shadowpaths could never have come from any ordinary serpent—of any size.

  “Shuck, be careful!” Squire called.

  The hound glanced up at him.

  The curtain of darkness parted as Danny rode the serpent’s upper coils down to the solid path. As he struck the ground, the shadow snake darted its head again and snapped its jaws closed on the demon boy’s shoulder. Danny shouted in pain, but the serpent’s fangs shattered and venom stained the kid’s sweatshirt, thick as tar.

  “Shit!” Danny snapped.

  He spun and drove his fist into the shadow snake’s right eye with a wretched sucking noise. Danny straddled the serpent, dug in his knees, and started to beat the snake against the solid darkness of the Shadowpath.

  “Enough with ruining the hoodie!” the kid screamed. His eyes gleamed yellow in the darkness of the shadow realm, and his face was split with a giddy grin.

  Even with all he’d seen Danny going through, he’d never seen the kid this ferocious, or realized how strong he really was. Sometimes, Danny Ferrick scared the shit out of him.

  “It’s dead, guys,” Squire said.

  Shuck had torn its lower coils so completely apart that only shreds of darkness remained, slipping off the path, merging with the mist of the maelstrom, becoming nothing but shadow again—if anything in this world could be considered to be something as mundane as an ordinary shadow.

  The hound backed off. Danny did not.

  The demon kid withdrew his fist and began to use both hands to hammer at the snake’s head, then he opened his fists and began to tear at it instead. Ripping it apart.

  Squire strode over and grabbed his shoulder. “Kid! That’s enough!”

  Danny rounded on him, eyes wide with that same ferocity.

  His expression flickered, and he blinked, then took a breath.

  When he smiled, now, it was only the lazy, sarcastic grin of the wiseass teenager he’d always been.

  “Relax, Squire. You whistled us up, didn’t you? Shuck tracked you down, and we saved your ass. You can’t blame me if I want to have a little fun after being cooped up at home all this time.”

  The hobgoblin almost argued with him. But as long as Danny was on their side and stood with them when the bad guys tried to eat the world, how could he blame the kid for being what he was born to be?

  “Fun’s over, Dan. Thanks for the save, but we’ve gotta get moving.”

  Squire bent down, put one shoe on the already deteriorating darkness of the serpent’s head, and tugged out his Gemini dagger. He slipped it back into its sheath. Shuck came over and sat on the path next to him, bumping the hobgoblin with his big head, wanting to be patted.

  “Thanks to you, too, buddy,” Squire said, scratching Shuck behind the ears.

  “So where are the others? Where are we going?” Danny asked.

  Squire glanced up at him. “They’re in trouble. Hard to say how much, but I’d guess a shitload. They’re in Eden, kid, but I’ve got an anchor there, now. A shadow I’ve already passed through. They couldn’t close me out if they wanted to, unless they had a dark-elf mage, and that’s just about the only freakin’ thing they don’t have on their side. No, I can take us there anytime I want to, now.

  “First, though, we’re going to my workshop, maybe even back to the brownstone, and we’re getting every damned weapon we can carry. Abaddon—the asshole behind this whole scheme—he’s gonna learn an ugly lesson, pal. He figured why the hell bother with the hobgoblin . . . how much trouble can one little runt be?

  “But the bastard made a huge mistake, Danny. He should’ve killed me first. Nothing in any world holds a grudge like a hobgoblin. And now it’s time to take the fucker down.”

  EVE’S heart sang with the blood of the angel. Light filled her eyes, changing her perceptions. Her senses had always been extraordinarily acute, but now she saw the world around her in a strange, slanted light that somehow managed to make the colors of the Garden both muted and vibrant at the same time. When she moved, walking or darting silently from branch to branch in the highest of trees, the air seemed to flow around her, caressing her, carrying her forward. There were scents more intoxicating and stenches more vile than she had ever imagined existing. The feeling was transcendent.

  Now she perched in the crook of a branch in a tall tree of a type that no longer grew in man’s world. Its leaves were broad and long and its branches hung heavy with succulent golden and scarlet fruit. Once it had been just another tree in the midst of the endless sprawl of lush garden, of flowers and fruit and wild things capering joyfully. Now it stood just at the edge of a wide swath of the Garden that had transformed into blasted tundra, a ruin of dark earth and yellowed grass, withered plants and trees that had fallen to rot in a matter of hours. Some of the trees had fallen, but others were pale, chalky gray, or charcoal black, skeletal fingers scratching at the bright, sunless sky of Eden.

  The corruption of Abaddon and Jophiel’s intrusion—of the arrival of their putrid army—had scarred the heart of the Garden, and that rot continued to spread. The infection’s growth had slowed, but not stopped. Even the azure sky seemed dimmer above that awful encampment.

  The Hell-Lord and his confederates had wrought a hideous change upon this patch of Eden. A mound of earth stood at the center, excavated from below, so that it resembled some nightmarish anthill. Insectoid demons crawled in and out of its peak, and at the base, an other-dimensional horror lay half-burrowed like a giant tick in the loose dirt, its tentacles lifting and sensing the air whenever another creature passed.

  A cairn had been built from stones dug up from the ground, a doorway left open so that the half-breed Duergar could come and go. His Drow warriors, lumbering primitives, awaited outside like faithful dogs, most of them sleeping on the ground. An array of tents spread around the perimeter of the tainted area—military surplus and stolen camping tents—and from scent alone, Eve knew these had been pitched by the vampire horde.

  Yet the most disturbing sight—the most hideous intrusion into paradise—towered above the others. In scarcely enough time for the vampires to finish setting up their tents, one or more of the demons that Abaddon had brought into Eden had created a massive structure the size and relative shape of a circus big top. It had not been built, however. From what Eve could see, the material had been woven like a spider’s web, or spun into a kind of cocoon. The cocoon had not been completed.

  White jets of gossamer flew up through holes in its shell and continued to fill in those breaches. It might have been the womb for something unimaginable. This had been her first thought. But when she saw how many of the creatures worked industriously to shore up its foundations, pushing dirt up around the sides and carving window slits in its face, she realized it served a different purpose.

  The demons were building a city, and this would be its center, gathering place, and seat of power. Abaddon would rule here. Some kind of new kingdom was being created, with him as its monarch.

  Not going to happen, she thought.

  Bastard thought he could hide out from the Demogorgon right here in Eden, that maybe somehow the Devourer wouldn’t be able to pass through the Garden Gate. And perhaps he was right. They’d needed her blood—her pure, untainted blood from the days at the birth of the world—to open the gate. Maybe they truly would be safe here when the Outsider arrived at last.

  But they’d made a terrible mistake. They’d brought Eve into the Garden with them, and they wouldn’t be safe from her.

  Perched on that branch, she closed her eyes and raised her face to the breeze. The odors that rose from that ruined part of Eden made her retch. Blood and bile rose up in the back of her throat. The lovely scents of other parts o
f the Garden were perverted by the stench of what evil had wrought.

  But in among those odors, she found others. Her skin prickled with strength like she had never known, and her veins burned with Jophiel’s divine blood. Even in the midst of the sensory overload that Eden and its intruders provided, she could sift and search. From the moment she had scrambled into that crook in the tree, she had caught a familiar scent. Eyes closed, she inhaled the wind and confirmed her belief. The aroma of rich, Turkish pipe tobacco reached her.

  Other odors mingled with it; Fey magic, ancient, unmistakable clay, and the musk of a she-wolf. This last was unfamiliar, but it combined inextricably with the others.

  The Menagerie had been captured.

  The scents came from the cairn-hut the Drows had built for Duergar. Conan Doyle and the others were being held there, and they were still alive. Of course, the ancient clay she smelled might belong to the shapeshifter called Legion, but with the other scents, she doubted that. It must be Clay.

  The thought made her skin prickle even more, her body tensing with anticipation. She wanted to see Clay again, quite desperately. Now that her memories of Eden had returned—now that Jophiel had indicated that she hadn’t been forgotten by the Creator at all—she had to talk to Clay. In all the worlds in existence, he was the only one who would understand all of the things in her cold heart. It did not beat, but she had at last come to understand that it had never really been dead.

  Clay. Conan Doyle. Ceridwen. And what of Graves, Squire, and Danny?

  No more time for thinking. There were far too many enemies for her to face alone. Eve needed allies, now. And she couldn’t leave her friends in the hands of Abaddon. No one knew better than she how much a body and soul could be ruined by the demon’s touch.

  The wind blew cool across her naked flesh. The last time she had run naked across Eden she had been filled with shame. Now she felt nothing of the kind, filled instead with righteous determination. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if this return to the Garden without shame could be considered progress, or further corruption. She found she didn’t much care.