New Title 1

by Dru Pagliassotti

  As if the provost’s words were a cue, the world jolted to the left.

  VIII

  Richard picked himself up from the dirt and swiftly righted his camera, swearing as he checked it for damage. Then the earth jolted again and he clung to his camera with one hand and the wooden bench with the other.

  An earthquake! He’d never been in an earthquake before, even though everyone had warned him about them when he’d moved to California. When he’d thought about it, he’d imagined being in an earthquake would be like standing on a swaying train. This felt more like riding a bronco.

  The earth jolted again and continued shuddering, and all he could do was hold onto the bench and stare downhill at the dig.

  Police and forensics technicians were scrambling out of the pit, but its walls were collapsing on them as quickly as they tried to move out. Richard heard screaming and shouting as the earth began to collapse in a long fault-furrow. One of the bulldozers tilted and fell, burying two people beneath its metal bulk.

  He pointed the camera and clicked the shutter, knowing there was no way he’d get a good photo but knowing that he had to try. This was front page news.

  A light was burning in the middle of the site, bright and white and moving away from the edge of the pit. Richard blinked and the light resolved into a white-haired man, his long coat flapping behind him like two wings. He was walking so calmly and easily over the unsteady ground that it seemed like he wasn’t affected by the earthquake at all.

  Something cracked like a gunshot. Richard twisted, staring up in shock as the heavy wooden cross toppled down upon him.

  Creosote-soaked railroad ties slammed into his back, snapping bone. He screamed and twisted, his belly in the dirt, facing downhill again as tears of pain streamed from his eyes. Oh, shit, his arms were broken, he was sure of it, and the cross was so heavy that it was crushing his ribs.

  Down below, the ground was collapsing around the dig site, caving in as though it were pouring itself into deep caverns located far below the surface of the earth.

  Richard shrieked as the earth heaved beneath his stomach and the broken bones in his arms grated against each other. His vision darkened but he clung to consciousness, afraid that if he passed out he’d never wake up again.

  The screams below him grew louder. He tilted his head, staring down at the field where geysers of earth were erupting like miniature volcanoes.

  Huge, carapace-covered serpents lifted draconic heads and shrieked to the stars.

  Richard stared, his cheek pressed against the dirt, and wondered if he were hallucinating from pain.

  The serpents ducked and slammed back into the dirt, their open jaws engulfing the hapless police team as they hammered their way back underground, leaving only blood and torn limbs behind.

  Only the man in white—no, he was wearing a black coat, but his hair was so white it seemed to spread its brilliance over the rest of him—only the man in white still stood on the edge of the torn field, motionless, looking like he was waiting for the world to end.

  Richard drew in a labored breath. Dirt slid and collapsed beneath him as the side of the hill began to collapse.

  One of the serpentine creatures burst from the hillside next to him. It turned its eyeless visage toward him, its razor-edged mouth gaping.

  Richard released his last breath in a scream that sent a black, blood-covered feather fluttering away as the serpent dived, slamming him deep into the earth.

  IX

  Jack swore as the first jolt rocked the small apartment, and Andy yelped and grabbed his laptop before it could plunge off the side of the desk. Books toppled from the shelves and dishes shifted in the cupboards. Before they could catch their breath, a second jolt hit, and then a third. The bookshelves rocked away from the walls and fell; one crashed through the living room window. A cupboard door swung open. Jack covered his head with one arm as plates spilled out, shattering on the linoleum floor.

  The lights went out.

  “Andy!” Jack jammed his pack of cigarettes and lighter into his jacket pocket and groped his way through the kitchen, holding onto the counter top as his boots crunched through broken glass and china. “Where are you?”

  “I’m okay,” the reply came. “Be careful—it’s probably not over yet.”

  Jack braced against a wall as the ground shook again. His heart was pounding harder than it had in months. He’d been in tornadoes, thunderstorms, floods, car accidents, and shootouts, but never an earthquake. He hadn’t realized how horrible it was. A man counted on the earth being steady under his feet. To have it suddenly develop a mind of its own felt like madness.

  More objects fell, but the first sharp jolts had stopped, at least for the moment. Jack edged forward, keeping his hands out and ready to grab whatever was close by for support.

  “There’s a flashlight in the kitchen drawer by the sink,” Andy said.

  “I’ll get it.” Jack backed up, knocking his forehead against an open cupboard door. He cursed and ducked, bent nearly in half as he felt for the sink. His hands touched metal and he groped for the drawer next to it.

  It was hanging open. He reached inside and stabbed himself with broken glass. He probed around more cautiously until he felt the comforting solidity of a metal flashlight beneath his fingers. He pulled it out and pushed the power button.

  A bright white beam filled the room. He swung it around until he found Andy.

  His friend was crouched next to the desk, his laptop pressed against his chest, a bookshelf angled over him.

  “Jesus!” Jack was halfway across the kitchen before another shudder made him freeze. He started to walk more carefully. “You all right?”

  “Native Californian.” Andy mustered a nervous smile and crept out from under the shelves. “Always duck next to a sturdy piece of furniture.”

  “A native Californian should bolt his shelves to the wall.” The flashlight beam showed nothing but disaster around them.

  “I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.” Andy swallowed. “We’d better go check on everyone else.”

  The earth jolted again, an unnatural up-and-down heaving that threw them both off their feet. Jack raised his arms over his head, expecting the roof to come down. Shouts arose from the neighboring apartments. A loud cracking sound ripped through the air.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Andy yelled, grabbing his shoulder.

  Jack nodded, getting a better grip on the flashlight. The beam juddered and tilted as the earth shook. A table slid across the floor, rucking up the cheap carpet. The front door hung open, crashing back and forth against the wall. Jack scuttled forward, then froze in the broken threshold. Andy bumped into him and then uttered a most un-Catholic oath.

  Dimly lit by stars and a three-quarters moon, a long, pale shape rose and fell where the apartment complex’s courtyard had once stood, moving through the earth like the back of a sea serpent. Waves of dirt broke around it and threw them against the doorframe. Another crack ran up one of the stucco-covered walls, and a roof across the yard collapsed.

  “What the hell is that?” Jack shouted, dropping the flashlight and grabbing his St. Jude medal. It was quiescent in his hand, as were the sigils sewn into his jacket and pressed into the metal toes of his cowboy boots and buckle of his belt. “Andy, what the fuck is that?”

  “...Christ below me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger...” The words of St. Patrick’s prayer spilled from his friend’s lips in one breathless litany.

  A long white pillar broke through the apartments across from them, sending wood, stucco, drywall, and dirt exploding. Jack staggered and fell to his knees. Splintered wood ripped through his jeans and into his legs. He stared up, aghast, as another dim shape rose up against the starlight, plates of interlocking exoskeleton scraping and clicking against each other as it rose. For a split second its blunt, lizardlike bone muzzle opened, and a horrific scream tore from its bowels and spiraled up into the night sky.

  Then the wards
and talismans in Jack’s jacket stabbed him with their occult warnings as a swirl of foul ashen air swept around him in a burst of warm wind. A large hand landed on his shoulder as the giant serpent’s head wavered and turned.

  Jack raised his hands in a futile warding gesture as the head slammed down, but before it struck him, he was hauled away.

  X

  “Kill them, kill them, kill them,” pleaded a wavering, creaky voice. Jack staggered backward into a body like a brick wall as he was yanked to his feet. Next to him, Andy was receiving the same treatment, his laptop lost somewhere outside.

  “Not now, Amon,” Edward Todd’s voice rumbled. Jack regained his balance and turned, looking up at the large man’s stern face.

  Supernatural warnings burned into his awareness, but it wasn’t Todd that was setting them off. Jack took a step backward, his boot heels crunching on something that gave way beneath them.

  A devil pressed against Todd’s leg and snapped at him, sharp teeth glinting inside its birdlike beak. Its eight insectile legs rapidly preened each other and picked at the dark stains on Todd’s trouser cuffs.

  “Dear God, protect us,” Andy gasped.

  Dry, charred branches formed a latticework walkway beneath them, and the air was filled with ash and the smell of burning flesh. Jack coughed. Todd was silhouetted against distant fires on the horizon, huge ovens that glowed dark crimson and belched dark clouds of ash.

  “They should not be here. You must kill them now,” the devil pleaded, lifting its head like a mournful dog.

  “Hush.” Todd leaned over and pressed a hand against the devil’s bony skull. It whimpered and pissed itself, the ammoniac smell mingling with the scent of the infernal crematoriums.

  “You don’t serve the mal'akhim, Todd,” Jack said, doing his best to keep his voice steady. He had a sudden urge to empty his own bladder. “I would have felt it, if you did.”

  “I don’t. Follow me. This isn’t a healthy place for humans to stay.”

  “Where are we?” Andy asked, clutching the silver crucifix around his neck. “Is this hell?”

  “One possibility of hell, as translated through the filters of your senses.” Todd’s voice was low and calm. “I hadn’t planned to bring you here, but circumstances forced my hand. Come on.”

  “You’re traveling with a devil.”

  “Demon. Amon chose me; I didn’t choose it. It doesn’t like you, but you’re heavily warded.” Todd began to walk, his leather shoes raising clouds of ash.

  “What was that thing outside?” Jack asked, remaining still. “That snake-thing?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what we need to find out.”

  Jack looked at Andy, who hesitated, then crossed himself.

  “I don’t see that we have much choice at the moment,” his friend admitted, following Todd.

  Jack coughed again, his gaze lingering on the distant furnaces. The tune he’d been humming earlier in the kitchen returned, and he began to murmur it aloud for comfort.

  “I am a poor, wayfaring stranger, while traveling through this world below...”

  Andy looked over his shoulder, his face brightening. Jack coughed again, then followed Todd, raising his voice.

  “There is no sickness, toil, or danger, in that bright world to which I go. I’m going there to see my father; I’m going there no more to roam; I’m just going over Jordan, I’m just going over home....”

  The devil Amon groaned and scuttled ahead of them, its eight legs moving like a centipede’s. Todd chuckled as Jack launched into the next verse.

  “I know the clouds will gather o’er me; I know the pathway’s rough and steep....”

  The dry, blackened walkway beneath their feet seemed to shift and writhe as they walked, and as Jack sang, he had the distinct impression that they were stepping through an endless succession of gateways. But the song reassured him; it had always reassured him. It was one of the oldest in his repertoire, learned at his favorite uncle’s knee in Kentucky.

  He’d seen a lot of strange things since then, things that had put him and kept him on his path as a folk magickian, but he’d never seen anything as strange as giant worms ripping through the earth and diabolic crematoriums belching out the ash of damnation. Still, as strange as this was, he wasn’t any more afraid here than he’d been in that bar outside Reno the night he’d felt his vision blur and his left arm and leg grow numb.

  “I’m going there to see my Savior, who shed for me his precious blood; I’m just going over Jordan, I’m just going over home.”

  He repeated the last line one more time, then fell silent.

  “This is it.” Todd turned abruptly to his right and reached out. “We’ll exit here.”

  “Where?”

  Todd smiled, his fingers hovering over the handle of a heavy door that hadn’t been there a moment before.

  “All sorts of places, at this very moment. An infinite wave of places. Let’s collapse the possibilities, shall we?”

  He pushed the handle down and the door swung aside, letting in a breath of cool air scented with blood. Strangely colored light strobed through.

  Amon jumped through first, scraps of flesh and ash powdering off of its body.

  Andy looked through.

  “It’s dark.”

  Jack pulled out his lighter, handing it over. Andy flicked it alight.

  “The Scandinavian Library? Edward—”

  “Hurry,” the big man urged. Andy stepped through. Jack followed, sidestepping to avoid a puddle of gore. A moment later, Todd was next to him, and the door to hell was gone.

  The lighter’s miniscule glow revealed little of the old ranch house room. Books were scattered over the floor, along with a number of jagged shards of glass. Andy groped for the wall and flicked the light switch. Nothing happened.

  “Are there any candles in here?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Jack replied, trying to remember what had been among the many antiques on display in the library. “Graeme smoked a pipe, though. He might have matches in his desk.”

  “Which would be where?”

  “Right now? I couldn’t say. It used to be by the front door.”

  Andy walked to one of the windows and looked out.

  “Dear God.” He pulled out his cell phone and punched a few buttons, listened, and then shook his head. “911 is busy. Do you have your phone, Jack?”

  Jack felt in his pocket, then shook his head. “Must have left it in the apartment.” He gingerly moved through the cluttered room, slipping on books and loose glass, and joined his friend.

  The campus was still pitch black, but the faint moonlight was enough to reveal a parking lot torn to shreds, police cars overturned, and motionless bodies sprawled beneath chunks of broken pavement. Faint lights bobbed in the distance—people carrying flashlights, Jack guessed.

  He glanced back at the cars again.

  “Hold on,” he said, making his way to the front door. He forced it out of its half-collapsed jamb and walked down broken wooden stairs to the wreckage in the lot.

  The first officer was dead, sprawled next to an ominous-looking crater in the earth. His torso had been torn in half and blood was spattered over the concrete. Jack closed his eyes and crossed himself, thinking about the giant earth-serpents.

  Keeping his eyes averted from the corpse, he negotiated the broken pavement to one of the tilted police cars. Its windows were broken and its trunk crushed. He slid over the angled hood to the driver’s side.

  Safety glass bent under his leather jacket as he reached through the cracked window and fumbled for the engine keys. He turned them and flipped the headlights on.

  White beams hit the side of the ranch house.

  Jack looked around. One of the officers looked intact. He felt for a pulse, found it, and tugged the man into a more comfortable position on the front porch. Deciding there wasn’t much more he could do, he headed back into the house.

  The headlights illuminated the room in sta
rk black and white. The creature Todd called Amon hid in a shadow, whispering to itself and picking bits of flesh off its thighs. Todd was looking around, studying the damage the earthquake had wrought on the little house.

  “All right,” Jack said, stepping over a broken table to rejoin his friend. “Why are we here, what’s going on, and who the hell are you?”

  “Or what,” Andy added.

  “We’re here because the probabilities were high that this building hadn’t been destroyed by the serpent and that it would provide us with an answer to our questions,” Todd explained, his voice calm. “However, I don’t know why it wasn’t destroyed or what here will provide the information we need. The higher the probability, the less chance I have of understanding what it means: that’s my own version of the uncertainty principle.”

  “We don’t need them,” Amon hissed, its mirrored eyes flashing white in the headlights. “They serve the b'nei elohim.”

  “And you don’t, I take it,” Andy said dryly, looking at Todd.

  “I serve nothing but myself,” the large man said. “Amon chooses to travel with me, but I neither serve it nor command it.”

  “You travel through hell.”

  “I also travel through heaven. They’re only a handsbreadth apart.” Todd shrugged. “However, it’s inconvenient to walk through heaven with Amon at my side.”

  “So you’re a moral relativist?” Jack asked.

  “No. Is my moral philosophy really important, given what’s happening outside?”

  “Yes,” both Andy and Jack replied at the same time, their voices flat.

  Todd sighed.

  “There is a very narrow horizon between the gravitational wells of Creation and Destruction,” he explained as the headlights played over the strong planes of his face. “Or of God and Satan, if you prefer, or Change and Entropy. I choose to walk that horizon. Sometimes I slip and begin to spiral toward one well or the other, but so far I’ve always managed to pull myself back into neutrality.”