I glanced at Stuart, who was watching me, his breathing fast and heavy.
“Of course I’d have to film you.” He gestured in the direction of the wall-mounted camera in the corner of the room. “So I could prove the crime in case you decided to go back on our deal.”
I sat still, not responding, just thinking.
“Take the knife,” he said.
Wolf stepped closer, the barrel of the SMG squarely on my chest.
“Take it,” Bach said again, now more serious. “Don’t take too long, Detective. I’ll give you one minute.” He looked at his gold watch. “Exactly sixty seconds to kill Stuart Arnold, or Wolf will shoot you. And then he’ll kill Stuart Arnold. And then he’ll kill the girl. But not before I have some fun. So you see, you have no choice.”
I gripped the armrests. “You fucking—”
“Careful,” he said and the barrel on the Ruger lifted.
Dammit! Where was the damn Chaun? It should have been at the house by now, and yet there was no sound of its awful presence. No roaring. No bloodcurdling screams. No gunfire. Just the heavy breathing of Stuart Arnold.
“Forty seconds,” Bach said. “Go on, now. Cut his throat.”
I stared at the knife. Then I slowly reached and wrapped my hand around the handle and dragged the blade off the table. I stood up and looked down at Bach.
The Ruger was up and aiming, right at my face. How far could I get? Could I bury the blade into him before he killed me?
I was listening hard. Where the hell was the damn Chaun? Of course it couldn’t read a map! It had probably never seen one before. Didn’t know what the thing even was. How could I be so damn stupid? I’d gambled and I’d lost.
I stepped toward Arnold, and he pushed himself back in the seat.
“That’s it, Detective. Thirty seconds now,” said Bach, joy evident in his voice.
It wasn’t just about me here. I needed to get the tech back to the fae woman. If I was dead, then so were a lot of other people—who knew how many. Thousands? Millions? Billions?
I moved around behind the chair, and Stuart turned his head toward me, his breathing faster now.
“Twenty seconds,” said Malcolm, reading his watch like I was swimming laps.
I moved the knife closer to Stuart’s neckline, and he pushed his head away from me.
“No. Don’t,” Stuart said, his voice wavering.
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Thatta boy. Ten seconds now.”
I pushed the cold steel of the blade to Stuart’s throat. He winced and his chest was heaving up and down, up and down, breathing rapidly. His eye was focused on me. He was filled with fear and I had no choice. No damn choice at all.
“Eight seconds now.”
No choice. Because it was a simple equation. Stuart had to die at my hands, because if I didn’t kill him, then we were both dead anyway. Except if I did it, then there was still a chance. Still a chance that a war could be avoided. A war which might wipe out millions of people, or more.
“Six seconds.”
It was a no-brainer, yet I couldn’t seem to get my hand to do the action. To pull it hard across Stuart’s throat. To take his life.
“Four seconds now.”
Because if I did that, then I gave up the one scrap of myself I’d been holding on to for two years. The one thing that got me out of bed in the morning. It was my job to protect people from the bad guys. It was in my nature, and if I killed Stuart Arnold, then that part of me would die along with him. Then there’d be nothing left. Nothing except Malcolm Bach’s bitch.
“Three . . .”
If that happened, there’d be nothing for me in this world. Nothing at all.
It was selfish. I knew it was selfish, and yet—
“Two . . .”
I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill that part of me. It was all I had left in this shitty world and I wasn’t going to give it up. Especially for a shit bag like Bach.
“One.”
I lowered the knife.
“Time’s up,” said Bach. “A shame, Detective Gamble.”
Wolf moved toward me, raised the SMG and—
At that moment Tomlinson, aka Blondy, walked into the far entrance of the room. “Mr. Bach, sir.”
“What is it?” Bach snapped, annoyed by the interruption.
“It’s the cameras, sir. You told me to tell you if there was a problem.”
“Yes?”
“The cameras,” he said, glancing at me. “Something’s wrong with them.”
“What do you mean something’s wrong with them?” He stood up.
“I mean it’s all just black and white bars rolling up and down the screens. Can’t make out the picture.”
Malcolm looked around, as if listening. “Perhaps just a little static in the air from the storm,” he said to himself.
“I don’t know, sir,” said Tomlinson. “Never seen it before.”
Malcolm glanced at me, confidence waning in his glare. He pulled his cell from his pocket, thumbed it, then put it to his ear. “It’s me. You see anything out there?” There was a pause as someone spoke. “Do you have the girl yet?” he asked and I listened hard. “It’s just one little girl, dammit. Wait for her to run out of bullets.”
“I know what you’re thinking, Bach,” I said.
“And what do you suppose I’m thinking, Detective?”
“You’re thinking about the stopover I took. The one at my house. You’re thinking, did he use the landline?”
He glared at me.
“It’s backup, asshole. It’s coming. And it ain’t like any backup you’ve seen before.”
His glare flickered with uncertainty.
“Tomlinson,” he said. “Go to the armory—” His sentence cut off.
He was staring at the blond man in the doorway. Bach’s cell toppled from his hand and hit the floor with a hard clack.
Something was looming over Tomlinson. There had been nothing, and then suddenly, there was something.
It wasn’t comprehendible to see something appear out of nothing like that. Something so hideous. A nine-foot beast, hulking and nightmarish.
But I’d seen it before. And it was no less frightening now.
The Chaun had arrived.
TWENTY-FIVE
The creature filled the space behind Tomlinson and, realizing something was behind him, the dwarfed man slowly turned and looked upward.
I stumbled back away from Stuart, away from the Chaun. And I kept backing away until I passed Malcolm and Wolf, who both stood frozen in disbelief, in shock and confusion.
“What the fuck?” Wolf choked, and he scrambled to aim his SMG. But by then it was all too late for Tomlinson.
The man screamed and the Chaun drowned it out with a horrifying roar of its own. There was a sickening crunch as a grotesque scythe-like claw tore out of Blondy’s back. The man’s body fell limp upon it, and the monster threw him like a crash test dummy. His dead body hit the wall with a bone-shattering impact and fell dead to the floor.
Wolf’s SMG started barking. Short, fast bursts.
The stream of bullets ricocheted off the hard scales of the Chaun’s chest, flashing wildly around the room.
Malcolm turned and ran in fright.
Straight into me, his eyes wide, his face pale.
“I didn’t know,” was all he said.
Then I buried the nine-inch blade into the side of his neck.
His eyes turned back in his head and he clutched at me, gurgling his way to the floor.
The Chaun was shielding its face from the onslaught of bullets Wolf was piling into it. The bald man’s voice screamed behind the backdrop of gunfire, a war cry.
I ran to Stuart.
“Help me,” he cried, sobbing.
“The key!” I spat. “Shit.” I knew where it was. Wolf had it. I couldn’t get it. The Chaun was closing in on him.
I grabbed Stuart and I heaved.
“Come o
n,” I yelled. “You need to break the wood.”
“It hurts,” he sobbed, yanking on the cuffs.
“Come on, Stuart!” I yanked him toward me, but he was so heavy and the chair weighed just as much as he did.
The cuffs were rattling. But the wooden slats wouldn’t budge.
He cried out a sob.
Then the gunfire ceased and Wolf screamed out in agony. There was another sickening sound, this time of skin tearing, of bones breaking, blood spattering.
Then Wolf’s head rolled toward me and hit the chair leg.
The Chaun’s eye followed it. Then looked at me.
I fell back and scrambled away from the oncoming giant.
It stepped closer and stopped beside Stuart, its one yellow eye focused on me, then its head turned to Stuart.
I kept backing away until I hit the wall.
Stuart was sobbing like a child, spit between his lips, as he looked up at the creature. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”
Then the Chaun opened its mouth wide, roared out, and snapped its jaws over Stuart’s head. The man’s momentary scream was muffled. The Chaun’s jaw muscles rolled and crunched and sucked and Stuart’s body was shaking. Like a man dying in an electric chair, his legs and feet convulsing.
It took a short, hideous moment as I watched on in horror.
Then the Chaun’s work was done. And as it pulled away, the long purple-black tongue uncoiled from Stuart’s bare skull. The skull lolled, then rolled to the side, connected only by the spinal column.
And then the Chaun threw its head back and cried out.
It knew now. It knew the fate of its child. The Chaun’s baby was dead, pinned to a table, split down the center, all its tiny organs removed from its limp body. I thought of my own boy on the autopsy table.
The cry welled up from the depths of the Chaun’s soul, a wail filled with pain and emptiness. I knew that cry. I had made the same cry the morning I found Will dead in his bed, and despite the hideousness of the creature, I felt something for it then. I understood it.
It was a pain that hurt it like nothing else ever could. I knew.
And then its cry was filled with something else. Rage. Pure rage.
It grabbed Stuart’s body with its giant claw and threw the obese man and chair into the wall. Wood exploded and Stuart’s body flopped hard against the floor.
Then the Chaun turned its eye on me, teeth bared.
And I fucking ran.
The Chaun was no longer looking for its baby. No, now it was looking for vengeance. And I had become its target to satiate its thirst for blood.
I scampered down the hallway, glancing over my shoulder, terrified. The Chaun set chase, claws sliding, like a monstrous dog.
I ran through the dining room, pulling the heavy chairs back onto the ground as I passed them. I wasn’t out of the room before the Chaun tore through them, tossing them into the walls, wood exploding into splinters.
I stumbled through the open doors, running frantically.
I knew where I needed to go. But where was it?
The Chaun was gaining on me.
The house was enormous. Filled with endless hallways and large bedrooms and sitting rooms and office rooms and libraries. But where was the fucking kitchen?
I rounded a corner, and before the Chaun could see me, I ducked into a room, the door half-open.
It was the security room. With a leather chair facing a wall of LCD screens, all of them flashing rolling waves of static bars.
I pushed myself back against the wall and pressed the door closed without shutting it.
The Chaun’s claws tore across the parquetry floors and the beast slammed hard into the stone wall, destroying a five-foot ceramic vase.
I held my breath as it stomped past the doorway, slit nostrils snorting the air, clawed feet clacking against the floor.
Could the thing smell me? Would it stop and realize I had gone into the room?
I waited . . . listened . . .
It didn’t stop, the clacking of its claws echoing down the hall. I ducked around the wall and moved swiftly in the opposite direction. I was moving to the front of the house. If I could get there, I’d be out. I’d run and I wouldn’t look back.
I stopped as I passed an open closet.
The Chaun screamed out from somewhere in the castle, frustrated.
The closet was filled with serious heavy-duty hardware. Rifles, handguns, ammunition. I could hear the clacking of the claws coming my way.
I reached into the closet and pulled a shotgun off the rack. Then I tore open ammunition boxes until I found the shells. I stuffed my hand into the box and pulled out a fistful, then I stepped back into the hallway and listened.
Silence.
Had the Chaun vanished into its world?
I moved stealthily, listening hard, eyes scanning. Then I stopped as I heard it. It was still here. Somewhere in the maze of hallways and rooms.
I peeked around the corner and into a large central room, leading off to other rooms and hallways.
The Chaun was standing there, listening, snorting at the air. It was deciding. Looking one way then the next. Deciding which way to go.
I saw the kitchen. It was through the open doorway on the opposite side of the room.
The Chaun turned its head toward me and I pushed back behind the wall.
Then I glanced back out. The Chaun was gone.
There was nothing for it.
I ran. As quietly and as quickly as my legs could carry me, careful not to drop the shotgun.
I made it in. The kitchen was dark, lights off. Copper pots hung from the iron frame above the kitchen island counter, just as they had in the photos.
A small four-seater table, modest in comparison to the rest of the furniture in the house, sat in a dining room by the kitchen. And between the table and the counter was the back door, leading out to the red glow of the swimming pool.
I thought of going for it. Going out the door and running. I could wait it out. I could hide and forget about all of it.
Then I looked at the shells in my hand. This thing needed to be stopped, and I knew how to do it.
I moved into the kitchen and started opening the cupboards, searching. But I was clumsy. My fingers slipped on a handle and the cupboard door banged shut.
The Chaun screeched somewhere in the house. Then the clicking of claws began getting faster. And louder. And louder.
It was coming.
I scanned the cupboards. Panicking. Madly opening them, searching.
Shit! Where the hell was all the damn food?
The clicking of claws was so close now. Any moment it would burst into the room.
I needed to hide!
There was a small door and I ducked inside, and peered out into the darkness of the kitchen.
A shadow moved into the room, looming ominously. The snorting began.
Then claws gradually clacked across the floor, moving into the kitchen, less than ten feet away from my hiding spot.
I was breathing too heavy. I was making too much noise. I shut my mouth and breathed through my nostrils, trying to control my frightened breathing.
The Chaun hit its head on the hanging copper pots and they clanked together.
It would find me. In no time at all. It’d find me and suck the skin and brains off my head.
I looked around for a way out and realized I was in the butler’s pantry. The wall behind me was open shelves filled with food: cans, herbs, oils, cereals, condiments, jams. There were baking goods too: flour, sugar, and . . . salt.
I grabbed the bag off the shelf. Then I fumbled for a shotgun shell and tore the end off the plastic hull with my teeth. Then I did it with another, pouring out the pellets.
I started packing salt into the shells. I lifted the shotgun to load it and—
The door slammed open.
I snapped my head around and the Chaun ducked under the doorway and stepped into the room.
I looked around. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to go at all.
And it knew. The cat had cornered the mouse.
The Chaun stepped toward me. Slow, ominous steps, and I swore I could almost see a smile across his mouth.
I fumbled the shotgun, my fingers shaking with the salt round. I was looking up at the Chaun and back at the shell. The yellow eye of the Chaun was watching me, curious about what I was doing.
It took another step closer. It was relishing the suspense. My fear . . . my panic. My fingers were shaking. I dropped the damn shell. I grabbed the second one. I couldn’t get the fucking thing into the chamber.
I was panicking. My fingers were shaking. Salt was falling out.
I was glancing up at the Chaun and back at the shotgun chamber, up and back, and every time I looked up the Chaun was a step closer.
It loomed over me now.
I pushed the shell into the chamber, ran the action forward.
The Chaun snatched the shotgun out of my grip and cast it aside. It stared down at me, snorting.
I resigned myself to my fate. There was nowhere to run now.
It moved its head closer to mine. My heart pounded. I was filled with cold fear that my fate would be that of Stuart Arnold.
Then the clawed hand snapped around my torso, encapsulating my chest. Its long-clawed fingers wrapped over my shoulders, around my rib cage, and my broken ribs sent lightning bolts of pain through my body.
It lifted me off the floor and shoved me hard into the wall. I coughed out and grunted. Then the enormous knuckle began to unfold, extending into its singular scythe-like arm. The Chaun pressed the sharp end of it against my thigh muscle, and I grimaced.
It moved its face closer to me, sniffing the air inches away from my face. The scythe pressed harder against my thigh. And harder. Until it pierced the jeans. Then it pressed harder still and my thigh burned as it tore through skin. It pressed harder still and it began passing into my leg.
I screamed.
Deeper it went. Tearing through muscle now. It was savoring my pain. Enjoying it.
The scythe pressed deeper still and I could feel it scrape against bone. My scream hadn’t ended. The pain was agonizing. I wanted it to stop. But it wouldn’t. The pressure was unrelenting. Burning. Agonizing.
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