Then it removed the claw from my leg, and pressed the sharp end against my forehead. And pressed. Harder and harder until my head felt like it was going to pop, blood trickling into my eyes.
Then it spoke. A deep and rumbling voice. “You die now, human, asshole!”
I thought of Elise. I thought of the creature doing to her what it had done to Arnold, and Romero, and Joe and Chuck, and what it was doing to me.
My leg was on fire, the crushing force on my skull unbearable. Any second my skull was going to collapse in on itself.
I could hear screaming. It was deafening and throaty. Then I realized it was me. There was nothing I could do but die slowly, my skull being crushed like a nut.
I had nothing left to give.
Pain and the certainty of death paralyzed me.
I didn’t want to die. Not yet. There were still things in this world to live for. I’d only met Elise today, yet it was enough to kindle a small flame within me that told me there was still a chance. Still a chance of some kind of life. A chance of happiness.
I flopped a hand at the Chaun. It had been meant to be a fist. But it merely slapped the thing across the side of the face, soft and feebly.
Then something happened.
The Chaun reeled back and I hit the floor as the thing released its grip. It clutched its face and roared.
I was confused. But how? Its skin was sizzling and bubbling. I looked at my hand. What had . . . the salt! I still had it on my hands.
The creature was stumbling. It was gathering itself. It looked up at me, furious. Enraged with its hatred of me—of my kind.
I lunged for the shotgun.
The Chaun lunged after me.
I pulled the muzzle up and fired.
The gun boomed in my hands and the salt round exploded out from the barrel. The shot hit the Chaun in the shoulder of its scythe arm and took it clean off. The Chaun’s momentum continued on as it barreled toward me. I rolled out of the way and it slammed hard into the wall.
I dragged myself away from it as it rolled around, screaming, convulsing like a tormented worm under a magnifying glass in the sun.
I pulled myself along the floor out of the butler’s pantry and into the kitchen, mopping a line of blood behind me. I grabbed onto the counter and pulled myself up onto my one good leg, blood trickling down the other.
Then the Chaun’s agonizing screams abated. There was an almighty crash and the Chaun’s form stumbled through the doorway into the kitchen.
Its shoulder was bubbling, but the thing was moving, stumbling toward me, only pure hatred keeping it going.
I hobbled for the back door. But the Chaun was regaining its strength. It resumed its dinosaur-gaited walk, moving faster as I kept glancing over my shoulder.
I pushed through the back door and out into the night and the pouring rain. I slipped on the wet ground and toppled over. I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t walk.
The Chaun burst out the door.
I elbowed myself along the muddy ground, away from the monster. My fingers dug at the wet grass and mud as I scampered toward the pool.
The Chaun’s feet stomped the slushy ground behind me. It was huffing, blowing out hard breaths of air.
I tried again to stand but couldn’t, hitting the ground.
The Chaun was almost on me.
I grabbed onto the pool’s edge.
Something wrapped around the ankle of my injured leg. The claw squeezed and I heard the crunch as bones snapped like twigs.
I screamed out again, crying into the night.
A clawed foot stomped into the mud beside me. Then another on the other side. The Chaun’s hand grabbed hold of my head, encapsulating it, and—
I reached into the pool water and splashed it back into the Chaun’s face.
Its mouth opened wide, and all its teeth and stringy saliva showed in its rasping scream.
I splashed more water onto it. Then more. And more. The Chaun stumbled, faulted, then toppled over and fell into the pool.
There was a violent splash.
The water churned and the beast flailed, screaming, tongue lashing. A creature returning to hell, the red glow of the pool igniting the water into a frenzy of melting monster, a fiery swell of hideousness. A nightmare dispersing.
The thrashing water settled, until there was nothing except the pattering of raindrops as they met the surface of the salty red bath.
I lay there on my back, the cold rain spotting my face. My body was numb, and cold, my leg broken and torn.
Soon after, a face appeared above me. A beautiful face. An angel. Only it wasn’t an angel at all . . .
TWENTY-SIX
“Blake! Oh my God,” said Elise, kneeling over me.
“Elise? What are you doing?” I was confused. Where had she come from?
She pulled me up and I grunted, then stared at her, dumbfounded. Her hair was soaked, hanging in strands over her pale face. Her angelic copper eyes were filled with concern. “Are you okay?”
“What happened? How’d you get away?”
“The gun you gave me. The last bullet, I—I killed him.”
Then she saw my leg. “Oh God. Your leg. It’s bleeding.”
“Help me up,” I grunted.
She pulled me up and I wrapped an arm over her shoulder. I hobbled beside her as I dragged my broken leg behind me, wincing with the agony.
We pushed out of the rain and into the kitchen. I stumbled into a chair at the four-seater table.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” said Elise, and she went to move, but I grabbed her arm.
“No. What time it is?” I was breathing hard, not thinking about the hole in my leg, not thinking about my broken ankle.
She checked her watch. “It’s almost midnight. About twenty minutes away.”
“Okay,” I said. “I need you to do something. And you need to be quick.”
“No, you need—”
“Elise,” I cut her off. “Listen to me. If you don’t do this right now, you’re going to die.”
She stared at me, her eyes wide.
Then I looked toward the pool and told her.
Sitting slumped in the chair with my back to the round table, I tore the blood-soaked jeans where the Chaun’s scythe had pierced them. Then I made a makeshift bandage and wrapped it around the gaping bloody hole in my right leg. There wasn’t enough blood flowing for it to be an artery. I’d been lucky.
Then I used the chair as a crutch and stumbled my way into the butler’s pantry. I grabbed the salt round I’d dropped, and the shotgun.
Then I used the shotgun as a crutch to get back to one of the chairs.
Elise came running into the room for the third time in fifteen minutes.
The tech Malcolm Bach had stolen from the garage was loaded up on the kitchen counter: the Apple computer, headset and cables.
Her first port of call had been the Dodge Ram, where she’d gone to grab the hard drive we’d found in Stuart’s rented unit. Then she had scouted the house for the tech and found it in one of the many rooms.
I was watching the minutes count down to midnight, and there were three left to go.
“Okay,” said Elise, breathing hard. “That’s the last of it.” She placed the hard drive next to the other stuff.
“Grab one of those copper pots down from the rack.”
She did, then looked at me, confused.
“Now go fill it up with pool water.”
She gave me another look.
“Trust me,” I said. “Go.”
She nodded and charged outside.
Not long now, I thought. I pushed the salt round into the shotgun and pumped the action forward. Ready to fire.
Elise came back in, splashing pool water onto the ground from the big pot in her hands.
“Got it,” she said.
“Poor it over yourself.”
“What?”
“Do it. Dump it over your head. All of it.”
She lifted the pot up,
wincing in pain, hesitated, then upended it over her head and the water washed down over her entire body. She shrilled out and danced with a shiver.
“Come and sit down,” I told her. “Behind me.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“You will.”
She sat down in the chair at the back of the table, holding her arms around her wet body, shivering.
Then we waited for the last minutes to tick by. Then we waited for the last seconds to tick by. Then we waited a little longer. Two minutes past midnight.
I was getting antsy when I heard the slow clip-clop of heels echoing from the large room out of the kitchen. Then a moment later, Aurathea Iliqen Carivell, of the fae, a woman whose beauty could only be described as startling, appeared in the doorway.
“Welcome to the party,” I said.
She eyed me, and then Elise, her green eyes wide and serpentine. Her red plaits were moving behind her like three flute-charmed snakes, placid yet ready to strike out at any moment, and tied to her waist was a curled bone horn.
She stepped further into the room, walking sensually, until she stopped less than ten feet away.
“Blake Gamble. Your time has come to an end. Do you have that which I asked of you?” Her eyes flashed to Elise and back to me.
“Mostly,” I said.
“Mostly?” she asked, a single brow climbing, her three plaits moving dangerously. She glanced down at the shotgun in my hands. “What is that?” she asked coldly.
“Insurance,” I said. “Let’s get this over with. You can have the tech, it’s all there.” I nodded toward the counter and she followed my gesture. “Stuart Arnold is dead,” I said. “And this here is Elise Daniels.”
“You have succeeded, then,” she said.
“Not quite,” I said. “The thing is . . . you can’t have her.”
“The knowledge she holds must be destroyed. There is no choice, I’m afraid.”
“The Chaun is dead,” I told her.
Her eyes grew wide.
“Yeah, I killed it. Died screaming.”
“How?” she demanded.
“Listen up, bitch, ’cause I’ve got some demands of my own—”
“You are in no position to demand anything, Blake Gamble. Hand the woman over right now, or at the sounding of this horn, my kind will storm this world.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “You see, the cat’s out of the bag. I know your secret. The shotgun I’m holding is loaded with salt rounds. Put your mouth anywhere near that horn and I’ll blow your fucking jaw off.”
Her serpent hair lashed the air around her and her burning eyes narrowed in fury. “You dare threaten me?”
“Uh, yeah. And Elise here is covered in salt water, so don’t even think of touching her. Now this is how it’s going to go. Take all the tech and disappear. Fuck off. Forever. You leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone.”
“Your primitive weapon does not scare me, Blake Gamble. I can kill you both, and if I fail, others will come in my place.”
“No, they won’t. You see, it turns out Elise is pretty good with computers. She’s set up a few letters to go around. We call them emails. If we don’t make it out of this alive, then some important people are going to receive detailed plans on how to build one of those gateway keys you’re so upset about.” I indicated the headgear. “And just as some added information, there’s also a word in there about salt and the fact your kind don’t take too kindly to it.”
“You deceitful coward!” she spat. “How dare you threaten me. Do you know who I am?”
“Hey, I’m not just threatening you. I’m threatening your entire world and every shit bag living there. You want war, we’ll give you war, lady. How many of your kind will die, all because of one human woman?”
Her expression faltered, her hair still moving behind her, lashing, her frustration evident in their movement. But I had my finger on the trigger. She was fast. But fast enough to stop my finger from moving half an inch? I doubted it.
“I give you my word,” said Elise from behind me.
The fae woman’s eyes glared at Elise. “And what is that to me?”
“I won’t tell anyone about the technology,” she said. “I promise. I swear it. It will die with me if it means all of this goes away. Just, please, can’t you just leave us alone?”
The fae woman stood in silence, staring, thinking. “There is one other way,” she said.
“What?” I asked.
“Allow me to read her mind,” she said, her glare pointed at me.
“Eat her head? No fucking way.” I almost laughed.
“That is the Chaun’s way, human. My method is far less primitive.”
“But still damaging?” I asked.
“No. There is no damage caused, only . . . discomfort.”
“I’ll do it,” said Elise.
“No,” I said, not taking my eyes off the woman. “She’s lying. She’ll kill you.”
“I give you my word,” she said. “And unlike a human, our word means a truth binding. I will not break it.”
Elise stood up. “Do it,” she said. “Do it and never come back.”
“Detective?” The fae woman looked to me for approval.
I turned to Elise. She nodded. “It’s okay,” she said.
“I warn you,” I said to the woman. “Kill her and I’ll shoot you. Then I’ll come into your world and find everyone you love and shoot them too. You got me?”
She stiffened. “I have given my word! No harm will come to her.”
Then she moved forward, sensually stepping closer to Elise, until she was less than an arm’s length away.
“Lick your lips clean of the salt.”
Elise did so, then the fae woman moved closer still. She leaned in, and kissed Elise.
Elise’s body shuddered. She tried to pull away, but two plaits of hair snapped around her wrists and stopped her. Elise was struggling. She wanted it to stop.
“Let her go!” I cried.
She didn’t, and the kiss lingered on. I pulled the shotgun up.
“Let her go or I pull the trigger,” I warned.
A moment later, the fae woman pulled away, and out of Elise’s mouth retreated a purple-black twisting tongue. It was long and grotesque and the sight of it sickened me.
Elise fell to her knees and vomited onto the floor.
“You okay?” I asked, firming my brace on the shotgun.
She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. Then she nodded quickly.
“Satisfied?” I spat at the fairy.
“Almost.” She wiped a lip with a finger, and I could see a blister forming at the corner of her mouth. “It was always my intention to end your life as well, Detective, as you have far too much knowledge of my kind. I must be assured you will never speak of what you have seen or learned of my world to anyone.”
I handed Elise the shotgun.
“She tries anything, blow her head off.”
The fae woman stepped closer to me. She bent over and placed a cool hand on each side of my face. Then her lips pressed softly against mine.
A crawling, horrible sensation moved into my mouth. Something thick, and sticky, and as it entered, it went deeper into my mouth. I tried to pull away, but I couldn’t as the tongue extended, doubled, tripled in size, crawling up into my nose, into my sinuses, into my ears. My entire head was filling with it, as if an octopus had crawled inside my skull. The sensation was nauseating and distressing.
It lasted but a moment, but felt like an eternity.
Then it began to retreat, the tentacles and suckers and crawling tongues evacuating my skull, until finally, it left my mouth. My head suddenly felt hollow and cold.
I coughed out and puked onto the floor, then I looked up at her, disgusted and violated.
Her expression was blank. “You lied to me. There was no email.”
“No.” I glared at her, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
She nodded, the
n said, “It seems, Detective Gamble, in both our worlds there is no greater pain than that of a parent who has lost a child.” She turned and moved toward the tech, my eyes following her. “I am satisfied the information will go no further than this room. Break your vows to me, though, and I will return.” Her emerald eyes took me in one last time, serious, yet I saw something else in them. Pity. “One last thing.”
“What?” I spat.
“The child you lost, Detective Gamble. He did not die of natural causes.”
And with that, she vanished before my eyes, and so too did the tech.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Elise helped me limp back to the car, still using the shotgun as a crutch, the cold rain washing over us. My body was broken, and yet the pain from my torn ligaments and crushed bones barely registered. My son. My boy, Will David Gamble, had been murdered.
Tears were joining the rain on my cheeks. Heat welled in my chest. I couldn’t handle the truth of it. How? Who? Why? It was impossible, and yet . . . somehow I’d known. The question of how he had died had plagued my mind for so long. Nothing had felt more wrong in my entire life. Wrong because he had died, wrong because I didn’t know how, and wrong for another reason. One I could never put into conscious thought. And now I knew what it was. He’d been murdered.
The pain of his death was unbearable. When Will died, something died within me and left a gaping chasm. And now it was filling with something. Anger. Someone, something, had killed my boy.
Elise opened the door and tried to help me in, the icy rain spitting down over my face, my soaked clothes and hair. And yet I didn’t move. I was frozen; tears were falling.
“What is it?” Elise asked.
I fell to my knees. Elise tried to grab me, but I hit the ground. My palms pressed into the cold, wet mud and I choked on a cry. The pain was too much.
Elise was over me. Trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t hear her. My boy was dead, and worse, he’d been murdered, and the truth of it hurt too damn much. It was too much to bear. There was nowhere to hide from it and the pain wrenched at my stomach and I cried.
I don’t know how long I was like that, sobbing, shaking.
Beyond the Spectrum Page 16