by Joshua Ingle
Suddenly her shoulder was wet, and someone was grabbing her, then spinning her around. She yelped, and barely managed to keep hold of Heather’s keys.
“Hey, stay away from the body,” Virgil said. His uniform looked freshly soaked again, and little red trickles oozed from the wounds on his face. He spoke in a loud whisper.
How the hell did he get down here? Didn’t the guys lock him in the study upstairs?
Crystal tried to run, but Virgil wrapped his arms around her, restraining her. Her left hand still held the kitchen knife, so she stabbed Virgil in his side. He didn’t even seem to notice. Chlorine-scented water seeped from his clothing into hers. “Let me go to the car!”
“Be quiet.” Virgil’s eyes darted to and fro.
“You insane piece of—”
“Crystal, if you leave, the boundaries will spread, and you’ll suck more people—real, thinking people—into the Sanctuary. Normally that’d be inconsequential, but tonight we want to minimize exposure. Minimize death, okay? I came through the building so they don’t know where I am, but we’re sitting ducks out here, so follow me—”
A spattering of water droplets burst from the fountain pool as Heather convulsed, then abruptly stood. Crystal screamed, but Virgil’s hand over her mouth muffled the sound. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” With Crystal in his arms, Virgil sprang backward so powerfully that both of them nearly lost their footing when they touched ground again. Then he let go of Crystal and positioned himself between her and Heather.
Heather’s hair was matted, her skin pale and wrinkly, but her outward appearance aside, she seemed completely alert and lucid. She walked with strange clumsiness, though.
“Heather, what happened?” Crystal asked, less as a genuine question and more to assure herself that this person was Heather. She must have been floating face down in that fountain pool for half an hour…
“Stay back, Marcus,” Virgil said to Heather. Then he turned to Crystal. “Don’t look at her.”
With Virgil’s gaze temporarily distracted, Heather took the opportunity to charge, running faster than Crystal had ever seen a human run. She hit Virgil hard enough to floor a regular person, but Virgil managed to hold his ground—barely—and for a few moments the two were locked in a ferocious embrace, like two football players at the line of scrimmage. Heather extended one arm past Virgil, reaching for Crystal, her hand coming within inches of Crystal’s face. She lost her footing in the effort, though, and Virgil pushed her back several feet.
“Run!” Virgil grunted to Crystal. “Get inside and close the door behind you.”
Heather charged again. Virgil struggled against her. She wore a facial expression Crystal had never seen on Heather before. She looked… crazed. Savage.
“I can take you,” Virgil warned Heather.
Earlier, when Virgil had told her to run upstairs, she’d gone only because of Virgil’s urgency. Now, however, Crystal felt the danger herself. She bolted up the road toward the condo, glancing over her shoulder as she ran.
Water gushed from Heather’s mouth as she coughed out words. “You can’t take me, and you definitely can’t take all of them.” She pointed up toward the condo, menacing in the night. As Crystal’s feet thudded against asphalt, she tried to find what Heather was pointing at, but couldn’t. When she turned back to Virgil and Heather, though, she saw Virgil gaze up at the condo with terror in his eyes.
Crystal didn’t trust Virgil, but that murderous glint in Heather’s eyes freaked her out more than the security guard’s antics. She fled so frantically that she lost a shoe.
As she ran, the crickets stopped chirping. The wind picked up. A chill ran up her dress and then her spine.
“Oh, no,” Virgil said from behind her. She turned to see him bounding after her, his gaze sweeping the rustling palm trees all around them. “Stop! Crystal, stop! You’re not gonna make it!”
Crystal didn’t know what to think, but she stopped about halfway between the fountain and the condo, and turned back to Virgil.
Behind him, Heather was climbing to her feet, apparently recovering from a blow Virgil had landed. A thick broken bone jutted out from the skin in her lower leg. As she stood, Heather carelessly bashed the protrusion inward—with no more hassle than if she were clipping a broken nail—and raced after Virgil, who had a good lead on her.
When Virgil reached Crystal, he assumed a defensive posture, his back to her, his eyes flitting upward, now to the highest corners of the condo, now to the palm trees, now to thin air. Heather’s steady approach seemed to concern him little compared with whatever he thought he was seeing.
But he’s crazy. Isn’t he? “The car’s right over there,” Crystal said.
“We wouldn’t make it to the car. Oh, God.” Virgil cupped a hand over his mouth, and his eyes grew inhumanly wide with apprehension. He looked like a lunatic, and this was no time for his mental breakdown to get worse. Crystal didn’t think she could hold her own against this new incarnation of Heather, whatever it was.
Savage wind whipped through the palm trees, turning them into many-limbed giants with their fronds shuddering in a frenzied dance. Crystal’s hair fluttered all around, obstructing her vision. Virgil jumped at something that wasn’t there, then rotated around Crystal to scare off another invisible opponent.
“Heather’s coming,” Crystal said.
“Stay back!” Virgil yelled, not to Heather, but to the air swirling around them.
Crystal was at a loss. If she ran for the condo, she risked Virgil’s wrath—he seemed awfully wrapped up in his imagined role as Crystal’s protector. But if she stayed here, she could be hurt in the inevitable confrontation between Virgil and Heather.
Virgil rotated around her again and yelled powerfully: “Do not come—one—step—closer!”
While Virgil was distracted with his yelling, Crystal ran out from behind him, having finally decided to make a run for the doors, but he caught her and yanked her back.
“Damn it, Crystal! Stay here!”
•
Thousands of demons—perhaps tens of thousands of demons—circled in the sky above Thorn and Crystal. Their funeral suits were tattered and frayed, some completely shredded. Their skin glared a sickening ivory hue—not the pallor of death as with Heather’s or Virgil’s skin, but something worse. This skin had never been alive at all.
Thorn hadn’t realized until now just how many of them had come here to kill him. Looking up, he saw an endless haze of gray cloth and milky white skin churning in a mighty tornado above him. He and Crystal appeared to be at the center of the vortex. How could he get her to see what mortal danger they were in? She’d never trust him if all she saw around them was windy air. He considered putting her in a trance and compelling her to act as he wished, but even that option seemed increasingly hopeless: the demons would soon blitz them regardless of what they did.
“Crystal?” said Cole.
Thorn almost didn’t hear the soft voice among the howls and whoops of the demon army, but he turned Virgil’s head in the voice’s direction to see Cole, standing by the service door about a hundred feet away.
Cole slowly felt his way forward with his walking cane. “Virgil? What are you yelling about? How’d you get down here? What’s happening? Where’s Crystal?”
“No!” Thorn called. “Go back inside! Shut the doors!” A small faction of the demon horde broke off from the main vortex to sweep down toward Cole.
Cole stopped walking and seemed about to heed Thorn’s warning, but then Crystal yelled: “Cole, help!”
Pain blossomed in Thorn as a demon grazed him from above. He jerked his head sideways and ducked down in front of Crystal to dodge two more of them. “I said stay back!” Thorn called to the demon army, this time with only his spirit voice. “I can’t kill all of you, but I’ll be damn sure to take a few of you with me!”
At least Marcus seemed to be having trouble approaching. He certainly wanted to kill Thorn himself, but dozens of the African demons now heckled him over his cam
paign against Shenzuul and latched on to his limbs, screaming “Imperialist!” and “Elitist!” and making every step difficult for him. Still, Marcus kept hobbling closer on Heather’s broken leg, and despite the demons buffeting him, he stood only a dozen yards away now.
Cole, too, continued his advance. “Hey, Virgil, the cops are coming, you fuck. Let her go.”
The wind’s gusts against Virgil’s body continued, unyielding. Thorn drew even closer to Crystal, and bellowed one final, desperate plea. “STAY BACK!”
But it did no good. The demons surged everywhere now, all around them. The cacophony became earsplitting. Thorn couldn’t even see the palm trees anymore, and he could only scarcely make out the smaller group of demons that was nearly on top of Cole. The main horde contracted even more tightly around Crystal and Thorn, so close that they brushed against him as they flew past. Any second now they would kill him.
This is the end, then. This is how I die. Thorn had always hoped that if this day came, he would go out in a blaze of glory. But now that Hell’s gates yawned before him, he didn’t feel brave or glorious. He felt just as scared as the timid little human girl beside him.
“I’m sorry, Crystal. I’m so sorry.”
Tears streamed from her eyes. Thorn clutched her, closed his own eyes, and braced himself for darkness.
And then, cutting straight through the chaos like a chainsaw through cake, came a raucous, grating, magnificent voice…
“Which one of you cocksuckers wants to die first?” said the Judge.
10
Thorn opened his eyes. The vortex of flying demons slowed, then gracelessly stilled as they realized a Demon Judge floated among them. Fear and confusion bloomed on the thousands of faces hovering in the air in front of the condo. Just as hesitant as the rest of them, Marcus had stopped his approach with Heather. He glanced back and forth between Thorn and the Judge.
When the wind subsided, Crystal looked up at Thorn. “What happened?” She must have noticed the hopeful expression that had seeped from Thorn’s face onto Virgil’s, because she asked, “Are we safe?”
“I said,” the Judge repeated, his usually glib voice replaced by a thunderous bark, “which one of you cocksuckers wants to die first?”
Nearly every demon in the horde looked around at his peers as if to say, “Not me.”
“You idiots think you can interfere with my punishment for Thorn? I get to decide his fate. Not you.”
More than relieved to still be alive, Thorn felt a sudden pang of his old vindictiveness at the awkward standoff. I may yet beat you all.
But then he took another look through the horde at the Judge. Only the Judge. The demon in sunglasses and a V-neck suit floated by the guard’s gate beside the main road, his feet positioned just above the asphalt, his arms splayed wide and ready for a fight. He looked every inch a gunslinger.
But he stood alone.
The demon army seemed to realize this too, and its demeanor slowly changed. They whispered to each other, their voices like an ocean of leaves quivering in a cold wind. “Who is this measly Judge?” they were saying. “We have the numbers. There’s only one of him. No one will ever know…”
How can he be so foolish? Thorn remained as still as stone, lest the demons remember their primary prey.
“I said…” the Judge yelled again, but he stopped when he saw the immense army haltingly drifting toward him. All anger drained from his face, and he cringed gawkily. “… Just kidding?”
Thorn nodded across the way at the peculiar Judge with whom he’d reluctantly shared power during these past few decades. Thorn didn’t need to say anything—the unspoken words were clear. We’ll only make it through this together.
From behind dark sunglasses, the Judge gritted his teeth and gave Thorn a curt, affirmative nod.
In one swift motion, Thorn hefted Crystal into Virgil’s arms and ran.
She gasped a little, but she didn’t scream or yell out. Thorn kept his gait as quiet as possible as he closed the distance between himself and Heather’s car under the portico: sixty feet, fifty feet, forty feet… He could hear the army stirring above him.
Just thirty feet from the car, pain ripped through his side, and he stumbled. Crystal fell out of his arms and a disgusting bloody gash opened in Virgil’s knee as it impacted the asphalt. “Get to the car!” he yelled. Crystal looked up at the sky, then at the revitalized wind jerking nearby tree branches back and forth. Without even looking at Virgil, she scrambled to her feet and bolted toward the car.
Another attacker swooped toward Thorn. He tried to roll out of the way, but pain again bit through him, and he momentarily lost control of Virgil’s body. Virgil’s head dropped a foot and scraped roughly against the ground. Thorn quickly regained dominion over the cadaver, but now several dozen demons were speeding toward him. He stood and ran after Crystal.
He swatted away one demon, but just feet from the car, the rest caught up with him. He wailed in agony as they bludgeoned him, bit him, tried to rip off his arms and legs and head, but he kept fighting his way through the demonic foliage, his pace slowed from a run to a burdensome march. He summoned the last of his strength, flung three demons off of him, grabbed the handle of one of the car’s back doors, jerked it open, leaped inside, then slammed it shut again.
Thorn—and Virgil—collapsed. Intense pain wrapped around him like a shroud. He moaned against it, clenching Virgil’s jaw and wincing at every small movement of his spirit body. Demons flailed against the car’s windows, trying to get inside.
“I can’t do that again,” Thorn said to Crystal, who sat in the driver’s seat. Her hair was a tangled mess after the windstorm outside.
“What about Cole?”
Thorn groaned as he sat up and looked out the car’s rear window. Cole lay prone on the pavement fifty feet behind the car, trying to recover from what must have been a trip-and-fall.
“Cole, wait there!” Marcus yelled, using Heather’s voice. He came into view a short distance away, staggering toward Cole as fast as Heather’s broken leg would carry him. “I’ll come help you.”
“Heather?” Rising to his feet, Cole seemed rightly confused. Hundreds of demons swept toward him.
Crystal jammed down on the car’s horn, sending a piercing honk through the night air. The noise startled Cole and he dropped his cane. Crystal rolled down her window just a sliver. “Cole, run! She’s gonna kill you! Get in the car!” She honked again, then jammed the key into the ignition and started the engine. Cole walked briskly forward.
Marcus started to sprint, causing Heather’s leg to wobble and the bone to jut out dangerously. Cole bumped into the car’s trunk.
“This way!” Thorn said loudly as he banged on the windows. “Around this way!” Cole felt his way around to the passenger door, opened it, and entered. He shut it just as a gust of wind sent a mass of leaves by the door fluttering upward.
Less than a second later, Heather slammed into Cole’s door. The impact sent the car swaying back and forth. Marcus tried slamming Heather’s fist through the window, but the action broke Heather’s fist much more than it did the now blood-smeared window.
“What happened to her?” Crystal said. “What’s she doing?”
Via Heather, Marcus grabbed a large metal trash can and strode out in front of the car. When he hoisted it above her head, Thorn realized he was going to throw it at their windshield. He leaned up to Crystal’s ear.
“Gas,” he said.
Crystal hit the accelerator and the car lurched forward, nailing Heather. The trash can bounced harmlessly off the hood. Crystal wailed as the car ran over Heather’s body, which crunched under the weight of the car. Thorn would comfort Crystal later; for now, he was just glad she’d had it in her. Marcus couldn’t do much damage with a sloshy pile of broken bones and torn ligaments.
“Okay, that’s good enough,” Thorn said. But Crystal pressed her foot even harder on the gas, bringing the car out toward the guard post by the main road. “Hey,
Crystal, Crystal. We can’t go out there.”
“Screw you! And screw this place!” Crystal said, her arms shaking from the effects of adrenaline. “I’m going to the cops.”
The car smashed through the boom gate by the guard station. Its tires screeched as it skidded around some bollards at the corner and sped out onto the main road. The thousands of demons outside lagged behind, slow to respond to the unexpected move.
“Crystal, no! The only safe place for us is inside that condo!”
Crystal pointedly ignored him and took their car a block ahead, onto the road through the park next to the condo. The huge building shrank behind them.
“Are you okay?” Cole asked Crystal from the passenger seat. Crystal ignored him too, but he placed a hand gently on her shoulder. “There’s no need to go to the police station, love. The cops are on their way to the condo. We’ll be fine if we just wait there.”
Crystal’s intent eyes remained on the road. As did Thorn’s. Fortunately, no one was outside at night in this part of town, though Thorn couldn’t tell if that was a natural occurrence or if it was the Sanctuary’s natural resistance to adding more humans. But he worried that if Crystal kept driving away from the condo, the Sanctuary would be forced to throw more souls into this mess to keep up the illusion that they were currently on Earth. Thorn warily eyed every closed shop and dark alley they passed, aware that he probably wouldn’t be able to save additional humans. Hell, I probably won’t be able to save the ones that are already here. And although no people yet existed inside all these skyscrapers, all Crystal had to do to change that was open any door and walk inside.
Then Thorn saw him: twisting around the tops of beachfront high-rises at full speed, the Judge was barely evading a host of a thousand demons, whose bodies formed a massive tentacle that reached out to try and grasp him. The Judge adroitly dodged several close encounters with the tip of the army, then dived closer to the ground and weaved through a row of palm trees lining the road. As the army barreled through the vegetation behind him, each successive tree’s fronds erupted as if a small hurricane had suddenly hit it. Some dead branches even tore off in the extreme wind.