Logan fell to one knee, clutching his stomach.
“Logan! What’s wrong?” Fallon shouted, crouching beside him.
“Dude, wait until the music starts,” Kelly said sarcastically, “then you’ll really need to hurl.”
“Need to call them,” Logan said, wincing in pain. “Tell them to hurry. It’s coming… soon!”
Fallon helped him stand but he felt more like curling up in the fetal position on the cold tile floor. The music started with an energetic flourish of drums and a mournful guitar intro.
Logan scrabbled in his pants pockets with trembling hands and retrieved his cell phone. As he flipped it open, it slipped from his grasp. Julie bent down and picked it up for him. “Thank you…” Logan’s breath caught in his throat. He was staring at the three girls, two of whom were fixated on the stage, but all three of them were fading away as he watched, ghostlike mirages. “Get out,” Logan said to Julie. “Hurry while there’s still time!”
“Ha, ha, funny guy,” Julie said. “Said I like her music. Remember?”
“No,” Logan said. “All of you need to leave. Get out of the mall.”
“We’ll survive the nightmare, Logan,” Kelly said, patting his arm. “Scarred for life, but we’ll survive.”
“If you stay, you’re going to die!”
“C’mon, it can’t be that bad.”
Logan opened his mouth to shout an explanation. Then closed it. Kelly was bobbing her head in time to the music. She wanted to stay. She liked Bridget Bane but didn’t want to admit it. Probably Sadie as well, using her gift card spending spree as an excuse to hang around the mall until show time. Logan scanned the crowd. Hundreds—probably a few thousand—had come to the mall specifically to hear Bridget Bane sing a few songs from her new album. They were standing around waiting, almost entranced, unaware that Bridget Bane was simply the opening act.
Somebody answered Logan’s call, but the mall was so noisy he couldn’t tell whose voice he heard. “Hurry!” he shouted, “It’s happening!” Disconnecting the call, he switched the phone to vibrate mode, and slipped it into his pocket. The ring tone couldn’t compete with the concert and crowd noise.
“Where are they?” Fallon yelled in his ear.
“Couldn’t hear,” he said. “C’mon! Let’s look for it!”
She didn’t ask what “it” was. She knew he meant the rift.
Moving through the crowd proved substantially more difficult than before. Now that the show had started, people within the velvet rope traffic aisle had paused to watch the stage. Fallon caught Logan’s arm. “Mall security office!”
Logan nodded. “Good idea.”
“This way,” she said, pulling him in the opposite direction.
Before they reached the security office, Logan spotted a portly security guard in one of the dark windbreakers at the edge of the courtyard, standing with one foot up on the stationary base of the carousel. Rather than monitoring the crowd, his complete attention was on the provocatively clad singer onstage. The man glared at Logan when he grabbed his arm. “There a problem here?” he asked Logan in a tone of voice that clearly demanded a negative response combined with a hasty departure.
“Yes! A big problem!” Logan shouted. “Everyone’s in danger!”
“You some kind of wiseass, son?”
“No! I’m serious,” Logan said. “Deadly serious.”
“What the hell!” the man exclaimed, suddenly alarmed. “Is that a knife? You brought a knife in here, asshole?”
Logan’s shirt had pulled up, exposing the scabbard buckle and the sheathed dagger sticking out of his pant’s pocket.
The man caught Logan’s wrist. “Gimme that! Right now!”
Fallon screamed.
With the guard momentarily distracted, Logan twisted his arm free and darted across the carousel, slipping between the motionless horses and sleighs which formed two rows around its circumference. A glance back revealed the guard in pursuit of him, talking into a handheld radio and no doubt calling for backup.
Fallon circled around the carousel and met him on the other side. They dodged and weaved their way through the milling crowd, but it soon became apparent that the mall security guards, beefed up in number for the big event, were zeroing in on them.
Abruptly, Logan reversed direction, leading Fallon back toward the stage. “Whatever’s coming will see the stage as a focal point. A kind of nexus. That’s where the rift will appear.” It made sense. The rift had appeared in the middle of a moving bus. A stationary stage, a center of activity in a much larger mass of people would present an irresistible target. The portly guard spotted them and hustled through the crowded aisle. Logan ducked under the rope, with Fallon in tow, and sidled across the crowd to the opposite aisle. The maneuver would buy them a few minutes—
Logan stopped, pointed at the radio station table. “There!”
Chief Grainger and a few of his officers stood near the table, a visible police presence to discourage troublemakers. Hoping Ambrose had given the chief a heads-up, he steered Fallon toward the black-draped table, clutching her hand so as not to lose her in the jostling crowd. “Chief! Chief Grainger!” Logan shouted, waving his free hand above his head. His voice was no match for the wall of sound from the concert stage, but the motion might attract Grainger’s attention.
A hand seized Logan’s collar and a triumphant—and hoarse—voice shouted in his ear, “That’s enough for you, punk!”
Chapter 50
“Logan, what are you doing here?”
“You know this punk, Chief?” the portly security guard asked incredulously with his fist twisted in Logan’s shirt collar.
“I’m acquainted with the family. And Fallon as well.”
“Kid’s carrying a knife, Chief!”
“Logan…?” When Logan nodded slowly, meaningfully, Grainger cleared his throat and said to the guard, “Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Al. I’ll handle it from here.”
“Just doing my job, sir,” Al said, directing one last distrustful glance at Logan before walking away with a bit of a strut.
Bridget Bane had noticed the commotion by the radio table, but presumed everything was under control and launched into her second song, the opening chords of which triggered a rousing cheer of familiarity from the crowd.
Grainger pulled Logan away from the radio station’s table and shouted into his ear, “Logan, you can’t bring a dagger into a shopping mall.”
Fallon stayed close to Logan’s side for emotional support.
“But it’s a—”
“I know what it is, but you could start a panic if—”
“Good,” Logan said quickly. “We need to get everyone out of here. Now! Didn’t Ambrose call you?”
The three police officers who had been standing with Grainger—a no-nonsense female sergeant with short black hair and two younger patrolmen—formed a rough perimeter around Grainger, Logan, and Fallon, attempting to keep the crowd back while the chief assessed the situation.
Grainger spread his arms. “I’ve been a little busy here, Logan.”
“You need to clear the mall! Get everybody out before it’s too late.”
“Why?”
“It’s about to happen again.”
“Specifics, Logan. I can’t clear the mall on a hunch.”
“Horrible carnage,” Logan shouted, his hands balling into fists in frustration. “You wanted to know. I’m telling you. This is your chance to make a difference!”
“Look, Logan, I know you have good intentions, but nothing happened last night. Okay? How can we be sure—?”
“Something did happen last night,” Logan interrupted. “Gideon refused to listen to me. You’re about to make the same mistake. Only much worse. Because this time people will die. Trust me.” Something in his tone must have frightened Chief Grainger. The man lost his bluster and seemed to consider what Logan was saying for the first time. His eyes swept the crowd, the sheer numbers finally hitting home. “Chi
ef, everything has been leading to this moment. Carnifex wants this. We can’t give it to him.”
“So many people,” Grainger said, shaking his head. “How can I just—?”
“A bomb threat,” Logan suggested. Confronted with the otherworldly aspects of the peril, Grainger couldn’t relate the situation to a real world solution. “Tell them. They’ll take it seriously, even if they think it’s a false alarm.”
“Good idea,” Grainger said. He caught the shoulder of his shift sergeant and bobbed his head. “Logan and Fallon, this is Sergeant Raquel Albano. Stay with her while I make the announcement.”
“Announcement, Chief?”
Grainger frowned. “Something about a bomb threat.”
“That a credible threat, Chief?” Obviously Sergeant Albano hadn’t caught the entirety of the conversation.
“The threat’s credible,” Grainger said, then leaned toward her and said close to her ear, “The bomb part is not.”
“Then what threat should we be looking for?”
“You’ll know it when you see it,” Logan told her. “Believe me.”
“Lintz! Gossett!” Grainger called to the two patrolmen. They hurried over, giving their full attention to their boss, but not without first scanning left and right one last time for any sign of an imminent threat. “Gentlemen, we have a situation here. We need to clear the mall in a hurry. Round up mall security personnel.” He gripped Lintz’s shoulder, “Brian, you coordinate this side.” He pointed to Patrolman Gossett, then indicated the far side of the mall. “Mark, you’re over there. Let’s keep this calm and orderly. Fire drill 101, okay? Last thing we need is a stampede for the exits.”
Sergeant Albano led Logan and Fallon back against the wide, poster-filled display window of the Tunes Style music store. Not surprisingly, most of the posters were of Bridget Bane. “Care to clue me in?” she asked Logan, but his attention was directed elsewhere, seeking some kind of psychic spoor that would indicate a rift.
Chief Grainger had stepped up on the modular stage as Bridget and the band concluded their second number. The singer looked a question at him and he whispered in her ear. A moment later her eyes widened. She pushed the microphone into his hands, then stepped back and conferred with her drummer. A moment later her other band mates closed ranks. Grainger tapped the microphone, producing a resounding thunk-thunk from the oversized speakers at either side of the stage and through all the recessed speakers in the mall. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said evenly. “I need you to remain calm and exit the mall in an orderly fashion.”
“This is bullshit!” someone shouted at the stage.
“Yeah, man! What about the concert?”
“What’s going on?”
“There’s been a—a bomb threat,” Grainger said, holding up his free hand quickly to forestall additional interruptions. “Chances are this is a prank to disrupt the young lady’s performance. However—and I’m sure you’ll agree—we need to take these types of threats very seriously nowadays.” Reluctant nods of agreement from the crowd. “Security guards will lead you to the nearest exit. And please,” he looked up to the wall of faces staring down from the second level, “exit on the level where you are now. Not the level where you parked your car. Exit first. Then find your vehicle.”
Logan winced, doubling over in pain.
“Logan?” Fallon whispered beside him.
“It’s too late!”
Fallon looked around the mall searching for the rift.
Logan sensed it was close, almost on top of them.
Unaware, Grainger continued to give instructions. “Keep the stairs, escalators and elevator clear. And thank you for your coop—”
A carousel horse exploded.
In one shocking instant, chunks of kiln-dried basswood, glass eyes, costume jewelry, and gold leaf peppered the crowd. The brass pole, which moments ago had appeared to impale the horse, shot across the stage and speared Bridget Bane’s keyboardist through his abdomen. Crimson blossomed across his white shirt as he staggered backward and fell off the rear of the stage. Bridget Bane screamed first, but members of the crowd joined her, a hundred echoes of horror. Chief Grainger’s dreaded stampede began almost immediately. Those closest to the stage, many bleeding from wooden shrapnel wounds, shoved frantically to escape the kill zone, while those farther away assumed a bomb had actually exploded and that the immediate danger had passed, at least for them. But the sudden rush from those closest to the blast, all the frenzied shoving and scrambling for cover or escape, caused many to fall and be trampled, screaming in pain as they fell under the attempt at a fevered exodus.
Chief Grainger hustled Bridget Bane and her surviving band members off the far side of the stage platform. Bridget tried to rush behind the stage to check on her fallen keyboardist, but her own security team, with “Event Staff” stenciled on the backs of their windbreakers, shielded her and the others, saying “He’s dead, Ms. Bane! We gotta move! Go! Go!”
“Son of a bitch,” Sergeant Albano said. “There was a fucking bomb.”
She started toward the carousel to help the wounded.
“It’s not a bomb,” Logan said urgently. “And it’s not over!”
“Whatever, kid,” she said. “Go on. Let the professionals handle this.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” Logan said, his hand dropping to the hilt of his dagger. He turned to Fallon. “Last chance to get the hell out of here.”
“No,” Fallon said quickly, but she’d lost a bit of color. “I’m staying.”
As Sergeant Albano strode around the stage, the deejay, in his haste to escape, knocked over his table with a crash and sparking of ruined electronics. A dozen red balloons broke free and shot upward, bobbing impotently against the skylights. In his panic, the deejay tripped over the station’s banner and fell to his hands and knees, screaming as if under attack rather than a victim of his own clumsiness. People rushed by, jostling him side to side, none offering to help.
Logan grabbed Fallon’s hand and led her in a crouch behind the fallen table. Lying on its side, the table provided shelter from the mad flow of the crowd and would shield them from subsequent rift eruptions. “Look!” he said, pointing to the spot where the horse had stood frozen in mid-strut for years.
“I see it,” Fallon said. “A dark shimmering in the air.”
“It’s big,” Logan said. “Much bigger than the one on the bus”
“Bigger is bad, right?”
Logan nodded grimly. “He’s coming through this time,” he said. “Carnifex is coming into our world.”
“What should we do?”
Logan gripped the edge of the table nervously. “Hell if I know.”
The carousel lurched, wood cracked and split apart, and a second horse teetered. One of the ornate carriages between horses rose from the platform as if on a hydraulic lift, then flew into the air, a blur of motion until it struck an upper level safety railing and shattered into hundreds of pieces. The debris rained down on the shrieking crowd. A wooden chunk of sleigh rail crashed harmlessly into a penny wishing fountain. But a bench seat struck a woman pushing a stroller and she fell sideways without making a sound.
In rapid succession, more horses and carriages ruptured apart and exploded away from the rocking carousel. The shimmer in the air spread wider—and wider still. A spiked tentacle flashed out of the rift, wrapped itself around a man’s neck and ripped his head off. Rearing back, the tentacle wavered—searching—then shot forward, spearing a young woman with spiky blond hair through her lower back and hoisting her ten feet above the floor. Logan recognized the purple top and low-slung black jeans and felt his stomach lurch.
“Oh, God!” Fallon cried. “That’s Kelly!”
The tentacle whipped forward, like a bullwhip cracking, and Kelly Flexer hurtled through the air like a missile. Her lifeless body struck and destroyed most of the soft pretzel kiosk on the far side of the stage. The tentacle wasn’t finished. It lashed out at a redhead—Sadie Benn
ett!—but she dove through a shoe rack and rolled under a display table inside Best Foot Forward. The tentacle slithered across the floor like a live wire and wrapped itself around the ankle of the girl who’d been standing near Sadie—a brunette with a long ponytail wearing a jean skirt—and yanked her off her feet.
“Julie!” Fallon screamed. “We have to do something.”
Logan pulled Fallon back behind the table. He had his dagger unsheathed. “This can hurt it.”
Julie Young shrieked as the tentacle reeled her in, dragging her inexorably toward the disintegrating carousel. Chief Grainger and Sergeant Albano fired shots at the tentacle to no avail. Logan ran past the stage, his star-dagger in an overhand grip.
At that moment, an impossibly large, booted foot seemed to materialize out of thin air and smash down through the wood of the carousel platform. Logan stumbled in shock—a foot that big!
Logan caught himself before he fell face first but had to force himself to keep moving toward the demon’s imminent point of entrance. Reality split apart. A seam in the space time continuum spread before his eyes and the ten-foot-tall demon emerged with a triumphant grin on his hideously wide face. In a split second, Logan registered the distorted head with the corkscrew horns, too many eyes, some of them milky and blind, the three vertical nostril slits, the too-wide mouth littered with jagged, mismatched fangs, the clothing made from sewn human flesh and faces, the breastplate of bones—and the enormous double-headed battle-axe.
Logan literally gasped in horror.
But he focused on one detail as he raced forward in spite of his inwardly shrieking instinct for self-preservation, and that was the tentacle of proto-flesh connecting Julie Young to the demon’s proto-flesh abdomen. He was tempted to remain at a safe distance and hurl the dagger at the soft non-flesh of the demon’s stomach, but he hadn’t practiced throwing the blade. Gideon had warned him about tossing away his only weapon. Yet Gideon had also warned him that if he was close enough to use it, he was too close.
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