The growing roar ate the sounds of crunched metal and screeching rubber as vehicles splayed across the road and crashed into one another.
"Hold on, Jess."
Every fibre of Libby's being was invested into negotiating the road ahead.
Within sight of the huge sphere of brilliant light, a jumble of cars choked the road to a standstill. Libby screeched to an ungainly halt, nudging into the rear of a stranded sedan. People crawled and clambered across the vehicles, a swarm of ants desperately fleeing a doomed colony.
The wind carried screams from afar. Agonized screams.
Libby kicked the door open and dived from the car. The pistol tucked into the back of her jeans was clearly visible. She raced around to Jess, wrenched the door wide and pulled her from the vehicle.
"Don't look, honey." She thrust a hand over Jessica's veiled face.
Libby looked up and paused, surveying the cityscape one last time.
The darkness swallowing the sea had struck the coast.
The horizon was unravelling as far as the eye could see. The spires of the city shook apart as the darkness surged forth on an endless front.
The mounting rumble shook the earth, reverberating through her until it threatened to shake her apart before the darkness arrived.
A black void now existed where once the ocean swelled. The sky too had soured to black, sucked into the insatiable void. Strands of the city---buildings, trees, streets, and people---broke apart, trailing long lines of chaos into the void as an immeasurable cosmic force ripped the world asunder. As the line of oblivion advanced, more of the physical world unravelled like innumerable threads pulled taut.
Libby's heart tore in sympathy as she watched the city sunder beneath the darkness. "Sean," she whispered.
Somewhere in that swirl of carnage, her husband was lost. The attempted phone call, an anguished effort to warn him, was dashed by a busy signal and an insane compulsion to get Jess away. She rued the compulsion and her impatience. Sean was forever beyond her help and her love.
The darkness pressed on in a relentless tide. Cries of terror merged with the roar and keening screams as flesh and bone were ripped apart. Like the earth around them, man and woman alike were shredded by the void as it engulfed all.
Libby snatched Jess' hand and yanked her up the hill. Scrambling over the jumble of vehicles congesting the road, they struggled toward the light---and hope.
Dozens of others, from every class and culture, merged together in their escape. The elderly, the young, and the infirm were pushed aside, left to fend for themselves as the crowd surged forward.
Libby and Jess were suffocated by the throng as they battled through the maze of car wrecks and elbows.
"You've gotta run, Jess! Run hard!"
"I can't, Mummy. I can't see."
Their escape slowed to a crawl. Hundreds of people clogged the street, clambered over cars, and poured from nearby houses. The rank odour of fear and sweat filled their noses.
With their escape slipping away, Libby pulled the gun free and fired into the air.
Two loud booms, piercing enough to penetrate the encroaching rumble, rocked the crowd. On instinct, most paused or ducked for cover. Libby bolted forward, dragging Jess with her to the forefront of the mob.
She snatched a fevered glance behind. The line of darkness had swallowed most of the city and was unravelling the first suburbs of the foothills.
Few people, if any, behind her would beat the advancing void.
The immense curtain of light scythed across streets and houses. It loomed just a short sprint ahead.
Knots of people ran, screamed, and clumped together, some running from the darkness, some running from the light. Many more stood agape, staring vacant-eyed as the world crumbled around them. Screams, shouts, and the overwhelming roar of oblivion echoed in Libby's ears.
A few steps ahead, a line elderly men and women stumbled forward---delaying their escape into the light.
The shrieks from behind intensified. The void swallowed the hill's base, wrenching the crowds into jigsaws of mist and pulp.
No time left. Libby checked Jess. Her veil was slipping off.
Libby levelled the gun and blasted away. An old couple, hand in hand, collapsed to the ground in front of her. Others hesitated at the fallen, but continued their frantic escape regardless.
Libby dragged Jess over the gunned-down bodies. They scrambled clear and dived through the radiant wall.
The terrible rumble peaked into an all-consuming shriek, only to vanish in an instant.
Silence.
The white light plunged Libby into blindness. The sting in her eyes contrasted with the pleasant warmth on her skin.
Tall, intensely bright figures loomed in her hampered vision---their cores brighter than the brilliant white background. Libby struggled to define them as they approached.
As her eyes adjusted to the intensity of the light, she noticed others---scores of wandering, lost people, perhaps even a few hundred.
The last remnant of the city.
The last remnant of humanity.
She fumbled for Jess. Her veil had slipped free. Luminous spheres of light shone from her daughter's face in place of her once enchanting green eyes. In this sanctuary of light, her glowing eyes seemed to belong.
"It doesn't matter what you see now or who sees you. The worst is over." Libby ran trembling fingers through her daughter's hair. Gunshots and death played through her mind.
Jess looked up at her but said nothing.
An impossibly tall figure appeared in front of them. Perhaps humanoid, parts of it merged with the light, others shimmered into random shapes. Its core was brighter than all else in this menagerie of light. Meeting its gaze stung Libby's eyes.
"Sammael," Libby said.
Closing her eyes, the memory fragments played through her mind. The visitations, the burning inside her, the fleeting euphoria and the lingering sense of exploitation.
Sammael declared in ultra-sonic tones that were more understood than heard, "You have brought my daughter."
Libby cradled Jess, unsure what to say or do. The desperate compulsion which had summoned her here burned away under the scrutiny of Sammael's glare.
Jess stared up at her father with intense nova eyes, evenly meeting his alien gaze. Their eyes locked for long seconds, burning brighter for the briefest of moments.
Dozens of other children stood apart from the frightened crowd. All possessed the fey lines and glowing eyes of their fathers.
"Come," Sammael motioned.
A shimmering, multi-hued portal appeared, framed by the formless light.
Stunned, Libby held Jess tight. Angels ushered children through the rainbow gate.
Jess disentangled herself from her mother's arms and drifted towards the glowing aura of her father.
"Jess, come here, baby," Libby said.
Her daughter looked over her shoulder. Jess wavered, Sammael crept closer.
"Jess." Libby extended her arms.
Sammael's eyes flared, matched by Jess' a moment later.
Jess turned from her mother a second time and wandered toward the portal.
Tears trickled down Libby's face, warm and unpleasant in the light. Her despair focussed into a ball of rage as Jess, the final shred of meaning in her life, began to slip away.
Aware of the weight in her trembling hand, Libby instinctively raised the gun.
"No!" she screamed, and fired at Sammael's luminous form.
Jess stopped. All eyes turned to face Libby. Everything stilled as she stood mute, not daring to move or breathe.
Sammael's aura blazed an intense white-red, imprinting flare stains on her eyes. Pain and heat seared her fingers, forcing her to drop the gun. It fell to the ground, the sound echoless and distant.
Libby's scream caught in her throat, escaping as a choked sob. Her legs, hollow, numb, failed her at the last. She collapsed to her knees.
Other people hovered around her. Gr
ief-stricken mothers, having lost everything, abandoned and left to wander. Exiled by the darkness, forsaken by the light.
Jess and the other half-angels were guided through the portal by angelic hands.
"A second time the tyrant, Yahweh, has sought to destroy our offspring, the Nephilim," intoned Sammael. "This unmaking of creation has proven futile."
The angel's words echoed across the pocket of light and into the empty void beyond. "Our children shall take up arms against the tyrant-lord and walk the fields of Heaven once more."
* * *
About the author:
Shane Jiraiya Cummings lives in Perth, Western Australia. He has been acknowledged as "one of Australia's leading voices in dark fantasy", had more than sixty short stories published in Australia, USA, and Europe, and his work has been translated in Spanish, French, and Polish. Shane has won two Ditmar Awards, and he has been nominated for more than twenty other major awards including Spain's Premios Ignotus.
Shane is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association and former Vice President of the Australian Horror Writers Association. When he is not writing, Shane is an editor and journalist by day and sword fighting instructor by night.
In his youth, Shane was trained in the deadly arts of the ninja, and the name Jiraiya (lit. "Young Thunder", after the legendary ninja Jiraiya) was bestowed upon him by his sensei.
More information on Shane (including his free fiction) can be found online at http://www.jiraiya.com.au.
Interact with Shane on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shane-Jiraiya-Cummings/401910315831) or rate and review his books on Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/jiraiyac).
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You can find Shane's other e-books at all good online retailers:
Novellas:
Phoenix and the Darkness of Wolves (Damnation Books). ISBN: 9781615720552
Requiem for the Burning God. ISBN: 9780987076809
The Smoke Dragon. ISBN: 9780987076823
Collections:
Apocrypha Sequence: Deviance. ISBN: 9780987076830
Apocrypha Sequence: Divinity. ISBN: 9780987076847
Apocrypha Sequence: Inferno. ISBN: 9780987076854
Apocrypha Sequence: Insanity. ISBN: 9780987076861
Chapbooks:
Shards: Damned and Burning, illustrated by Andrew J. McKiernan (Brimstone Press). Free download from Brimstone Press: http://www.brimstonepress.com.au
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
Introduction
Prescience
Virgin in the Mist
Revision Is Murder
Stealing Fire
Firewall
Smouldering Eyes
Shadow of Revenge
Spin the Witch Bottle
Countdown Macabre
On Dark Clouds Borne
Practical Joke
Interlude, With Lavender
Cruel Summer: Sand
Dread Seasons Quartet: Rainbow-Speckled Field
Cruel Summer: Sun
Dread Seasons Quartet: Naked Azure Sky
Cruel Summer: Sky
Dread Seasons Quartet: The Rustle of Autumnal Leaves
Cruel Summer: Surf
Dread Seasons Quartet: Pallid Wisps of Snow
Cruel Summer: Shadow
A Killer Smile
Congo Jenga
R U OK?
Itch
Stop
Postcard From Paris (A Reply)
Song of the Infernal Machine
Burning a Hole in the Sky
Memoirs of a Teenage Antichrist
Love in the Land of the Dead
Wrack
Genesis Six
Shards Page 9