Behind him the sacrifices that Jolene had promised were being herded by the Muhneyht╤the pale folk that some people referred to as Moon-Eyes. The sacrifices were mostly too busy looking at the pale creatures around them to notice her at first, but one of them looked toward her and slowly absorbed her magnificence.
And upon recognizing her for what she was, that fool screamed, as if there were any chance at all that fear or panic would change what was about to happen.
Oh, he tried to run, he turned and he pushed against the tide of others that were being forced toward her, and when a few others looked up and started to panic they tried to get away too, but the Muhneyht were not easily swayed. This was what they had hoped for, prayed for, planned for. Nothing would stop this.
The pale forms pounded their pray into a stupor and carried them forward, eager to see her in all her glory, a pale example of the One, true, but still a spectacular sight to behold.
They called to her and she answered with one of her mouths, unable to resist offering her thanks to them even as she carved the sacred symbols into flesh and uttered the words that had to be spoken and drove nails into the eyes of the meat offering its life to the One.
Far above her, oh, still so far away, but so much closer than ever before, the One sang a long, ululating note that pealed across the skies and brought with it a flare of colors that could not be seen by human eyes.
The Muhneyht responded with a glee that was nearly angelic.
Siobhan cried out in pleasure.
The humans shrieked.
Siobhan’s children shivered in delight.
And the One came closer, closer still. Siobhan grabbed the next sacrifice. The woman stared at the skies with uncomprehending eyes.
Siobhan did her the courtesy of blinding her before her inability to see offended the One any further.
***
Frank roared, his body swelling even more, and charged at the house where Auntie was hiding behind walls and doors and twists into other worlds. She thought to hide away the gifts that he had coming to him. She thought to deprive him of what was his. That would not be allowed.
The squad car stank of the sheriff. He stomped on it, flattened it into the ground with his foot, and continued toward the house as the siren was silenced and the engine collapsed. Gas fumes leaked into the air and he ignored them. The buses were between him and his goal. Frank swatted them aside, ignoring the way the metal groaned, the glass exploded, and the vehicles tumbled away from him as if they, too, found him repugnant.
The air around the Blackbourne house shimmered and vibrated. Most would have failed to see it, but he was not like most. He had been blessed by his Auntie, cursed by his Auntie. And now he would return the favor. He would bless her. He would curse her.
He would own her and he would destroy her.
And he would be with the One as he was supposed to be with the One.
The Other inside of him roared, and Frank liked the sound so much that he joined in.
The house seemed so much larger than he remembered.
That was okay, he was bigger too.
Frank charged, knowing that he would never fit through the door.
That was okay. He would make his own doorways.
And then he would find his Auntie.
And the sheriff, who was still hiding Meemaw’s charms from him.
And he would kill anything at all that got in his way.
***
“I have to tell you, Whit,” Isaiah Blackbourne said. “This is a truly sorry selection of magazines. Field and Stream? Georgia Backroads? Not a skin mag in the stack.”
Isaiah was seated in the single visitor chair in Whit Gramling’s hospital room. He glanced over at the old man to see if he had managed to invoke any trace of fear or panic. The geezer was still staring at him with that damnable level gaze. Even tearing out the throat of the duty nurse who had come in when Gramling had pressed the ╘call’ button didn’t seemed to have freaked the old man out.
Isaiah paused for a moment to enjoy the feeling of gradually building power that he was getting as a result of the ceremony going on right now in the old family place. Ah, dear mother was working away. Toiling in the fields of the Lord as it were. But not the Lord generally associated with that statement.
“So, Whit,” Isaiah said, finally. “Nothing to say? No threats or curses? You used to have a lot more venom back in the day, I can tell you.”
Gramling said, “What’s there to say, you pasty faced bastard? You’re here to kill me, so get it over with. I’m too old to care much.”
So that was it. The old man wasn’t afraid to die. Hell, maybe he’d even welcome it. Couldn’t have that. Oh no.
“I hear you, Whit old pal. I hear you. I mean compared to me, you’re a spring chicken. I was my mother’s first born so I passed the century mark a long time ago. But it’s different for you humans, isn’t it? Age brings pain and loss and suffering. Maybe you’re thinking I’d be doing you a favor by offing you.”
Isaiah warped through the closest dimension so that he was standing over Gramling with his face right down next to the old man’s, and from Gramling’s viewpoint it would seem that he had appeared there instantaneously.
“Well make no mistake, old man. I’m going to kill you. I’m evening up some old scores tonight. That’s why I’m not at the ceremony.” He saw Gramling’s eyes widen. Oh yeah. That got his attention. “That’s right. It’s happening right now. There’s going to be a lot of changes made, as the old song goes. Your world is going to become my world, the way it was in the days of my ancestors.”
“You’ve tried before,” Gramling said. “Tried and failed.”
Isaiah smiled. “You’re right about that one, old son. Things are different this time though. We’re bringing in some folks from the old country to help out. Even a special guest star.” He leaned close to Whit’s ear and whispered a name.
“Oh but don’t worry,” Isaiah went on. “You’ll be dead before all that happens. I’m not even going to kill you slowly as I’d planned. I don’t need to torture you, Whit. I just need to tell you a few things. Like the names and addresses of your children and grandchildren.”
“You fucking cocksucker!” Gramling said, struggling to rise.
“Now there’s my old Whit. Yep, yep. Going to visit the whole family after the path is open. Not only them but your old pal Decamp. Now that one is going to take a long time to die. He’s safe now, huddling in his house with that tasty little Goth chick, but as soon as the ceremony is complete, his wards and spells won’t do him a damn bit of good.”
Gramling was sitting up in bed now, his gnarled old hands twisting the bed sheet. His eyes glaring with hate and yes, finally, with fear.
“Well, old buddy. This has been a great visit. I’d say we’ll have to do it again, but you know, we won’t. Any final curses or threats before I end your worthless existence?”
“Please,” Gramling said. “Please don’t hurt my family.”
Ah, begging. This was a good day. “It will take them forever to die, Whit. And I’ll probably eat the little ones when I’m done. Might even eat parts of them while they’re still screaming.”
Isaiah let Gramling scream once in frustration and rage, then he sank his clawed fingers into the old man’s throat and twisted, sending a fountain of blood spurting across the room.
“Thus passes Whitfield Jeremiah Gramling,” Isaiah said. He plucked a single flower from a vase on the bedside table and tossed it on the old man’s chest.
***
Griffin cursed as he saw the creature’s wounds begin to close. The shotgun loads had done their jobs on the more human Moon-Eyes and the garden variety pale ones, but these things were obviously othersiders. He dropped the shotgun and drew the .45. He took aim at the reforming head of the buck-toothed monstrosity that had recognized Carl and put a .357 through his newly grown skull. A ragged black hole appeared and the flesh and bone stopped repairing itself. The creature slumped
to the ground and Griffin picked another target.
Carl was firing too, and within a few minutes the hallway was full of dead othersiders. Carl said, “Score one for Decamp.”
“Like I said before, the man knows his business.” Griffin grabbed several loose bullets from his gear bag and reloaded. The speed loaders were only good for an empty cylinder. “Problem is, even these bullets won’t stop the more powerful othersiders.”
“How are we going to stop them?” Carl said.
Griffin shook his head. “First we have to find the ceremony and disrupt it. Beyond that, I haven’t got a clue.”
“First things first then,” Carl said. “The trail somebody was leaving seems to have ended and these things came oozing through that wall, so this may be the spot. There’s a door over there anyway.”
Griffin dug into his gear bag and took out one of the fragmentation grenades and held it out to Carl. He said, “Not to sound overly dramatic, man, but we may reach a point where the only way to stop these things is by blowing them and us to hell. Take this, just in case.”
Carl took the grenade and looked at it. “Suicide mission, eh? Well, if it’s us or the rest of the world, I guess that’s how it plays out.”
“Just don’t be in any hurry to use it,” Griffin said. “It didn’t kill them the last time.”
“It did set them back a long time though.”
“Yeah, and if that’s the best we can do, then we’ll try for that. Personally I’d rather end those sons of bitches.”
“And the bitches too,” Carl said with an odd, crooked smile.
The two men stepped up to the door. Griffin grabbed the handle and slowly pushed the door inward. Of all the things he has seen so far, the scene that met his eyes when he looked into that room came the closest to sending Griffin’s reason and sanity running for cover. It was the ballroom. He had found it again. But this time it was filled, wall to wall, with every conceivable variation of Moon-Eye one could imagine, from something resembling a giant, pale slug, to some of the most perfect looking specimens of humanity he had ever seen. And down to the last man, woman, or abomination, they were screaming and chanting and wailing.
But that wasn’t what pushed at the edges of Griffin’s mind. No, it was the great pile of mutilated corpses on one side of a massive stone altar and the crowd of wailing, begging humanity on the opposite side. Even as Griffin and Carl entered the room, a man was led to the altar, screaming for mercy. Griffin knew that this was the fate of the rest of humanity if the Moon-Eyes plan succeeded.
A woman of almost impossible beauty stood behind the altar. She seemed to be the one in charge of the proceedings. She was surrounded by the Blackbourne clan, some of whom Griffin recognized and others he had never seen. Something hung in the air behind the altar. To Griffin it looked like a shimmering vortex of fire. That had to be the gate. How close were they to opening it fully?
Griffin said, “We’ve probably got a few seconds before somebody notices us. I say we go all out and try to reach the altar. If we can do enough damage there, maybe we can stop this thing they’re summoning from coming through.”
“Maybe we should just lob our grenades from here,” said Carl.
“It’s too far. We’d kill a lot of the crowd but we wouldn’t reach the gate.”
“Okay, but how the hell do we get through that mob?”
“There’s more than one kind of grenade,” Griffin said.
He reached into his gear bag and removed a thick blue cylinder, what the cops called a flash-bang. It would make a lot of noise and light and was generally used as a way to clear mobs of rioters. Griffin figured this crowd fit the bill. He also figured that creatures that didn’t like strong light would be particularly susceptible to the flash-bang.
“You ready?” Griffin said.
Carl said, “Throw it.”
Griffin pulled the pin and lobbed the flash-bang into the center of the crowd. He looked away for a second as the incendiary device went off. Then the Moon-Eyes went berserk. Many of them slapped hands over their eyes and screeched. Others scattered, trying to get as far from the explosion as possible.
“Go!” Griffin yelled as he lunged into the gap left by the panicking pale ones. He bulled his way toward the altar, shouldering aside any Moon-Eyes that got close. Not all of the pale folks had been sent running however and as he and
Carl closed on the altar, several misshapen white forms came lurching their way.
Griffin aimed and fired, aimed and fired, just as he had done in military operations in half the third world countries on the globe. He had a speed-loader ready and as soon as his shots were fired, he snapped the cylinder open and jammed six more bullets in, letting the rubber grommet which had held them fall away. A large, and not remotely human othersider came rushing toward Griffin, bellowing as it came. It seemed to be mostly muscle, bone, and teeth and it probably weighed four hundred pounds. But it had recognizable legs and Griffin put a bullet through each knee. As the thing fell he shot it in the face.
A pulpy white tentacle wrapped around his left hand. Griffin spun toward the attacker. The thing was mostly humanoid but it had tentacles where its arms should have been and its face was a mass of writhing feelers. Griffin fired into the center of the face and the thing toppled away. Something slammed into the back of Griffin’s head and he staggered, but he turned, firing as he did and seeing the bullets shear through the torso of something that looked like an oversized fetus with fangs.
The Moon-Eyes were getting over their shock and were starting to close in. Griffin glanced around but couldn’t see Carl. He fired two more shots, then snatched his second and last speedloader and popped it in. He made each shot count, dropping a foe with each bullet. The altar was tantalizingly close. Should he go for the frag grenade? No, still not close enough to the gate.
Griffin switched the empty 45. to his left hand. It was a big heavy gun and would do well as a bludgeon. He reached over his shoulder and drew Decamp’s sword. He sliced the head from the closest pale one and smashed the face of another with the gun. The sword, edged with silver as it was, seemed to have better than normal cutting properties. Though the blade was reasonably thin, it sliced easily through bone and muscle. Maybe it really was magic.
More and more attackers were closing around him. He stabbed a Blackbourne he thought he remembered from fifth grade through an eye, and whipped the sword back and around, trying to clear some room. Something wrapped around one leg and Griffin lost his balance and fell, still swinging sword and gun, knocking out teeth and slicing through flesh as he fell. Blows rained down and Griffin did his best to protect his vitals. Sword and gun were pulled away.
“Don’t kill him!” A husky female voice said. “Bring him here to the altar.”
Griffin was jerked to his feet and strong hands and other appendages pinned his arms as he was pushed the last few feet toward the altar. He felt his gear bag, and thus his grenade, being jerked from his shoulder.
***
Carl caught a last image of Wade moving through the enemy like a tornado through a field of wheat and then he was too busy to do anything but move forward. There was no time, no chance to do anything but focus on surviving long enough to get close to Siobhan Blackbourne. She was as beautiful as ever, as enchanting, but at the moment her sexual magnetism was the farthest thing from his mind. Even if he had been feeling amorous, the image of her punching nails through a man’s eye sockets with her bare hands would have removed any possible desire.
Something came sailing through the air at him. All he could guess was that the long-legged thing had decided to leap in order to get to him all the sooner. It was female, at least he assumed it was by the breasts and the lack of obvious genitalia, but beyond that he didn’t want or need to get any closer.
One more shell. One more pull of the trigger. The shotgun boomed and the thing went flipping to the left, spun by the impact. Thing about leaping through the air like that is you don’t really have any noticeab
le weight when you’re up in the air. He’d caught a few idiots who thought they were street fighters that way in the past.
To the left another thing was coming. He didn’t take the time to aim so much as he pointed the pistol and fired. Of course, he was rapidly running out of bullets.
He didn’t dare let go of the shotgun. He still needed that. So he dropped the pistol when he felt the empty click. The shotgun got shoved into his belt, and he winced at the heat coming from the barrel as he reached for the machete strapped to his leg. Thing about a good blade is it never runs out of ammo as long as you have a functioning arm.
Something bit him in the side and Carl screamed. The teeth felt like they belonged on a sabre-tooth and he brought his elbow down and back and punched into a gelid mass that he guessed was an eye by the way the thing let go and howled. While it was pulling back, he followed through with the blade and took off the front of the thing’s face. It might heal, but it was going to feel that shit almost as much as he was feeling the wound in his side.
There were too damned many of them. They were everywhere and he needed to not have that many between him and his target. That left only one option as far as he was concerned. Wade had been on his left and so he pulled the pin, tossed to the right and prayed he wasn’t about to kill himself and one of his best friends.
Another thing╤this one looked closer to human╤came at him and he dropped low as it charged. The white flesh was hot, muscular and covered with coarse fur. It worked beautifully to shield him from the worst of the fragmentation grenade.
It’s one thing to know that an explosion is going to occur and another entirely to be there when it happens. The sound blew the hell out of Carl’s hearing and the vibrations bowled him backward. Had the Moon-Eye not been on top of him, he had little doubt he’d be dead. The thing rolled with him and most of the bones in its body felt like they’d been broken several times: the solid, muscular form felt like a hot bag of pudding as it rolled with him and the thing’s face was malformed by the impact.
Blind Shadows: A Griffin & Price Novel Page 30