Bloodless

by Douglas Preston

  There was a shuddering crash and the entire structure jarred sideways with a mighty cracking of wooden beams and a cascade of slate shingles as the top began to shear off.

  Coldmoon dove through the open trapdoor, tumbled partway down the spiral staircase before recovering his footing, then continued down at top speed, Pendergast behind him. The staircase crackled like fireworks as its wood frame shattered, showering them with splinters. They reached the bottom just as the entire tower tore away, plummeting into the crowded street with a thunderous roar, sending up a great plume of dust.

  Coldmoon and Pendergast emerged into the nave just as the creature came back to hit the church broadside. It thrashed against the windows, beating out the stained glass and showering everyone inside. The crowd surged toward the doors, panicking to get out amid the rain of glass and falling beams. Pendergast grabbed an old woman and led her out the back door, Coldmoon following with a child, emerging into a small churchyard in the back, while the creature abandoned the church and flew off, resuming its circling of destruction.

  In the churchyard, they paused to recover their breath—and their wits.

  “We need heavier weapons,” Pendergast said as he ejected an empty mag and slapped in a fresh one. “These do minimal damage.”

  Coldmoon checked his Browning. “Listen to me. That heavy weaponry won’t arrive in time. We know how this is going to end; we saw the future—Savannah in ruins, this church burned to the ground.” He looked into Pendergast’s eyes and saw real despair.

  Pendergast reached out and grasped his shoulder. “There is one thing.”

  “What?” Coldmoon cried.

  “Maybe the future can be changed.”

  Coldmoon stared at his partner. There was a new look in his eyes.

  “How?”

  “Don’t follow me,” Pendergast said. And then he was gone without another word.

  Coldmoon turned. The creature was coming around once again, bloody talons extended, ripping into the crowd of fleeing people.

  He had four rounds left. He braced himself, holding the Browning with both hands, and aimed as the monster swept toward him.

  69

  IN THE SHELTER OF the old war monument, Commander Delaplane had set up a makeshift emergency command center, commandeering Senator Drayton’s campaign bus to do so. He was gone—gone for good—and his people had all fled. But the bus was exactly what she needed, fitted out with a police scanner, radio, fast internet, and several flat-panel television screens tuned to news channels. It also had an independent source of power, necessary now that pockets of the city had been plunged into darkness.

  What she was witnessing was incredible, unfathomable—and so she’d tried to push the disbelieving part of her mind away for the time being and concentrate on the tasks at hand. The grandstand had gone up like a bonfire and was still burning furiously. The park was now mostly clear of people, at least those still alive and mobile; left behind was a vast scene of horror, with the wounded crying out in pain and the dead left trampled in grotesque positions on the grass and surrounding walkways. Yellow beams from portable torches or flashlights winked here and there. Some EMTs had arrived and were struggling to do basic triage, but they had few ambulances or equipment.

  The problem was, people couldn’t escape the historic city center except on foot. The narrow streets leading away were jammed with abandoned cars, blocks and blocks of them, many ablaze. Most of the EMTs and fire crews were unable to get through. In addition to the hordes of tourists in town, thousands of people had been bused in for the rally—those very buses parked on side streets causing blockages of their own. People were desperate to take shelter somewhere, anywhere. Her radio crackled with reports of restaurants and hotel lobbies flooding with humanity. And the hellish creature was flying around in a fury, killing indiscriminately, bashing into buildings, and knocking down power poles and streetlights.

  She and her officers were desperately trying to get an orderly evacuation underway, but the scene was proving too chaotic. She’d never seen anything like it. Many people, including some of her own officers, were literally losing their minds.

  A news helicopter had appeared with a camera crew, flying along the southern end of the historic district. She could see the simulcast on one of her television screens in the bus. They certainly had stones—or were just plain stupid. When the monster spotted the chopper, it went straight for it as it might a rival, talons extended. Grabbing a shotgun from the weapon cache, she ran outside the bus just in time to see the chopper spiral down from the sky, crashing just beyond Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. A ball of fire rose up over the rooftops, enveloping the West Broad Library in smoke and flame.

  Delaplane stood outside the bus, shouting largely ineffectual commands into her radio. The monster, having knocked the helicopter from the sky, was now cruising the length of Whitaker Street, flying low. She heard an eruption of gunfire from the direction of the Methodist church. Two people were clinging to a ladder bolted to the steeple, firing at the brute. From this distance she couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the two FBI agents. Christ, they were brave. The monster, annoyed by the gunfire, swooped back around, smashing the steeple with its wings and sending it toppling into the street. Then it clawed at the church’s façade, violently flapping its wings in a fury. Many people had taken refuge in the church, and now they came streaming out like ants from a burning log.

  She got back on the radio. “Where the hell is the National Guard?” she screamed. “We need more firepower!”

  The hopeless dispatcher said the guard couldn’t get through; the streets were jammed.

  “Have them get out of the damned vehicles and hoof it!” She paused. “Put me through directly!”

  A few seconds later, a Guardsman from Operations got on the line. What she wanted wasn’t possible, he said; it was against protocol to abandon their backup firearms, ammo, and equipment in the vehicles.

  “Fly them in on choppers, then!”

  The man told her that Black Hawks, loaded with troops and missiles, were being scrambled and would be in the air in fifteen minutes.

  The eerily calm voice infuriated her. “Fifteen minutes?” she said, hoarse from yelling. “I want them now! And where the hell are those MRAPs you said were on their way?”

  They were, she was told, trying to clear passageways from the interstate through to West Gaston Street and from the Truman Parkway through East President to Bay, but both routes were blocked by deserted vehicles and were taking time to clear.

  “Bring troops up the river, then!”

  They were working on that, she was told, but it wasn’t a simple thing, and—

  With a curse, Delaplane cut off the transmission, holstered the radio, and turned to the officers who had responded to her call. Only twelve. But they were all good men and women—and they were awaiting her orders.

  “Listen up!” she said as she looked down the line. “The National Guard’s on its way. But we can’t wait. Until they get through, we’ve got to take this bitch down ourselves. You all ready?”

  There was a ripple of silent nods.

  “That’s what I like to hear!” She raised the shotgun, ratcheted a shell into the chamber. “Lock and load!”

  70

  PENDERGAST RACED DOWN WHITAKER Street through a hurricane of chaos. Ignoring the shrieks of the creature circling above, he navigated among the half-burnt vehicles until he saw the bulk of the Chandler House ahead and to the left, through the smoke.

  The upper floor of the building was wrecked, and the structure looked unstable, with great cracks running down the façade. Pendergast entered to find the lobby empty and lightless, a pall of dust hanging in the fetid air, the structure still groaning and settling from the damage. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a small Fenix flashlight from his suit pocket and switched it on. Moving quickly, he made his way to the service door and descended into the basement, then raced down the long corridor past the off-limits sign, int
o the graveyard of hotel furniture. It was much quieter down here, the clamor above almost inaudible; much louder were the occasional creaks of the hotel’s old timbers, complaining of the recent assault. Pendergast reached the large wardrobe in the far wall and threw open the door, entering the secret room. A phrase of Constance’s echoed in his mind: Those parallel universes are stacked like membranes on each other. Constance was holding something back…and now he thought he knew what it was.

  Once in Ellerby’s lab, he turned on the light, relieved to see the hotel’s backup power was working. Everything appeared as he and Coldmoon had left it. He saw that the device was off, the knife switch open, the dial twisted all the way counterclockwise.

  Thank God Constance had not gotten here before him. He was certain she realized what he now did.

  He checked his weapon: a round in the chamber and a spare mag. He threw the knife switch to activate it, turned the power switch to the first position, and waited while it hummed to life. When the portal appeared between the two poles—shimmering, streaming with light—he moved the switch to the second position. Turning back to the portal, he filled his lungs with air, took one hesitating step, then abruptly walked into it.

  There was a crackle of lightning; blue arcs of electricity shot out of the portal, and he felt himself thrown backward and onto the floor.

  Slowly, he stood up again, gathering his wits. What had gone wrong? He’d seen plenty of insects come through the portal. The beast had clearly come through the portal. Why couldn’t he make a reverse journey?

  As he went back over his thoughts of the evening, his own words returned to him. The “hole” Ellerby poked became larger and larger as the machine grew more powerful; Ellerby made more and more money on the market…and then it happened. The hole grew big enough for something to come through it. Something from the other side.

  But Ellerby had been using the machine at the higher setting for weeks already, looking an hour into the future. The creature had not come through the portal until recently; the last time, in fact, that Ellerby fired the machine into life…

  And then he understood. Ellerby, possessed by greed or curiosity, had decided to push the machine farther, past its second setting…and in doing so, created a portal wide enough for something much larger than insects…

  He glanced quickly down at the dial that controlled the main power. Grasping the knob, Pendergast rapidly twisted it past the II mark.

  The hum of the machine rose almost to a scream. The portal brightened, its edges beginning to flicker with a furious intensity. The view of Times Square, which had just stabilized across the portal, now faded into a shimmering tunnel, with the Square itself attenuated to a small image at the far end. Those parallel universes are visible as you look down the tunnel.

  Pendergast extended his hand. This time, he was able to pierce the membrane. But he pulled his hand back instinctively when he felt a crawling sensation.

  Once again, he took a deep breath. Then, without allowing himself time to think any further, he tensed and strode into the portal.

  71

  DELAPLANE LED HER OFFICERS across the park and toward the beast, which was now battering down another church, this one on Drayton Street. Seeing its furious assault on a Christian icon just made her more certain this was a creature from hell itself. She wondered if she might be witnessing the Apocalypse—with this the beast of destruction, the dark angel of the bottomless pit as described in Revelation. But whether it was the end or not, she still had a duty to carry out. She’d always been a believer, tried to live as a Christian, and whatever happened to her, God would sort things out. Right now, she had a responsibility to fulfill—to protect the people and kill that bitch monster.

  She led her officers past the burning platform and to the north end of the park, where the brute was now flying up from the ruins of the church. With a screech it banked north toward the river, and she thought for a moment that perhaps it might just fly off. But no such luck: it came back around, huge wings flapping as it gained speed. It was heading in straight and low, following a path that would take it along Drayton Street. As it swung lower, its wings clipped a power pole, sending it down in a shower of sparks.

  Delaplane turned to her crew. “Spread out and take cover among the cars. We’ll unload as it flies past.”

  Drayton Street was packed with abandoned cars, in the roadway and up on the sidewalks. Her officers fanned out among them, crouching behind vehicles and taking aim as the creature came beating its way up the street, fast and low, backwash from its wings thrashing the trees on either side.

  “Wait for my signal,” Delaplane cried. She didn’t want any panicked firing before it came into range.

  It glided still lower. The stench of burning rubber filled her nostrils. She could see it closely now, its bug head swiveling this way and that, its proboscis, like a big-bore hypodermic, trembling and twitching. The entire thing was shimmering with a faint blue light, as if electrified, and at times it seemed almost transparent, more a hologram than something solid. But the death and destruction it was wreaking were real enough.

  She felt the roaring in her ears as the beast closed in. “Fire!” she screamed, and they unloaded as it swept over. The thing reacted violently to the rain of lead, twisting and issuing an unholy screech. It thrashed its wings, tangled momentarily in a great oak, then tore off a heavy tree limb as it reversed flight and plunged down, talons extended like steel traps. The cops kept up their fire as the enraged creature scrabbled among the cars, bashing, crushing, and overturning them as it tried to get at her officers. She watched in horror as it sank its talons into one of them, Sergeant Rollo, rising into the air as it literally tore the man into pieces, then flinging the gobbets away and coming back to seize another.

  While the firing seemed to enrage the creature, it didn’t appear to be doing any significant damage. As she watched, it briefly flickered in and out of focus.

  Delaplane kept up a steady fire until her ammo ran out; she ejected the magazine, pulled the spare from her service belt, and rammed it home.

  Now rage took over. She stood up and, holding the Glock in both hands, silhouetted by the grandstand burning furiously behind her, fired again and again as she cursed and damned the creature to hell, firing until her spare magazine was empty. The creature came at her, its compound eyes glowing; she flung away the gun and yanked out her ASP baton, pouring more curses upon the beast’s approaching head as she telescoped the baton to full length and waited to swing it, preparing for what was likely to be her first and only blow.

  72

  A REVOLVING TUNNEL OF light surrounded Pendergast, at the end of which was the view of Times Square. It was like being inside a child’s kaleidoscope tube: ever turning, ever changing, disorienting and dizzying. The tunnel was a slice or hole bored through stacked layers of light; he surmised the layers were the edges of parallel universes punched through in order to reach the one at the end. They were constantly shifting, moving, folding and refolding upon themselves, advancing and retreating. And through these folds he could see glimpses of worlds: of strange landscapes and endless seas, parched deserts and mountains that pierced the skies, erupting volcanoes and blue glaciers. At first, his skin felt as if it was burning and yet freezing at the same time. This feeling receded, replaced by a tingling sensation. The feeling grew stronger, until it was as if countless tiny fire ants were crawling over every inch of his skin.

  He ignored it; ignored, in fact, everything but the critical task at hand: watching and waiting for the moment when the world he sought came into view.

  He took another step, and another: his feet sank into the opalescent surface beneath him, swallowing him up to his ankles before launching him forward with a vertiginous sensation of negative gravity. The air around him suddenly filled with coruscating streams of tiny, almost microscopic particles, glittering like gold dust as they moved in undulating, ever-changing patterns.

  All the while, Pendergast watched and w
aited as the worlds beyond the tunnel of light flickered in and out, one after another, diaphanous as dreams.

  Then he saw the universe he wanted—and plunged into it.

  First, there was intense blackness, replaced by a brilliant white. Pendergast found himself lying on the ground, unable to remember for a moment where he was, what had happened, or even who he was. The feeling of disorientation quickly passed and he climbed to his feet, scanning the landscape around him. He might have been unconscious for a minute, or for an hour; it was impossible to be sure. His watch—a manual-wind Philippe Dufour—had not fared well in the journey: both the minute and small second hands had apparently spun so quickly that they melted into the guilloche of the dial. As he turned around, examining his surroundings, he nearly lost his footing. Regaining his balance, he realized that the gravity in this place was less than that of Earth—significantly less.

  He was standing on what could have been a plain of salt, except for the fact that it was blinding white—and smooth as silk. He took a short step forward, shielding his eyes. As his foot met the ground again, a small cloud of crystals—like glittering snowflakes—rose up and fell back. The sky was salmon pink, grading upward into black. Wisps of strangely shaped clouds seemed to crawl, rather than drift, across. Gingerly, he took a breath: the air had an unpleasant, oleaginous texture, and it smelled strongly of burnt rubber.