
Apex Publications, LLC
PO Box 24323
Lexington, KY 40524
An Agreement with Hell
By Dru Pagliassotti
Horror, Urban Fantasy
This novel is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2011 by Dru Pagliassotti
Cover art © 2010 by Katja Faith
All rights reserved
www.apexbookcompany.com
Table of Contents
To my colleagues and students ---
"Oh, summon your sons and daughters, The 'circling hills enfold..."
Jack tightened his hands on the .45, feeling the silver crosses on its grip dig into his palms. The protective spells sewn into the lining of his jacket were playing havoc with his nerves, jangling them with discordant warnings of the presence of the mal'akhim.
The devils circled around the broken angel like ants around a dead bird, their claws and tongues tentatively touching, probing, tasting. The angel quivered. One tattered wing twitched.
Jack swore. Still alive. He slid the semiautomatic back into his jacket pocket. He wouldn't get any thanks for blowing a hole through a member of the Heavenly Host. Instead, he slipped out his cell phone and hit speed dial.
"It's alive," he said.
"Dr. Frankenstein, I presume?"
"The angel. It's alive, but there's a pack of devils around it."
"Save it. I'm on my way."
"That's not my job," Jack protested, but Andy had already hung up. Jack folded the phone and stuffed it back into his pocket, then swiftly touched the St. Jude medallion he wore around his neck.
He edged away from the concrete pillar. One of his boots splashed in a puddle of water that was all that remained of the dried-up river.
The devils hissed, crouching and raising their sharp-muzzled faces toward him. Mirroreyes caught and reflected him, and Jack winced. Right. What would Andy do?
He'd pray.
"Pater noster, qui es in caelis...."
One of the devils opened its mouth, its wet tongue lolling in a lewd grin.
"...Sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regunum tuum...."
He forced himself to take another step forward. His heels were loud on the concrete riverbed, and the devils hissed.
"James," the grinning devil whispered, its mirroreyes fixing on him and reflecting a fractured visage. "James, what are you doing?"
A bead of sweat ran down Jack's face. He wiped it off and threw his long red braid over his shoulder.
"Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra."
"Pray all you want, James. It won't redeem you." The devil slid from the angel's side, its flesh slipping from shape to shape as it stalked around Jack's heels. Its narrow head brushed his coat hem. "I think you'll be mine when you die."
Jack stumbled, recognizing Drink and forgetting the next line. Diabolic laughter sussurated through the shadows beneath the overpass. He heard a sound like a bottle breaking against concrete.
"Et ne nos inducas in tentationem," he said hastily, skipping to the end as the sharp scent of whiskey cut through the devils' stink. More laughter. The devils weren't impressed. They pressed closer, their shapes blurring as they smelled his sins and fashioned themselves into temptations.
"Have you prayed for Rose lately?" one asked, looking up at him with silver eyes. Jack recoiled. Despair. He knew that devil, too.
He knew them all. Drink and Despair, Pride and Fear, Violence and Rage, Doubt and---
Bright light swept away the shadows as Andrew's Dodge roared down the dry riverbed, clanking and rattling. The devils lifted their heads, sniffing for the newcomer's motives and weaknesses.
Brakes squealed and Andy yanked on the wheel, turning the Dodge sideways as it stopped. The heavy door clanked open as he stepped out.
"Get out of here, you pests." He lifted his golden pyx. "Go on, before I send you back to hell the hard way."
The devils vanished. Jack sagged.
"Christ! Why don't they ever gang up on you?" he asked, wiping his forehead on the back of his leather sleeve.
"For one thing, I mind my language," the laicized priest retorted. Jack grunted and crouched next to the angel, leaving his partner to mutter prayers before returning the pyx to his glove compartment.
The angel wasn't in good shape. Its wings, one arm, and both legs were broken. Shards of translucent bone glittered in the headlights. Mist poured off its flesh as if it were evaporating.
Its mirroreyes reflected the same incomplete image that had been in the eyes of the devils. Jack looked away, then dragged his gaze back. The angel's skin was too white, too smooth; radiant with an inner fire and without the pores and hairs that would mark a human. No blood showed where its flesh and bone were broken, and instead of breathing, it seemed to only, perpetually, inhale.
The angel's resemblance to humankind was a mask hiding a truth Jack knew was unbearable to behold.
"What do you need?" he asked. "What can we do for you?"
"James Ignatius Langthorn." The angel's voice was strong and sweet, despite its injuries, and light poured from its lips. Jack held his hand in front of his eyes to block the glare from its words. "Andrew Thomas Markham."
Andy knelt next to him, fumbling dark glasses from his coat pocket.
"Do you need anything?" he asked, sliding the glasses on. "A prayer? Confession?"
The angel's one good wing fluttered. Feathers rasped against concrete with the noise of stone grinding against stone.
"Eat and know," the angel said, evaporating into white ash.
The occult alarms rattling Jack's nerves faded. He rocked back on his heels and looked at Andy. The former priest pulled off his sunglasses and sat still, letting them dangle from one hand.
"Why do they always do that?" Jack asked. "I hate it when they're obscure."
"Angels aren't talkative."
"Raphael was."
"Raphael was an archangel. An archangel wouldn't get taken down by a pack of devils." Andy ran his thumb through the ash and crossed himself, leaving a smudge on his forehead, lips, and Hawaiian shirt. Then he dipped his thumb again and repeated the gesture for Jack.
Jack licked his lips. A fire of wine and honey burned the tip of his tongue. For one fleeting moment a single, piercing note drilled through his ears, and he saw a furrowed field streaming with blood, a bone staircase that spiraled down into darkness, worms seething through raw meat, and a hallway full of doors slamming shut.
And in the next breath, nothing.
He looked down, but a cold breeze was blowing away the rest of the angel's powdery remains.
After a moment, the two men stood. A Styrofoam soda cup rattled down the concrete riverbed, and the wind shook a chain-link fence. Jack turned up his jacket collar. This was the first time he'd ever visited Southern California in the winter. He'd thought the weather would be warm, but even though the days stayed bright and sunny, the wind held a bite.
Andy checked his watch.
"We'd better get on the road," he said. "It's almost four. If we hurry, we'll be off the 405 before rush hour."
They didn't discuss the angel until they'd picked up a late lunch---or an early dinner---at McDonalds. The sun was low by the time the battered Dodge pulled up in the campus parking lot. California Hills University looked deserted, students and faculty disinclined to linger outside in December's chill. A few lights streamed through the curtains of the apartments in the tiny visiting faculty complex, but nobody peered out to wave to them as they hurried up the walk.
Jack set the greasy bags on Andy's kitchen table while his friend woke up his laptop and began to peck at the keyboard.
"Two Big Macs, fries, an apple pie, and a milkshake," Jack grumbled, separating out his salad and throwing the dressing packets into the trash. He opened Andy's refrigerator and pulled out the low-fat, low-sodium dressing he'd bought three days before. "God must have given you a plenary indulgence for cholesterol."
"Mmm-hmm," Andy grunted, not really listening. "You saw a field covered with blood?"
"Yeah. Bone stairs. Worms or maggots. Doors slamming."
"Any idea where that field was located?
"Could've been any field in the world." Jack dropped into a metal folding chair and emptied the dressing over the salad, turning it into balsamic soup. "I know some songs about bloody battlefields, but it looked like plowed land to me."
"The blood could be literal or symbolic."
"Life would be a lot easier if angels saw the world the way we do."
"No doubt. And religion would be a lot easier if the Bible were literal."
"Does saying things like that ever get you in trouble in the religion department?
"That? No."
"Something else?" Jack looked over at his friend, who was frowning at the laptop screen. A clear, bluish light lit his face, reminding Jack of the radiance that had streamed from the angel's lips as it had spoken his name.
His name. He knew, intellectually, that God was aware of his name, that God knew him more intimately than any mortal could. But to know didn't mean to forgive. The dark, cancerous-looking holes in the reflection that he'd seen in the devils' and angel's eyes served as a grim reminder that he was a long way away from a state of grace.
"Nothing important. I'm caught up in an administrative pissing match," Andy said. "I told you my invitation came directly from the university president, didn't I?"
"Yeah. They're rebuilding the religion department, and he wanted a Catholic viewpoint." Jack shrugged. "Strange choice for a Lutheran university."
"It's not rabidly Lutheran, and there's a large Catholic population in the area." Andy made a face as the computer showed him something he didn't want to see. He stood, running a hand through his white hair, and joined Jack at the kitchen table. "You know, I don't think there's any significant difference between a pint of low-fat dressing and a few ounces of regular dressing. Why are you on a diet, anyway? You look fine."
"Don't you watch TV? Half the country is fat."
"You're not. Now that you're on the wagon, you look a lot better." Andy unwrapped his burger, using the paper as a plate, and dumped his fries next to it. Jack eyed the crispy golden morsels with open longing. "Help yourself. A couple fries won't kill you. This isn't some kind of midlife crisis, is it? Or could it be, pray God, you've finally got a girlfriend?"
Jack made a disgusted noise and grimly scooped up his floating strips of iceberg lettuce and toothpick-shaped carrot slices. For a celibate man, Andy seemed intent on Jack finding someone to replace Rose.
Nobody would replace Rose.
"Just stayin' healthy," he said.
"Uh-huh." Andy's gaze was probing. "You've been cutting back on the cigarettes, too. That's good. That's really good."
"It's your apartment." Jack avoided his friend's eyes. "So, you gonna tell me what we were doing today?"
Andy hesitated a moment, then let the change of subject stand.
"You know as much as I do." He looked solemn as he wiped his mouth on a thin paper napkin and leaned back in his chair. "Someone emailed me those GPS coordinates anonymously. Someone who knew the pack would be on a hunt."
"Anonymously." Jack mentally dredged through what little he'd gleaned about computers from TV shows and mystery novels. "A hacker?"
"It doesn't have to be that complicated. The message could have been sent through any remailer that strips off the return address."
"Is that hard to do?"
Andy smiled. "You know, Jack, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I'm twenty years older than you are, and I know more about the Internet than you do."
"I don't have time for the Internet." Jack reached into his shirt pocket and laid a pack of Marlboros on the kitchen table. He glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes. He'd let himself have a cigarette in twenty minutes.
The sound of a broken bottle echoed in Jack's memory. He restlessly flipped the cigarette pack over.
Andy had removed all the bottles from the house the day Jack had arrived. There was nothing in the apartment to tempt him except memories and old habits and the lingering smell of whiskey conjured up for him that afternoon.
Jack looked at the clock again. Not even a minute had passed. He stood, grabbing the trash off the table.
"So, who wants you involved in mal'akhim business?"
"Could be anybody." Andy kept eating. Jack jammed the bags into the can under the sink, catching a glimpse of himself in the black mirror of the kitchen window. No holes in that reflection, just a man in his mid-forties affecting aging-biker chic. He refocused and looked outside at the lights across the narrow courtyard. His heart was pounding. He took a deep breath, trying to force it back into a slow, steady beat.
"So what's going on in the department?" he asked after a moment, turning his back on the darkness outside.
"The chair doesn't want me."
"Doesn't he take orders from the president?"
"She, and yes, technically she does, after she takes orders from the dean and provost, anyway. But they disagree over which direction the religion department should be taking. The administration and regents want the department to focus on the Old Testament, and the chair wants more social justice-type professors."
"But you're an Old Testament candidate."
"Me and Todd, the other visiting professor. I think we were both hired over the chair's head. And I don't think either of us is going to get our contract renewed next year."
Jack walked back to the kitchen table and sat down. Andy had finished his burgers and was picking at fries and slurping on his chocolate milkshake. Jack wanted to light a cigarette just to kill the smell. His stomach growled.
"Todd's the guy across the courtyard?"
"Yes. Apocalyptic scholarship in the Judaeo-Christian tradition."
"You two get along?"
"We haven't talked much. He's a big man, but quiet, even at departmental meetings. He works well with the students, though."
Jack picked up a burger wrapper and looked at the nutritional information, reminding himself why he was sticking to salads. "Don't the students like you? I'd think they'd get all excited about angelology."
"I don't get to teach angelology. Two of my classes are Introduction to Christian Studies, and I've got a small special-topics course on Christian-centered cults. I talk about angels a little there, but the students don't like what I have to say." Andy finished the fries. "They think angels are sweet, cuddly little things that watch over them and keep them safe. You should see them squirm when I make them take a closer look at what the b'nei elohim actually do in the Bible."
Jack nodded, crushing the wrapper into a tight little ball.
"Anyway," Andy continued, "it's all too old-fashioned for the chair. She doesn't think the Old Testament is relevant."
"Your position at Belleville College is still secure, right?"
"Oh, as secure as it ever was. I'm sure I'll have no trouble going back. I thought CHU might make a nice place to retire, but I'll do all right in Belleville, if I have to."
"Retire?" Jack dropped the wrapper and studied his friend. "You?"
"I'm sixty-five, Jack. I'm ready."
"What would you do?"
"Oh, I don't know." Andy smiled. "Buy a Harley and hit the road with you, maybe. Find America and fight the forces of Satan."
"Christ." Jack shook his head. "You're not serious."
"No, not really. I'm at more of an RV stage of life. I might buy a big old Streamline, tour the national parks, and write a few more books. I hear there's a senior ranger program that would reduce my camping fees."
"You been thinking about this." The idea of Andy retiring troubled Jack.
"A little. The recession slowed me down, but I'd like to be out in five years. That's probably another reason the chair doesn't want to hire me---she'd prefer younger blood. I mean, that's what caused the problem in the first place. The campus was founded just over sixty years ago, and now all the faculty who were hired back when this was Cal Hills College are retiring and leaving the departments short-handed."
"I didn't know this place was so young. Guess that explains all the construction," said Jack. "So why hire an old man like you at all?"
"Academic excellence." Andy grinned. "I've got age and the Old Testament against me, but my publication record balances that out. CHU might decide it's worth a five-year investment just to get my name on its professor emeritus list."
"This is why I work for myself," Jack said, shaking his head. "I hate all that bureaucratic wheeling and dealing."
"So do I, but I enjoy a steady paycheck and benefits. Not to mention a pension. Do you ever think about where you're going to be when you're my age?"
"Too late for me to worry about that now," Jack said, looking away. "I don't have much of a resume. Folk singing, bike repair, and high magick. Not exactly CEO skills."
"Motorcycle repair might get you somewhere."
"In a small town, maybe. But it wouldn't be the kind of job you're talking about, with pensions and---and health insurance and all that."
He could feel Andy's eyes on him.
"This might be a rude question, Jack, but do you have any savings at all?"
"Nope." Not anymore. He'd had a few thousand put away for a rainy day, but then it had rained, and the hospital bills had eaten up everything he'd saved. "Don't matter. I'm not gonna live to your age."
"But you're eating better and smoking less. That's a good start. And if you retired from the magick business...."
Jack gazed at his reflection in the window and shrugged, feeling uncomfortable.
"Come on, what's going on?" Andy demanded. "I've been biting my tongue for days, waiting for you to start talking. Why are you here? Is that angel linked to you? Did you show up on my doorstep with the mal'akhim on your tail?"
"No!" Jack gave his friend a startled look. "No, nothing like that. I told you, I was working with Ma D'Orsy, helping her and her family rebuild and lay down some new blessings. Then Pearl gave me a call and I headed up to Chicago for a few weeks, but it was nothing occult, just tracking down her oldest."
"He quit his medication again?"
"Yeah. Ended up in St. Louis."
"And after that you drove here to see me? Without even calling?"
Jack hesitated. "I shoulda called. I had kind of an accident, and I wasn't thinking too well---"
"Jack," said Andy, "would you please try to talk like a man who almost earned his college degree? What does 'kind of an accident' mean, anyway?"
Jack began playing with the cigarette pack again.
"It was kind of a stroke."
"What?" Andy straightened up. "A real stroke? Or a magickal attack?"
"A real stroke," Jack said, looking away. "Doc said I got high blood pressure, touch of atherosclerosis. Too much drinking and smoking and stress."
"Good heavens, Jack, why didn't you call me? Where were you? You know I would have flown out." Andy sounded more angry than worried.
"I know. I didn't want you bothered on my account."
"That's the most ridiculous thing you've ever said. How bad was it?"
"Well, I'm here." He'd never liked talking about personal matters. He hunched his shoulders, stripping the cellophane off the Marlboros. "I got lucky. No permanent damage. They wanted me to stick around, but what the hell, Andy, I don't have insurance. I can't afford expensive drugs. I've been tryin' to stay a little healthier on my own."
"How long ago was it?" Andy was at his laptop again, working on the keyboard. "Did you get your medical records when you left?"
"October. I didn't ask for any paperwork. I just wanted out of there as fast as I could."
Andy growled, his eyes moving over the screen. Jack studied the scuffed toes of his boots in the harsh kitchen light.
"Did you have surgery?"
"Just drugs. I guess it wasn't a real serious stroke."
"All strokes are serious. I can't believe you didn't call me. I thought we were friends. And you're still smoking?"
Jack dropped the pack. "I'm trying to quit. I tried the patches, but they don't do anything for me, and they're expensive. And this is why I didn't say anything. I knew you'd make a fuss."
Andy clicked a button, still reading.
"You have to quit. Cold turkey."
"I'm working on it. Let me handle this my way, Andy." The pack had never looked so enticing. Jack looked back at his friend. "And get off the computer, would you? I hate talking to your back."
Andy pulled his hands away from the keyboard and turned.
"All right. Then talk to my face." He stood and walked back to the kitchen, pulling the curtain over the sink window. "How did it happen?"
Edward Todd watched the kitchen curtain close and finished his beer. He'd hoped for some sign that they'd acted on his message, but their argument could have been about anything.
He pulled his own blinds shut and flipped on the lights. His apartment was better furnished than Markham's, with enlarged Doré prints on its walls and a great deal of black leather and polished chrome. The overall effect was one of a modern, perhaps slightly standoffish intellectual, which was exactly the image he sought to convey.
Interior decoration meant nothing to him, but he understood the value of camouflage. As a taller than usual black man, he found it difficult to fit into the university's predominantly white environment. He strove to normalize himself in as many ways as he could, from his carefully studied uniform of white Oxford shirts and khaki pants---the bland uniform of the male Southern California humanities professor---to the bottled beer in his refrigerator, which was tasteless to his numbed palate but the same brand he'd seen in ice chests at the faculty picnic.
Normalizing himself included not mentioning his various perceptual difficulties unless it became unavoidable.
"Peeping is a petty vice for the Hellbender."
The voice scraped like dry branches. Todd turned and regarded the dark mass that had manifested on his couch. A sleek, raptor-beaked head bared sharp teeth at him while bony, multijointed legs preened each other. Bits of burnt-looking skin drifted over the black leather and the sisal mats beneath.
"Don't dirty up my flat, Amon."
The demon ignored him.
"I can smell the blood pulsing along the edges of the possibility, and I thirst for it, just as you do." Its dry, lizardlike tongue whipped out and tasted the scraps of flesh that had fallen from its flanks. "Those two humans are of no use to you. They are enemies of the defiant."
Todd walked to the kitchen to throw out his empty beer bottle.
"Maybe that's why I want them. I've been spending too much time with you. I need Andrew Markham to maintain my neutrality."
Amon hissed, its head dropping and its angular body coiling around to face Todd. It tasted the air with its tongue, seeking Todd's mood.
"You do not need to do that, beloved. You need me. You need an ally. I am the only one of the mal'akhim who will stand by you until the bitter end."
"Are you?" Todd walked back and dropped into his chair again. It creaked under his weight, sounding like Amon. "What brings you here? I have one last lecture to write."
Amon's beak snapped with disgust. "Tell me what you are doing. Why did you intercede with the hunt? The nephilim groan for lost flesh."
"It's not my concern if the pack was too cowardly to protect its meal."
"You wanted those two to find Melech. Why? What are you doing?"
"I wanted to know whether the priest still dabbles in the occult."
"Why? Better to leave sleeping occultists lie."
"That won't be possible much longer, Amon."
The demon slid off the coach and slunk forward, its bony legs moving like an insect's as it neared Todd. Skin peeled and left dark, ashy marks on the mats.
"Talk to me, beloved. Are we not brothers, you and I? Have we not shared the same flesh?" Its flank rasped against Todd's leather shoe and it rested its beaked head against Todd's leg. "Tell me what you see. Tell me what is coming."
Todd regarded the demon with annoyed affection, then reached down and ran his large hand over its bony head. Its skin was cold and smooth. A thin strip of flesh peeled off under his palm like a black ribbon, far darker than his own skin.
"Stay and watch. The probabilities are coalescing. You may get your fill of blood yet."
Amon crawled into his lap. Its tongue touched Todd's wrist, as cold as ice.
"Whose side will you be on, Hellbender? Mine or his?"
"I only stand on my side." Todd leaned back in his chair and ran the ribbon of skin around his fingers. Then he coiled it into a small ball and thrust it into his mouth. His teeth closed, and he tasted the frozen burn of hell. "I'm the only one I can trust."
"You can trust me, my love."
"Can I?" He was skeptical, but he folded up his shirt sleeve, anyway. The demon wrapped its sharp limbs around Todd's forearm and buried its teeth in Todd's wrist. Todd sighed and closed his eyes while Amon nursed, studying the shifting crystalline shapes of heaven and hell as they turned and transmuted before him.
The next day he stood before his afternoon class, the sleeves of his Oxford shirt rolled down to hide the marks Amon had left in his flesh. The twenty students in his small class were struggling with the penultimate lecture of the semester. He'd spent twenty-eight lectures introducing them to the apocalyptic tradition that ran through the Old and New Testaments. The last two weeks had been spent on St. John's Revelation, discussing it from historical, political, and eschatological perspectives. His students had liked his stories about the Antichrist and Satan, but now he was leaving the textbook behind and turning the tables on them.
"But," one of the more conservatively Christian students, Jarret, argued, "how can you say there's no Satan?" The clean-cut young man flipped through his Bible. "Jesus Himself names Satan in Matthew 4:10."
Todd smiled, his colorblind eyes roaming over the faces arrayed in front of him. At first they'd all looked the same---a generic array of white teenagers, all blandly pretty, all wearing the same mall-purchased clothing and speaking with the same middle-class inflections. After fourteen weeks he'd learned the names of about a third of his class; those students who were unusually insightful, illiterate, outspoken, or tardy. The best and the worst stood out while the rest festered in average anonymity, no doubt wondering why he never addressed them by name.
He knew his students the way the mal'akhim knew humanity.
"There's another reference, too?" said one of the front-row students, Alison. She was one of his higher-scoring students, although everything she said sounded like a question. "In Job?"
"And the serpent in the Garden of Eden," ventured a thin young man in the third row, a film major who was taking the class to earn his required religion units. "I mean, wasn't that, like, a metaphor for the devil?"
Todd nodded with bland encouragement, waiting for more ideas to trickle forward.
"Legion," Jarret added. "Jesus cast out Legion into the herd of pigs."
"Whoa, Exorcist stuff," cracked another student.
"No way, man, Exorcist was Pazuzu," objected the film major.
"Yeah, whatever. You're the expert on bad movies."
"Classic movies."
Todd cleared his throat. Pens rose and poised over notebooks.
"I didn't say there were no devils," he said. "I said there was no Satan; at least, not as he's come down to us in literature and film. The Old Testament uses the term ha-satan, which means 'the adversary' and refers to an office rather than to an individual."
"Like 'the Christ,' " Jarret said quickly.
"Correct," Todd said. Jarret was borderline fundamentalist, but he knew his Bible. "Ha-satan suggests an opponent or obstructer. The word described beings that were clearly angels, such as the angel of Yahweh in the tale of Balaam's ass." He paused for the requisite snickering. "In Job, we see ha-satan in company with the b'nei elohim, the sons of God, and coming to earth as a cosmic messenger, or mal'akh. The entire Book of Job can be read as the angel ha-satan doing its job; that is, testing human faith."
He paused for the stir that accompanied his words. Onionskin Bible pages flipped.
"Now, later, in the Book of Zechariah---3:2---we see ha-satan rebuked by another angel for accusing Joshua, a good man. The opponent still isn't evil, but it might be a little overeager."
"But Satan did fall from heaven," Jarret objected. "We read about in Luke."
"True. By the time the gospels were being written, the concept of Satan as an individual rather than an office had solidified in Christian tradition for a variety of political, psychological, and narrative reasons."
"Dr. Todd? If Satan's just a title, then why do we use it like a name? Should we call him Lucifer, instead?" Alison asked.
"Lucifer was, most likely, a reference to a Babylonian king. As far as using 'Satan' goes, Biblical scholarship has become increasingly precise over the centuries, but we're still laboring under traditions that arose when people were still reading texts that had been poorly translated from the original Hebrew and Greek. This brings us back to my original point: there is no individual Satan, Prince of Darkness, as we understand him today."
"Well, if there isn't a Satan, then how can there be demons?" the film major asked.
"More properly, what you're referring to are devils. 'Demon' comes from the Greek daimon, or spirit. A daimon can be good or evil; it's natural and uncontrollable. Devil is a more accurate term when discussing the minions of the New Testament's Satan because, like ha-satan, the Greek diabolus suggests an adversary or obstruction." Todd looked around as the students dutifully wrote that down. "Devils have a long history in human religion and folklore, just like gods; we find traces of pagan gods and devils in the oldest books of the Bible. Angels, as well. Michael and Gabriel are the only angels named in the Old Testament, and both come from Babylonian-Chaldean sources."
"But there are a lot more angels than those," the film student protested. "I can Google on angels and get, like, hundreds of names."
"Only three angels are named in the Bible; Michael and Gabriel, as I said, and Raphael in the Book of Tobit, which is part of the apocrypha to you Protestants in the room, but canonical for you Catholics. Most of the angel names you'll find on the Internet come from the Koran, which was written after the Old Testament, or from the intertestamental Book of Enoch. Others come from traditions and legends or were derived from Zoroastrianism. And, I'm sorry to say, quite a few angelic names are mere fabrications invented by medieval and Renaissance authors of magical grimoires."
The students scribbled in their notebooks, some looking surprised. Todd found it dismaying that people who called themselves Christians could know so little about their beliefs. Sometimes he was tempted to open a door to hell for them. How would they react to Amon slinking through the classroom whispering sweet temptations, or an angel speaking to them in eye-searing splendor?
"So, was there a real angel that fell from heaven, or what?" a student asked.
"Judaism doesn't have any tradition of fallen angels; it conceives of God as all-powerful and all-good. Christianity recharacterized Judaism in a way that more closely reflected Persia's Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism pits Ahura Mazda, the god of light, and Ahriman, the god of evil, against each other in a war for the world. Zoroastrians considered the two powers approximately equal, and later Gnostic traditions put evil in ascendance. Christians, of course, believe that evil is less powerful than good; that's how the fallen-angel story evolved. You'll find the first references to a damned devil and fallen angels in the New Testament. Jarret, would you read Matthew 25:41?"
Jarret dutifully flipped through his Bible and read aloud in the rolling voice of a future preacher: " 'Then he will say to those on his left, Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.' "
"The Revelation of St. John goes into even more detail, although we've already discussed why it should be interpreted very cautiously...."
After class, Todd stood in the hall having his usual polite disagreement with Jarret.
"Well, what if Zoroastrianism was, you know, humanity seeing the fight between God and the devil but not understanding it?" Jarret was objecting. "Maybe the Z's and the Jews saw parts of the truth but got it wrong until God sent Jesus down to clear things up for them."
"Hello, Jarret. Good morning, Edward," said Andrew Markham, walking down the hall with a bundle of books under one arm. He stopped, and students broke and eddied around them.
"Good morning, Professor Markham. I was just talking to Dr. Todd about his class," Jarret said. "I don't see how anybody who calls himself a Christian can say there isn't a devil."
Todd wondered whether his colleague would take the student's side, but Markham just smiled.
"Were you lecturing about the history of hell today, Edward?" he asked.
"Very briefly."
"Dr. Todd told us about Hades and Sheol, but I think they're just different names for hell."
"There's a Catholic tradition---it started with St. Augustine, as I recall---that anybody who rejects God's love is already in hell," Markham said. "Hell doesn't have to be someplace you go after you die, Jarret. It can simply be a matter of living without accepting God's grace."
Todd gave the former priest a sharp look, but Markham didn't seem to be directing the words to him in particular.
"The Bible talks about everlasting fire," Jarret insisted.
"Don't you feel your face burn when you're embarrassed, or angry, or frustrated, or in despair? All those times you feel like God has abandoned you?" Markham patted Jarret on the shoulder. "Come by my office sometime if you want to talk more about the subject. But if you don't hurry, you're going to be late to your next class."
"It's just water polo practice," Jarret said with a cheery grin. "Bye, Dr. Todd. See you later, Professor Markham."
"I'm glad to know you're disturbing the students, Edward," Markham said. "I've almost stopped caring what they believe, as long as I know they've thought about their beliefs."
"I agree," Todd said. Markham fell into step with him, greeting students as they walked through the rapidly emptying hall and headed upstairs to the faculty offices.
"So how has your first semester been?" Markham asked. "Are you looking forward to finals as much as I am?"
"I expect so."
"Every semester I thank God that I'm finally on the right side of final exams." Markham stopped at his office door. "You know, we haven't had much chance to talk, Edward. Why don't you come over for dinner tonight? My friend Jack is making shrimp Creole. He likes it hot, but I can have him cut back on the spices, if you like."
"I prefer spicy cooking," Todd replied, truthfully. He couldn't taste anything that wasn't overspiced.
"Then we'll see you around seven." Markham waved and Todd returned the gesture, continuing down the hall to his own office.
So, things were starting to fall into place. Todd studied the probabilityscape as he walked and felt a tingle of anticipation.
Jack strolled along the edge of the north campus expansion. At four-thirty, the shadows were lengthening and the balmy winter day was cooling down with desert rapidity. The new construction continued, however. California Hills University wanted to get as much done as possible before the winter rains began.
He'd spent several hours in the Scandinavian Library, a collection of family artifacts and old leather-bound books housed in the Gudrun Ranch House at the heart of the campus. Only about half the books were in English, but he had enjoyed chatting with the library's elderly caretaker, Dr. Dunstan Graeme. Graeme had offered to teach him a few Scandinavian folk songs if he brought his guitar next time.
It's good to be back on a campus again, he thought, jamming his hands into his jeans pockets. He could feel the tension of next week's finals in the air. Students hurried from their classrooms to their dorm rooms with looks of restrained panic, clutching books and cups of steaming coffee. He remembered what that was like.
None of them realized how lucky they were to have this brief lull in their lives before entering the responsibilities of independent adulthood. Jack had never appreciated college, either, before he and his friends had gone to Anchorage and his world had gone to hell.
He crouched on the plowed dirt and pulled a pack of Marlboros from his jacket pocket. He'd bought it at the corner drug store that morning, after waking up to find that Andy had flushed all his other cigarettes down the toilet. They'd argued, but now he felt a twinge of shame as he fingered out a fresh cigarette. Andy was just trying to protect him.
As always.
He rolled the cigarette between his fingers and watched the bulldozers dumping loads of dirt into the back of a truck. One of the construction workers ambled over to him. Jack straightened and stood.
"Neighbor?" the worker asked genially.
"Just a visitor. Smoke?"
"Thanks."
Jack offered the pack and pulled out his lighter. He'd been thinking about putting the cigarette back, but now that somebody else was smoking, it'd be rude not to join in. He lit up with guilty pleasure.
"How's it coming along?" he asked, after a moment.
"Pretty good. Got slowed down for a couple of days when we found out the gas pipes weren't buried as deep as the county plans showed."
"No?"
"Ground shifts after fifty years of erosion and earthquakes." The worker shrugged. "Regs say we gotta have at least six feet of soil over the pipes, so the last couple days all we've been doing is rearranging dirt."
"Sounds frustrating."
"Well, we had to dig some holes for foundations, anyway. But it's going slower than we'd hoped."
"What are you building?"
"That'll be the gymnasium, indoor court, offices for the coaches and staff." The worker squinted as though he could actually see a building standing over the broken soil. "The parking lot will go next to it, then tennis courts and a soccer field."
"No football field?"
"Not in the first phase of construction, but it'll come."
"I---" Jack broke off as the bulldozer shuddered to a halt and the driver started shouting.
"Aw, crap, I hope he didn't bust a pipe." His companion tossed the cigarette down and jogged back to the work site. Jack took a moment to grind out the smoldering butt before sidling closer.
For the first few moments he couldn't see anything, but then the workers began to fall back, swearing and exclaiming.
Dirt-covered bones spilled from the bulldozer's teeth.
"All right everyone, get back, get back," one of the foremen shouted, looking worried. Another pulled out his cell phone.
"There wasn't any graveyard on the city plans," one of the workers muttered, looking uneasy.
"Maybe they're animal bones," another suggested.
Jack stared at the curved top of a skull that was half-buried in the dirt and blew out a thin stream of smoke. The sun hung low over the surrounding hills, lighting them with a crimson glow, and for a moment the broken field seemed covered in blood.
Andy had been hunkered over his laptop for an hour, searching through the web for a reason why bones might have been found on the north campus. Jack, after a few abortive attempts to engage him in conversation, had given up and started chopping tomatoes and bell peppers. At least Andy had stopped analyzing the recipe's fat and cholesterol value.
"Would you mind humming something a little more cheerful?" Andy demanded at last, looking up.
"What?"
"First it was 'Man of Constant Sorrow,' and then 'Wayfaring Stranger,' and now 'When Sorrows Encompass Me 'Round.' I swear, Jack, I feel like I'm at a funeral."
"Sorry." Jack set down his knife. "I wasn't paying attention. Did you find anything?"
"The land was part of the Gudrun Ranch before it was donated to the college. If it was being used as a graveyard, it wasn't licensed by the state or the county."
"Maybe it was private?"
"Either way, I think we've just entered the angel's vision."
"I'd say you're right about that," Jack agreed. "But why would an angel in L.A. warn us about something out here in Vista Hills?"
"You're assuming distance matters to an angel. Remember, God works in mysterious ways."
"I hate that."
Andy grinned, stretching. "I wish I weren't lecturing tomorrow. I'd like to spend more time looking into this."
"Maybe I can find something in the city records." Jack wiped his hands on a dishtowel. "I can go down to city hall tomorrow and take a look."
"Don't bother. The police will get there before you do."
Before Jack could answer, somebody knocked on the door.
"Ah, that'll be Edward." Andy hurried to the door and opened it, welcoming his guest inside.
Jack studied the newcomer with open curiosity. He'd caught glimpses of Edward Todd on campus and in the small apartment building, but they hadn't been introduced. The theologian was one of the biggest men he'd ever met, tall and broad-shouldered with huge hands and a strong jaw. He wore nondescript pale khakis and a black wool sweater over a white shirt.
Andy ushered Todd into the kitchen, which immediately seemed to shrink around them. "Jack, I've already told you about Dr. Todd. Edward, this is Jack Langthorn, a friend of mine."
"How do you do?" Jack asked, offering a hand.
"My pleasure." Todd's hand engulfed his as they shook. "Is that your Harley outside?"
"For what it's worth, I bought it before they became rich men's toys," Jack said as Andy opened the refrigerator door. "Do you ride?"
"No, I'm afraid not." Todd's gaze wandered around the apartment, more intently than Jack thought was quite normal. He wondered what Todd was looking for and followed the large man's gaze. It lingered a moment on Andy's old Italian crucifix, which leaned on top of a bookshelf, and then moved to his bookshelves, and then his laptop. "Where are you from, Jack?"
Jack always felt a little guilty about revealing his Southern birthplace to a black man. "I was born in Kentucky, though I spend most of my time on the road. You?"
"I moved to the States from London, although I've been living here for quite some time. I understand you're our chef tonight?"
"Andy can't cook instant oatmeal. This recipe comes from some friends in Louisiana." Jack started the rice. "Open me a soda, Andy."
"Already done." Andy passed around the cans. "So, Ed, did you hear the news about north campus?"
Todd's eyes leaped to Andy's face.
"No. I don't believe I have."
"They've uncovered some sort of old burial site. Jack was there when they found the bones."
"Human bones?"
"I saw at least one human skull in the pit." Jack leaned back against the counter, pretending to examine the soda's ingredient list while he watched Todd. The man seemed more curious than shocked.
"Has the discovery made the news yet?"
"It wasn't in the seven o'clock report," Andy said. "The police are probably trying to keep things quiet until they know more."
"Bad press for the university," Jack observed.
"Yes." Todd glanced out the kitchen window, then back again. "I'm surprised you weren't called to take a look at the site, Andrew."
"I think Pastor Lindgren would be the first person called in if CHU decides to have a pastor on hand during the exhumation."
"You don't think this could be something occult?"
"Well, a few bones don't add up to secret Satanic rituals," Andy said, although he glanced at Jack. "Are there any tales of cults in this area?"
"Hasn't every part of California been home to one cult or another?"
"You study apocalyptic literature," Jack pressed. "You haven't heard of any end-of-the-world groups out here?"
"I study apocalyptic eschatology in early Judeo-Christian texts. I leave the study of cults to the sociologists."
"That must disappoint your students," Andy said.
"I'm afraid it does. They come in hoping to learn which world leader is the antichrist and end up with annihilatio versus renovatio mundi."
The conversation turned to student expectations, then wandered in a leisurely fashion across the states and over the Atlantic. Jack's cooking filled the apartment with the scent of paprika and garlic, cayenne and buttery shrimp, and Andy made a green salad.
They were finishing the meal, and Todd was wryly describing the categorizational panic U.S. citizens experienced whenever he reminded them that he couldn't be called "African-American" because he was British, when they heard the sirens. They fell silent, listening.
"There's a fire station a block away," Andy suggested hesitantly.
"Those are police sirens," Jack said.
"A problem at the dorms?"
"Maybe, though I can't help but wonder if it's got something to do with those bones they found," Jack said. He looked at Todd. The big man was looking out the window, his eyes unfocused. "I suppose we'd just be in the way if we walked over to take a look."
"If you want to go, don't let me stop you," Todd said, blinking and looking back at them. "But if you don't mind, I'll stay here and finish the shrimp before it gets cold."
Jack glanced at Andy. If they were on their own, they'd already be out the door. But with Todd there....
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to see if there's anything we can do to help, especially if students are involved," Andy said. "Go ahead and make yourself at home, Edward. We'll be back in a few minutes, and if we're delayed, I'll call." He pointed to the wall phone.
"Good luck," Todd said, lifting a hand.
Jack pulled on his leather jacket and felt the weight of his Colt .45 against his hip. He ducked into the study, where Andy had set up an airbed for him, and tucked the pistol into his knapsack. He didn't need the police asking him for a carry permit.
"Back soon," he called as he and Andy headed outside.
As soon as the door clicked shut, Todd set down his fork and closed his eyes to inspect the shifting patterns more closely. The probabilities were moving swiftly now, a jigsaw iteration of potentialities revolving and slipping into place as people moved and made decisions. Dark blood seethed beneath their thin, crystalline crust.
"This is a warded place," Amon complained. Todd opened his eyes. The demon squatted on the linoleum floor, snapping and worrying at the loose skin on its flank. It looked up, cringing. "The priest has prayed over it."
"I'm sure he has. They've warded themselves, as well---sigils, charms, and blessings. I think they were summoned here, even if they don't realize it." Todd rose to his feet. "Do you know anything about the bones in north campus?"
"No, no, nothing." Amon tore a strip of skin loose and lifted its beaked head, sharp teeth grinding the strip to shreds. The kitchen light blazed in its mirrored eyes. "They were neither sacrificed to hell nor sanctified to heaven. But I see them, I see them for all that."
"Do you?" Todd looked at his own reflection in the demon's eyes, a man-shaped hole in space that held a jigsaw array of tunnels, corridors, stairways, and doors. "And what do they look like?"
"They curve and writhe and bend and scream, but they do not belong to the mal'akhim, and they make me uneasy."
Todd frowned as he paced through the apartment. It was an architectural mirror-image of his own place, although Markham's decor ran to cheap furniture and shelves full of books. His eyes were caught by a faded but framed '70s concert poster in the study. Wolfhowl, it declared across a photo of four young musicians.
He recognized both Andy Markham and Jack Langthorn. He didn't recognize the other two band members or the name of the club they were playing. A place in Anchorage, Alaska. Not a successful band, then.
"Bender...." Amon padded across the carpet, its claws making ripping sounds as they caught in the cheap weave and tore free again. The demon pressed against his leg. "We should kill them."
"Let them be, beloved. They were brought here just as I was. The patterns suggest something important is at hand."
"The bones make a noise that will awaken the armies of the mal'akhim," Amon said in its creaking voice. "We will have war."
"All the more reason to let them expose themselves while I stay in the shadows." Todd walked back to the kitchen. "Do you like shrimp Creole?"
Amon hissed impatiently, its sides rasping and ripping along the edge of a bookshelf as it passed. Todd considered cleaning up after the demon, then dismissed the thought. If Andrew Markham and Jack Langthorn recognized the smudges and skin, they'd realize they weren't as safe as they thought, surrounded by their spells and sigils. Their wards were sufficient to turn aside a hex or dissuade a black magickian, but they were no good against the mal'akhim.
Or him.
Todd took another mouthful, enjoying the faint burn of hot pepper as he chewed. The dish must have been eyewatering for humans.
Todd had traveled the dimensional pathways long enough to no longer consider himself human. He was perceptible to the mal'akhim as the active emptiness he'd taken as his own, the absence he used to tread the pathways of heaven and hell. As far as he knew, he was the only being to have escaped both the b'nei elohim and the nephilim yet remain clearly perceived by both.
But if Amon were right about the bones, there was something else out there, something powerful and dangerous enough to draw the attention of both sides of the Host while remaining outside of their eternal conflict.
Something like him, perhaps.
He scraped his plate clean and washed down the last bite with the flavorless soda his hosts had served instead of the beer he'd expected.
"Let's go," he said. Amon looked up from tearing at its genitals and scattered the detritus of its work over the floor. "I want to see those bones myself."
The demon shifted and washed its face with jerky, insectile motions.
"They are loud," it complained.
"And I want to hear them." Todd looked for the possibility that ran from the kitchen to the north campus and unlocked it, opening a bloody, tooth-lined hole. The backs of nail-skewered birds formed a walkway through spacetime. "Are you coming?"
Amon rose to all eights and scuttled after him as Todd stepped into the other place.
Behind them, the wound in reality sealed with a low groan.
Two black and white cars were parked in front of the small Gudrun Ranch House, their strobing lights painting the house's walls in garish colors. A handful of students pressed around the periphery, standing on tiptoe and craning their necks.
"What happened, then?" Andy asked one of the nearest students, a tall, thin young man.
"I think someone hit a window and the alarms went off," the youth said.
Two police officers left the building. One began to order the crowds back, and another slid into one of the cars, picking up the radio transmitter.
Andy touched Jack's arm.
"There's the provost," he said, jerking his head to one side.
A slender, middle-aged man in a long wool coat strode down the sidewalk toward them, his pale hair shining in the streetlights. He cast an evaluating look at the crowd and then approached the Gudrun house. Students fell back as he stepped past them.
The officer who was monitoring the onlookers intercepted him.
"Are you campus security?"
"No. I'm the university provost, Gregory Penemue. I received a call about some sort of problem here."
"Yes, sir." To Jack's frustration, the officer lowered his voice and ushered Penemue to one side. The two men's expressions were grave as they spoke.
Another siren split the night and everyone turned, looking for the source. A minute later the ambulance turned the corner, cutting its siren and driving into the parking lot. More students gathered, and the neighbors across the street from campus stepped out onto their front porches.
Two paramedics left the ambulance carrying bags and hurried into the house.
"That's not good," Jack breathed. A similar murmur slithered its way through the assembled students. Several pulled out phones.
Penemue had his own phone to his ear and was speaking in a low, controlled voice.
"Do you want to stay?" Andy asked, turning. "We should give Edward a call if we're going to be here much longer."
"I don't know." Jack jammed his cold hands into his jacket pockets. He craved a cigarette, but his pack and lighter were back in the apartment. "Seems likely whatever happened here is linked to the bones and the angel, don't you think?"
Andy nodded. Neither of them believed in coincidences when mal'akhim were involved. "Let me see what I can do." He edged his way through the crowd to the ambulance driver and began speaking in a low voice. The driver shrugged and pointed to the police officer, who glanced at them and strode over.
Jack saw Penemue fold his phone and walk over to join the conversation. A familiar prickle ran down his back. He turned and searched the crowds for whatever had set off the protective sigils sewn into the lining of his jacket.
The angel stood on the other side of the parking lot, its black wings folded around its body. It turned its head as soon as Jack perceived it, and for a moment its blank eyes faced him. Jack shuddered and crossed himself, knowing as he did that the gesture would only make him easier for the angel to detect.
For a long moment the angel regarded him. The sigils in his jacket and the blessed medal of St. Jude around his neck set his teeth on edge with their auric clatter. Then the creature turned its attention back to the house, and the alarms lowered their intensity to a warning prickle.
Jack swallowed and studied the house and those around it with renewed intensity. Something here had caught an angel's attention, and he didn't think it would be good news.
Members of the mal'akhim, whether b'nei elohim or nephilim, could only see that which was closely allied or actively opposed. Most of what humans perceived about the world around them---indeed, most humans themselves---went unseen by the Host, neither good enough nor evil enough to elicit the Host's attention or affect their substance. God might mark every sparrow's fall, Andy had once told him, but the eyes of the mal'akhim were fixed on each other.
Jack knew he was a shadowy figure on the border of the Host's perception, a mortal who had interacted just often enough with the powers of good and evil to make himself noticed. Andy would be more visible, a warrior on the side of God despite his retirement from active duty in the Catholic Church. But the angel didn't seem interested in his friend, and although Andy was no doubt trying to trade on his position as a former priest to gain access to whoever had been injured or killed inside, that in itself wouldn't be significant enough on a celestial scale to attract the attention of the b'nei elohim.
Murder might be, though, if it were carried out in the name of Satan---or God. Jack had encountered both types of murders over the years. In fact, he'd done some killing in the name of God, himself.
Or could it be someone or something else? The police officers, a student, the paramedics, the provost, whoever was injured or dead inside? A book, a symbol, a consecrated or desecrated item or place?
He couldn't tell.
"I'm sorry, Jack," Andy said, returning. "It was Dunstan Graeme. The police won't let anyone in. They're waiting for the medical examiner and forensics team. Greg says the officer told him Dunstan was stabbed."
"Dead?"
"We think so."
"He has a wife."
"They're going to send someone to talk to her." Andy touched Jack's sleeve. "Sorry. I know you liked him."
Jack felt a familiar sense of frustration. Andy had told him months ago, when he'd been describing his new job over the phone, that California Hills University was located in one of the nation's safest cities. But no place was safe from evil.
"It has to be linked to the bones," Jack growled. "Look at that angel by the Andersen Building."
Andy glanced over his shoulder, the lines around his mouth deepening.
"If mal'akhim are involved, the police won't be much use."
"The Scandinavian Library has copies of all the old deeds and photographs about the university and information about the Gudruns and other Scandinavians who settled out here. Maybe Dunstan was killed because something in there explains the bones."
"Or did," said Andy. "Well, there'll be police crawling all over the house for the rest of the night."
"And it may stay closed off even after they leave." Jack had been involved in police investigations before. "So...."
Andy nodded. "Best get back to Edward. He must think we're real ghouls, chasing sirens like this."
Jack hesitated. He wanted to stay to see Dr. Graeme's body removed, to pay his respects, but it could be hours before that happened, and the ME would cover the corpse, anyway.
He looked for the angel. It kept its motionless vigil.
"I guess we might as well," he said. "No point trying to talk to our friend there with so many people around. Not that talking to angels ever does any good, anyway."
Andy smiled faintly. They turned and headed back to the visiting faculty housing court.
Richard Grahn sat on the bench that had been constructed next to the CHU cross by the class of '82, looking down at the lights that surrounded the north campus field. He'd already shot about fifty pictures, but the camera was still on its stand in case something exciting happened.
He'd hiked up to the cross shortly after sunset, as soon as he'd heard about the bones. This was the most exciting thing to happen on campus all semester, and even though the student newspaper's reporters were being turned away by police, Richard knew he could use his telephoto lens to get photographs of the excavation. Maybe they'd even run in the county paper, not just the student rag. He'd have to call---
Something groaned behind him.
Richard turned, expecting to see one of his friends laughing at him. Instead, he saw a line of dark red light shoot down next to the cross and fall open like two bloody flaps of skin. The space between them revealed a long, winding corridor, its floor covered in bloody feathers. A huge man stepped through, accompanied by a fetid odor that made Richard gag and turn his face away.
When he looked back, the gap and the corridor had vanished and the stench was fading. The man was still standing there, though, regarding him with curiosity. Richard recognized him. There weren't many black professors at Cal Hills, and this guy towered over them all.
"P-professor?" he stammered.
"How do you do? I'm Dr. Todd, from the religion department. I see I'm not the only one who's curious about the dig."
"No, sir." He stared. Maybe he was just tired---imagining things. He looked around. The night was scented by nothing stronger than dust and sage. "Did you, uh, walk up here, too?"
"I thought this seemed like the best vantage point." Todd stepped forward and stood next to him. Richard glanced down at the professor's expensive leather shoes. There wasn't much dust on them; not as much as he'd gotten on his own sneakers hiking up the narrow back trail. But the professor's soles did look muddy, as though he'd stepped on something wet, and several small feathers clung to them. "Has anything interesting happened?"
"Not much." Richard turned his attention back to the lights. "They put up those barriers and dug up a bunch more bones. They're being really slow and careful, like CSI. They must be human bones. They wouldn't make a fuss over animal bones, would they?"
"I expect not."
Richard was pleased to have his guess confirmed. He'd definitely be able to sell his photos to the county paper.
"Is that a telephoto lens?" Todd asked.
"Yeah. I've been taking photos for the Clarion. Go ahead and look, but don't mess up the focus."
"Of course not." Todd leaned over the camera, looking through the viewer. "Oh, yes, those are definitely human."
"Do you think it's, like, an old Indian burial ground?"
Todd laughed, a rich, baritone sound.
"You've been watching too many horror movies. If that's a graveyard at all, it's probably one of the old Scandinavian settlers' plots."
"Wouldn't there be coffins?"
"Perhaps. The wood may have fallen apart, however, between the winter storms, the summer heat, and the odd earthquake or two." The professor spoke absently as he moved the camera to look at another part of the dig. "I don't know. They might have been buried naked, amen."
Richard looked at him curiously. Amen? "Is being buried naked some kind of religious thing?"
"I would say it's more likely to indicate an absence of religion," Todd replied, moving the camera back to its original position and standing. "Even in the most primitive cultures, corpses are usually interred with some sort of covering."
"Maybe the shrouds rotted?"
"It's possible."
"So, what are you thinking? If it's not a graveyard, is it like a serial killer's hiding place or something?" Richard made the suggestion half-seriously, half-jokingly, expecting the professor to brush it off. Instead, the tall man cocked his head, regarding the scene below them with a faint air of puzzlement.
"It's possible," he repeated.
"Whoa." Richard jumped to his feet, checked the viewfinder, and snapped another photograph, just to do something with his hands. "So this could be a real mystery."
"It's definitely a mystery." Todd was silent a moment. "Yes, I see them, amen."
"See who?" Richard looked around for someone new on the scene.
"Watchers." Todd's voice suddenly went strange on the last syllable of the word. "Watchers...."
"Like us?"
"Be careful up here." Todd made an abrupt turn and began to stride away. "There's blood in the air."
That was creepy. Richard yanked his jacket more closely around his shoulders.
"Uh, okay. I'll be careful. You, too, professor."
The big man was already lost in the night.
Richard looked down at where the professor been standing and picked up one of the feathers. There was blood and torn skin on the quill. Dr. Todd must have stepped on a dead bird on his way up the hill.
Deciding that was what he'd smelled, Richard dropped the feather and wiped his hand on his jeans, looking down at the dig again. Somebody new was walking up. He looked through the camera's telephoto lens and refocused.
"Another guy from the university," Jackson said tersely, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. Walt Clancy groaned and finished the last of his lukewarm cup of coffee.
He'd already spoken to the university president, who'd been satisfied to take a quick look at the site and ask to be kept informed. Then, half an hour later, he'd been buttonholed by the university public relations officer, who'd pestered him until he'd promised that nobody would make any statements to the press until daybreak. The campus pastor had dropped by, too, but Clancy had managed to brush him off, as he had the reporters. In his previous job, he'd had to deal with the much more aggressive Los Angeles press corps, so he'd been quick to set up tall wooden barriers around the site to discourage gawkers.
"Bring him around," he said without enthusiasm.
The man who joined him was slender and handsome, with distinguished silver hair and a face that carried its years well. He pulled off his gloves and held out a manicured hand.
"How do you do, Detective? I'm Gregory Penemue, the university provost."
They shook hands while Clancy tried to remember what a provost was. Something well-paid, apparently.
"I can't tell you what we've found here, because I don't know myself yet," he said. "Forensics is still taking a look at the bones."
"Can you tell me whether it may have been a recent crime, at least?" Penemue asked.
"Well, the bones might have been in the ground for a few years," Clancy said, keeping his answer vague. "And we don't know if any crime was committed at all. This might be some rancher's graveyard." That wouldn't explain the malformed state of the bones, but Clancy was relying on forensics to explain that eerie little puzzle.
"Are the bones human?"
"It's still a little early to tell." In fact, he knew they were human, but he preferred to express a reasonable amount of doubt until an official statement was released.
"I don't suppose there's any chance I could see the site more closely?"
"We'd like to keep nonessential personnel away from the dig, sir. The team's going over everything very carefully. If it turns out a crime was committed, we wouldn't want some defense attorney down the road accusing us of polluting the crime scene."
"Ah. Of course." Penemue seemed to understand, and Clancy blessed the recent popularity of police procedurals. On the one hand, they'd raised the public's expectation of case closure to unrealistic levels, but on the other, they'd made it easy to invoke the magical word "forensics" and keep people away from a scene. Nobody wanted his DNA involved in a murder investigation. "I was told the bones were found fifteen feet or so below the surface," the provost continued.
"They were pretty deep. Of course, if this was some old graveyard, the ground would have shifted in the last fifty years or so."
Penemue's pale eyes searched the ground as if trying to see below its surface.
"I assume you know that there was a murder on campus tonight?"
Clancy crumpled up his Styrofoam coffee cup and threw it into a garbage sack tied to one corner of the field table.
"I heard about it."
"I'm afraid that unearthing these bones may awaken something unpleasant."
Clancy sighed.
"You think some killer might have come out of retirement now that his old kills have been found? That's Hollywood fantasy, sir. We're keeping a police presence here as a matter of form, but it wouldn't surprise me if this dig gets handed over to the archaeologists in another day or two. Does the university have an archaeology department?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Too bad. This is probably nothing but an interesting piece of local history."
"Oh, I'm sure it's that."
People were stirring next to the pit, and Clancy frowned.
"If you'll excuse me, Mr. Penemue, we've got work to do."
"Hey, Clancy! Take a look at this!"
"I'll let myself out," Penemue said. Clancy hesitated. Then, hearing the voices rising, he abandoned the provost and hurried to join his officers.
"What is it?" he demanded, crouching at the edge of the pit.
"First sign of an identifying mark we've found so far---maybe some kind of jewelry?" A woman in a dark blue forensics jacket held it up in gloved hands, tilting it back and forth. "A medallion?"
The clay disc was wider than her palm, with incisions in it. The dirt on its face had already been brushed away, revealing what looked like the letters SAN around the edges.
"What does that say?" Clancy asked.
"It could be a grave marker," one of the other technicians suggested, craning his neck to take a look at it. "Someone's name?"
A soft brush was handed over. Everyone leaned forward to watch as the first technician swept away more of the clinging dirt.
"I think you're right," she said. "These look like crosses, in the middle."
"S-A-N-D-R-O..."
"Hey!" Another shout. "I found one, too!"
Clancy nodded, pleased. At last, real clues; something they could talk about at the press conference tomorrow.
"Careful---"
"Shit!"
"Watch what you're doing!" he roared, standing on the edge of the pit. Two of the workers were kneeling and picking up fragments of clay.
"It was already broken," one said, defensively. "Nothing but damp dirt holding it together."
"From now on, keep the clay matrix intact around them," the chief technician snapped.
"Sandromaliu?" The forensics officer looked up. "Is that Greek?"
"Maybe it's a name. Sandro Maliu."
"It is a name and a label," said an unwelcome voice. Clancy turned, annoyed, to see Penemue standing behind him.
"Sir, you shouldn't be here."
"Neither should you." Penemue lifted his pale grey eyes. "The earth is about to move."
"An earthquake?" Clancy looked over his shoulder. "I didn't feel anything."
"Here." Penemue slid next to him and held out a hand to the woman with the seal. "Get out of the hole."
"Detective?" She looked at him for directions.
"Wait!" The chief technician of the forensics team lifted the medallion from her hand and revolved it. "He's right. It's Andromalius. Andro Malius."
"Yes," Penemue said, continuing to hold out his hand. "You need to leave now."
As if the provost's words were a cue, the world jolted to the left.
Richard picked himself up from the dirt and swiftly righted his camera, swearing as he checked it for damage. Then the earth jolted again and he clung to his camera with one hand and the wooden bench with the other.
An earthquake! He'd never been in an earthquake before, even though everyone had warned him about them when he'd moved to California. When he'd thought about it, he'd imagined being in an earthquake would be like standing on a swaying train. This felt more like riding a bronco.
The earth jolted again and continued shuddering, and all he could do was hold onto the bench and stare downhill at the dig.
Police and forensics technicians were scrambling out of the pit, but its walls were collapsing on them as quickly as they tried to move out. Richard heard screaming and shouting as the earth began to collapse in a long fault-furrow. One of the bulldozers tilted and fell, burying two people beneath its metal bulk.
He pointed the camera and clicked the shutter, knowing there was no way he'd get a good photo but knowing that he had to try. This was front page news.
A light was burning in the middle of the site, bright and white and moving away from the edge of the pit. Richard blinked and the light resolved into a white-haired man, his long coat flapping behind him like two wings. He was walking so calmly and easily over the unsteady ground that it seemed like he wasn't affected by the earthquake at all.
Something cracked like a gunshot. Richard twisted, staring up in shock as the heavy wooden cross toppled down upon him.
Creosote-soaked railroad ties slammed into his back, snapping bone. He screamed and twisted, his belly in the dirt, facing downhill again as tears of pain streamed from his eyes. Oh, shit, his arms were broken, he was sure of it, and the cross was so heavy that it was crushing his ribs.
Down below, the ground was collapsing around the dig site, caving in as though it were pouring itself into deep caverns located far below the surface of the earth.
Richard shrieked as the earth heaved beneath his stomach and the broken bones in his arms grated against each other. His vision darkened but he clung to consciousness, afraid that if he passed out he'd never wake up again.
The screams below him grew louder. He tilted his head, staring down at the field where geysers of earth were erupting like miniature volcanoes.
Huge, carapace-covered serpents lifted draconic heads and shrieked to the stars.
Richard stared, his cheek pressed against the dirt, and wondered if he were hallucinating from pain.
The serpents ducked and slammed back into the dirt, their open jaws engulfing the hapless police team as they hammered their way back underground, leaving only blood and torn limbs behind.
Only the man in white---no, he was wearing a black coat, but his hair was so white it seemed to spread its brilliance over the rest of him---only the man in white still stood on the edge of the torn field, motionless, looking like he was waiting for the world to end.
Richard drew in a labored breath. Dirt slid and collapsed beneath him as the side of the hill began to collapse.
One of the serpentine creatures burst from the hillside next to him. It turned its eyeless visage toward him, its razor-edged mouth gaping.
Richard released his last breath in a scream that sent a black, blood-covered feather fluttering away as the serpent dived, slamming him deep into the earth.
Jack swore as the first jolt rocked the small apartment, and Andy yelped and grabbed his laptop before it could plunge off the side of the desk. Books toppled from the shelves and dishes shifted in the cupboards. Before they could catch their breath, a second jolt hit, and then a third. The bookshelves rocked away from the walls and fell; one crashed through the living room window. A cupboard door swung open. Jack covered his head with one arm as plates spilled out, shattering on the linoleum floor.
The lights went out.
"Andy!" Jack jammed his pack of cigarettes and lighter into his jacket pocket and groped his way through the kitchen, holding onto the counter top as his boots crunched through broken glass and china. "Where are you?"
"I'm okay," the reply came. "Be careful---it's probably not over yet."
Jack braced against a wall as the ground shook again. His heart was pounding harder than it had in months. He'd been in tornadoes, thunderstorms, floods, car accidents, and shootouts, but never an earthquake. He hadn't realized how horrible it was. A man counted on the earth being steady under his feet. To have it suddenly develop a mind of its own felt like madness.
More objects fell, but the first sharp jolts had stopped, at least for the moment. Jack edged forward, keeping his hands out and ready to grab whatever was close by for support.
"There's a flashlight in the kitchen drawer by the sink," Andy said.
"I'll get it." Jack backed up, knocking his forehead against an open cupboard door. He cursed and ducked, bent nearly in half as he felt for the sink. His hands touched metal and he groped for the drawer next to it.
It was hanging open. He reached inside and stabbed himself with broken glass. He probed around more cautiously until he felt the comforting solidity of a metal flashlight beneath his fingers. He pulled it out and pushed the power button.
A bright white beam filled the room. He swung it around until he found Andy.
His friend was crouched next to the desk, his laptop pressed against his chest, a bookshelf angled over him.
"Jesus!" Jack was halfway across the kitchen before another shudder made him freeze. He started to walk more carefully. "You all right?"
"Native Californian." Andy mustered a nervous smile and crept out from under the shelves. "Always duck next to a sturdy piece of furniture."
"A native Californian should bolt his shelves to the wall." The flashlight beam showed nothing but disaster around them.
"I hadn't gotten around to it yet." Andy swallowed. "We'd better go check on everyone else."
The earth jolted again, an unnatural up-and-down heaving that threw them both off their feet. Jack raised his arms over his head, expecting the roof to come down. Shouts arose from the neighboring apartments. A loud cracking sound ripped through the air.
"Let's get out of here," Andy yelled, grabbing his shoulder.
Jack nodded, getting a better grip on the flashlight. The beam juddered and tilted as the earth shook. A table slid across the floor, rucking up the cheap carpet. The front door hung open, crashing back and forth against the wall. Jack scuttled forward, then froze in the broken threshold. Andy bumped into him and then uttered a most un-Catholic oath.
Dimly lit by stars and a three-quarters moon, a long, pale shape rose and fell where the apartment complex's courtyard had once stood, moving through the earth like the back of a sea serpent. Waves of dirt broke around it and threw them against the doorframe. Another crack ran up one of the stucco-covered walls, and a roof across the yard collapsed.
"What the hell is that?" Jack shouted, dropping the flashlight and grabbing his St. Jude medal. It was quiescent in his hand, as were the sigils sewn into his jacket and pressed into the metal toes of his cowboy boots and buckle of his belt. "Andy, what the fuck is that?"
"...Christ below me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger..." The words of St. Patrick's prayer spilled from his friend's lips in one breathless litany.
A long white pillar broke through the apartments across from them, sending wood, stucco, drywall, and dirt exploding. Jack staggered and fell to his knees. Splintered wood ripped through his jeans and into his legs. He stared up, aghast, as another dim shape rose up against the starlight, plates of interlocking exoskeleton scraping and clicking against each other as it rose. For a split second its blunt, lizardlike bone muzzle opened, and a horrific scream tore from its bowels and spiraled up into the night sky.
Then the wards and talismans in Jack's jacket stabbed him with their occult warnings as a swirl of foul ashen air swept around him in a burst of warm wind. A large hand landed on his shoulder as the giant serpent's head wavered and turned.
Jack raised his hands in a futile warding gesture as the head slammed down, but before it struck him, he was hauled away.
"Kill them, kill them, kill them," pleaded a wavering, creaky voice. Jack staggered backward into a body like a brick wall as he was yanked to his feet. Next to him, Andy was receiving the same treatment, his laptop lost somewhere outside.
"Not now, Amon," Edward Todd's voice rumbled. Jack regained his balance and turned, looking up at the large man's stern face.
Supernatural warnings burned into his awareness, but it wasn't Todd that was setting them off. Jack took a step backward, his boot heels crunching on something that gave way beneath them.
A devil pressed against Todd's leg and snapped at him, sharp teeth glinting inside its birdlike beak. Its eight insectile legs rapidly preened each other and picked at the dark stains on Todd's trouser cuffs.
"Dear God, protect us," Andy gasped.
Dry, charred branches formed a latticework walkway beneath them, and the air was filled with ash and the smell of burning flesh. Jack coughed. Todd was silhouetted against distant fires on the horizon, huge ovens that glowed dark crimson and belched dark clouds of ash.
"They should not be here. You must kill them now," the devil pleaded, lifting its head like a mournful dog.
"Hush." Todd leaned over and pressed a hand against the devil's bony skull. It whimpered and pissed itself, the ammoniac smell mingling with the scent of the infernal crematoriums.
"You don't serve the mal'akhim, Todd," Jack said, doing his best to keep his voice steady. He had a sudden urge to empty his own bladder. "I would have felt it, if you did."
"I don't. Follow me. This isn't a healthy place for humans to stay."
"Where are we?" Andy asked, clutching the silver crucifix around his neck. "Is this hell?"
"One possibility of hell, as translated through the filters of your senses." Todd's voice was low and calm. "I hadn't planned to bring you here, but circumstances forced my hand. Come on."
"You're traveling with a devil."
"Demon. Amon chose me; I didn't choose it. It doesn't like you, but you're heavily warded." Todd began to walk, his leather shoes raising clouds of ash.
"What was that thing outside?" Jack asked, remaining still. "That snake-thing?"
"I don't know. That's what we need to find out."
Jack looked at Andy, who hesitated, then crossed himself.
"I don't see that we have much choice at the moment," his friend admitted, following Todd.
Jack coughed again, his gaze lingering on the distant furnaces. The tune he'd been humming earlier in the kitchen returned, and he began to murmur it aloud for comfort.
"I am a poor, wayfaring stranger, while traveling through this world below..."
Andy looked over his shoulder, his face brightening. Jack coughed again, then followed Todd, raising his voice.
"There is no sickness, toil, or danger, in that bright world to which I go. I'm going there to see my father; I'm going there no more to roam; I'm just going over Jordan, I'm just going over home...."
The devil Amon groaned and scuttled ahead of them, its eight legs moving like a centipede's. Todd chuckled as Jack launched into the next verse.
"I know the clouds will gather o'er me; I know the pathway's rough and steep...."
The dry, blackened walkway beneath their feet seemed to shift and writhe as they walked, and as Jack sang, he had the distinct impression that they were stepping through an endless succession of gateways. But the song reassured him; it had always reassured him. It was one of the oldest in his repertoire, learned at his favorite uncle's knee in Kentucky.
He'd seen a lot of strange things since then, things that had put him and kept him on his path as a folk magickian, but he'd never seen anything as strange as giant worms ripping through the earth and diabolic crematoriums belching out the ash of damnation. Still, as strange as this was, he wasn't any more afraid here than he'd been in that bar outside Reno the night he'd felt his vision blur and his left arm and leg grow numb.
"I'm going there to see my Savior, who shed for me his precious blood; I'm just going over Jordan, I'm just going over home."
He repeated the last line one more time, then fell silent.
"This is it." Todd turned abruptly to his right and reached out. "We'll exit here."
"Where?"
Todd smiled, his fingers hovering over the handle of a heavy door that hadn't been there a moment before.
"All sorts of places, at this very moment. An infinite wave of places. Let's collapse the possibilities, shall we?"
He pushed the handle down and the door swung aside, letting in a breath of cool air scented with blood. Strangely colored light strobed through.
Amon jumped through first, scraps of flesh and ash powdering off of its body.
Andy looked through.
"It's dark."
Jack pulled out his lighter, handing it over. Andy flicked it alight.
"The Scandinavian Library? Edward---"
"Hurry," the big man urged. Andy stepped through. Jack followed, sidestepping to avoid a puddle of gore. A moment later, Todd was next to him, and the door to hell was gone.
The lighter's miniscule glow revealed little of the old ranch house room. Books were scattered over the floor, along with a number of jagged shards of glass. Andy groped for the wall and flicked the light switch. Nothing happened.
"Are there any candles in here?" he asked.
"I don't think so," Jack replied, trying to remember what had been among the many antiques on display in the library. "Graeme smoked a pipe, though. He might have matches in his desk."
"Which would be where?"
"Right now? I couldn't say. It used to be by the front door."
Andy walked to one of the windows and looked out.
"Dear God." He pulled out his cell phone and punched a few buttons, listened, and then shook his head. "911 is busy. Do you have your phone, Jack?"
Jack felt in his pocket, then shook his head. "Must have left it in the apartment." He gingerly moved through the cluttered room, slipping on books and loose glass, and joined his friend.
The campus was still pitch black, but the faint moonlight was enough to reveal a parking lot torn to shreds, police cars overturned, and motionless bodies sprawled beneath chunks of broken pavement. Faint lights bobbed in the distance---people carrying flashlights, Jack guessed.
He glanced back at the cars again.
"Hold on," he said, making his way to the front door. He forced it out of its half-collapsed jamb and walked down broken wooden stairs to the wreckage in the lot.
The first officer was dead, sprawled next to an ominous-looking crater in the earth. His torso had been torn in half and blood was spattered over the concrete. Jack closed his eyes and crossed himself, thinking about the giant earth-serpents.
Keeping his eyes averted from the corpse, he negotiated the broken pavement to one of the tilted police cars. Its windows were broken and its trunk crushed. He slid over the angled hood to the driver's side.
Safety glass bent under his leather jacket as he reached through the cracked window and fumbled for the engine keys. He turned them and flipped the headlights on.
White beams hit the side of the ranch house.
Jack looked around. One of the officers looked intact. He felt for a pulse, found it, and tugged the man into a more comfortable position on the front porch. Deciding there wasn't much more he could do, he headed back into the house.
The headlights illuminated the room in stark black and white. The creature Todd called Amon hid in a shadow, whispering to itself and picking bits of flesh off its thighs. Todd was looking around, studying the damage the earthquake had wrought on the little house.
"All right," Jack said, stepping over a broken table to rejoin his friend. "Why are we here, what's going on, and who the hell are you?"
"Or what," Andy added.
"We're here because the probabilities were high that this building hadn't been destroyed by the serpent and that it would provide us with an answer to our questions," Todd explained, his voice calm. "However, I don't know why it wasn't destroyed or what here will provide the information we need. The higher the probability, the less chance I have of understanding what it means: that's my own version of the uncertainty principle."
"We don't need them," Amon hissed, its mirrored eyes flashing white in the headlights. "They serve the b'nei elohim."
"And you don't, I take it," Andy said dryly, looking at Todd.
"I serve nothing but myself," the large man said. "Amon chooses to travel with me, but I neither serve it nor command it."
"You travel through hell."
"I also travel through heaven. They're only a handsbreadth apart." Todd shrugged. "However, it's inconvenient to walk through heaven with Amon at my side."
"So you're a moral relativist?" Jack asked.
"No. Is my moral philosophy really important, given what's happening outside?"
"Yes," both Andy and Jack replied at the same time, their voices flat.
Todd sighed.
"There is a very narrow horizon between the gravitational wells of Creation and Destruction," he explained as the headlights played over the strong planes of his face. "Or of God and Satan, if you prefer, or Change and Entropy. I choose to walk that horizon. Sometimes I slip and begin to spiral toward one well or the other, but so far I've always managed to pull myself back into neutrality."
"But why wouldn't you want to serve God?" Andy asked, troubled.
"Or ha-satan," Amon hissed, its ears flattening against its bony skull.
"Having freedom of choice means being free not to make a choice," Todd pointed out. "Like Schrödinger's cat, I find it more comfortable to keep all my possible states of being in existence at once, rather than collapse them and perhaps discover I'm dead."
"Do you know what he's talking about?" Jack asked, turning to his friend. He thought he'd seen Schrödinger's Cat play at a bar once, but he didn't know what that had to do with life or death. It hadn't been the bar outside Reno.
"But if you reject both God and Satan, what gives you the power to pass through the other planes?" Andy asked, ignoring him.
"Science." Todd smiled. "Postmodern magick. Or quantum magick, if you like. The metaphors work either way."
"That's bullshit." Jack shook his head. "If you were using magick, my wards would go off. The only thing jangling them right now is your familiar."
"Your wards are old-fashioned. They detect...particles, not waves. Absolutes, not possibilities. In postmodern magick, the practitioner understands the signifier is empty and endlessly iterative, but as long as it's treated within its discursive context as if it were material, then at that moment, for all practical purposes, it's material. It's a case of hypostatized signification."
Jack wondered if his leg was being pulled, but Andy acted like he understood.
"All right, Edward," his friend said. "Play your word games. But remember what I said earlier. Hell is the absence of God. There is no in-between. If you've chosen to remove yourself from God, then you're in Hell, whether or not you've consciously chosen to serve Satan."
"I don't perceive the world in terms of binary oppositions. Your religion sets up a false dichotomy."
"Just because you choose not to accept an opposition doesn't mean it doesn't exist. A blind man can argue all his life that there's no such thing as light, but those of us who can see know better."
For a moment Jack saw Todd's cheek twitch, as if Andy had scored some kind of point. Then the theologian turned away.
"It seems to me that the more important question is why that giant snake is here and what we need to do to stop it."
"It comes from the bones." Amon gnawed at its long, skeletal paw, sending flakes of burnt skin scattering across the floor. "The bones screamed and the worms answered."
"Worms, plural?" Todd asked. Amon worried at its paw, rolling its eyes up at him.
"We saw a field and worms in our vision," Jack told him, starting to pace across the floor, kicking books aside to see their spines and covers. "And a bone staircase and a series of doors slamming shut."
"What vision?"
"An angel's vision." Andy stared at Amon, then at Todd. "But maybe you know something about the anonymous message I received. It seems like the kind of hint a man trying to stay neutral might send."
"I can take you to a bone staircase," Todd said, calmly. "There are several, along the paths I walk."
"We also saw worms burrowing through flesh," Andy said, holding the bigger man's gaze. "That could be a metaphor for the earth, or it could have more direct significance. Either way, I think the first thing we need to do is find out why those bones were buried in the north campus."
"As you wish."
"Looks like this used to be the local history shelf," Jack said, tilting over a fallen book case and picking up a narrow burgundy volume titled California Hills University: The First Quarter-Century. "Guess we'd better get to work."
The four coryphaei stirred, hearing the wakened cries of the kine rippling through the limis. They stretched and felt old barriers crumble and fall. Vertical lids slid open to reveal pale, nictating membranes over half-blind eyes.
Domitor was the first to move, as always. He uncoiled and mustered his muscular body, exulting in his new freedom. The kinecall ebbed and flowed against the delicate membranes of his mouth and genitals.
A split second later, Viator lifted her narrow head, running a tentacular tongue through the nearest quasiverses, tasting gravitational wells and particle waves.
Beings have passed, she said, surprised. How did they not awaken us?
Beings? Carnifex yawned and stretched out razor spines. Bladescales rippled down the length of her body. Did they rouse the kine?
Domitor drew himself up, lifting and fanning a frill of sensory membranes. They trembled with screams of breed-readiness. The kine cry of blood and fecundity.
They are only kine. Auctor watched the other three through narrowed eyes that ran the length and breadth of his massive bulk. It would be unwise to rush off blindly at the sound of their bleating.
Neuter, Carnifex hissed, taking a swipe at the larger coryphaeus. Auctor sidestepped into a quasiverse where the killing blades slid by without drawing blood. The assassin spat and lowered hollow, venom-tipped fangs in a challenge. Go back to sleep, if you are too cowardly to act.
Be still. Domitor quelled Carnifex and regarded the other male warily. The Verminaarch had given each of them a specific duty. Auctor's was to record. Domitor felt his own urge to rush to the kine and fertilize them, but his other duty was to keep the small tribe alive. Do you have a memory to convey?
The last bloodcall to awaken us closed the pathways and bound us to thelimis. How long have we slept?
Domitor tilted his head toward Viator, who was the most sensitive to the multiplicity. She was already flicking tentacle-tongues across the paths.
The stars have barely moved, she reported. And the paths that were closed have opened again.
Then we do not plunge into the unknown. Let us silence the kine and finish what was started, Domitor declared, lifting his sensory frill until it was crown of vibrant red vessels around his skull. We go!
With a surge, he pushed himself through the tight loops and spaces of the multiplicity, creating a new wormhole. Carnifex chuckled and surged after him, eager to share his breedblood.
Viator turned her narrow head, regarding Auctor from one hooded eye. Her tongues swept the paths again, tasting, gauging, evaluating.
The opposition lingers, she murmured. Auctor heaved himself forward, onto the first path. The thousand eyes that covered his bulk were busy scanning, watching, and recording.
Yes, he agreed.
They followed Domitor and Carnifex more cautiously, side by side like hunters in strange territory.
Alison Kirsche was sure she was going to die.
She'd been watching television with her new boyfriend, Peter, enjoying some time together before the dorm cohab restrictions cut in, when the shaking had started.
They'd both given each other startled looks and lunged for the doorway at the same time that shouts had filled the dorm halls.
For a wild minute the hallway was full of students shouting, whooping, swearing, and laughing as they braced themselves in doorways and watched their possessions tumble off bookshelves and desks. Earthquakes were scary but exciting---the ultimate roller coaster ride.
Then the power cut out. Emergency lights flickered once, strobing a flash across the hall that revealed faces twisted with dismay and annoyance, and then they, too, fell dark.
Another jolt hit, and another. Excitement turned into panic. Students began screaming, lurching for the exits or stumbling back into their rooms for flashlights and lighters.
Peter wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her out into the hallway. In her panic, Alison couldn't remember if you were supposed to stay inside or go outside in an earthquake. But most of her dorm mates were heading outdoors, and there was safety in numbers.
The emergency alarms didn't go off as they pushed the side doors open, but the students in the front of the crowd screamed and plummeted two stories down to the sidewalks below. The students immediately behind them grabbed the door frame and howled for the pushing to stop before they lost their grip. The outdoor stairway had broken away from the wall, leaving a three-foot gap of space between door and stairs.
Over her friends' shoulders, Alison saw nothing but darkness: a terrible, deep darkness, like a horror movie.
The power was out all over Vista Hills.
"Wait there," one of the jocks shouted. He jumped to the crooked emergency stairs, grabbing the iron railing to steady himself. Students cheered as he wrapped an arm around the rail and held out a hand. "Come on. One by one."
Another man jumped across, grabbing the stairs as they creaked on bent and broken braces.
"Women first!" someone urged. For a moment the male students looked panicked, but the idea caught on, and Alison found herself separated from Peter, pushed forward with other women. For a moment she felt a twinge of feminist guilt, and then she brushed it aside. She wanted out.
They evacuated quickly but efficiently, making the jump with hands guiding them from behind and catching them in front. Alison's legs were shaking by the time she walked down the shuddering, tilted metal stairs to the ground. Some of her friends were kneeling next to the students who'd fallen, crying as they tried to help them. One girl was on her cell phone muttering "C'mon, c'mon, put me through, damn it!" like a prayer.
Flashlight beams and moonlight revealed blood and broken bone. Alison choked back bile and turned in circles, wondering what to do. Broken glass cut her bare feet.
It wasn't fun or exciting anymore.
Then the ground jolted again, harder than before, and in the distance something sounded like it was crashing and falling. She sucked in a sharp breath, her heart pounding. More students stampeded down the rickety stairwell, shouting each others' names, pulling out cell phones, yelling for campus security, and trying to move the injured students out of the way. Cries from the other side of the dorm indicated that students were leaving from other doors and windows, too.
"Ally!" Peter found her, grabbing her shoulder. She jumped, her heart pounding. "Have you seen any of the RAs?"
"No. Omigod, you scared me." She shuddered, rubbing her arms. She'd been wearing a T-shirt and pajama bottoms in her dorm room, and now the cold December air was cutting through the lightweight cotton as if she were naked. "Maybe they're on the other side of the hall?"
"Let's go." Peter took her hand and started off.
"Wait!" Alison yanked her hand back, flinching. "I cut my foot."
"Damn." Peter turned and dropped to a knee, looking at it. Alison winced as his thumb ran over the cut. "Yeah, it's still bleeding. There's too much broken glass here---you can't walk around barefoot." He hesitated. "All I'm wearing is socks, but you can have them if you want."
Alison bit her lip, then nodded gratefully.
"Thanks."
He pulled off his gym socks and Alison slid them on, wincing as they rubbed against her cut.
They turned the corner and saw a group of students holding flashlights and cell phones. Alison started to run forward; then the giant snake burst from the ground, right beneath the knot of people.
"Holy shit!" Peter swore, freezing. Alison stumbled, transfixed by the sight.
The monstrous creature's pale, scaly flanks were streaked with dark stains. It arched like a sea serpent while the students who hadn't been crushed immediately screamed and scattered. Then it plunged back into the earth, ripping through a concrete patio as if the stone weren't there. The impact shook the earth and shattered brick planters. Carefully tended trees and bushes smashed to the ground as the snake's long, massive body slid up from the first hole and vanished down the second.
Alison found herself on all fours. The ground quivered beneath her hands and knees as she watched the slaughter like a movie---like some kind of late-night monster film on television, the kind she'd always watched with a combination of fear and pleasure. For a moment she could believe this was just another Tremors sequel.
But this serpent was pale and sleek, not brown and rubbery, and it was covered in small, writhing, scalelike cilia that looked like nothing she'd ever seen on a movie monster. The creature moved gracefully through the ground, as though dirt and rock were no more substantial than sea foam.
Worse, the screams that followed its destructive passage didn't stop, the way they did in movies when the scene changed. They just went on and on.
That was when Alison realized she might die. Tonight, in college, at nineteen.
She crawled over to the lawn and vomited.
Something touched her shoulder. She spat, looking up. Peter's face was a pale circle in the moonlight.
"What was that?" he asked, his voice shaking.
"I don't know." She spat again and wiped her mouth, then cleaned her hand on the grass. She blinked away tears. "A monster?"
He nodded because they'd both seen it with their own eyes, and neither of them was stupid enough to say that monsters didn't exist.
The screams and groans and shattered bodies around them proved that they did.
"I want to go to the chapel," she said, before she realized she was going to say it. "Please. Let's go to the chapel."
Yes---the chapel. The only safe place when monsters came. Her mind flew through the last fourteen weeks of Dr. Todd's class. Of course. God had inspired her to take that class so she'd know when it was the end of the world; so she'd have time to prepare her soul before the apocalypse.
Giant snakes in the earth. What else could it be but the apocalypse?
"Okay," Peter replied shakily, even though he'd always teased her about her beliefs before this. "Let's go."
Clutching hands, they pulled themselves back to their feet and began to cut across campus as it shook and shuddered beneath them.
"All right, here's something," Jack said at last, squinting at the black type. Another jolt had caused the police car outside to tip, and now the headlight beams hit the ceiling, making reading more difficult.
Andy lowered the book he'd been flipping through, and Todd lifted his head.
"'When Thorvald and Gale Gudrun died, their only nephew---Karl---traveled from Brainerd, Minnesota to examine the ranch here. He decided to sell the 130-acre site to Dr. Garth Andersen, who represented the California District of the Unified Lutheran Church.' A couple of quotes. Hmm. 'Karl Gudrun himself stated that he made his gift "to sanctify the memory of my aunt and uncle and to provide youth the benefits of Christian education in a day when spiritual values can well decide the course of history." ' One hundred and thirty acres? The campus isn't that big."
"It sold off some of the land to raise money for construction, back when it was still a college." Andy held out a hand, and Jack handed him the book.
"Is there any indication of how the owners died?" Todd asked.
"Nope. Old age?"
"It wasn't old age," Andy said, reading. "They were only in their forties, according to the birthdates given here."
"Amon!" Todd called out. The demon slinked out from the shadows, scraps of charred flesh trailing behind it like dark streamers. "I need a favor."
Amon scuttled across the floor and crawled into Todd's lap, pressing its knobby head against the theologian's sweater.
"What can I do for you, beloved?" it asked, its dark tongue flickering out to wipe its beak.
"Hey!" Andy frowned, looking up. "Get that thing out of here. We don't need a devil's assistance."
"Do you plan to read books while Rome burns?" Todd asked. His large hand touched Amon's skull with apparent affection. "Amon's specialty is telling the past and future. Now that we know what we're looking for, he can search hell for an answer and bring it to us."
"And if they're in heaven?"
"Then your friend Jack can conjure us an angel."
"I generally avoid conjurations," Jack said. Conjurations of any kind were dangerously close to black magick, and conjurations intended to compel another being into service were especially risky.
Todd ignored him, lowering his head. "Amon, beloved, can you tell us how the Gudruns, who once lived in this house, died? Does it have anything to do with the field of bones?"
Amon placed three legs on Todd's chest, their claws snagging in his sweater, and thrust its beak into Todd's mouth like a baby bird seeking a meal. Then it withdrew, its muzzle shiny and dark. It twisted, stepping from the theologian's lap into nothingness.
Todd lifted a hand and wiped his mouth with his wrist. Blood streaked his dark skin.
Jack looked away, revolted. At least with the devil gone, his protective wards settled back down into watchful passivity.
"I'm concerned about the wisdom of working with you, Edward," Andy said.
"Amon says the same thing about you," Todd replied, his voice thick as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. He swallowed and dabbed at his lips with a handkerchief, then wiped off his wrist. "Sorry. Tongue."
"Andy," Jack said uneasily, "here's something for you to think over."
"What's that?"
"Todd doesn't set off my wards, and neither do those giant worm-things." Jack jammed his hands into his jacket pockets. "Why not?"
"I don't know why your spells wouldn't register Edward's magick. The...worms...could be some kind of natural phenomena...although I doubt it."
"You don't suppose they're working together, then?"
Todd laughed softly, behind them. "Why would I work with a worm?" he asked.
Andy and Jack exchanged looks. The professor jerked his head slightly to one side, and Jack lifted a shoulder.
"If Edward is really what he claims to be---someone who stands between God and Satan---then perhaps his power doesn't set off your wards because it's neutral," Andy suggested, after a moment.
"Power has to come from somewhere. God or Satan---there ain't any third choice."
Andy sighed. "I don't know. Maybe what he does is as unmagickal as an internal combustion engine, but we just don't understand it."
Jack thought about those infernal crematoriums spewing the ashes of the damned over burnt-branch catwalks and couldn't bring himself to agree.
The earth jolted and something crashed somewhere in the house. Sirens began wailing again in the distance.
"Did the university keep any of the Gudrun family's belongings?" Todd asked, standing. He spoke as clearly as ever, as though whatever injury Amon had inflicted on him a minute ago had already healed.
"There's a collection up in the attic," Jack said.
"Let's take a look. I'd like to know the family a little better."
"I'll lead," Andy said, pulling Jack's lighter out of his pocket again. The three men picked their way through the rooms to the stairwell. Hands braced on the intermittently trembling walls, they headed upstairs.
Pastor Luther Lindgren had been working late when the first jolts had hit. By the time he'd inspected the chapel, tilting the freestanding cross back upright and picking up the candles that had been thrown off their stands, he was certain that this was no small quake. It had to be at least as strong as the Northridge jolt back in 1994.
He walked back to his office and dug his flashlight out of the emergency equipment cabinet. Part of him wanted to leap into his car and drive home to check on his dogs, but he wasn't sure it was safe to drive yet.
The flashlight's steady beam was reassuring. He headed outside.
CHU's chapel was tucked in the southwest corner of campus, behind the library and student union. Both buildings appeared intact, as far as he could tell, but he could hear distant shouts and screams that suggested that, elsewhere, students were panicking.
The blue light over the emergency phone at the end of the parking lot was still glowing, powered by stored solar energy. Lindgren walked to it, stumbling when the earth shook, and lifted the receiver.
The line was dead.
"Dear Lord," he prayed aloud, replacing it in its cradle, "please watch over us and protect us from danger."
He stood, shivering in the cold. Should he make his way across campus to see what comfort he could offer the frightened students? Or should he wait here, tending the chapel, until they came to him?
Lindgren had been the campus pastor for fifteen years, and he knew that many students would come to the chapel pews seeking comfort and reassurance. Despite the increasing secularization of the outside world and the liberal policies of the university itself, the majority of CHU's students still turned to their childhood faith when they were troubled. He did his best to be present for them when they did.
"Hey! Hey, Pastor, is that you?"
He turned, his flashlight beam flickering over the face of a young man hurrying toward him. Jarret Moore, one of his Bible study students. He lowered the beam.
"Hi, Jarret. Do you know what's going on?"
"Earthquake! Feels like a really strong one, too. Maybe a 7.0?" The clean-cut young athlete reached him. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"I was in the SUB with some friends. They headed back to the dorms, but I thought I'd better come out here to make sure everything was okay."
Lindgren smiled. Jarret was like so many other enthusiastically religious young men and women he'd tutored over the years; meticulous to a fault, but a good boy at his core. A little more life experience would temper and refine his faith.
"I was just trying to decide whether I should stay here or head out to where all the noise is," Lindgren admitted.
"You should stay here," Jarret said at once. "People are---"
Abruptly, with a rumble like thunder, the earth leaped and rippled beneath their feet. Both Jarret and Lindgren lost their balance and fell. The flashlight rolled out of the pastor's hand, its beam flickering and then regaining strength.
The thunderous roar continued with a loud cracking, crashing sound. Lindgren turned his head, searching for its source.
Across the parking lot, the library's brick walls were collapsing.
The ground bucked beneath them as though something were pushing it up from below. Another great mass of bricks tumbled off the library wall, revealing steel reinforcing girders that trembled like straws. More bricks collapsed, and windows cracked and shattered.
Then the rippling beneath the earth stopped.
Lindgren scrambled to his feet, snatching up his flashlight as he ran toward the library. This close to finals---
Cries arose from the rubble.
He lost track of time as he and Jarret and the students and staff who hadn't been trapped under the collapsing walls dug through piles of brick and shelving. One of the library staff members parked all of the information services carts in a line along the buckled sidewalk and turned on their headlights. They would provide illumination until their solar-powered batteries lost their charges.
Thank heavens, Lindgren thought as he worked, that most of the students were earthquake-wise enough to have taken refuge under the reading tables and study desks. So far everyone was alive, although several would need medical treatment.
"The emergency lines are all busy," reported one of the library administrators, closing her phone. She sounded grim. "And campus security isn't answering, either."
"Pastor!" Jarret shouted from the sidewalk. "Come here, quick!"
Lindgren climbed over the skittering piles of bricks and joined the three students who stood in a huddle: Jarret, a girl he recognized from services, and a young man he didn't know.
"Go on, Ally, tell him," Jarret urged.
"It's a monster," she said, through chattering teeth. She wasn't dressed for the cold, and from the way she leaned on her friend, Lindgren guessed she was injured. "Peter and I saw it come out of the ground, this giant snakelike thing, and it smashed a whole bunch of people right outside Gilbert Hall."
Sickened, Lindgren shrugged off his wool coat and draped it around her shoulders.
"Take her to the chapel," he directed Jarret. They had turned the nave into a makeshift hospital for the injured students they'd dug out from the rubble. The chapel's tiny emergency cabinet was already running out of bandages and antiseptic.
"But, what about---"
"Go on. She's freezing to death."
"You don't believe me," Ally said, shivering, "because nobody ever believes when they're told about monsters, but it's true, you can ask Peter."
"I will." Lindgren touched her shoulder. "You go inside with Jarret and get warm, and say a prayer for us all."
She nodded. Jarret took her arm and helped her away.
"It is true," said the young man she'd called Peter. He wasn't dressed much better than the girl, and his feet were bare and covered with dirt. "I know it sounds crazy, but it looked like a giant snake, and it came out of the ground, turned, and then went back in again, on top of a bunch of RAs and people." His face was white. "I think they're dead."
"Could it have been a loose pipe, or a burst of steam?" Lindgren asked, searching for some other explanation. "The earthquake has probably broken a number of underground pipes."
"No. It was scaly, and it had teeth. It was alive, not a piece of metal."
Lindgren breathed a prayer and nodded, putting a hand on the young man's back. "All right. I'll go take a look. Go inside, get warmed up, and see if you can borrow some shoes and a coat from one of the injured students. We need as many able-bodied searchers out here as we can get."
"Do you want me to show you?"
"You were in Gilbert Hall? I know the way. Go on." Lindgren gently pushed him forward, and Peter nodded.
The pastor shivered, his suit jacket little defense against the cold and his fear. He walked over to the administrator with the phone.
"There's some trouble at Gilbert Hall," he said. "I'm going to take a look."
"I'll keep trying to raise someone on the phone," she said, nodding. "Be careful, Pastor."
"You, too." He flicked on his flashlight and began walking across Campus Park, praying that the two young students had been mistaken.
Then he heard gunshots from north campus, and he changed course, breaking into a run.
Clancy was being tugged forward, out of his warm bed, and he protested, but his mouth was full of dirt. He coughed and choked as he was dragged out into the open air.
He rolled on his back. The earth was shaking and trembling, and stars swam overhead as he tried to focus.
"You're alive?" A calm voice with a note of surprise. "Ah, yes, I see."
Clancy blinked, feeling dirt fall off his face, and clenched his hand as someone tried to tug the evidence bag out of it. Alarmed, he pushed himself up to one elbow. His wrist ached where it had been grabbed.
"What---" he coughed and spat. The white-haired provost---Penemue, that was his name---raised an elegant eyebrow. Clancy wiped his face with his arm, still holding the bag that he'd grabbed from the technician moments before the man had been engulfed in a wave of dirt. "What the hell was that?"
An earthquake, of course. But not just an earthquake, not with those huge white things bursting out of the earth and sending dirt washing over them all. Jesus, had he really seen them?
He rolled to his knees and looked around. The whole north campus looked like a battlefield that had been saturation-bombed. Even the generator-run spotlights had fallen over, their bright beams criss-crossing the ground in a haphazard manner.
Huge pits and craters marred the earth, and heavy equipment was half-buried in giant ripples of dirt and shattered stone. He saw an arm without a shoulder attached to it, and somebody's shoe, and a body that wasn't moving.
Jackson was sitting next to him, groaning and holding his leg. Shattered bone jutted through the flesh and his pants leg.
Clancy licked his lips and tasted dirt.
"You pulled me out." He looked up at the provost. "Thanks. Did you call an ambulance?"
Penemue regarded him with a thoughtful expression. "Not yet."
He seemed none the worse for wear. Dirt didn't cover his fine wool coat and expensive suit the way it covered Clancy, and his bright white hair wasn't even ruffled. Clancy shook his head. Some folks were born lucky.
He pulled himself to his feet, feeling strained muscles protest.
"Jackson? How you doing?"
Jackson looked up, his face white with shock and his eyes glassy.
"Think it's broken," he whispered, thinly.
"Hang in there. I'll get us some help."
"We're the only survivors." Penemue smoothed the front of his coat. "You were buried, but your head was left exposed." He gestured to the large pile of upturned dirt from which Clancy had been drawn. Clancy shuddered.
"Did you see those giant snakes?"
"Yes."
"Thank God. I'm not crazy." He looked around. Where was the forensics team? Buried underground? He felt a trace of panic. "You got any idea what they were?"
Penemue was silent. Clancy wasn't surprised. He didn't have any good guesses, either. Everyone dead. Jesus! He looked down at the bag in his hand, then carefully folded it around the clay medallion and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
Whatever it was, it was the only piece of evidence left from the investigation.
"First thing we do is call an ambulance, and then report to the station," he declared. Freaks of nature, aliens from outer space, or genetically engineered escapees from one of the local biochem labs---whatever those snakes were, they had to be reported.
Maybe if both Jackson and Penemue supported his story, he wouldn't be laughed out of the office.
"Emergency services may be too busy to respond. The entire city seems to be in a state of emergency," Penemue observed.
Clancy took another look. The provost was right. The generator-powered lights had fooled him, but beyond them, everything was dark. And the ground was still shaking, although not as badly as before. He rubbed his wrist, then reached inside his jacket and touched the holster under his arm. He hadn't lost his gun. That was something.
"There's a radio in my car. You stay here and keep an eye on Jackson. Don't let him move."
"Wait." Penemue lifted a hand. "Give me the seal before you go."
"The what?" Clancy stared at the man a moment before registering his meaning. "You mean, the medal thing?"
"It's a seal of summoning."
"Summoning what?" He was suddenly afraid he already knew the answer.
"The beings in between."
He swallowed. If he hadn't seen those snake-things himself, he'd say Penemue was crazy. Even now, part of him was hoping this would all turn out to be a nightmare or some kind of hallucination.
"You think this is some kind of Satanic cult thing? Summoning demons?"
"Satan doesn't mean a thing to those creatures."
"So it's, uh, paganism or something?" At one of the annual sensitivity and diversity training sessions, he'd had to learn the difference between pagans and Satanists.
"The seal is part of it, Detective. If you give it to me, I may be able to learn more."
Penemue could be telling the truth. He was some kind of professor, after all. But he could be the head cultist, too, for all Clancy knew.
"Tell you what," he countered. "Come down to the station with me, and we'll see about letting you inspect the evidence under secure conditions. Forensics, remember---wouldn't want your fingerprints confusing the jury later."
"This won't ever go to trial."
"That decision's out of my hands." He was definitely getting a bad feeling about the provost. Assuming the white-haired man even was the provost---suddenly Clancy wasn't sure about that, either. He hadn't asked for identification, and what the hell was a provost, anyway? "Look, you can come with me or not; it's up to you. But people are dead---" he stopped, reminded of his missing colleagues. The panic and grief that he'd held at bay threatened to rise, and he thrust it down, swallowing hard. "---and Jackson needs medical treatment now. I've got to get help."
"I'm offering you help." Penemue held out one finely manicured hand. "I may be your only hope."
Clancy took a step backward, shaking his head. Something was wrong here, and he didn't like the fact that Penemue was resisting going to the station.
"Sorry. Don't move, Jackson. I'll be right back." He turned, thrusting one hand under his jacket and onto the grip of his pistol, and began to walk toward the street. He hoped his car was still intact.
The earth began to jolt again. One of the dig lights shifted, its wide beam passing over Clancy as it rolled to a new position.
He turned, pulling his pistol free, expecting to find Penemue lunging for him, but the provost's back was turned as he stared at the field.
Clancy followed the man's gaze, his throat tightening.
Something was pushing its way through the night sky---the dirt---the very light beams that crossed the ruined field. The stars spun, the earth quaked, and the air split, revealing a multitude of multicolored, pulsing, floating monsters that put the earlier snake-creatures to shame with their grotesquerie.
"Oh, shit." Clancy took two steps to the left, to avoid hitting Penemue, and began firing with terrified abandon.
The glass display cases had broken, and Todd envied Jack Langthorn his hard-soled cowboy boots and Andy Markham his sturdy running sneakers. His own Italian loafers weren't designed for stepping on broken glass. He could still feel pain. Usually pain didn't bother him---feeling anything was better than feeling nothing---but tonight he didn't have time for distractions. The heaviness he'd felt hanging over campus all autumn had reached its crisis point, and thousands of possible futures frothed around him, seeking a new state of equilibrium.
"Are you looking for anything in particular?" Markham asked. He'd found a candle in the rubble, part of one of the displays, and was lighting it with Jack's lighter.
"I suspect those bones were buried in the Gudruns' time," Todd said, looking around. "I'd like to know why."
"I take it you don't figure that was the family graveyard," Jack said.
"I think it was a sacrificial garden."
"Here." Markham handed him the candle in a pewter candlestick. "Sacrifice to what, Edward?"
"Maybe one of the old gods. The Gudruns were Norwegian?"
"You're not going to tell me they were sacrificing to Odin, are you?"
Todd shrugged, leaning over a jumble of household goods and carefully moving them around. "I don't know. We'll have a better idea when Amon returns."
The fallen items seemed mundane enough: dishes and cups and knick-knacks, some of them apparently brought over from the old country. He stepped over the mess and continued looking.
"Hand me my lighter, would you?" he heard Jack ask. The two men began a back-and-forth, something about smoking and health, and Todd tuned them out, walking deeper into the attic. His impressions of the available probabilities were growing increasingly unclear. All he was going on now was instinct.
He didn't even know what he was looking for. He just knew that he'd recognize it when he saw it.
Another bookshelf had tilted over in the back of the attic, a barrister-style glass-fronted unit that hung open. Its collection of leather-and cloth-bound books had spilled onto the floor. Todd crouched, setting the candle to one side, and inspected the titles in its flickering light.
Some were in English, but most were in a language he couldn't read. Norwegian, if he had to guess. The answer could be in one of them, but how would he know?
A number of angels and devils spoke all the tongues of humankind, but Jack had already expressed reservations about conjuration. Besides, the chaos rippling around campus made Todd cautious. Until a new equilibrium resolved itself, any action, however minor, could have a catastrophic effect on the future. And conjuration was by no means minor.
"Did you find something?" Markham asked, his steps crunching on broken glass.
"Do you read Norwegian?"
"I'm afraid not." The former priest stepped past him and crouched on the opposite side of the pile. He picked up a book and paged through it.
The scent of tobacco drifted through the attic. Todd glanced at his companion.
"You lost the argument."
The older man sighed.
"He says he's trying to quit. I wish he'd try a little harder."
"You've asked me about my beliefs. Let me ask the same of you." Todd picked up another book, flipped through it, and set it aside. "Why were you laicized?"
"Oh, nothing juicy, I'm afraid." Markham glanced up from his book. "I was performing exorcisms my bishop hadn't approved, using methods he didn't like, and I'd published several papers he considered theologically suspect."
"Did he go to the pope?"
"I volunteered for laicization before the matter could go that far, and I've stopped publishing under my own name." Markham chuckled. "The people who need me manage to find me."
"Then you still practice exorcisms."
"In extremis, I'd still be expected to perform the sacraments. And most of the people who seek my help are in extremis."
"What's your friend's role? He's not a priest." Todd tilted what appeared to be a Norwegian Bible toward the candle and opened it. Names were handwritten in the flyleaf, along with a series of dates.
"Oh, Jack really pisses off the Church. He practices Christian magick---mostly folk spells, with a little Santeria on the side, and high magick when the folkways don't work."
"You don't object?"
"I've seen God work through him often enough to keep my reservations to myself. I stopped trying to second-guess the Lord a long time ago."
Todd turned the Bible toward him. Markham set down his own book to take it, holding the page high to catch the faint light.
"Can you read any of that?" Todd asked.
"Well, it looks like the last names are Gale and Thorvald, and they're in the same handwriting, with the same dates on them." Markham's finger tracked the dates up. "This must be their wedding date. This last one's in another hand, so it's probably their death date."
"The nephew wrote it?"
"Or a friend of the family."
Todd nodded, wondering when Amon would return. He was eager to hear the demon's news, and he wanted Amon by his side as a spiritual counterbalance to the two Christians.
Markham began flipping through the Bible. Todd picked up the next book, a much-annotated cookbook in English.
"Jack!" the laicized priest said abruptly, standing. "It's Leviathan."
Todd heard Jack say something. Floorboards creaked and glass crunched as the other man crossed the dark attic, appearing in their tiny circle of light. He'd thrown away his cigarette, but the smell of tobacco clung to his clothes as he took the Bible.
Todd stood to look over his shoulder.
The text was in Norwegian, but he could tell that the chapter was in Job. Someone had underlined words and jotted numbers in one corner. A long, twisting serpent was drawn around the edge of the page in faded ink.
"Where else is Leviathan mentioned?" Jack asked, flipping the pages. "Somewhere in Psalms, right?"
"Yes, but I don't remember which one."
"I'd take a guess and say 74." Jack held the page open. More ink drawings covered the pages, crude but evocative.
"Leviathan is commonly considered to be another name for the Babylonian goddess Tiamat," Todd mused. "Or the Nordic Midgard Serpent. It's associated with water, not earth."
"But Tiamat was the guardian of the underworld," Jack pointed out.
"Well, at least this gives us a serpent link," Markham said thoughtfully. "That giant snake out there is associated with Leviathan, or is Leviathan...or the Gudruns thought it was, anyway."
"Good." Jack closed the Bible. "If it's nephilim, it can be banished."
"I don't think that creature is any member of the mal'akhim," Todd demurred, remembering Amon's warning. "Amon didn't recognize the bones as belonging to either heaven or hell. Whatever they were consecrated to isn't part of the Host."
Jack and Markham exchanged glances, and then the biker sighed, handing the Bible back to his friend. He gave Todd a weary look.
"Don't tell me. You think it's an alien."
Todd burst into startled laughter.
"You don't really believe in aliens, do you?" he asked.
"Most people find it easier to believe in aliens than in angels and devils," Markham said. "What was that old book? Crop Circles of the Gods, or something like that?"
"Chariots of the Gods," Jack corrected him. "And I know people who take it as gospel. Except for the ones who think crop circles are angelic signatures, of course."
"Celestial graffiti?" Markham tsked. "Must be those pesky rebel angels."
Todd brushed dust off his slacks, finding the whole idea ridiculous. He'd never heard the nephilim or b'nei elohim express any concern about souls on other planets. If aliens existed, they had their own mal'akhim.
"I think this is the information we needed," Todd said as the attic shuddered again. Glass skittered and clinked across the floor. "I daresay your Leviathan is linked to these earthquakes."
"Seems to me it might be worth taking a closer look at the bones," Jack suggested. "They gotta be linked to all this."
Todd nodded. As of yet, he'd only seen the field from a distance. With luck, the police in the area would have been called away for emergency duties.
"Let's go." Todd picked up the candle and closed his eyes, ignoring the frothing possibilities and concentrating on finding one static door. It was there, motionless because he had located it, and he swung it open to a spurt of flames and ringing of bells.
"Perceptive filters," he said, before the other two could object. "Energy interpreted in a manner your senses can process."
"Or maybe just plain hellfire," Andy added.
"What about your little friend?" Jack asked.
"Amon will find me, no matter where I am."
Alison stared at the oak cross, which shuddered each time the earth shook. Peter and Jarret had headed back outside to help with the rescue attempts, leaving her in the chapel with the other students who were too hurt to help but not so hurt that they couldn't sit in the pews to pray.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't think of any explanation for the snake-thing except that it was some kind of monster. And if it was a monster, then it needed to be stopped. Except the big question in every horror movie was "how?" Every monster had a weakness or vulnerability, but that snake thing wasn't exactly a vampire or werewolf.
Of course, if this was the apocalypse, then nothing was going to stop the monster except Judgment Day, but the world hadn't ended yet, and you couldn't just sit around on your hands until the Final Trump sounded, could you? Because what if you were wrong?
She wished Dr. Todd were here. He'd know what to do about giant killer snake-monsters. And he'd know if it was the end of the world or not.
Ally had always hated those useless blonde bimbettes in horror movies. Now she twined her fingers through her own fair hair and sighed. So, what could she do to keep from being a bimbette? She'd warned Pastor Lindgren about the monster---that was important, even if he didn't believe her yet---but what now?
It would be pretty feeble to die without at least trying to stop the monster.
At least monsters weren't as bad as supernatural creatures or serial killers who kept rising from the dead. Monsters could be killed, and when they died, they stayed dead, except then you had to kill all the baby monsters they'd laid while you were hunting them.
No problem. She figured she could kill baby monster snakes pretty easily.
On the other hand, monsters needed something really impressive to stop them, like chainsaws or dynamite or a runaway semi. Alison didn't know how to use a chainsaw, didn't know where to find any dynamite, and wouldn't have the first idea how to put a semi into gear, much less actually drive one around.
Useless.
Now wait, she argued with herself, I've seen four Tremors movies. The snake probably tracks by vibration, so I know how to defend myself, even if I don't have any dynamite. I'm not entirely useless.
Dynamite...didn't construction companies use dynamite? There were two construction sites on campus: the north campus where people were saying a bunch of bones had been found, and mid-campus, where the new social sciences building was going to go up.
Omigod. She straightened up in the pew.
The bones.
The monster had to be linked to the bones. In fact, maybe the bones had been the snake's, and it was a giant vengeful ghost.
No, it had smashed up all those people. Ghosts didn't smash people. She swallowed.
So maybe the giant snake had been hibernating down there with all the bones of its old victims for centuries, and the digging woke it up and made it hungry.
That meant as soon as it ate enough, it would go back to sleep, right? This was December, and it was cold outside, even if it was California. A snake would totally go back into hibernation as soon as it could.
Good. Well, not the part about eating people, but the part about it going to sleep.
If they could find a bunch of cows or something, then maybe they could lure it away from campus, and it would eat the cows instead of people and then go to sleep so they could kill it.
Thanks, God, she said silently, flashing the cross a grateful look. She gingerly got to her feet.
Now all she had to do was tell the police about her plan before any more people got eaten.
Especially her.
The shots were loud, much louder than they'd ever been at the firing range, where Clancy had always worn ear protection.
But the newly arrived creatures blurred as they moved, morphed into other shapes, and if his bullets hit them, he couldn't see any sign of it. They pulsed and heaved in a multitude of colors: dusty red, pale blue, fleshy tan, off-white; a cloud of floating, diving entities, some of them high in the air, others bobbing through the earth. But whereas the earlier snake-things had dislodged dirt and caused tremors as they'd moved, these seemed to ignore the ground entirely.
Each of the monsters was surrounded by a nimbus of light that left tracks across Clancy's retinas as they moved.
Something roared, a noise that seemed to cover the entire spectrum of soundwaves from the highest to the lowest and sent shivers down Clancy's spine. He gasped and wanted to howl like dog.
A cloud of beings broke away, floating rapidly toward him, bobbing, sliding, changing shape and color, sometimes flashing like meat, other times glittering like spines or claws, and, oh God, teeth, teeth seemed to be at the vanguard, changing shape but pressing forward.
Horrified, Clancy lifted a shaking arm, took aim, and squeezed off three more shots at the largest of the floating beings. One of the creatures snapped back and forth, a low hiss shaking the air. A new globule appeared and darted toward him.
He jerked aside as viscous liquid struck the ground and seethed. He aimed down at it, reflexively pulling the trigger. The liquid bubbled where the bullet went in.
"Run!" he shouted to Penemue. Whatever mischief the white-haired man was up to paled in the face of these alien monstrosities.
But Penemue seemed frozen, staring at the bobbing creatures with horror. Swearing to himself, Clancy ran forward, throwing a shoulder against the man's side. It was like hitting a sack of bricks, but his momentum carried him through and Penemue staggered backward, his wool coat flapping. The provost gave him a surprised look.
"Run!" Clancy shouted again, turning. Now the creatures were moving toward Jackson, and the sight of them was enough to snap the injured officer out of his state of shock. He opened his eyes and screamed, trying to lurch to his feet despite his shattered bone.
"Don't!" Clancy took step forward, but then the monsters surrounded Jackson and grew until he was completely obscured.
Then they all vanished---the swarm of alien beasts and Jackson both.
Or most of Jackson, at least.
Wet organs fell loosely to the ground in a cloud of blood.
Clancy made a low, whimpering noise, staring at the pile of intestines and guts. The fleshy mass steamed gently in the cold December night air.
The second swarm of creatures hovered, bobbing. Clancy dragged his eyes away from Jackson's innards and stared at them, his mind chattering madly. For a moment he thought, ridiculously, of that stupid old question about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin---but these were no angels.
"Be still," Penemue hissed. Clancy looked at him. The white-haired provost was standing motionless, his face drawn and tight, his hands buried in his pockets.
The advice was pointless; Clancy didn't think he could move if he wanted to. What had happened to Jackson had paralyzed him with fear.
The giant snakes had awed him, but he understood snakes. By comparison, these swarms of squirming tubes and pulsing spheres and clouds of teeth couldn't possibly be alive. The fact that they existed at all was an affront to reality.
The cold breeze carried the scent of hot blood and fresh meat to him. Bile burned the back of his throat.
"They're studying us," the provost said, his voice low. "They're trying to decide if we're dangerous. Don't do anything to make them think we're dangerous."
"Uh-uh," Clancy croaked, in agreement. Aliens---they had to be aliens. Except if they'd wanted to anally probe Jackson, they'd forgotten to take his colon with them.
Clancy ground his teeth against a bubble of mad laughter.
The cry sounded again, a multitude of voices covering every note and then some. A trickle of urine burned its way through his urethra and dampened his boxers.
The ground jerked and rippled.
What was left of Jackson suddenly appeared in the air, several yards away from where it had been, still surrounded by black spheres. The eviscerated corpse dropped, smashing to the heaving ground, and the second group of aliens returned, throbbing and twisting, accompanied by a sound like radio being tuned---many voices saying something that hovered on the very edge of intelligibility.
"Run!" shouted a distant voice, repeating the advice Clancy had given Penemue only minutes before. Clancy looked across the street that divided north campus from south and saw a man dashing across the road. The man held a flashlight that bobbed with each step, its light looking horribly like one of the creatures.
"For God's sake, get out of there now!" the man shouted again. He looked familiar, but Clancy was in no shape to figure out where he'd seen him before.
The ground took a sudden leap to the left and he fell, rolling onto his belly, digging his fingers into the dirt to stabilize himself. He reached out and grabbed his pistol, yanking it toward him and sliding it into its holster. He couldn't remember how many shots he'd fired, but he didn't have time to change the clip now.
The newcomer shouted again: "Greg! Run, go, get away from those things!"
Clancy saw that, impossibly, Penemue was still standing, his legs wide and his hands out of his coat pockets as if to brace himself on thin air. The man turned, his pale eyes searching for the caller as he rode the bucking ground as easily as a sailor rode a heaving ship deck.
Clancy looked back at the monsters. They had swarmed away, moving closer to the center of the field as if losing interest in the humans. Thank God. He pulled himself to all fours and began to crawl across the field toward the road and the shouting man.
Another quake nearly threw him off balance and he froze, looking back. One of the spotlights sputtered and blew, sending sparks into the air. A snake thing lunged upward at the aliens, its jaws gaping, its blind head swinging ecstatically toward them.
It was too much. He looked forward again and crawled as fast as he could, pausing only when the shaking of the ground threatened to throw him down.
Then the newcomer was kneeling next to him, stretching an arm around his shoulders and pointing a flashlight across the field.
"What---" For a moment Clancy tried to pull away.
"Careful." The other man was staring past him. Clancy stared at his face and suddenly remembered where he'd seen him before.
"You're the priest!"
"Minister," the man corrected, his eyes still fixed on whatever was happening out by the monsters. Clancy was afraid to turn and look. "Luther Lindgren. We talked earlier today."
Clancy grabbed his arm, feeling a surge of superstitious faith.
"Can you send those things away?"
"No." Lindgren's voice sounded distant. "No. My grandfather couldn't, and I can't, either."
This time, instead of revealing a vast horizon, the hellpassage was a narrow tunnel, its walls composed of seething beetles and roaches and earwigs and other squirming insects. Jack kept his arms tightly against his sides as he sidled through. He wasn't afraid of bugs, but damned if he wanted any crawling around inside his shirt, either.
It was bad enough that his magickal wards were acting up again, warning him that he was near evil---as if he might have forgotten he was walking through hell.
He liked the bugs better than the infernal crematoriums, though. If he had to take Todd's twisty passages through space, he preferred them filled with natural creatures.
"If you say we can walk through both heaven or hell," Andy was speculating aloud, "and all we're perceiving is an interpretation of something too difficult for our mortal minds to comprehend, then why are our surroundings so grim? I, personally, would much rather be walking through a sunny orchard or on a pleasant beach."
"Maybe the passage is taking us hellward." Todd's voice echoed through the tunnel and sent the insects rippling in reaction. "Hellward is darker than heavenward."
"What exactly does that mean, 'hellward' and 'heavenward'?" Andy complained. "Hell and heaven aren't finite points on a map."
"No, but the...the gravitational wells of Creation and Destruction warp space into dimensions beyond our own. I detect the varying effects of that warp as heavenward and hellward, even though they aren't true directions. I have to work within the constraints of my own perceptions and language, too."
"If this was really hell, there'd be mosquitoes," Jack observed. "I hate mosquitoes."
"Don't give hell any ideas," Andy chided him.
"The passages are malleable, but not so malleable that a casual thought will affect them." Todd sounded like he was lecturing. "However, if all three of us began to obsess about a cloud of mosquitoes buzzing around in a swarm of bloodsucking frenzy, landing on our bare flesh and injecting itchy toxins under our---"
"Hah, hah. Very funny, Edward."
Todd chuckled, deeply. "Well. We're either here, or we're not." The beetles scurried away from his hand, revealing another door. "Let's find out."
The door swung open, revealing bright, artificial light that momentarily silhouetted Todd against its brilliance. Then the big man stepped through, and Andy and Jack followed with relief.
The relief vanished a moment later.
The field looked like a war had been fought over it, complete with body parts and broken, overturned equipment. Three large spotlights were on their sides, flickering as their gasoline generators coughed and chugged. The ground was trembling in regular waves, as though stirred by a giant stick.
In the center of the field hovered a cloud of twisting, polymorphous bubbles and tubes made of flesh and hair and claws, floating above a circle of swaying serpents that stretched up toward the sky, their jaws open in high-pitched screams.
Jack gaped, and a line from an old ballad floated through his head:
Rich Diverus, he sickened and died, And two serpents rose from hell, His soul thereto to guide....
The strangest thing, Jack thought with a sense of detachment, was that the creatures all cast long shadows across the field, shadows that stretched across the dirt to end at their very feet.
It was that little detail that made the whole scene so chillingly believable.
Three other humans were already there. To Jack's right, on the edge of the field by the street, two men knelt in the dirt, staring at the serpents. Beyond the creatures, on the other side of the field, a single man stood upright, his white hair shining like a brand.
Jack's wards gave a warning tingle as the white-haired man shifted his head to inspect them.
"What in God's name are they?" Andy breathed, barely audible over the generators and serpentine screaming. He crossed himself. Jack reflexively followed suit.
"Guess that snake wasn't Leviathan proper," he said. "Unless it had kids."
"Are they mal'akhim?"
"I hope so. I can handle mal'akhim. If they're aliens, we're screwed."
"I think that's Provost Penemue, on the other side of the field."
"He seems to be taking it better than those other two."
"He's watching," Todd said, a strange note in his voice. Jack glanced at him, then back at the strange display. Whatever was on the big man's mind came in a poor second to the scene being played out right in front of them.
The floating creatures were dancing, moving inexplicably back and forth, up and down, getting bigger and smaller. The giant, bone-scaled serpents seemed to be singing, or maybe worshipping. They looked like cobras swaying before a snake charmer, except this time it was the cobra producing the music.
Jack licked his lips and longed for a shot of whiskey.
"I got a couple protections against snakes, but I don't think they'll work against anything that size," he told Andy, reaching for his pack of cigarettes instead. "And most of them just keep snakes away; they don't kill 'em."
"Keeping them away would be a start."
"Yeah. But I got nothing to ward off flying flesh-saucers."
"They don't seem to be paying any attention to us."
For a moment they continued to stare.
"Well, Jack," Andy said at last, "this isn't exactly like exorcising evil spirits, is it?"
"We might just be out of our league."
"I can't imagine who's in this league."
"What do you think, Todd?" Jack asked, looking over. "Can you lure those things into one of your hellholes and lock 'em away for good?"
"I don't know what they are," Todd said, sounding puzzled for the first time that night. "There's something familiar about them, but---"
"Familiar? You must see some pretty strange things in those tunnels of yours."
"I do. And I think we need to talk to the mal'akhim."
"Like they ever give anyone a straight answer." Still, Jack admitted, the idea had its merits. Right now a little advice from an angel, no matter how cryptic, would make him feel a hell of a lot better. "Andy?"
"Did you happen to notice whether that angel was still standing outside the ranch house?"
Jack scowled, trying to remember. "Nope. I didn't see it, but I wasn't looking for it, either. I was more worried about a giant snake bursting out of the ground."
"Penemue knows something," Todd said.
"How do you know?" Andy asked.
"I don't know, but I have a strong suspicion. You're the angelologist, Andrew. What does the name Gregory Penemue mean to you?"
Andy's face went blank. Jack considered what he knew about angels, but Penemue didn't mean anything to him. It wasn't one of the archangels or ruling princes, he was sure of that.
"Gregory---Grigori?" Andy looked back across the field, puzzled. "Was Penemue one of the Grigori?"
"The only one I ever remember is Azazel, because his legend is so close to Satan's," Todd replied. "But look at him. Do you think a normal university administrator would stand so calmly in the face of all this madness?"
"We're doing all right," Jack pointed out.
"We're not bureaucrats."
Andy ignored him. He had pulled his cell phone out of his coat pocket and was furiously tapping the screen.
"Grigori...Book of Enoch...God bless the Internet, what did we ever do without it? Edward, you've just gone to the head of the class. Penemue taught mankind to write, 'and thereby many sinned from eternity to eternity and until this day.' Hmmm...." He tapped a few more times, squinting at the glowing screen.
"What are the Grigori, again?" Jack asked. "Fallen angels?"
"They're the Watchers, the angels who descended from heaven and fell in love with the daughters of men," Todd said as Andy remained hunched over his phone. "The story is apocryphal but popular."
"Penemue taught children the 'bitter and sweet, and the secrets of their wisdom.' Sounds perfect for a university administrator, doesn't it?" Andy looked up, gazing across the field at the provost. "What can you tell about him, Jack?"
"There's magick here, but I can't tell where it's coming from. Though, come to think of it, I did get a prickle last time I saw him. I thought my wards were detecting the angel, but they might have been sensing him, too. Maybe he's what the angel was keeping an eye on." Jack shrugged, his gaze returning to the strange ritual in the center of the field. "He doesn't look like any b'nei elohim I've ever seen."
"He wouldn't. The Grigori stand between," Todd said. "Rather like me."
The carapaced snakes had moved closer to the floating beings, which occasionally darted down to brush the snakes' hard, pale scales. Was it a form of communication? A caress? Hypnotism? Jack thought he saw flashes of spined orbs and floating teeth among the swirling, polymorphous creatures, but the serpents didn't seem threatened.
Then they stopped moving, dropping in heavy coils back to the ground. Their shrill, screaming song fell silent.
For a moment the only noise in the field was the chugging of the generators. Jack held his breath.
The floating swarms vanished.
The serpents shifted and twined a moment, then buried their heads in the dirt. With a massive flip of their spiny tails and a ground-shuddering shove, they dived underground once more.
Jack grabbed Todd's arm for balance as the ground surged and rippled beneath them. For a moment he could actually see the creatures burrowing beneath the surface of the earth, moving back toward campus.
Another one of the generators sputtered and failed, its spotlight going out.
Only one light remained, its white beam stretched across the field, cutting a line between them and Penemue.
"Well," Jack said, feeling the ground shuddering beneath his feet. "I got no idea what just happened. How about you?"
Jarret drew back, his eyes wide. Peter's arm tightened around Alison's shoulders.
The broken and screaming bodies were gone, but the hole in the ground remained.
"Maybe an ambulance came and picked them up," Peter ventured, without conviction.
Alison shook her head.
"The monsters took them," she said, knowing that she was right because that's what always happened in the movies. "To eat, or to turn into something else."
She felt Peter shudder, even though he was doing his best to look brave.
"Monsters." Still skeptical, Jarret edged forward and craned his neck, not getting too close to the broken dirt and sidewalk. He played a flashlight over the ground, then jerked the beam aside. "Is that blood?"
Alison swallowed and looked around. The dorms were pitch black. Everyone had run off---they'd seen a few students running across campus, toward the bright lights around the collapsed library, and they'd seen even more climbing into their cars and pulling out of the dorm parking lots.
Still, the campus wasn't silent. She heard distant sirens and screeching, car horns, shouting. Sounds of life. Somehow, that was encouraging.
She put a cold hand over her mouth, trying to concentrate. She'd convinced the boys to go with her to get Peter's SUV and see if the people who'd been hurt were okay, and on the way she'd told them her ideas about the big snake and the cold weather. Jarret hadn't entirely believed them about the snake, but she thought he was coming around to their point of view.
"Come on," Peter said, looking over his shoulder. "Let's go."
They made their way around the cracked, sagging dorm, Jarret's flashlight picking out more craters in the ground where the giant snake had surfaced. Then they got to the parking lot and found more students huddled there, speaking in low, urgent tones.
Alison limped up to one of her classmates. "What's going on?"
The girl turned, a look of barely restrained panic on her face.
"The roads are all torn up,"
"By the earthquake?" Jarret asked. The girl glanced at him, looking amazed.
"By the snakes," she said, her voice expressing her disbelief. "Haven't you seen them?"
"Uh, not yet." He blinked, looking around. The rest of the students were all looking over their shoulders.
"Look." One of them pulled out his cell phone and held it out. Alison craned her neck to see the picture he was showing Jarret.
"Looks like a blur," Jarret said.
"It's a monster snake!" Offended, the young man pulled his phone back. "I uploaded it to the web. I didn't see any other giant snake pictures there yet, so I think I'm the first."
"How bad can torn-up roads be?" Peter asked, sounding nervous. "My truck's got four-wheel drive."
"Like, canyon bad," Ally's classmate retorted. "People have been, like, just parking and climbing down and back out again, so it's a total traffic jam, too."
"Then the snakes aren't trying to keep us from leaving; they're just keeping vehicles from coming and going," Alison said, frowning. "Like the police, or fire trucks. Or the Army. That's bad. That means they're intelligent."
"They're aliens," someone said.
Voices immediately rose in argument, some pointing out how stupid it would be for aliens to invade such a small campus; others pointing out that the electricity was off, the land lines down, and the cell phones getting busy signals, so the same thing could be happening all around the world. The phone guy said he couldn't find anything online about alien attacks. A girl testified that she'd gotten through to her mother in North Dakota and everything there was fine. Someone else said there was nothing aliens would want in North Dakota.
Alison wrapped her arms around herself, shivering despite Pastor Lindgren's coat. She tried to blank out the argument and concentrate on what a hero in a horror movie would do next.
Either hike out and warn the National Guard, or go fight the snakes herself.
Fighting brought her back to the question of weapons. Neither Peter nor Jarret had thought that the construction companies would store dynamite on campus. After some consideration, she'd had to agree. Campus security didn't even allow air guns and pocket knives on campus, much less explosives.
If this were a science-fiction movie, she'd be able to use some kind of cold ray to put the snakes into hibernation...or whatever...but she'd already taken her two mandatory science courses, and she hadn't seen anything like a giant refrigeration unit in the science building.
"Look," Peter said, "how far around campus have the snakes dug? Can we cut through somebody's backyard?"
"Hello? Drive through someone's yard? Are you crazy?"
"I'm not crazy! This is a emergency!"
"I'll go with you," one of the students volunteered. "We can drive around and find out if the snakes missed anything."
Slowly the other students nodded, two of them volunteering to follow on their motorcycles.
Alison wavered, then finally decided they were right.
"We have to warn the authorities," she said, as confidently as she could. "If the snakes are only here on campus, the cops might not know about them yet."
That started another argument over alien-invasion logistics, but at least they were arguing as they pulled out their keys and headed for their vehicles.
Auctor inspected Viator's captive with curiosity, his thousands of eyes scanning, analyzing, and recording. The captive bared its teeth and excreted some kind of liquid over Viator's claws. Viator's tentacular tongues flicked out and tasted it on several levels of hyperspace.
It is primarily photonic waves arranged in overlapping patterns, she said, bemused. Watch. She moved the captive into another space and its shape changed. Then she moved it to another, and it took yet a third form.
It was one of the sigil guardians, Auctor was almost certain, but it made no attempt to oppose them. An immature sigil-spawn, perhaps? Or a lesser creature that had camouflaged itself as a sigil-guardian to protect itself against predators?
Does it conceive of itself as matter or light? Auctor asked, carefully running an eye-covered feeler through the creature for an internal examination. Its internalities seemed incomplete and illogical. Auctor compared its structure to that of the other hypospatial beings it had encountered in the past and wondered if this one were damaged.
I am not even sure it has self-realization. Viator brought the creature back into their preferred limis. Do you want to try to communicate with it?
Auctor choose the hypospace with the highest probability of being the creature's native home and retracted the protective membranes from its communicative organs, reshaping them to work at a suitably mechanical level. He repeated his query several times, in the several different communicative patterns.
No response, although the thing quivered with more intensity. Auctor turned a few hundred eyes toward Viator.
You may be right. He meditated a moment. If it were an immature guardian, it should be destroyed. But if it were something else, it might generate useful data if it were tagged and released. Release it. Let us see where it goes.
As you wish. Viator dropped it back onto the path where she'd plucked it. They watched it race off, and then, taking pains to remain unseen, they followed.
Todd stared at the spot where the floating creatures had vanished, recognition tickling the edges of his consciousness. Their name was there, just out of reach. If he waited long enough, he was sure the answer would come to him.
"Andrew? Is that you?"
He turned, along with Markham and Jack Langthorn, and saw that the two men from the edge of the field had joined them, staggering as the earth shook. One of them was wearing a nylon Vista Hills Police Department jacket and kept his hand on the gun holstered under one arm. He was visibly shaking, his eyes constantly moving past them to check the center of the field. Todd recognized the other as Pastor Lindgren.
"Luther." Markham and the pastor shook hands, their faces eerily lit by the remaining sputtering spotlight. "What do you make of all this?"
"Nothing good. What are you doing here?"
"Jack, Edward, this is Pastor Lindgren."
"We've met," Todd said, nodding cordially to the minister. Jack held out a hand and shook.
"Do you have any idea what those things are?" Markham asked. Lindgren looked back at the field.
"It's the Gudrun curse."
"Well, thank God for that," Jack said, with feeling. "Curses I can do something about. How about them weirdlings? You know anything about them?"
Lindgren shook his head again. "They were never mentioned in the stories. But---"
The ground jerked and they all froze, feeling the tremors running beneath them.
"They gutted one of my men," the police officer said, abruptly. "They made his skin and bones vanish and left his guts hanging in midair. Then they threw the rest of him away, too. There." He pointed.
Todd looked, but all he could see was a crumpled shape on the ground. He started to step forward for a closer look, but then Lindgren began to speak again, and he decided to stay and listen.
"My grandfather was a pastor, too, one of the men who investigated the Gudruns' disappearance," Lindgren said. "He told me there'd been rumors about vagrants and migrant workers vanishing in the area, but nobody'd paid much attention to them. Sixty years ago, this was all ranchland and countryside, and the police didn't worry if a Mexican migrant or two went missing."
The shaking had become a constant, distant tremble. Wherever the snakes were, Todd thought, they had left the north campus.
"One day the Gudruns didn't come to church. My grandfather stopped by on his way home to check up on them. He didn't find them, but he did see a deep, blood-edged hole in one of their fields." Lindgren gestured out to the broken ground beyond them. "Grandpa called some neighbors over to make sure the Gudruns hadn't fallen into the hole---he thought maybe an old cave had collapsed---but the hole went down so deep that the searchers finally gave up. The ground around the top was saturated with blood. If the Gudruns had fallen down the hole, they had to be dead."
"What frightened the Gudruns' nephew?" Todd asked, remembering the terse passage in the history book. "He seemed to be in a hurry to sell the ranch."
"Yes, and he sold it for much less than he could have gotten if he'd waited. You see, when Grandpa found the bloody hole, he also found some other things: an old horn bowl, a bone dagger, and a long wooden stick. They were covered with runes and blood. He hid them away because he didn't want to get the Gudruns in trouble until he'd had a chance to talk to them himself, and when the Gudruns never showed up, he waited to show them to their nephew. Well, the nephew didn't know what they were, either, so the two of them searched the house for clues. Down in the basement they found a trunk full of books---terrible things, apparently, full of horrible illustrations. Grandpa said they were in Latin and Norwegian and some languages he didn't recognize." Lindgren sighed, looking haunted. "He'd always thought the Gudruns were good Lutherans, but it seems they'd been dabbling in the occult."
Todd smiled to himself as Jack and Markham exchanged guilty glances.
"Do you still have the books?" he asked.
"No. Grandpa burned them. He told me the flames turned blue and smelled like burning flesh."
"Well, burning them probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but it don't help us much now." Jack rubbed his chin. "I don't suppose he remembered any titles?"
"Apocalypses Apocryphae. I remember that one. I looked it up online once. It was printed in Leipzig in the 1800s and would be worth quite a bit now."
Jack turned to Todd. "Apocalypses sounds like your department."
"Serpents, dragons, worms, and similar creatures are common in apocryphal writings," Todd said, gazing back out at the field. It was a stark palette of black and white to his eyes. "They were adopted into Biblical lore from older religions. Then again, I've heard some fringe elements argue that dragons are universal archetypes because humans share a racial memory of dinosaurs. That's a historical impossibility, of course, unless one's a young-Earth creationist."
"Or them snake-things were the original dragons," Jack suggested.
"It's not beyond the realm of possibility. Dragons are no stranger than mal'akhim."
"Fuck dragons," the policeman said, turning suddenly. "I don't care about dragons. What the hell were those floating things? Did you see what they did to Jackson? They gutted him, just like that. I shot them, but it didn't make any difference. Bullets don't hurt them."
"Easy, now," Jack said. Todd watched as the lanky man took a step forward and laid a friendly hand on the policeman's shoulder. He expected the policeman to object, but instead he fell still, meeting Jack's eyes. "We don't know what them weirdlings were, either, but we're gonna find out. You musta been the first to see them."
Todd noticed that Jack's usually negligible accent became more pronounced as he spoke to the officer. The man pulled on his country-boy persona like a second skin, virtually radiating American sincerity.
The policeman shivered and drew in a deep breath.
"I'm Walt. Walt Clancy. Detective."
Jack dropped his hand and smiled.
"Nice to meet you, Detective Clancy. I'm Jack. Maybe you can help us figure out what's going on here. You were at the dig when the quake hit, right?"
Clancy turned and looked across the field.
"There was someone else here. He said he was the provost."
"Gregory Penemue," Todd said. He followed Clancy's gaze, but that part of the field was lost in a darkness too deep for his handicapped eyes to pierce. "He is the provost."
"Did they---did they kill him?"
"I doubt it," Todd said dryly. He could open a portal to Penemue's most likely position, but he was reluctant to do so in front of the pastor and the detective. Revealing his nature to Markham and Langthorn was risky enough.
"We'll catch up with him later," Jack said, still gazing mildly at Clancy. "So, what happened?"
The detective related his side of the story, his voice steadying as he spoke. Todd straightened as he heard the details of Jackson's death. Suddenly, the pieces slid into place and the nagging sense of recognition that had been bothering him vanished.
He half-turned, searching past the surface reality for the sliding jigsaw probabilities that surrounded them.
The probabilities were moving swiftly, flickering and changing through iterations that traced an infinity pattern across the numberscape, twisting and revolving around a set of all-too-familiar attractors: himself, Andrew Markham, and Jack Langthorn.
Todd lifted a hand and ran his forefinger across his bottom lip, searching for something more definitive.
Nothing. The formula was discernable, but its end point---its end point could be any one of a wave of points stretched across the infinite.
He drew his gaze back. The detective had pulled a plastic bag from his pocket and was handing it to Jack. "We found two of these at the scene," he said. "One was broken. Do they have something to do with all of this?"
"Sonofagun, Andy, look what we have here," Jack said, sliding a clay disk out of the bag and tilting it toward the remaining spotlight.
"A goetic seal," Todd said, reaching out to run a finger over the marked surface. "Blood-imbued earth."
"Andromalius," Jack read aloud. "I don't know that one."
"Neither do I. This would be a lot easier with my library." Markham already had his phone out, fingers working the touchscreen. "Next month's bill is going to kill me. All right, here we are. Legemeton. Andromalius. Seventy-second spirit, earl, form of a man holding a great serpent in his hand. Brings back thieves and goods that that were stolen, discovers wickedness, blah blah, treasures that be hid, rules thirty-six legions of spirits."
"The bit about a serpent sounds like our Leviathan link," Jack said.
"And the part about treasure," Todd added. Everyone looked at him, so he felt compelled to elaborate. "There are several mythical motifs associated with dragons and serpents. First, they live in caves or under ground. Second, they guard treasure. In the earliest stories, they guarded the passage to the afterlife, or wisdom of some kind. Later, their treasure became secularized as mere gold and jewels."
"But what does it mean?" Lindgren asked, worried. "What did the seals do?"
"I expect they kept those things quiet. Perhaps the Gudruns' nephew knew more about the occult than he admitted to your grandfather." Todd shot a look at the two occultists. "Pastor, I recommend you and Detective Clancy tell the authorities about these creatures. You don't need to say anything about goetic seals and dragons. Just show them the holes and suggest they bring in as much heavy weaponry as they can."
"I'm good with that," Clancy said, sounding relieved. Lindgren looked puzzled.
"I agree, but---I don't quite understand what's going on," he said. "My family was involved in this from the start, but who are you? Two adjunct religion professors and a stranger? How did you get involved in all this?"
Todd felt a flash of impatience, but his two companions didn't seem bothered by the question.
"Oh, fighting black magick's kind of a hobby of ours," Jack said, affably. "Dr. Todd's acting as our special consultant tonight."
Todd kept his expression stony.
Markham clapped Lindgren on the back, deftly guiding him forward. "You two deal with the authorities, and we'll see what we can do about snakes and black magick. But hurry, please. A lot of people have been hurt already."
Lindgren hesitated, then nodded.
"All right. But when this is over, I expect an explanation, Andrew."
"Detective---heavy weaponry," Todd emphasized. Clancy nodded. The two men headed across the field, toward the side road where the police cars had been parked.
"Did you rush them off for a reason?" Jack asked him, his down-home accent all but gone again. His amiable air had evaporated, too.
"Which one of you is better at high magick?" Todd asked.
"Me." Jack folded the plastic bag back over the seal and tucked it into his jacket pocket. "Why?"
"The floating creatures---we weren't seeing them in their true forms. All we were seeing were...their corners. The next time they appear, you need to constrain them to reveal themselves to us in their entirety."
Jack cocked his head.
"I can try. Do you know who they are? Magick works better when you have a name."
"I don't even know if they have names. But if you can drag them all the way into our reality, we'll have a better idea of what we're dealing with."
"Okay." He looked reflective a moment. "You think they were mal'akhim?"
"No. I think our elusive Leviathan has nothing to do with heaven and hell at all. But my abilities won't affect it, so all we can hope is that whatever energy your invocations give off will be sufficient."
"Should do. The goetic seal worked."
"It worked against the serpents."
"I thought Leviathan was the serpents."
"I'm rather afraid Leviathan may turn out to be all of the creatures at once."
"Well, I can think of two potential routes of investigation," Markham said, after they digested that for a moment. "First, we could see if Edward can track one of the tunnels back to wherever those serpents were living before they were called here. Second, we could find Penemue. If he's a Watcher, he might be able to help."
"Chasing snakes seems like a waste of time if we can't take them down," Jack said. "I say we get---" He broke off abruptly, his hand rising to clutch a medallion around his neck. "Something's coming."
Space shifted and Todd threw out his hands, ready to mend it or rend it as necessary. Amon burst from the netherworld in a shower of sharp iron nails, throwing itself at him. Its eight legs clutched at Todd's chest and the infernal nails caught between their bodies, driving into their flesh as if to affix them together.
Todd closed his arms around Amon's bulk, staggering. His heel caught a clod of dirt and he tumbled. The nails drove themselves into his chest as he hit the ground.
"Wh---"
Before he could get a word out, Amon clawed a strip of flesh off its face and grabbed it between its teeth, ramming the charred ribbon into Todd's mouth. Todd choked, tasting flesh and ammonia. Then Amon twisted, its talons tearing his wool sweater and poking holes through the silk shirt underneath, and clamped its teeth and beak onto his wrist.
The sharp pain of its nursing made Todd suck in ash and Amon's flesh. He choked, gagged, and then clenched his teeth on the strip of demonic skin to keep himself from spitting it out.
Above them, Jack was swearing. Todd felt the conjurer tugging at Amon, but the demon's mass was much greater than its appearance suggested. For a moment he felt Markham grab his head and heard him say something---
---and then he swallowed the freezing scrap of skin and heard Amon whisper:
רוקניא
Alison slid out of the SUV and stared at the deep pit revealed by the truck's headlights. Dark, moist stains covered one wall.
A motorcycle roared to a stop next to them.
"Same as before," the rider said wearily. "We're trapped."
They'd circled the campus, inspecting the broken roads and upturned trees, the deep cuts and collapsed walls that the monsters had left behind. None of the deep trenches were impassable, but the bloodstains and severed limbs scattered inside them discouraged further exploration.
"It doesn't seem as wide here?" Alison asked.
"No." The motorcyclist twisted in his seat, looking behind him. "I wouldn't want to try jumping it, though. The ground's pretty rough, and this isn't a dirt bike."
"So, what now?" Peter asked from the front seat. "Do we try it?"
Ally bit her lip and shook her head.
"I think...snake-monsters track by vibration," she said. "They could be stationed all around campus, waiting for vibrations to alert them."
"So, how do we get across?" The motorcycle rider looked up. "There aren't any trees nearby, or we could pull a Tarzan."
"We could try moving really slowly," Jarret suggested from the SUV's back seat.
"You first," Peter muttered.
"Maybe...maybe we could distract them," Alison suggested. She jammed her hands into the pockets of Pastor Lindgren's coat. "Like, if you and the other cyclists circled around and around on the opposite side to get the snakes' attention, we might be able to sneak through here?"
"Lots of vibrations," the biker said, catching her drift. "Then we should split the noise up. A bunch of people shaking things up in several places would be more distracting."
"Do you want to try it?" Alison looked at Peter and Jarret. "It'll be dangerous."
"What worries me," Peter said grimly, "is that even if we get across, we might find out the snakes are out there, too." He slapped the dashboard. "You heard the radio. Everything's gone crazy."
Alison nodded. The earthquakes and the blackout and the loss of land lines and cell towers had caused a lot of trouble in Vista Hills. Fires had started, looters had broken into the local mall, and reports were starting to trickle in of collapsed buildings and trapped occupants. So many people were trying to call out that the cell phone satellite system was overloaded and most calls were getting busy signals. Emergency workers from the neighboring counties were being assembled to help, but right now Vista Hills was in a state of chaos.
And nobody in town had thought to head out to check on little California Hills University.
She leaned against the SUV, trying to think.
"Okay, listen," she said, looking at the motorcyclist. "I think we need to get the fastest runners we can---like, track-team fast---and send them out while three or four groups of cyclists and motorists make as much noise and vibration as possible. If everyone, you know, synchronizes watches and chooses a time to start, the runners could probably get through without being detected. Then they gotta go to the police and tell 'em about the giant snakes." She was no longer certain that her idea about luring the snakes away with food would work. If the things were intelligent, they might detect a trick. But the police would know what to do, right?
Not that the police were ever much good in the movies, but maybe they were more efficient in real life.
"Yeah, that might work." The biker nodded. "What about you? You aren't going to run?"
"I hurt my foot." She turned and looked up at Peter and Jarret. "You could go, though. You're both athletes."
"I'm not going to leave you alone," Peter said. She smiled at him. It was a stupid answer, but it made her feel good, anyway.
"Water polo, not track," Jarret said. "I'm better off staying here and praying."
"So you've got to arrange it," Alison said, turning to the biker. "Okay?"
"Yeah, sure." He shifted, then leaned over the handlebars and held out a hand. "It's a good plan."
"Thanks." She shook hands with him, flattered. He waved, manhandled his cycle around, and roared away.
"So, what about us?" Peter asked, looking at her. "Back to chapel?"
"I don't know." She looked at the bloodstains again, troubled. "You know, they've probably got a hideout someplace. Maybe where they're taking all the bodies."
"I think they're eating all the bodies."
She made a face, disgusted, then shook her head.
"I don't know. Snakes, like, get real fat when they swallow something? And just lie there, digesting?" She remembered seeing a gross image on the Discovery Channel, a python or something that had just swallowed a monkey, which she'd thought was pretty awful to show on TV, even if it was educational.
"So?"
"So, there aren't a bunch of fat snakes sitting around digesting, and a lot of people are missing, so maybe they're, uh, storing the bodies like, y'know, Aliens or something." She shuddered. If she saw a facehugger, she was going to freak.
"You've got a scary imagination," Jarret said, looking askance at her.
"Yeah, but she's smart," Peter said. "She makes dean's list every semester."
"Really?" Jarret seemed surprised, and Ally gave him a dirty look. He held up his hands. "Hey, I didn't know. You're all quiet in Religion."
"I am not!"
"Hey, Ally, so what's the plan? You're not saying we should look for the snakes' hideout, are you?" Peter interrupted.
"We could look around a little...."
"What do we do if we find it? We can't fight those things."
She bit her lip.
"There's got to be weapons somewhere."
"At USC, maybe, but not California Hills."
"Would Campus Security have any?"
"Yeah, right. We'd be lucky to find a can of pepper spray there."
She took a deep breath, then smiled.
"Gas," she said, looking up and meeting Peter's eyes. "We can siphon it out of the cars, and when we find a snake, we set it on fire. Monsters hate fire."
"No way." Peter gave her a dismayed look. "Do you know how dangerous that is?"
"Not as dangerous as sitting around waiting to get eaten."
Jack swore as his fingers pushed through the devil's dry, brittle skin. He couldn't get a grip on the thing---it just crumbled beneath his touch, although every time he pulled away his soot-covered hands, the devil's crisped flesh seemed as intact as ever. Its mirroreyes rolled and stared at him as it hunkered over Todd's body, drinking the man's blood, and Jack could see the holes in his own reflected image, the gaping absences where he'd fallen short of both grace and damnation.
Andy was kneeling next to Todd's head. He'd been trying to pull the devil's flesh out of Todd's mouth and he had pulled his fingers away just before the professor had started chewing. Now Todd was shuddering, his dark eyes fixed on a point in space a few feet above him, sweat shining on his ebony skin. Andy grimaced and started plucking sharp iron nails out of the man's flesh.
Frustrated, Jack stepped back, wiping his face with the sleeve of his leather jacket.
"All right, Amon, you're gonna make me do it the hard way." He dug his boot heels into the dirt, took a moment to steady himself, and made the sign of the cross. "I beseech thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, that Thou lend me Thy virtue and power over all Thine angels which were thrown down from heaven to deceive mankind, to draw them to me, to tie and bind them, and also to loose them, to command them to do all they can, and that they not contemn my voice or the words of my mouth."
Amon's blackened body shuddered, and it rolled its silver eyes toward him again. Its segmented beak curled over Todd's wrist to reveal bloodstained teeth. Jack licked his lips, seeing his reflection solidifying in the devil's eyes as his prayer temporarily strengthened his role as the creature's adversary.
"But that they obey me and my sayings, and fear me, I beseech Thee by Thy humanity, mercy, and grace, and I beg Thee, Adonai," he crossed himself and saw Amon flinch, "by all Thy holy names, and by all Thine holy saints, and by all Thine angels and archangels, powers, dominations, and virtues, and by that name that Solomon did use to bind the devils, and shut them up, that Thou enable me to congregate all Thy spirits thrown down from Heaven, that they may give me a true answer of all my demands, and that they satisfy all my requests, without the hurt of my body or soul, or any thing that is mortal, through Our Lord Jesus Christ," he crossed himself again, "who lives and reigns in unity of God and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end, amen." He crossed himself one last time.
Amon quaked and whimpered on Todd's chest. Jack pointed to the ground before him.
"Amon! Release him and stand here!" he demanded, his voice hard and ruthless.
The devil's whine rose to an ear-splitting pitch, but then it unfastened its jaws and slunk forward, regarding Jack with pure hatred. Jack glared back, feeling his protective wards shrilling of danger.
Andy grabbed Todd's wrist and pressed his fingers down over the bite marks to try to staunch the flow of blood.
"In the name of God, stay there motionless until I release thee," Jack snapped. Amon hissed, its bloody teeth bared. Jack crouched and scratched a cross in the dirt in front of it, on its left, on its right, and then behind it. The devil shrank in on itself, clawing at its shoulders and tearing away chunks of its body.
"How is he?" Jack asked, kneeling next to Todd's body and checking his pulse. It was fast but strong.
"Already healing." Andy turned Todd's wrist over, fingers still clamped over the wounds. Jack saw the flow of blood slowing. "I'm not sure who he is, but he's definitely not human."
"Then I don't know if it's safe to use a charm on him," Jack replied. He knew several spells to stop bleeding, but they all invoked God, explicitly or implicitly. He wasn't sure how the Lord's name would affect someone like Todd.
"I don't think he'll need one." Andy met his eyes. "You're going to confess that later, right?"
"Yeah, of course." Jack didn't think that coercing a devil to release a man counted as black magick, but he was wary enough of his own moral shortcomings to take his friend's advice. Andy had always seen things more clearly than he had, discerning black and white where Jack saw only shades of gray. "So, what do you think about our friend here? I still can't detect any magick on him."
"Could his abilities be channeled through his familiar?"
Jack turned.
"Amon!"
The devil looked over its bony shoulder, its beak snapping with hatred.
"Does this man, who calls himself Edward Todd, get his power to walk through hell from thee or from any other member of the mal'akhim?"
"No," Amon hissed, glaring at him.
"What kind of magick does he use, then?"
"Physics," the devil snapped, then turned back and began to tear at its chest with its beak.
Jack looked at Andy, puzzled.
"Technically," Andy sighed, "all forms of magick are physics. It's all about converting energy of one kind into another. Physics is a very broad term."
"Well, if he's working for Satan, hell's learned a few new tricks." Jack shook his ponytail over his shoulder. "All I know is, he sure can't be working for God."
"It's impossible to walk a middle path." Andy's agreement sounded uncertain.
The earth shuddered beneath them. Jack checked on Amon, but the devil was whimpering again, turning in a tight circle, its neck stretched as it stared into the starry sky.
"What be thou looking for?" he asked, as coldly as he could. Two-thirds of spellcasting was sheer force of will. Devils would attack at any sign of weakness.
"The others," Amon said, unwillingly, its mirroreyes still focused upward. Neither the stars nor the moon were reflected in them. Since planets and suns were morally neutral, they were invisible to the mal'akhim.
"What others?"
"I don't know." The devil squirmed in place, talons digging into the dirt as it stared upward. "They touched me, but I don't know."
Todd gasped, his back arching. Jack grabbed his shoulders and Andy checked his pulse.
The theologian shuddered and Jack threw all his weight into holding the huge man down.
"Ecstatic convulsion," Andy diagnosed, grabbing Todd's arms as the man reached for his own face.
Jack nodded. Behind him, Amon whined, its beak snapping and clattering like dried branches.
After another few seconds, Todd collapsed, his mouth opening to draw in a sucking gasp of air. He blinked, looking rational again.
"Are you all right, Edward?" Andy slid an arm under the big man's back and helped him sit up. Todd nodded, wiping his forehead.
"Where's Amon?" His expression darkened as he saw Amon sitting, quivering, to one side. "Release it."
"You want to get bitten again?" Jack asked.
"It wasn't biting me." Todd hesitated, looking at his healed wrist, then jerked his cuff forward as if he could cover the drying blood. "It was reviving itself. There are creatures in the passages, and they nearly killed it."
Jack stood, feeling a twinge in his knees, and ran the toe of his boot over one of the crosses in the dirt.
"Thou be free to move," he said, gazing distrustfully at the devil. Amon snapped at his boot as it scuttled past, but its teeth closed harmlessly on air. It was still constrained by his will, and it would be until he released it or his strength faltered.
The devil pressed its bony, lumpy skull against Todd's side.
"Tell them what you discovered for me, beloved," Todd said, looking down at it. Jack was troubled by the neutral, almost gentle, tone of the theologian's voice.
It wasn't will that bound the devil to Todd, he suspected.
"The Gudruns' souls are lost to the mal'akhim," Amon said, nuzzling its head against Todd's snagged and torn sweater. "They were devoured by the others, the ones between, and the legions of hell curse their loss."
Jack yanked his leather jacket closer around him. "What are the 'ones between'? Some kind of pagan spirits?"
"Pagan? What is pagan?" Amon seemed distressed, two pairs of legs raking nervously at each other. "They aren't from here. They don't belong here. They are old, older than the satan, older than the mal'akhim. I can't see them, only feel them. Oh, beloved, they will do terrible things to us all."
"Amon." Todd laid a hand on the devil's sharp, jutting spine. "Have you seen the snakes?"
"No. I cannot see the things you call snakes. But I know they exist by their works."
"What did you see?" Andy asked, still kneeling in the dirt next to Todd. "You ate the devil's flesh. What did it show you?"
"Strange things." Todd frowned, his fingers curling around the devil's back. "They caught Amon, but it couldn't tell what they were. It just sensed them, like sensing a hole in space." He drew in a breath and slowly released it. "The same thing Amon senses when it looks at me."
"You got family out there?" Jack asked.
"As far as I know, I'm the only mortal who has learned to open gateways through the dimensions."
"So we're back to aliens," Jack muttered.
"Whatever they are, they're certainly alien. And if they followed Amon back, we're all in danger."
Jack instinctively looked up, the way Amon had, then scowled and dragged his gaze back to Todd.
"Does Amon know how they're linked to the snakes?"
Todd didn't bother asking the quaking devil at his side. "No."
"I think our next step is to find Penemue," Andy declared, gazing around the empty, torn-up field. "If he's a Watcher, he'll have some answers."
"Yes." Todd stood. His fine wool sweater hung in ravels and rags, and the shirt beneath it was ripped in several places. Despite that, he didn't seem to notice the December cold. "The most likely place for Penemue to be is...." He reached out, then dropped his hand as Amon hissed. Jack saw an uncharacteristic uncertainty on the big man's face. "It may be safer to walk."
"Where?"
"To the chapel." Todd looked at them, his face impassive. "The most likely place for Penemue to be is in the chapel. And I think there may be lives involved."
"Aw, shit," Jack said, reaching out a hand and hauling Andy to his feet. "Let's go."
"We've been trying to call the hospital, but all we get is a recording that all ambulances have been sent out," the administrator said, one hand resting on his coat sleeve.
Gregory Penemue nodded absently, studying the students lying on the floor of the chapel foyer. More were huddled in the chapel proper, praying or hugging each other.
"Everyone here was in the library?" he asked, cutting through the briefing. The administrator shook her head.
"No---no, most have come in from other parts of campus. They saw the headlights we shined on the rubble, so we've pulled up a few more cars and turned on the lights to make the beacon clearer. I think it's a good idea to get as many students in one spot as possible."
"Yes." The students around him were so pale, so colorless, against the rich tapestry of divinity that formed the unseen backdrop to their lives. Penemue grieved for them. If only they'd open their eyes and see what they were missing, all the brilliant colors: the purifying whites and seductive blacks, the passionate reds and spiritual blues, the celestial golds and fiery coppers. But so very few ever paused in their pursuit of social acceptance and material success to appreciate the greater things in life.
It was a waste. A true waste.
However, it would be an even greater waste to lose their souls to the eternal void.
Penemue had hoped that stilling Duncan Graeme and removing the old records of the Gudrun scandal would keep history's secrets safe. He'd hoped that, despite the bones' appearance, the goetic seals would hold fast and the skeletons would be written off as a historical mystery. But the seals had been broken by the forensics team, and the dragons of the abyss had awakened, and now he would have to take more drastic measures to close the breach and save these souls from the emptiness.
That was his job. To watch and defend.
"Your name is Sarah Cristol, isn't it?" he asked suddenly, turning. The woman nodded, brightening. Her look of gratitude at his remembering her name was yet another note in the perpetual grief Penemue felt for the human race. Didn't they realize that each of their names were engraved on the hands and heart of God?
"Come here, Sarah." He held out a hand. She took it, looking trustfully at him. "Don't be afraid."
He leaned forward and kissed her, drawing out her breath. She collapsed. He caught her with his free hand and lowered her to the ground, then tilted his head back and breathed out, a long, slow exhalation that sent her soul to the security of its final judgment.
"What---what happened?" a student asked, staring. "Did she faint?"
"She was working really hard," another volunteered, as if to defend the fallen woman. "It's not her fault."
"There's nothing to fear," Penemue said, his voice calm. "We'll let her rest. I'm going to preach a sermon. Will you help me bring everybody into the chapel?"
"Well, I'm not really Lutheran, you know," the second student said, balking. "I'm kind of an atheist."
Penemue sighed. So sad.
"Your support would still be reassuring to your peers in this troubling time."
"Well...I guess." Embarrassed, the student stood. "I mean, I can help move people, as long as you don't expect me to, like, pray or anything."
"Thank you." Penemue looked around the room, battered by a sense of loss.
The curse of the Watchers was that they saw too much. The Celestial War would be much easier to wage if its collateral damage were as invisible to him as it was to the nephilim and b'nei elohim.
Getting the gasoline out of the tanks was harder in real life than it looked in the movies. They ended up siphoning it through a hose Peter chopped up with a pair of gardening shears, and instead of proper gasoline containers, they filled a bunch of empty water bottles dug out of the recycling bins scattered around campus. The only advantage, as Jarret pointed out, was that a lot of the bottles had squirt nozzles.
"It'll be easier to hit the snakes with these," he said, wiping another bottle clean and dropping it into a backpack.
"We're going to kill ourselves," Peter grumbled.
"Well, if you have any better ideas, I'm waiting," Ally snapped. She was getting annoyed that nothing was working out the way it was supposed to. The earthquakes hadn't stopped---they still felt them intermittently, and sometimes they heard crashing, like another building collapsing. About ten minutes earlier the earth had really rocked, right after a bunch of engines had started up all at once. Ally knew it had been the distraction for the runners, and she hoped they'd gotten through the perimeter all right. But after that, everything had fallen silent, and she was terrified that the snakes had killed more people.
"That's it," Jarret said, pulling the hose out of a Honda's gas tank. "We've got three backpacks' full now. How much do we need?"
"That's all we can carry," Ally said. She rubbed her feet and gathered her thoughts. "Um, so now we have to find out where they're hiding?"
"Jeez." Peter leaned his head back against the Honda's side panel. "You know, it's fine for you. You're a girl, and girls always live in the horror movies. It's the guys that get slaughtered."
"Girls don't always live."
"Name one horror movie where the girls die and the guys live."
"Uh," she hesitated. "Zombie movies. Everybody dies in zombie movies. And bad girls die all the time."
"You're not bad."
"Thanks." She gave him a quick smile. "Look, we'll be okay. We're smarter than any of those people in the movies."
"And we have faith," Jarret added, arranging the bottles in his backpack. He looked up. "I like the idea of taking the fight to the monsters. We've been called to be warriors in Christ. We have to face the Devil to defeat it."
"Oh, Lord, now it's a holy war."
"You shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain," Jarret pointed out. "It's a sin."
"Ally---"
"I think he's right." She remembered her first conviction that the snakes were a sign of the end times. "It can't hurt to be safe, can it?"
Peter laughed humorlessly and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands.
"Okay. Whatever. So we got our holy gasoline and our holy lighters. What next?"
"Where are the deepest holes and basements on campus?" she asked.
For a moment, all three of them were silent. Basements weren't common in Southern California.
"There's a storage space under the cafeteria," Jarret said after a moment. "It's not really a basement, but it's a room built into the side of that hill."
"And I think there's a crawlspace under the art trailer," Ally added.
"They've been digging holes in north campus, although I don't think they've poured any concrete yet," Peter said.
"Well, the social sciences building is almost complete," Ally said, "and the hole they dug for its foundation is pretty deep."
"Isn't there a basement in the science building, too?" Jarret asked.
"Okay, so where do we start?" Peter ticked off the list. "Caf, art trailer, north campus, social sciences, and science."
"There probably isn't much under the art trailer. If it's even still standing," Jarret said. The building was a temporary unit that had been kept in use twenty-five years longer than it should have, much to the art students' chagrin.
"Well, from this parking lot, we could make a big circle." Ally said. "Nordberg Road to north campus, the sidewalks to the caf, and then around to the art trailer, social sciences, and science. They're all clustered together, so they'll be easy to search."
"If the snakes sense vibrations, we shouldn't take the truck," Peter said. "I don't really want to walk around campus in the cold, but my SUV's not exactly quiet."
"Too bad none of Facilities' electric carts are around," Jarret said.
"Bikes?" Ally suggested. "There's a rack by the dorms."
"Yeah, that might work." Peter nodded. "If they aren't locked up."
"Aw, c'mon." Ally stood. "This is Vista Hills, the nation's safest city. Nobody locks their bikes."
"Nation's safest city, my ass." Peter scowled as he stood. "My mom is so gonna sue Cal Hills if I get killed."
"It is a sad fact of human life," Penemue said, standing at the oak podium and looking out at the boys and girls in the chapel, "that our thoughts often turn to God only in times of trouble."
About thirty students were listening, filling the front part of the chapel. Many of them were holding hands or had their arms wrapped around each other in that regrettable monkey-need for contact. Such an odd quirk of evolution, that of all the creatures that might have developed sentience, it had been the soft-skinned, vulnerable primates who had come to understand God.
Had matters been left to him, Penemue would have chosen to grant that revelation to the cetaceans. He still had hope for them, if humanity managed to kill itself off before it finished poisoning the oceans.
"And God is there, to be sure," he continued. "The Divine is always there, waiting for you. But at such a late date, will you be ready for God? God is the perfect mother. You can ignore your mother, forget to talk to her or write to her, even argue with her or hate her. But when you're in trouble, you turn to her, and the perfect mother is always there, her love steady and incorruptible despite all your shortcomings. But what about your love? After years of scorning her counsel, will you, even in your time of need, be able to humble yourself enough to take her advice? Or will your old habits reassert themselves? Even though you might be comforted by her love, will your pride keep you from doing what she says?"
The students were growing restless. They had come hoping for comfort, and he was pressing them on their religious observance. Penemue let a little of his illusion slip. He wanted their attention. He needed their attention.
"When you were a child, your mother made you do things that you didn't want to do, but they were for your own good. So also does God ask you to do things you don't want to do, for your own good.
"We face a great danger tonight. You've heard frightening things from your fellow students. They've told you about monstrous serpents that have come bringing death. They're telling the truth."
Students exclaimed aloud in shock and protest. Penemue let his illusion slip even farther, peeling away the guise of mortality that so facilitated his role as a Watcher. Let them see the light inside him; let the grey of his eyes flatten into silver mirrors; let the suit he wore stretch into the wings of his station.
Gasps and stares greeted his metamorphosis. Students squinted and lifted their hands to shield their eyes from the glare. Uncertainty and fear began to replace shock and anger.
"Fear not. You have come here seeking God's assistance, and God will assist you. What has descended upon us are the creatures of רוקניא ---the minions of that great emptiness that is the ultimate absence of God. Do you fear ha-satan? Let those who have ears to hear, hear me now: Ha-satan defies God but is of God. Ha-satan tests and destroys that which God has wrought, but in the end it is not outside of God. The enemies that have come upon us are neither of God nor Satan; neither of Creation nor Destruction. They come from the void. They are the creatures of the threshold, the creatures of lack; they are the creatures who dwelled in unfathomable moments before the Word, when everything was held in check and all that is, was not.
"The enemies that approach seek entrance to this universe from which they have been barred, and if they come, they will devour you with a force that will crush your immortal soul into a dark speck of antimatter that will float suspended in eternal emptiness and cold, where there is neither creation nor even hope of creation."
Penemue walked around the podium to face the small congregation, his heart aching for their confusion. At the back of the room, the chapel doors opened and three newcomers stood, glaring at him. He recognized them from north campus. They were the ones who'd appeared from the spaces between.
The time for explanations was over. Penemue's voice hardened.
"Your flesh and your blood are their doorway into this world, and we must not permit them entrance. Be not afraid, but let those doors be closed."
"No!"
Penemue jerked backward, dropping the last of its illusory guise as a wall of bleeding stone dropped down in front of it from a sulfurous-smelling rip in reality. Appalled at the incursion of hellmatter into the chapel, the Watcher touched the wall and sent it hurtling back into the abyss.
"Penemue, Peneme, Penemuel, Tamuel, Tumael, Tamel, I command thee to halt!" The red-haired man stood in the middle of the aisle, his arms spread wide, grasping a crucifix in one hand and the Seal of Solomon in the other. Now completely in its celestial form, Penemue could see the gaping holes that marred the conjurer's soul, but the man's will was strong enough to send waves of coercion battering at it.
The students in the chapel had become all but invisible; Penemue could see only wisps and ghosts scrambling through the door, protected by a second man, a man who bore the shining mark of ordination and who protected the students with prayer like a knight flourishing a silver shield.
And the third man, the third man was nothing but a deep tunnel, a human-shaped doorway into the limis, with a devil looming over and behind him, its dark wings covering him and its toothed beak leering in mockery.
"Hellbender," Penemue hissed with recognition. The Watcher had heard of this creature, this Edward Todd, whose true nature it could discern only now that it had regained the selective sight of the mal'akhim---Todd was the Walker Between the Worlds, the man who mocked both heaven and hell. "What have you brought upon us?"
The Walker's figure moved forward, his torn silhouette filled with shifting doors and staircases, bridges and tunnels, walls and arches. He reached inside of himself to bring forth another wall, this one of sigil-covered silver that hummed and rang like a bell. The diabolic shadow behind him flinched away as the Walker thrust the wall between them.
"Christ's cross and Christ's crown, Christ Jesus' colored blood, be thou every hour good...." The conjurer was still working his coercion, his voice ringing through the chapel.
Penemue struck the silver wall, which sang so loudly that the stained-glass windows in the chapel shattered and fell, and said the word of unbinding that sent it back to the heaven from which it had been called.
"Watcher, thou be forbidden to raise a hand in the Celestial War," the devil rebuked it, standing at the doorway of the chapel.
"Understand thee not?" Penemue demanded as the threads of the red-haired man's binding sought to wrap themselves around it. "This be no war over mortal souls. The dragons of רוקניא seek to destroy both nephilim and b'nei elohim, and they will enter the world through mortal flesh and blood!"
"...God, the Father, is before me; God, the Son, is beside me, God...."
The humanoid emptiness was closer now, and Penemue felt the conjurer's magickal binding closing around it. How could God permit such a blasphemy, forcing His angels to serve these squalling monkeys? Penemue turned on the speaker, drawing his name from him and breathing it out like a weapon.
"James Ignatius Langthorn," it said, and the sorcerer's voice faltered as the full blow of celestial recognition sent a cold wind blowing through the barren spots in his soul. "Halt!"
"...the...the Holy Ghost...."
"Jack!"
The ordained man's prayers stumbled, too, but Penemue could no longer spare any attention for the escaping students. Hellbender stood before it, unfolding endless iterations of coiling superstrung walls and barriers around him, and Penemue was forced to repel each attack with words it barely remembered from the dawn of the universe, words that too easily slipped back into Hellbender's nets and added themselves to the weave.
"So, you're a Watcher," the Walker said in a deep voice. "One of the Fallen, I presume, from the fact that you were about to kill a group of children."
"Better to die in innocence than be devoured by רוקניא . sought only to preserve their souls from the void."
"The arguments of ha-satan don't get any more convincing with age, do they?" Hellbender stepped closer, up to the edge of the chapel stage. "What do you say, Amon? Shall I kill it?"
"It has broken the Divine Law." The devil leered. "Strike it down, beloved."
"...behind me."
The words were just a trailing whisper, but Penemue felt the binding close around it. Furious, it lifted its wings to throw off the spell.
The Walker Between the Worlds swept open a great interdimensional door into a vast pit of light.
Three pulsing orbs of ivory swept out of the light and passed through Penemue.
Penemue felt the orbs disrupt its vibrations, the very energy of its existence, which had been first set into motion when the Creator had spoken its name. For one horrifying moment the fallen angel felt itself unraveling, and it cried the name of God.
Then the orbs snatched the Watcher out of the chapel and into the void, and Penemue frayed into a burst of spent energy that manifested itself as one last explosion of light and sound.
"Jack! Jack!"
Jack saw Andy's face swimming in blurred duplicate. His head hurt, and he couldn't quite remember where he was or what he was doing. He reached out and felt his friend grip his hand. The touch felt like an anchor, holding him in place. He turned his head and saw a huge, diabolic shadow against the back of the room, a shadow that smiled malevolently and beckoned to him.
So---he'd failed. Hell had come for him, after all.
Watch out, my brother, how you walk on the cross, 'Way in the middle of the air....
"Andy."
"I'm here."
Your foot might slip and your soul get lost, 'Way in the middle of the air.
"C---cre---no, confiteor---"
He heard Andy's breath hiss with alarm, then felt his friend lean close, voice dropping to a soothing murmur.
"Easy, Jack. I'll hear your confession," Andy said softly, "but you're not dying, not yet. Now, squeeze my hand for 'yes.' Do you regret and repent all of your sins, committed in thought and in word, committed in what you have done and what you have failed to do?"
Jack's head was splitting open. He squeezed, as best as he could.
"And do you ask the forgiveness of God and seek reconciliation with his grace?"
Jack squeezed again, feeling his hand tingle.
"God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to Himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins, through the ministry of the Church. May God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."
Jack tried to say "amen," but he couldn't remember the word. Frightened, he turned and saw the devil looming over him.
"Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!" Clancy pounded on the steering wheel, then grabbed it with both hands and took a deep breath. "Sorry, Reverend."
"It's all right," Pastor Lindgren said, staring out the window at the deep pit. "I share the sentiment."
"We'll walk." Clancy threw open the door, leaving the keys in the engine and the headlights shining across the broken asphalt. Lindgren followed the detective out, eyeing the wide furrow that had been plowed across the road, surrounded by chunks of pavement and dirt and toppled trees and fences.
"That looks wider than one of the snakes," he remarked. "More...deliberate."
"Yeah, like a trap," Clancy said. He pulled out his gun, removed the empty clip, and replaced it with another. "Okay, on the count of three, we're moving across as fast as we can, and we don't stop running until we hit Trees Avenue, got it?"
Lindgren slowly nodded, hoping he could keep up. He hadn't done any serious running for fifteen years. On the other hand, the idea of those giant snakes coming after him was excellent impetus.
"Ready?" Clancy gripped the gun, staring across the gap. "One. Two. Three!"
They slid down the rough side of the gully, dirt flying and chunks of asphalt tumbling around their heels. Lindgren felt his ankle twist and send a sharp pain through his leg, and he shook it out, hitting the sharply angled bottom. Clancy was several paces ahead of him, scrambling on threes up the opposite side of the gully, his gun pressed close to his chest for protection.
The earth started to shake.
"Hurry!" the detective shouted.
"I am!" Lindgren dug his fingers and shoes into the dry dirt, trying to get some momentum.
Then the earth heaved beneath him and he felt himself tossed aside. With a wordless cry he threw out his arms, fighting to stay upright as he was carried by a wave of dirt.
The snake's fanged head snapped around, turning a blind, armored face toward him. Lindgren squirmed, kicking off dirt and twisting to face the monster head-on.
"Hey, you fuck!" Three sharp cracks echoed through the night and the serpent jerked away, dark holes marring its bone-colored carapace. Clancy knelt at the top of the gully, adjusting his aim.
Heart hammering, Lindgren pulled himself to his feet and lunged at the gully wall.
The serpent's body moved forward, crushing dirt and pulverizing rock. Clancy pulled the trigger another three times, opening black wounds in the serpent's neck, lower jaw, and skull.
"Least these bastards can be hit," he muttered. "C'mon, get moving!"
Pastor Lindgren didn't bother to answer as he clambered on all fours, fingers clawing at the crumbling dirt, tangling in broken roots and rocks.
The serpent swayed a moment, blood oozing from the bullet holes in its exoskeleton. Then, with a shrill, angry screech, it opened its mouth and lunged at the detective.
Clancy managed to fire two more times into the serpent's maw before its jaws snapped shut on his upper torso, ripping it away from his guts and legs. The serpent yanked its prize into the air and opened its jaws again, swallowing, even as it died.
But Lindgren, trapped beneath the monster's heavy body, wasn't conscious to watch.
The three students froze at the faint sound of gunshots, then heard a shrill scream and more firing. They looked at each other, waiting.
Silence.
"Maybe that was the police," Peter whispered.
"Maybe," Alison said, not so certain.
"Well," Jarret said, sweeping the room one last time with his flashlight, "whatever it was, there's nothing down here."
"Yeah. Let's get going."
They'd ridden their bikes past north campus, but it was empty and torn up, one lone spotlight beam showing that whatever foundations may have been dug there earlier were gone now. They'd silently biked back down to the cafeteria, where---after some argument---Peter had broken through the plate glass in the front door and they'd made their way down a service stairwell to the basement. It had been filled with old furniture, a water heater, a bunch of unmarked boxes that looked like they'd probably been there since the university began, and little else. Now they headed back up the stairs and out into the night, straining to hear any sign of rescue.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Car alarms were slowly sputtering down as they wore out their batteries. Nothing they hadn't been hearing for hours.
"Maybe it wasn't a gun?" Ally said. She'd only ever heard gunfire in movies before.
"No, it was a gun," Peter said, sounding sure of himself.
"Let's hope it's not a looter," Jarret said, flicking off the flashlight. "Disasters always bring out the worst in people."
"We're okay." Ally did her best to sound encouraging. "Let's go, huh?"
They lifted their borrowed bikes and started down the sidewalk again, taking wide detours to avoid the spots where the snakes had burst through and left everything broken.
"Hey! Hey!"
Ally pumped the brakes and dropped a foot to the sidewalk. A wide-eyed man stumbled up, looking young and frightened.
"Oh, man, I'm glad to see you," he said, voice shaking. "Where is everyone?"
"I think they went to the chapel," Ally said, pointing across campus to where a faint glow could be seen beyond the trees in the park. "The library fell, and they dug people out, so now the chapel's kind of base camp."
"Do---do you think its safe? From the snakes? And the earthquakes?"
"It's God's house," Jarret pointed out.
"Yeah, like churches don't fall down all the time."
"I don't know how safe it is, but if you're looking for people, that's the best place to go." Ally gave the boy a sympathetic look. He was probably a freshman, he looked so young. "We think the snakes track by vibration, so walk really soft, okay?"
"Aw, man." He looked on the verge of tears. "Can I come with you? You look like you know what you're doing."
"Better not," Jarret said, solemnly. "We're going toward the snakes, not away from them."
"Are you crazy? Why?"
"To kill them," Ally said, forcing herself to sound tough and confident. "'Cause we can't sit around waiting for the police to rescue us."
"Aw, man." The boy shook his head. "Aw, fuck."
"Anyway," Ally said, getting ready to push off again, "you should go to the chapel. Don't try crossing the moat---people are getting killed that way."
"The moat?" the boy asked, confused, but Ally was already on the move. Peter and Jarret wished the boy good luck and headed after her.
They took a left and parked next to the science building. It seemed like the right place for a bunch of mutant snake monsters to hide out. Better yet, the quakes had already broken the plate glass in its front lobby, so getting in was easy.
"Maybe we can find something useful in here," Peter said, looking around. "Like, killer chemicals or something."
"What grade did you get in org chem?" Ally asked.
"A C-plus, but that's because I missed a lot of classes for football."
"Jarret?"
"I took bio and oceanography. How about you?"
"Same," Ally replied. "You weren't in my oceans class, were you?"
"Last fall?"
"No, I took it spring."
"Did you go on the dive?"
"Yeah, you?"
"Of course."
"Hey, guys, shut up," Peter growled. "What if the snakes can hear us?"
"I don't think talking makes a strong enough vibration," Ally said, but she took Peter's point and let the conversation drop. Stupid thing to talk about, anyway, in the middle of the apocalypse.
They proceeded quietly to the stairway, finding that it did, indeed, lead down.
Ally held her breath, half-expecting to find sleeping serpents and a bunch of slime-encased students, but Jarret's flashlight beam revealed nothing but old air-conditioning parts and boxes, some shelves of dusty lab books and manuals, and a pile of camping supplies.
"Hang on," she said, squeezing through the boxes to the camping supplies. In a moment Jarret and Peter were next to her, rummaging through dirty canvas bags and old cardboard boxes.
"All right!" Peter said as Ally found a flashlight and flicked it on. The beam was yellowish and weak, but it held. They dug out two more that worked and put the ones with dead batteries back.
"Guess this is all of geology's field-trip gear," Jarret said, holding up a small propane camping stove. "Can we use this?"
"Well, it burns, right?"
"If you've got a match or a lighter."
"Let's see." A little more digging unearthed a battered tin of matches. Ally checked them, then tossed them to Jarret. "You know, storing those down here just can't be safe. Isn't there, like, spontaneous combustion or something?"
"They're safe as long as they're in the tin." Jarret slid it into his front pocket. "Anything else?"
"No, but if we get stuck here a few days, we should grab those sleeping bags," Peter said, shoving everything back into the boxes. "If all the dorms are down."
"Someone will come get us before then," Ally said, feeling a nervous prickle run down her spine. "People will notice all the broken roads when it gets light."
"If they aren't fighting snakes," Peter said, darkly.
"They'll rescue us. There's a campus emergency plan." Jarret stood. "And your mom will make sure we're okay, too, right?"
Peter looked up at him, then gave a crooked smile.
"Yeah. I pity the snake that gets in Mom's way when she's mad. She's a total bad-ass lawyer."
"Scary."
"You bet." Peter stood, picking his sloshing backpack up again. "Ready, Ally?"
"Yeah." She nodded. "Let's go check out the art trailer and social sciences."
Todd turned, ready to order Jack to start his invocation, but the occultist was down, pale and covered with sweat. Next to him, the ex-priest was speaking quietly.
Annoyed, Todd turned. The white spheres were gone, and so was Penemue.
"Amon, can you follow them?" he asked.
Amon slunk toward him from the back of the chapel, where it had been cowering throughout the fight. Todd didn't blame it---a blessed chapel probably wasn't the most comfortable place for a demon.
"I don't want to," it groaned, its eight legs stepping over Jack as if the fallen man were nothing but an obstacle. "You heard the Watcher. They are the dragons ofרוקניא . They are the enemy of human and mal'akhim."
"Dragons of...the void?" Todd hesitated, remembering the emptiness Amon had shown him. He let the shining doorway vanish and hoped he'd be able to open it again. "Is Penemue dead?"
"Do you want me to search hell for its soul?" Amon sounded eager.
"No." Todd ignored the demon as its head drooped. "If it was right, you wouldn't find it." He rubbed his chin, then strode back down the aisle to Markham and Jack. The former priest looked fretful, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "Is he dead?" It seemed to be the question of the minute.
"No." Markham raised his head. "But he had a stroke two months ago, and this looks a lot like another one." He dialed three numbers, listened, then snapped the phone shut again with an unpriestly oath.
"Amon, is this man dying?"
"No." The demon snapped irritably. "Not yet. Do you want him to die, beloved? I could make him die. May I please make him die?"
Markham's expression hardened, but Todd was already shaking his head.
"Relax, Amon. He's on our side for now."
The demon settled on the floor, its claws snagging and tearing at the dark chapel carpet, leaving darker smudges of ash behind. It muttered testily to itself, too low for Todd to hear.
"Tell me, Markham---what was Penemue doing?"
"Besides getting ready to kill all of those students?" The former priest glanced away from his friend to the far end of the chapel, where the students stood in a fearful huddle. "I don't know. He seemed to think their deaths would keep the creatures from manifesting. I don't understand why."
"The dragons of rokanya. The void. Have you ever heard of them?"
"No." Markham sounded distracted. "They sound like something Crowley might have made up."
"Nobody made them up. They're real, and they're here. But why would they need humans to bring them into our reality?"
"Human are always tampering with things they should leave alone. Right, Jack?" Markham laid a gentle hand on his friend's forehead.
Todd looked down, but the long-haired biker didn't seem inclined to join the conversation, his eyes flickering back and forth as though seeing something invisible to the rest of them. He seemed to spend a lot of time looking at Amon. Todd leaned over and laid a restraining hand on the demon's skull. Amon hissed, rolling a silver eye up to look at him.
"Like devils, for example," Markham said pointedly.
"You relax, too." Todd patted Amon and straightened up again. "We're going to need all of the resources we can get to defeat those things. One of them just destroyed a Watcher."
"It came through your tunnel."
"Yes. Which means we won't be safe walking the betweens anymore."
"They came from hell."
"The doorway those spheres came through wasn't coming from hell. Penemue dismissed my hellwall so easily that I called a barrier from heaven."
"I heard Penemue call you Hellbender."
"And we called Penemue a Watcher. The signifier can never adequately encompass the signified."
"What are you?"
"Just a man, like you." Todd plucked at one of the unraveling threads of his sweater. "More or less. Traveling the limis can change a person. I've been traveling through it for a long time."
"How long?"
"Several hundred years."
"Impossible." The former priest's voice was flat. "I would have heard of you before this."
Todd lifted a shoulder. His sweater was probably irreparable. Too bad. He'd bought it in a small, upscale shop in Knightsbridge, and he'd been fond of its soft lambswool.
"The kind of people I reveal myself to are the kind who can keep secrets."
Markham studied him a long moment, frowning, then looked back down at Jack.
"We still don't know what's going on."
"The Gudruns summoned something very old and very alien. At the last moment, something stopped them. Whoever laid down the goetic seal, I presume; their nephew, the pastor's grandfather, or some wandering occultist like you. Now the seal has been removed and the energies of their summoning have started to flow again."
"The dragons of the abyss." Markham closed his eyes. "Tell me the truth, Edward. Did you send that email to me, about the angel hunt?"
"Amon told me about the hunt. I thought you might be interested. The angel's name was Melech."
"Why did you think it would be important?"
Todd hesitated, then decided there was no harm in answering honestly. "I knew something was going to happen here. The probabilities all pointed toward it. I wanted to learn more about you. Sending you to face a pack of nephilim seemed like a good way to find out if you were a fraud or not." He paused. "And the odds were high that you'd learn something useful from it. Does the angel's vision make any more sense now?"
"The field of blood, I think we can interpret easily enough, by now. Worms seething through meat---that could be a metaphor for those serpents, especially given the way they like to crush bodies. A bone staircase going down into darkness, and doors closing. You said you knew a bone staircase."
"There is a passage of bone through the limis. We could travel through it to the nearest staircase---but it would be dangerous."
"And the doorways could be real or metaphorical." Markham looked down at his friend. "What do you think, Jack?"
The lanky man nodded. Todd wasn't convinced he understood what was going on around him, but he seemed to be breathing more easily.
"When he's well again," Todd said, "we can have him try to capture one of those dragons. I'd like to see what it is we're dealing with."
"The orb shape is an illusion?"
"I think the orbs are cross-sections."
"What do you mean?"
Todd shrugged off his shredded sweater. His white Oxford shirt was torn and pinpricked with blood.
"If I'm right, the dragons come from a hyperspace. What we're seeing is the part of the creature that pierces our three dimensions." He ran a finger through the unraveling weave of his sweater. "Your friend's invocations might be strong enough to translate the dragons entirely into our axes of reference, however."
"Hyperspace? We're not talking space aliens again, I hope."
"Dimensional aliens, perhaps. You do know that there are many more dimensions than our three?"
"I'm aware that time is the fourth dimension."
"A fourth dimension. There are others. And they have nothing to do with spaceships traveling from galaxy to galaxy."
"What makes you think those creatures are from another dimension?"
"They're too alien to come from our own." Todd paused. "Flesh, strange organ-like shapes, spheres of hair or scales, a flash of claws---all we're seeing are our own sensory interpretations of the creatures' cross-sections; the rest of the creatures extend into dimensions we can't perceive."
"You're sure?"
"No," Todd admitted. "But there's a very high probability that I'm correct."
"If you are, I don't think Jack's invocations will do us any good." Markham squeezed his friend's shoulder. "If those creatures come from another dimension, couldn't they just---warp-drive---back into their own space again, to escape us?"
"If we tried to trap them physically, yes. But magick reverberates through more dimensions than our three. I hope that if his conjurations are strong enough to trap nephilim and b'nei elohim, they will be strong enough to affect these dragons."
"Which you don't think belong to either God or Satan."
Todd let the sweater fall to the carpeted floor.
"After what Penemue said, I think they're the original enemy of both."
Jack was barely aware of the conversation above him. He was trying to cling to consciousness and keep an eye on Amon, which seemed much larger and more dangerous than it had before. Scraps of tunes kept running through his mind, all dark.
I looked to the East, I looked to the West, I saw his coffin coming.
Lay down, lay down his cold, clay corpse, And let me gaze upon him.
His head pounded, and his vision was blurry. He felt a modicum of hope, though. He didn't feel the same sense of paralysis that he'd suffered in the bar outside Reno. The tingling in his arm was starting to fade, not into numbness, but into normality. Andy's hand and voice were comforting presences, although Edward Todd's deep, rumbling voice echoed strangely in his ears.
Amon turned and looked at him, its mirroreyes revealing his tattered reflection. Jack stared at himself in its gaze, counting his breaths. His warding spells were setting his nerves on end.
Andy was saying something about the angel-ash vision, and Jack heard his name. He managed to incline his head to show that he was still aware. He wondered what Todd's vision had been, after he'd bitten down on the devil's flesh. What visions would angels and devils see, if they were to eat a human's flesh?
Maybe that was why Amon had bitten Todd. To establish communion.
Did b'nei elohim ever feed off humanity? If he offered an angel his flesh, would the angel finally see him the way he saw himself?
Had those spherical creatures---the things that Todd was calling dragons---eaten Penemue, and if so, what had the Watcher's flesh shown them?
If he ate the flesh of a dragon, what would he see?
Andy squeezed his shoulder, and Todd's ragged sweater dropped through the air like a black bat. Jack started, thinking for a moment that Amon had attacked. The devil snapped its beak at him, mockingly. Now that Jack's vision was clearing, Amon didn't look so large and fearsome, after all.
"Jack? Are you all right?" Andy asked.
"Yeah...." Jack lifted the hand that wasn't tingling to his forehead. He closed his eyes.
"I can't reach a hospital," Andy said, sliding an arm around Jack's shoulders to support him. "All I get are busy signals. And nobody in Campus Security is answering."
Todd said something. Jack counted his breaths again, his hand still over his face. The pain was receding.
Magick. People thought it was all-powerful, but in fact it was very limited. Jack had never run across a spell that could cure cancer, stop a heart attack, or even stave off a common cold. Devils promised good health, but all they did was numb pain so their victims thought they were in the prime of health until their bodies collapsed. Control over mortality was the Creator's alone.
That fact had been driven home to him in a hospital bed in October, and now he recognized it anew.
He dropped his hand and opened his eyes.
"Andy...."
"I'm here." Andy leaned forward.
"Angel..."
"What?"
"Need an angel."
"Yeah. Penemue didn't make it. I guess we'll need to talk to one of the b'nei elohim."
Todd walked back, holding a paper cup of water. He crouched and held it out. Surprised, Jack took it.
The theologian's dark eyes held his.
"This would be a bad time to die."
Jack smiled weakly at the ridiculous advice and drank. He was feeling stronger. Good. He still had work to do.
"How---" He paused and drew in another breath. "How do we summon a dragon?"
"I suggest," Todd said, "that we find your bone staircase and see what happens then."
"God save us," Andy murmured.
Jack hoped so.
A few more minutes passed before he was able to stagger upright. The students remained clustered by the front door of the chapel foyer, staying well away from them. Todd frowned.
"They've seen too much," he muttered. "It could cause problems tomorrow."
"Let's just hope we'll all be here tomorrow." Andy gave Jack a worried look. "Ready?"
"I could really use a drink and a cigarette," Jack muttered.
"Not on your life. Literally."
Todd took a deep breath, glancing at his devil. The creature was on all eights now, its wiry muscles tense and clearly defined beneath its dry, ashen skin. It whined shrilly to itself.
"Let's hope the dragons aren't waiting at the door," Todd said, then he reached out and threw open a portal into the limis.
"Oh, man." Alison ran her flashlight around the wreckage of the social science building. "This sucks."
The steel girders were twisted and bent, and the reinforced concrete had cracked and broken away, revealing dark branches of rebar. The entire building looked like some kind of eerie sculpture reaching up toward the stars in ruined supplication.
Vibrations shuddered through the ground and made the girders tremble and creak.
"Damn." Peter's light played over the shaking floor. "Those stairs don't look very safe."
"Wait." Jarret reached out and grabbed Peter's hand, steadying the light and adding his own to it. "What's that?"
The three students stared in dismay at the dark stains on the concrete. Finally, knowing that somebody had to, Ally edged closer. The shaking in the ground made the rock and rebar crack and grind so loudly that probably the serpents wouldn't even feel a car drive up, but she walked softly, anyway.
When she was close enough to know for sure, and to smell the stench coming from the social sciences cellar, she turned and gave her two friends a frightened look.
"Blood?" Peter whispered. She nodded. Peter waved her back, and she tiptoed to them with relief. They all moved several yards away, huddling close.
The ground kept shaking, almost rhythmically.
"Maybe it's just another...accident spot." Jarret didn't sound convinced.
"Something smells down there," Ally whispered back.
They fell silent, staring at each other. Ally wondered if she was as pale and scared-looking as Jarret and Peter.
"So, what's the plan again?" Peter asked, his doubts clear.
"We go down there and look around," Ally said, realizing how dangerous it sounded even as she spoke. "If we see people, we save them. If we see snakes, we burn them."
"And if we see both?" Peter pressed her.
"We do whatever we can."
Jarret shrugged off his backpack and laid it on the ground.
"One of us should cover the others," he said. "Take all the gas and matches and burn any snakes that come too close."
"Playing with gasoline." Peter shook his head. "Man, we are all gonna all be crispy critters."
"I think I can do it." Jarret held out his hand. "Give me your pack."
Peter gave him a hard look.
"Sure you're not just volunteering to stay in the back?"
"I'm volunteering to cover your back." Jarret's voice grew hard. "That means I'm the last one up the stairs if you two have to get out fast."
"Pete." Ally laid a hand on his arm. "That sounds great, Jarret. Just be careful, okay? Peter's right---you could really burn yourself if you get careless."
"I know." His anger vanished in a smile. "God will protect me."
Ally couldn't muster a smile back. She envied his unshakeable faith. She believed in God, too, but she didn't see why God would keep her safe when He'd let so many other people die.
No use thinking about it. She slid off her backpack and handed it to him. Looking sullen, Peter did the same. Jarret slung one on his back and one over each arm. They handed him their lighters and matches, which he shoved into his front pockets.
"If there are people down there, and they're alive, we have to try to get them out. If we can't, be really careful about the fire," she said, as Jarret organized himself. "I don't want to burn anyone by accident."
"I know," he said. "I don't, either."
"Maybe they won't be down there."
"Let's hope not." He smiled at her again, and Ally wondered if maybe she wasn't dating the wrong guy. Peter was nice enough, and he'd given her his socks, but he'd done nothing but complain ever since she'd decided to go after the monsters. Jarret had been dubious at first, but he'd always kept a positive outlook.
Something to think about later, she told herself, looking back up at the silhouetted girders of the building. A gust of wind blew dry leaves along the cracked and broken walkway, and she shivered. The sirens from the car alarms were on their last gasp, moaning deeply as they died. In a few places across campus she saw glimmers of light from stalled or parked cars, but that was all. Nobody else seemed to be alive.
She hoped the freshman had managed to get to the chapel safely.
"You know," Peter said, eyeing the twisted steel support beams, "with all the quakes, the cellar might collapse."
Ally shrugged. She was more worried about the monsters than the roof.
"Okay." Jarret had one of the squeeze bottles in his hand. His flashlight was jammed awkwardly into one of the backpacks' outer pockets. "Are we ready?"
Ally nodded. Peter groaned.
"I'll go first," she said, steeling herself. This was it. This was the moment in the movie where the blonde either became a hero or lunch.
She needed to pee in the worst possible way.
Instead, she took a step forward, and then another.
Everything was made of human bone, reminding Jack of the bones that had tumbled loosely in the dirt caught within the bulldozer's bucket. But those had been brown and rough, whereas the bones of the walls and floor they stood upon were an elegantly polished ivory, smooth and gleaming. Large femurs and tibias made up the central structure, chinked with phalanges and tarsals. Skulls grinned at the tops and bottoms of the walls. A pale, sickly, ambient glow lit the tunnel.
"I take it this is not a heavenward passage," Andy said tartly, looking at Todd.
"The corridor of mortal remains goes hellward and heavenward," the theologian said. Amon was crouched next to one of the baseboard skulls like a mouser at a hole, one twiglike forearm digging into a socket. "Which way did your staircase lead?"
"Down." Jack leaned against a wall, still feeling a little weak. "Hellward, I imagine."
"That's usually how our senses interpret the direction," Todd agreed. "We'll walk. Tell me when you recognize something."
"And don't even think about singing 'Dem Bones,' " Andy said, giving Jack a mock-stern look. Jack smiled faintly for him, knowing that his friend was trying to hide his concern with weak jests.
"Now that song's going to run through my mind all night."
"How about something cheerful, for a change?"
Jack wasn't sure he'd be able to sing anything for very long, but he gamely nodded.
"Any requests, Ed?" he asked, looking at the theologian.
"I enjoy contemporary jazz."
"Afraid I can't help you." Jack pushed himself off the wall. "How about you, Amon?"
The devil had hooked something out of the eye socket and was gnawing on it, its head tilted. It looked up at him, its mirror-eyes glinting in the weak light.
"Nancy Whiskey," it spat. Jack's eyes widened, and then he gave the devil a crooked grin.
"Why, the devil has a sense of humor."
It glowered at him, and for a fleeting moment Jack thought he could taste the malt, and the craving he'd joked about earlier hit him in the pit of the stomach. He licked his lips and reached inside his coat to touch the pack of cigarettes as though it were a talisman. But that was dangerous, too.
Hell was not having any way to avoid temptation.
"Are we going?" Todd asked. His eyes were unfocused again, his head weaving slightly as though he were reading something behind their comprehension.
"How about giving the devil a hymn?" Andy suggested. Amon hissed, lifting the dry, dark-looking thing it was chewing on between its teeth and scuttling next to Todd.
Jack ran a hand over his face.
"I don't know any cheerful hymns." He took a deep breath. Maybe Andy was right. Maybe he did need to sing. At least it would keep his mind off drinking and smoking. "Do you know 'The Devil and the Farmer's Wife,' Amon?"
The devil ignored him. Todd began to walk, and Jack took up the rear again. After a moment he felt ready, and he started the tune, another he'd first heard in Kentucky.
"One day the old devil come to my house, da da da dee da da, one day the old devil come to my house, 'One of your family I may turn out,' wack to fie doodle all day...."
"Oh, heaven help us, it's one of those," Andy groaned.
Jack's voice echoed strangely through the bone tunnels, sounding weaker than usual as he sang the next verse. The farmer's fear of losing a son didn't seem cheerful at all to him, even with the "da da" refrain, and he hurried to the next verse:
"'Hit's not your oldest son I crave,' da da da dee da da, 'Hit's not your oldest son I crave, but your old scoldin' wife I'm taking today,' wack to fie doodle all day.'"
The words tasted like ash, and despite himself, he thought of Rose, lost in Anchorage, back in the days when he thought he was going to be a singer instead of an occultist.
Memories of Rose made the next verse die on his lips. He fell silent, unable to sing about a woman being kidnapped by the devil, even though the old lady prevailed in the end.
So many hadn't. Including the one he'd loved.
Dry, insectile laughter whispered through the hall. It took him a moment to realize that the noise came from Amon. The devil was looking over its shoulders at him, and Jack was certain it could read his mind. His wards tingled, and he decided its true form was probably much closer to the looming shadow he'd seen during his attack than the slinking beast before him now.
Andy looked back at him, too. Jack pulled up the collar of his leather jacket, unable to meet his friend's eyes.
"Stupid song," he muttered.
"I've never liked diddly-dees," the former priest agreed, although his gaze was a silent query.
"Do you only sing folk music?" Todd asked from the front of their small procession.
"Mostly," Jack said. "I can get by on some country-and-western classics, if I have to, and I know a fair amount of gospel and blues."
"Have you ever written your own music?"
"N---not for a long time." Not since Anchorage and Rose. He rallied himself to drive off the memories. "How about you? Do you play jazz?"
"No. I appreciate its precision and spontaneity, but I don't have any musical talent."
Jack nodded. He wasn't surprised that Todd liked modern jazz; it had the same kind of mathematical underpinnings the theologian seemed to call upon in his philosophy of life. By the same token, Jack had never been able to warm to the style. He could appreciate early jazz, the kind still rooted in the blues, but all in all he preferred music that relied on the human voice.
"This?"
He looked up and saw Todd gesturing to a staircase that spiraled upward. Both he and Andy shook their heads at the same time.
"Down," Andy said firmly. "And with more... vertebrae."
"All right." Todd sounded amused.
"Will you be able to sense the dragons, if they come close?" Andy asked.
"Indirectly." Todd began walking again. "They play havoc with the probabilities. I expect they're adding variables beyond my comprehension, which makes the equations look like nonsense."
"You see equations?"
Todd was silent so long that Jack didn't think he was going to reply. Then, at last, he spoke.
"My perceptions of the material world are no longer as acute as yours, Andrew, but in exchange I see at a...a different level. My mind interprets the input as statistical equations. I've come to suspect that others sense the same information as auras, or visions, or even hunches, but that we are all receiving the same data at the most fundamental level."
"What do you mean by perceptions that aren't as acute?" Jack asked.
"I've become colorblind. And I don't hear or smell or taste things as well as most people. My sense of touch isn't very sensitive anymore, and I don't feel pain as acutely as you do."
"I never knew any of that," Andy said, sounding intrigued. "You hide it well."
"My perceptual impairments are seldom a problem for me. Being black has been much more of a challenge, and I was born that way."
"When Amon gives you his flesh to eat," Jack said, interrupting Andy's response, "do your equations clear up?"
"Yes."
"And, Amon---when you bite Todd, what do you see?"
Amon dropped the scrap of dried flesh, scooping it up with a midleg and holding it tightly to its concave gut as it continued to scuttle forward on seven legs.
"I will bite you and tell you what I see, if you want," it suggested.
For a moment, despite its tone of voice, Jack was tempted to try the experiment. He looked down at his bare wrist, sticking out beneath the leather cuff of his jacket, and wondered what it would be like to have a devil's teeth sink into his veins like needles.
"Why are you asking, Jack?" Andy asked, sounding disturbed.
"Perception." Jack struggled to put his thought into words. He couldn't think of any way to say it that wouldn't sound insane. "Communion's all about understanding someone else's point of view, right?"
"I would call it translation," Todd said. "The best we can ever achieve is an imperfect translation from one viewpoint to another, although sharing flesh makes it easier." He stopped. "This one?"
Andrew and Jack both stared down at the curving stairwell. It seemed to drop into darkness, its steps tilted at strange angles, a sharp coil of jagged vertebrae forming a handrail that would draw blood if used.
"Yes," Andy said. "I think that's it. Jack?"
He nodded.
"It seems more literal than the other visions, Edward," Andy said, looking up. "The field of blood was our north campus, I'm sure, and the worms our serpents. But this looks very much like what the angel showed us."
"You're seeing it through the same perceptual filters you used when you experienced the vision," Todd said, sounding unconcerned. "Remember, we're not really walking through a tunnel of bone, and this isn't really a staircase. Everything's an energy field."
"You mean, everything's God," Andy said, smiling slightly.
"I mean it's energy," Todd repeated. "Which can be neither created nor destroyed---simply transformed. Or translated, if you'd rather."
"A physicist's version of moral relativism," Andy commented.
"I didn't say the transformation was morally neutral." Todd stood to one side. "Since Melech gave you two the vision, I'll let you descend first."
"Hmph." Andy cast the big man a skeptical look. "You're the one who set us up."
"You didn't have to investigate the email. You were free to ignore it."
"I'll go first," Jack said, forestalling further verbal fencing.
"Don't be silly." Andy caught his sleeve. "You're still as white as a sheet."
"I'm the conjurer. I need to go first."
"You'll go behind me, and I'll protect you, just like always." Andy slid in front of him and took the first step down into the darkness.
Ally crept down the broken, shaking steps as quietly as she could, keeping the flashlight beam on the stairs right ahead of her feet. She edged carefully around jittering chunks of rock and kept one hand on the vibrating wall.
The smell was growing stronger; a rich, meaty scent. Old blood, she thought, nauseated. It reminded her of the smell of dirty bathrooms, when Housekeeping hadn't cleaned out the tampon bin quickly enough. But this was much, much stronger. She stretched the neck of her shirt up over her nose and mouth.
Then her flashlight beam touched the floor of the cellar. She stopped, flinching.
Peter stumbled against her, then grabbed her, steadying them both. His flashlight beam edged around her feet and touched the floor, too.
She heard his indrawn breath.
Some of them might still be alive, she thought desperately. Please, God, let some of them be alive.
Let me get out of here alive.
What little enthusiasm she'd mustered for the adventure collapsed.
The floor was carpeted with meat, raw and bloody, crushed and mangled, quaking slightly in the shudders that kept rocking the ground. Pale stuff glistened through the blood here and there; broken bone or gristle---she wasn't sure which and didn't want to know.
If I puke, the monsters will hear me, she thought, pulling her hand off the wall and pressing it against her mouth.
She sank down and sat on the step, closing her eyes and swallowing back bile. The concrete jerked and quaked beneath her.
If I puke, I'll start crying, and then I'll die, because monsters kill girls who cry.
She heard Peter scuffle behind her, then run back up the stairs.
Good idea. Maybe I should run back upstairs to puke, too.
But she knew that if she did, she'd never come back down again.
Might not be people. Might be...neighborhood pets.
Jarret crouched down above her. She could smell gasoline on his hands. One of the bottles must not have been wiped off well.
"You want to go back upstairs?" he breathed in her ear.
She shivered, then shook her head. No. She hadn't come this far to back off, now.
She forced her eyes open again. Special effects. It's just special effects, like in the movies.
Jarret looked pale and horrified, but he was still there. He met her eyes, and she saw that he was shaking, too.
"We've got to see," she said, louder than she'd intended. She jerked around, watching for the serpents, but nothing jumped at them.
"Want to wait for Peter?" he whispered, glancing back up the stairs. Ally buried her mouth and nose in her sleeve, trying not to smell anything, and hesitated. He might come back. Guys puked all the time, right?
But Peter had been reluctant to come here ever since she'd suggested it.
She knew she shouldn't be disappointed in him. It was okay for guys to be scared. But still, she didn't think she'd be able to keep going out with him, if she lived through this.
She wanted a boyfriend who was at least as brave as she was.
She stole another glance at the charnel floor. It wasn't quite as bad if she kept telling herself it was just a movie effect. Like one of the Hellraiser movies. Plastic and chocolate syrup, right?
"We'd better keep going," she said, after a long minute. Her shaking hadn't stopped, but she didn't think it was going to.
Jarret nodded. His flashlight was still tucked away. His fingers were white on a bottle of gasoline and a lighter.
She stood and slowly, carefully, set one foot down onto the shaking floor.
The meat squelched beneath her borrowed socks and began to soak through. It was warm.
Bile rose in her throat again, and her stomach burned. She choked, swallowed something sour, and shuddered.
I'm not going to puke. Not. Going. To. Puke. It's just a bad horror movie.
She dragged her eyes up and lifted the beam of the flashlight. Maybe if she didn't look too carefully at the floor, she wouldn't see anything she couldn't explain away as special effects. She breathed through her mouth, as shallowly as she could.
In front of her was a cracked and sagging wall and a dark archway. Ally concentrated on it, grinding her teeth together to keep from making noise as her feet sank into soft flesh.
Grinding her teeth was bad, because it meant she had to breathe through her nose.
Her flashlight beam touched something that moved, just beyond the doorway. She whipped the light back down to her feet, her convulsive trembling getting worse.
Jarret stepped up to her, so close that his arm brushed hers. He held up the bottle and lighter, giving her a look.
She took another step closer, tentatively lifting the flashlight's beam back up and through the doorway.
At least one serpent was in there, squirming back and forth. The light played over its vast side, its blood-smeared pale scales, a flash of cilia, and a bony jut of its exoskeleton.
Trying very hard not to whimper, Ally moved the beam around.
The cellar extended downward, much deeper than it had originally. Long, tall tunnels pierced it---wormholes---and its concrete walls had broken and sunken into dark, compressed-dirt cavern walls. The floor was gone.
She took a short step closer, dropping the beam lower. The writhing mass of carapace and scale was deep, as if the floor had sunk another ten feet or even more. She couldn't see the bottom, but it had to be as bloody as the floor she was walking over, because the writhing serpents' sides were covered with gore, and blood splashed as the creatures slid over each other.
Ally turned and raised a shaking hand, gesturing to Jarret.
There couldn't be anyone alive down there. Time for fire.
Domitor's frill of sensory organs and genitalia rippled and flushed in expectation as he watched the kine kneading and seeding the field into a mating-bed of nutrient-rich soil. Next to him, Carnifex crouched, her razor claws retracted, her egg-polyps pulsing as she shared his eagerness. Soon the mating-bed would be ready for them to descend upon the kine and inject them with germ-plasm that would mingle and merge inside the kine's warm, welcoming host bodies. Then their spawn would grow and devour and absorb and learn. Through them, permanent passages to the void would be created, and the sigil-guardians would be scattered, and Verminaarch would be able to suck yet another endoverse dry of its manifold energy-states.
Domitor felt satisfaction. After too long a delay, he would be able to complete his life-duty, and Verminaarch would be pleased with him and grant him more power, another endoverse to explore and conquer.
Carnifex dampened herself with a feeding-tube that dripped acids, softening her bladescales for the impending mating.
Domitor groaned in expectation.
Why do we not join them? Viator asked, watching the mate-pair from the limis hyperspace where she and Auctor crouched. The planespawn will require our genetic traits, as well.
The probabilities have not collapsed yet, Auctor cautioned, his bodyeyes fixed on a million fluctuating spacetimes and divergent endoverses. In far too many of them, the hypospatial beings who traveled through the limis just a thought away from his staring, recording sensory organs succeeded in securing this dimension.
Auctor had been charged by Verminaarch to watch, record, and learn. He did not have a genetic predisposition to take risks. He continued to keep his restless mate in check, content to wait.
Let Domitor and Carnifex take the risks. They carried the biological programming for it.
Viator swept out her tongues, tasting the pathways, and thrust her narrow head around.
I sense the same traveler. Let us destroy this threat now and join our broodgroup.
Auctor turned more of his eyes toward the hypospatial entities and dedicated more of his data-processing energy to determining their threat levels.
Todd jerked, catching a glimpse of dark, shiny tubes shooting down past the stairwell. He stumbled and grasped the sharp handrail, barely feeling the long gashes the spinous processes left in his palm.
"Beloved...." Amon rose on its rear four feet, its beak clattering as its head revolved. "Let us go."
"What's wrong? Jack, hold on." Markham turned. "Are you all right?"
"The dragons are near," Todd said, straining to catch another glimpse of the creatures, but all he could see was black on black, the space beyond the bone stairwell a pit of darkness. He shifted his gaze to the probabilities and saw them seething in a micropuntal froth of uncertainty. "Jack, can you conjure from here?"
He heard the biker mutter an imprecation and caught a dim glimpse of the man kicking at the stair under his feet.
"Lousy place to pick a fight," Jack called back. "You got any idea how much farther it is to the bottom?"
"No."
"They are watching us," Amon whined, its head thrashing back and forth. "My love, we need reinforcements."
Todd felt a twinge of unease. Amon had never, in the hundreds of years they'd traveled together, suggested inviting another devil into their close-knit pairing. For it to do so now indicated that they were desperately outmatched.
Calling devils to him on a hellward path, with Amon's teeth still stained by his blood, would bring him far too close to the Destroyer's gravity well. He might not be able to maintain his claim of neutrality if he acquiesced.
"Andrew," he said, "this might be a good time to call one of the b'nei elohim."
"No!" Amon hissed, glaring at him.
"We're too close to hell for your brethren, beloved." Todd held out his bloody palm as a peace offering. "You don't want me trapped, do you?"
Amon held his gaze a moment, its mirroreyes reflecting his infinite emptiness. Perhaps the demon did want him trapped. If so, it was playing a careful and extended game. But then, both it and Todd had centuries to spar with each other.
Now it reluctantly ran a rasping tongue over his palm, cleaning away the gore. Todd was aware of Markham's disapproving gaze, but he ignored it. The former priest would never understand. Amon was his demon, and Todd cherished knowledge above all else.
"I can send out a call," Jack said, "but only if you say so, Andy. I know how you feel about it."
"Devil, how dangerous are the dragons of the abyss?" Markham asked, his distaste at addressing the nephilim obvious in his tone and expression. Amon turned its gaze on the former priest, and Todd wondered what Markham saw in its eyes. Nothing too bad, he guessed---the priest didn't flinch away the way his friend Jack did each time he looked at Amon.
"Didn't you hear the Watcher?" Amon hissed. "They will release the רוקניא and we will all be destroyed, the yhwh and the ha-satan and the mal'akhim and you."
Markham shook his head.
"You'd better do it, Jack. So far the only ones to tell us about these 'dragons' have been servants of Satan. Maybe an angel will give us another perspective."
"You got it."
"Amon, you may leave, if you want," Todd said, looking down at the demon. Amon hissed and pressed its head against his leg, but it didn't make any attempt to return to hell.
"Since we need real answers, I think we should call Raphael," Jack said.
Amon whined. Todd leaned down and patted its head.
"An archangel?" Even Markham sounded dubious.
"If this is as important as the devil says, it might show up. And Raphael's always been talkative."
"It's also a guide to the underworld, as well as one of the angels of the Apocalypse," Todd added. He approved of the choice. He'd never met an archangel, but of them all, Raphael was reputed to be the most benign.
"Raphael is a slavemaster," Amon spat, coiling up closer to Todd's calf, its legs hooking and piercing his trousers.
"It won't enslave you," Todd assured his demon. To be honest, he probably wouldn't be able to stop an archangel, if its mind were set on capturing Amon, but he'd do his best. Amon and he were close enough for that.
Jack and Markham went through their preparations more scrupulously than they had in the chapel against Penemue. Despite being laicized, Markham blessed Jack and the endeavor with confidence. Then Jack began his invocation.
"O glorious and benevolent archangel Raphael Labbiel Azariah, prince of the Cherubim, ruler of the Second Heaven, angel of the Throne and governor of the Sun, I invoke you, adjure and call you forth to visible apparition in and through the great prevalent and divine name of the Most Holy God...."
The conjurer's voice rolled on, strong and musical, showing no sign that a mere half hour earlier he'd fallen to a miniature stroke. Interesting man, Todd thought, scrutinizing the surrounding darkness for another sign of the dragons. Americans still fascinated him, even after spending seventy years in the U.S., moving from black-only colleges to the mainstream, following the probabilityscape as well as he could in the face of fear and racism. Americans adapted. They could be prejudiced, close-minded, and conservative, but they adapted to change much more quickly than any other people he'd encountered in his centuries of travel.
The ability to adapt was a survival trait he, too, cultivated.
"...come and show yourself unto me and let me partake of the wisdom of your Creator, amen."
Amon's claws dragged down Todd's trousers, shredding them into strips from knee to ankle as the archangel appeared.
Todd started, seeing the probabilities around them jerk and warp into new patterns. The b'nei elohim had just added a new attractor to the iteration, and everything was transforming.
Raphael, if that's what had responded, stood several steps below Jack, but it towered over him, well over seven feet tall and wrapped in a shroud of six dark-colored wings that fluttered and moved around it. Flames licked between the feathers, but Todd had difficulty discerning them. If it was fire, it was a bright, cold fire.
The archangel was as gorgeously, horribly inhuman as every other member of the b'nei elohim he had ever seen. Its almond-shaped eyes were bright and impassive, and its hair moved like a living creature.
"James Ignatius Langthorn."
Its words dripped light, and all three mortals turned away, clapping their hands over their eyes. Todd smelled Amon excreting next to him and heard the demon's long, low keen.
The archangel's voice was brighter than any he'd ever seen before, so bright that it burned through his hands and his closed lids to etch coronas into his retinas.
"Andrew Thomas Markham. Ekow Addo. Kadir Paymon.
"Be not afraid."
Todd wasn't afraid, at least not in any way he'd ever experienced fear before, but the sound of his original name, spoken again after so many centuries, pierced him more deeply than he'd thought possible. Addo. Ruler of the ways. A name more fitting than his parents had ever imagined.
He squinted, wheels of fire dancing before his seared eyes. Both Jack and Markham were on their knees, their faces buried in their arms. He guessed that neither would be able to speak.
"Archangel Raphael," he said, his own voice sounding thin and high compared to the archangel's roar. "We need your help against the dragons."
Then he squeezed his eyes shut again and threw an arm over his face to protect himself from its reply.
"The proud man who rejects my Lord's invitation to the feast may not then demand scraps at the door," Raphael said, its voice filled with a humor Todd had never heard from any other member of the mal'akhim. He threw his other arm over his face, imitating the two occultists. The stories were right---Raphael was a sociable angel. And every word seared. "But the humble man who begs scraps at the door will be invited to sit at the feast. Take this shield, Andrew Thomas Markham, and use it to protect the innocent. Take this sword, James Ignatius Langthorn, and use it to strike the enemy. And take this key, Kadir Paymon, and use it to lock the door."
Todd opened his mouth to protest, and then snapped it shut again. An archangel granting a favor to a demon? But they were both mal'akhim, he realized, his mind whirling; the same energy in different forms. And ha-satan was still God's servant, no matter how obstructive its duties might be.
If that were true, what kind of energy was he?
"And as for you, Walker Between the Worlds, when your hunger becomes great enough, remember that my Lord's invitation is still yours to accept."
Before Todd could think of a reply, the buzzing, shuddering vibration through the probabilityscape ceased, although the patterns of potential futures remained irrevocably altered.
He cautiously opened his eyes. Through the fireworks display that still burned into his retinas, he could see that the archangel was gone.
He looked at his three companions. They didn't look any different. Whatever gifts Raphael had given them weren't material.
His leg ached. He looked down.
Amon had dug its claws into his flesh, and blood was streaming down into his socks and Italian leather loafers. Their soles were already smeared with the demon's runny excrement.
Amon looked up at him.
"Open the door," it demanded, still huddling close to him. "Open the door."
Puzzled, Todd looked down the stairs, but they still seemed endless.
Jack pointed behind him.
Todd turned and found that he was standing in front of a large bone door covered with human teeth.
Auctor followed Viator deeper into the limis, racing away from the guardian-entity.
What was it? she asked, her previous eagerness to attack the travelers gone. Auctor referred to aeons of recorded memory, seeking a more precise answer to her question than the one he understood instinctively.
It is one of the barriers, he replied. It is one of the sigils that has locked this endoverse away from Verminaarch.
Should we call Domitor? Can we shatter it?
It has taken its minions to Domitor already. Auctor paused. Prepare a passage to safety. Battle is about to begin, and I must record it.
Ally edged as close to the broken doorway as she dared, holding her breath. The snakes seemed too busy to notice her, lost in some kind of blood-frenzy of their own. The ground kept quaking beneath her feet, and dust sifted off the concrete roof. She didn't want to stand too close for fear that a sudden jolt might throw her in.
Jarret crept up next to her and held out the gasoline bottle, giving her an inquiring look. Ally jammed the flashlight into the front of her jeans' waistband, casting the light up at the ceiling, and took the bottle from him.
The hole was too big, the serpents too large, to hurt them with one tiny Evian bottle filled with gasoline. She mentally weighed the three backpacks Jarret was carrying, trying to decide what to do. If there was water down below, her plan wouldn't work. Or even much blood.
On the other hand, what else could they do?
She gingerly uncapped the bottle and dumped the gasoline into the pit beyond the door.
The serpents didn't seem to notice anything, although the smell of gasoline was a relief, cutting through the sickly scent of carnage.
Jarret handed her another bottle and began uncapping one of his own.
Slowly, one by one, they dumped all three backpacks' worth of fuel into the pit. Ally hoped the churning, thrashing motion of the serpents was coating their scales with gasoline.
At last, Jarret reached the bottom of the pack. He held up the tiny camping stove and can of cooking fuel and mimed lighting it and pitching it into the pit.
Ally nodded. She slid the flashlight back out of her waistband and pointed toward the stairs, then drew an arc with her finger from the stairs to the pit. She raised her eyebrows.
He paused a moment, then gave her a thumbs-up.
They retreated through the gore-covered room back to the stairway, then put their heads together.
"When you throw it, we run," Ally whispered.
"What if I miss? Or it doesn't work?"
She made a face.
"We wait long enough to make sure it goes in. If it doesn't work..." she shook her head. "I don't know what to do next."
He regarded her gravely.
"It's a good plan. If it doesn't work, it's not your fault."
"Thanks." She shivered. "Let's try it."
Jarret knelt on the stair, fiddling with the stove a moment before turning on the gas and holding a lighter to the edge. It popped and lit with a blue flame.
He cranked the flame up as high as he could, then hoisted it. After a second, he gestured to Ally and walked closer to the doorway.
Ally chewed on her bottom lip, tense.
He crossed the room about halfway, then heaved the stove forward.
The stove's flame flickered and Ally gave an involuntary squeal as the mechanism arced and dropped.
Jarret turned and ran back, his sneakers slipping on bloody chunks of meat.
Yellow flame leaped up, and the serpents suddenly, spasmodically, jerked.
The ground jolted, and Jarret lost his footing, stumbling and falling.
Ally ran forward to help him up as the world split open.
Todd opened the door and found himself standing on the edge of an inferno. For a moment he hesitated, wondering if he'd somehow mistaken a passage back to his world for a doorway deeper into hell. Then he heard a girl screaming and realized he was looking at normal flame.
"Be careful," he said tersely as he stepped through, angling sideways to avoid plunging into a pit of gasoline-fueled fire.
His soiled loafers slid and he grabbed the wall, looking around to get his bearings.
Two students huddled in the room, on their knees in a slick mess of raw meat and blood. One of them was holding the beam of a torch on him, and he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare.
"Stop that!" he demanded, annoyed.
"D-Dr. Todd?"
A hand grabbed his arm and he turned, helping Markham through the door and to the side.
"What is this?" the older man breathed, looking around with horror at the firelit butchery. "Are we on earth?"
"Yes." Todd turned to the two youths. "Who are you?"
"Uh---Ally? And Jarret? From class?"
Todd turned and saw Amon standing on its back four legs, its front four pressed against its stomach. The devil stared into the fire with a curious intensity. Markham was helping Jack through the door, which immediately collapsed behind them.
Deciding there was no good way to explain how they'd entered the room, Todd went on the offensive.
"Did you start this fire?"
"Yes?"
"Is this where the serpents are lairing?"
"Uh." Ally looked at Jarret, who was staring at Todd's bloodstained shirt and tattered trousers with a look of horror on his face. She turned back to him. "I think so. They were, like, squirming around in the...the blood. Uh, is that Professor Markham?"
"Are you the only ones down here?"
Another jolt shook the ground, and dust sifted off the roof.
"Yes. I mean, Peter, my boyfriend, was here, but he left? Before we set the fire? Wh-what---"
"Good." Todd cut off the question. "You've done well. Now get out of here, and we'll take care of the rest."
"But, how---"
"Go!" he roared, throwing out a hand and pointing at the stairs.
The two students scrambled to their feet.
When he turned back, it was to find Markham blessing Jack again and Amon slithering through the flesh-covered floor, sliding its body over the gobbets of flesh with degenerate pleasure. It headed toward him, its mirroreyes blank but its tongue eagerly lapping up the puddles of blood and slime.
"Enjoying yourself?" Todd asked, glaring down at the demon with a touch of revulsion. "Have you forgotten why we're here?"
"No," it hissed. "But I can do nothing until they are finished."
"Why did Raphael assist you?"
Amon cocked its head, looking up at him.
"The dragons of רוקניא threaten all of us."
"It could have stayed for the fight."
The demon snapped its beak with disgust.
"B'nei elohim! Useless."
Todd frowned, troubled. But then, the hosts of hell weren't rallying to the battle, either. That was the problem with the mal'akhim---their thoughts weren't human thoughts, and their ways weren't human ways.
Which meant they could be extremely irritating.
He checked the probabilities and saw that they were bubbling as erratically as before, spinning and boiling in macropatterns and minichaos.
Markham finished making the final cross over Jack, who got to his feet, ignoring the gore smeared over the front of his jeans, and walked several paces away from the door and inferno.
"Do you want the dragons here?" he asked, pacing around the room and scraping a wide circle in the blood with the point of his boot. "For sure?"
"For sure," Todd said, mimicking the man's phrasing. Jack nodded. He planted his feet right outside the circle and wiped his mouth once on the back of his jacket sleeve. The firelight from the serpent pit created eerie shadows that played across his sharp features. He tossed his braid back over his shoulder and drew in a deep breath.
"I do invocate, conjure, and command thee, dragons of רוקניא , to appear and to show thyself visibly unto me before this Circle in a fair and comely shape, without any deformity or tortuosity; by the name and in the name of Iah and Vau...."
Todd felt the skin on the back of his neck prickle. Jack's voice had been powerful enough when he'd conjured Raphael, but that was nothing compared to the force that echoed in it now, above and below the range of audibility. This, Todd realized, must be the sword that the archangel had given him, the weapon to wield against their enemies. A sword that emanated from the conjurer's tongue; a sword of words.
"...by the name Anaphexeton, by the name Zabaoth, by the name Asher Ehyey Oriston, by the name Elion, by the name Adonai, by the name Schema Amathia, by the name Alpha and Omega..."
Space ripped before them, and a ghastly phosphorescent light spilled through, the same unworldly light that had played around the dragons the first time they'd appeared over the north campus field. Todd tensed, watching the spheres and tubes pushing through and pulsing from shape to shape, twisting and stretching as Jack's words wove a trap around them.
"...I do exorcise and command thee, by the four beasts before the Throne, having eyes before and behind, and by the holy angels of God, I do command thee that thou appearest here to fulfill my will...."
High-pitched shrilling sounded from the room beyond, and a serpent's head thrust out of the door, jaws snapping, scales burning.
"Apage satanas!" Markham snapped, and the serpent reared back, its head crashing into the low ceiling and sending more concrete dust and broken shards spilling down on top of them.
The creature within the circle---the creatures within the circle---took perceptible form, crammed into the restrictions of three dimensions. They coiled tightly around each other, confined by a barrier too small for them, and Todd was glad for the compression, because they were the most inhuman things he could have imagined. Their edges flickered and shifted in a sickening fashion, passing between dimensions, but what was firmly in this plane was a hideous, unfeasible amalgamation of sensory organs and rending limbs that made Todd's mind hurt and his gorge rise.
If this was what they looked like "without deformity or tortuosity," he had no desire to see them in their own dimension.
The ground beneath them rolled and heaved. The serpents had plunged beneath the cellar---fleeing? Putting out the flames? Rallying to their masters' support?
"For the love of God," Markham said, sounding horrified, "what do we do with them now?"
"...so I command and abjure thee, that thou give to me thine flesh to eat and thine blood to drink, this very moment, without delay," Jack finished, his eyes wide and his face taut as he struggled to impose his will over beings he could barely comprehend.
Startled, Todd looked back at the two dragons and saw them twisting and coiling around each other, talons flashing as they clawed at the barrier, teeth bared in multiple mouths scattered across their improbably shaped torsos.
"Yesssss," Amon hissed, its belly against the ground and its limbs held tightly against its sides. Its mirroreyes were fixed on the dragons and its narrow body quivered.
"Jack, are you---"
"Give me thine flesh to eat and thine blood to drink!" Jack demanded again, taking a step forward, closer to the circle. Razor-edged tentacles whipped out toward him and fell short, stopped by the circle of magick that constrained the creatures. "Throw that part of thyself out of the circle and then be still!"
Great, misshapen heads thrashed against the commandment. Then, one of the dragons twisted and clawed at itself, one of the mouths along its flank ripping a hunk of membrane from one of its limb-panels. It spat the pulsing, pinkish tissue to the floor, on the opposite side of the roughly drawn circle.
"Be still!" Jack took another step forward and picked up the envelope-sized piece of flesh, then cried out. He shoved the meat into his leather jacket and rubbed his hands against his blood-slicked jeans, his face twisted with pain. "It's acidic," he gasped.
"What are you doing?" Markham sounded appalled. "You don't think we're going to eat that, do you?"
"Yes." Todd slowly nodded. "Of course. How else can we achieve communion with them?"
"It could kill you! It's not even from this dimension!"
Jack was fishing a pocketknife from his jeans and unfolding the short blade. Amon slid through the gore and stopped a foot away from him, watching like a hungry dog waiting for a scrap from the dinner table.
"I'll hold it," Todd volunteered, knowing his numbed nerve-endings wouldn't register the pain as acutely as Jack's. The occultist hesitated, then nodded, pulling the membrane out of his jacket and tossing it over.
Todd stretched it taut and Jack sawed it into four roughly equal chunks. A thin liquid oozed from it, and Jack looked down at the darkening metal of his knife, then tossed it aside.
Todd squeezed each chunk in his fist before handing it over, hoping to eliminate most of the acidity with the blood. His palm and fingers stung, and he saw blisters rising on his flesh.
"This is insane." Markham took the mangled piece of sensory membrane in a shirt-covered hand with obvious horror. "It may even be sinful. Those things---they're intelligent, aren't they? Isn't this cannibalism?"
"It's no worse than eating an angel's flesh," Jack protested.
"The angel gave of itself freely! You coerced those things into obedience!"
"They're the enemy."
"Andrew!" Todd held the last two pieces, his and Amon's, and fixed the laicized priest with a stern look. "You don't have to eat if you don't want to. But Jack is right. To understand, we need to partake. The magick of eating another's flesh for power existed long before Christianity institutionalized transubstantiation."
"You're verging on blasphemy."
"You know your anthropology as well as I do."
"There's a difference between that which is given by God and that which is taken by force." The former priest's face darkened with anger, and he threw the scrap of meat onto the ground. "I'll have nothing to do with this."
"The monsters have eaten human flesh already," Jack said, nudging the hunks of meat on the floor with the toe of his boot. "Now it's our turn. But you have to do whatever you think is right, Andy. Just keep praying for me."
"What good are prayers for somebody who knowingly enters into sin?" Markham asked, bitterly. "Or are you going to tell me later that you've repented?"
"Depends on what happens to me after I eat this," Jack said. "Repenting might be the very last thing I do."
"Maybe you had better let me eat it first," Todd suggested, growing tired of the arguments. "I'm less likely to be killed if it's poisonous."
"You're the statistician---what are the odds this is going to work?" Jack asked. Todd glanced at the probabilityscape and shrugged.
"We're in chaos. The equations are too complex for me to understand."
The ground trembled again, and a crack began to creep up one of the walls.
"And what's the probability we'll all be crushed to death in this cellar?"
"Rather high, if we continue to waste time," Todd retorted. "How long do you think you can keep those things bound to your will?"
"Guess we're about to find out." Jack looked down at the scrap of flesh in his hand. "Let's do it."
Todd flipped one of the scraps to Amon, who caught it between sharp teeth and gulped it down with two short jerks of its head. Then he looked up at Jack, and, eyes locked, together they both raised the monstrous flesh to their mouths.
Jack wasn't happy about making Andy mad, but he'd done it before and, assuming he survived the night, he'd probably do it again. Andy's objections were sound; he realized that. But he was certain that this ritual was the secret to communicating between the dimensions; that perhaps it had always been the secret and the ancients had always known it.
He folded the square of flesh and crammed it into his mouth, bracing himself for the pain.
It hit fast and hard: a searing, acidic sensation that made the pain of the previous hour pale in comparison. He bit down once, but that was all he could manage---he had to spit the meat out or swallow it whole, because another bite into the alien flesh would blister his mouth beyond any hope of healing.
A foot away from him, he saw Todd grimly gnawing, dark blood seeping out from between his blistering lips. The pain barely seemed to bother him.
Deciding that the nerve-numbed theologian wasn't worth trying to impress, Jack grimaced and swallowed.
The dragon's flesh seemed to fight being ingested---he coughed as its acids etched their way down his esophagus, then swallowed repeatedly as the oversized lump of flesh triggered his gag reflex. It moved slowly inside of him, like somebody ramming a fist down his throat. Imitating the devil at Todd's feet, he threw his head back and kept swallowing, involuntary tears oozing from his eyes as his body tried to reject the meat.
Then the dragon's flesh hit his stomach. Excruciating pain blossomed out from the small bolus and lit up every nerve constellation in his body.
With one small part of his mind he registered that he was falling, hitting concrete, feeling flesh squashing under his jacket and blood soaking through his jeans, but the larger part of his consciousness was grappling with the visions that unfolded like an endless array of doors opening down a long, dark hallway. Each doorway revealed a glowing, spiraling tunnel that twisted in Möbius directions, guarded by fire and feathers and symbols. Each tunnel ended in a ruthlessly hungry annihilation---the devouring void that Amon called dragons of רוקניא ---the abyss---that which constantly sought entrance into the hall of doors but was eternally repelled by the mal'akhim that guarded heaven and hell.
But the mal'akhim were besieged on both sides: not only did the void hunger for the energy fields of his own universe (could that be the right word, in a space filled with universes?), but there were also beings inside his own---endoverse?---that hungered for the power promised by the void.
Beings like the Gudruns.
Something struck his chest, hard, and Jack drew in a startled breath. His eyes refocused on the world around him, although the dragon's vision floated at the edges of his sight like tattered veils.
"For the love of God, Jack, get up!"
"What---" the word was slurred, the blisters in his mouth keeping him from speaking clearly. He pushed himself up and felt warm blood ooze between his fingers. The ground jolted beneath them, rising. "Shit!"
He rolled to his feet, half-dragged as Andy hurled them both to one side.
The ground burst open and he threw his arms over his head as chunks of concrete battered down over them.
Down among the dead men,
Down among the dead men,
Down, down, down, down....
None of the rocks crushed him, for which he gave credit to Andy's fervent prayers and the shield of God. But when he looked up, he saw one of the blind, carapaced serpents tearing at the circle he'd drawn on the floor, obliterating the marks with its blunt head. Blood and dirt were caked between its heavy scales, and he saw dark scars that might have been wounds from the flames. And---
He squinted.
The cilia on the serpents' scales seemed longer than he'd noticed before. They spun off into translucency but were---connected?---to the dragons within the circle.
He blinked, but the image held.
"What is it?" Andy's hand dropped on his shoulder.
"They're attached, somehow," he said, wincing and spitting as blisters along the side and roof of his mouth burst. He bit down on a blister jutting off the side of his tongue. Tears streamed down his face. He spat out a thin mixture of saliva and blood. Damn, that hurt!
He staggered to his feet, pressing his back against the wall as the floor cracked and shuddered beneath the serpent's thrashing.
The ecstatic vision of the communion was still with him, a gauzy, torn filter over his gaze that bent corners and stripped away surfaces. Across the room he saw the man-shaped hole that was Edward Todd and the looming shadow of Amon. He saw Andy beside him, his hands blazing with light, and a field of blood beneath his feet.
The serpents were connected to the dragons ofרוקני , preparing the way for the incursion of the void. Each part of the equation was integral to the other.
He pushed himself off the wall and walked unsteadily over the cracking, bucking ground, falling to his knee once, forcing himself back up and lurching toward the broken circle.
Behind him, Andy shouted and scrambled to stand next to him, calling him all sorts of names.
The serpent's head whipped around as Jack drew close. Its jaws gaped open, its blood-covered teeth silently threatening.
"I adjure you, ancient serpent," Jack said, blood leaking past his lips as each word sent pain tearing through his burned mouth and throat. He straightened his shoulders and composed himself. "Give place, abominable creature, give way, thou monster; give way to Christ, in whom thou found none of thine works---for He has already stripped thee of thy powers and laid waste thy kingdom, bound thee prisoner and plundered thy weapons. He has cast thee forth into the outer darkness, where everlasting ruin awaits thee and thine abettors."
The serpent plunged toward him, and Andy spread his arms, shouting a wordless oath that sent light leaping before Jack's half-transformed gaze. The serpent's mouth crashed into the barrier and hung there a moment, hovering before them, its teeth soiled but sharp.
Jack bit down on his tongue once more, then stepped forward and spat blood into the serpent's straining mouth.
"Begone, serpent; God casts thee out, to whose might all things are subject."
The serpent's jaws snapped shut and it threw itself backward, head smashing against the ceiling. Then it leaped forward, propelling itself across the room and back into the last flickering flames of the chamber beyond, where Jack saw several still, blackened hulks coiled in frozen postures.
He grabbed Andy's arm, his head swimming, then looked at the place where the dragons' circle had been broken.
The two entities were completely focused on him: eyes and feathery antennae, cilia and vein-laden membranes.
Auctor watched, a hyperverse away, as Viator thrashed back and forth with impatient anger. But both of them had been given conservative natures: hers as a pathfinder, his as an analyzer, and so they each waited to see what would happen next.
The hypospatial entity that had trapped their companions was not one of the burning guardian sigils that so actively attempted to bar them from this endoverse, but it and two of its companions were imbued with similar powers. Moreover, Auctor could sense the true sigils hovering just to one side of the dimension, watchful and waiting, just as he watched and waited.
If we interfere, we will face war, he informed Viator, checking the multitude of possible endoverses that fanned out from his indecision over whether to enter the fray or remain aloof. In virtually all of them, he saw Viator and himself moving in to aid Domitor and Carnifex, only to be promptly besieged by the endoverse guardians who lurked above and below, waiting to repel the void. And in this place, at this time, we face a high likelihood of loss.
Would we destroy enough to allow others access? Viator asked, as any good servant of Verminaarch should. But Auctor, who had seen enough and calculated enough to develop a heretical sense of self-preservation, mulled over the odds with more concern for his own survival than the successful incursion of the void.
It isn't clear. I would not waste our resources on an uncertain battle.
She hissed, dissatisfied but trusting his analysis, as she had been genetically programmed to do.
His check of the hypospatial entities' patterns of mass and energy had revealed a few anomalies that Auctor thought he might exploit, but he was limited by lack of data. Just as the other entity, the tiny sigil-being that crouched in the room they were observing now, had seemed anomalously unfit to survive, so did the three others. They differed, in greater or lesser ways, from the other native entities whose data he had harvested.
The question was, were their differences adaptive or malignant?
He could absorb and adjust their energy fields, but he couldn't decide with assurance whether the adjustment would end up strengthening or weakening the entities.
His inclination was to assume that their differences were adaptive, and that was why they had the power to bind his matepair. After all, the others of their species had been easy to destroy.
But acting without sufficient data ran counter to his nature.
Do something, Viator urged him, flickering back and forth across the limis. Do something, or I will enter without you and leave those creatures strewn across the multiverse.
If you destroy them, the guardians will swarm us and drive us back to the void.
I will not wait any longer!
Bide, then. I will act. Auctor reluctantly set himself to scanning the boundaries of their hyperverse and stretched a questing tentacle forward across the threshold. Perhaps if he erased the physical anomalies within the invoking entity, he would destroy the entity's unusual power.
Dru Pagliassotti is the author of the award-winning steampunk novel Clockwork Heart and her short stories have been published in a variety of zines and anthologies. She is currently co-editing Day Terrors, a horror anthology from The Harrow Press. A professor of communication at California Lutheran University, Dru also recently co-edited the scholarly volume Boy's Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre.
Artist Bio
Katja Faith is a twenty-two-year-old married artist from Belgorod, Russia. Her art tends to be surrealistic and dark. She happily describes herself as "a kind fairy, just in a bad mood."
See more of Katja's art at katjafaith.deviantart.com.

