Darklands (22 page)

She straightened and then regarded me, her hands on her hips. Nero, who’d quit barking, sniffed the ground around her feet. “You okay?” the ranger asked me.

“Fine.” I kept my face half turned away. With my hood up and the dim light, it would be hard to make out my features.

“No twisted ankle or anything? We get a lot of those here, especially when it’s wet like this.”

“Nope.”

During the long pause that followed, she didn’t move. “So
you’re sitting out here in the middle of the woods in the rain…why?”

I said the first thing that popped into my head. “I had a fight with my boyfriend.”

“Ah. Well, you’re not going to solve anything by giving yourself pneumonia. Besides, the park’s about to close. Come with me, I’ll walk you out.”

“No, thanks.”

She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. “You know you can’t camp here, right?” She nodded at my duffel bag. “I think you’d better come with me. I can give you a lift to wherever you need to be.”

I tried to think of a reason to refuse, then shrugged and stood up. I’d already made myself as conspicuous as if I’d asked her to hold my bag while I assembled my sniper rifle. It would be better if she thought I’d left the park. I followed her back to the loop trail. Nero trotted along beside her. He hadn’t said so much as “woof” since she’d caught up with him.

Man’s best friend.
Hah.
Now what was I going to do?

THE RANGER WALKED A FEW PACES AHEAD OF ME ON THE trail. Nero sniffed along one side, then the other, running back and forth as far as the leash allowed. When he stopped to investigate some deeply interesting scent, she paused to let him, glancing back to make sure I still followed.

I came up beside her. “Do you have a cell phone?” I asked.

“Yes. Do you need to make a call?”

“You get reception out here?”

“Of course. We’re not that far out in the boonies.”

“Then would you mind calling me a cab? When I had that fight with my boyfriend, I got out of the car, and he drove off without me. I do need a ride, but I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

She considered. “All right. I am a bit short on time—I’m having some friends over for dinner tonight. Can you take Nero’s leash for a minute?”

I walked the dog a little way down the trail while she made the call. She put the phone away and caught up with us. “Cab’ll be here in a few.” I returned Nero’s leash to her, and she seemed to relax now that I’d agreed to leave the park. As we walked
along the trail, she chattered about her dinner party, telling me who was coming and what she planned to serve.

I smiled and nodded—and thought about how I could get back here to kill Pryce.

When we emerged from the woods, the day was moving past dusk into evening—the time demons could come forth. I peeked into the demon plane, listening for any sign of Pryce’s trapped demons. I heard nothing. But moonrise was still over half an hour away. Pryce wouldn’t uncloak the cauldron until it was time for his ritual.

The ranger’s SUV waited in the parking lot by the Visitors’ Center. No cab was in sight. If she left now, I could blow off the cab and return to the gorge.

“I’ll just wait with you and make sure the cab shows up.” A tiny note of suspicion colored the friendliness in her voice.

“You’ve got dinner to cook. I’ll be fine.”

She took a tennis ball from her car and threw it into the woods. Nero raced after it, his legs a blur. The third time the dog brought the ball back, a taxi pulled into the parking lot. I got in, waved to the ranger, and gave the driver the address of a fast-food place near the motel. The ranger’s SUV followed us along Purgatory Road, but at 146, where we turned north, she turned south. I let my head drop back against the seat with relief.

The taxi let me off where I’d asked. I paid him and went inside. As soon as the cab pulled away, I left the restaurant and ran south. I stayed well off the road, behind buildings and out of sight of passing cars, until I reached the motel’s rear parking lot. I threw my weapons into the Jag, got in, and headed back to the chasm.

It was getting dark now. I checked my watch. The moon would clear the horizon within minutes, and I was a mile away from where I needed to be. I pressed the accelerator, and the Jag surged ahead.

I took the exit for the chasm, rocketed down Purgatory Road, and skidded into the parking lot. I rolled down the window, opened to the demon plane, and listened.

A tsunami of sound slammed my ears. Screams, howls, growls, shrieks, moans—it sounded like the agonized cries of a thousand souls tormented by pain and fear and rage. The voices came from inside the chasm. Pryce must have uncloaked the
cauldron, and its imprisoned demons were screaming their throats raw.

Too late for my sniper rifle. Keeping my senses open to the demon plane, I drew my pistol and ran through the woods to the chasm’s entrance. The demon plane’s filthy gray light was enough to let me pick my way through the boulder-littered obstacle course. Every ounce of my being cringed away from the mind-scrambling cacophony of screeching demons. Still, I pushed myself toward the sound.

At the slope into the chasm, I leapt onto a boulder, then half-slid, half-scrambled down to the next one. The demonic shrieking echoed, bouncing off the rocks, a maelstrom of noise. The din clamored ahead of me, behind me, above me, all around. It felt like arrows piercing my brain. I jumped to a lower boulder and slipped on its wet surface. My feet went out from under me, and I fell on my back.

Huge, outstretched talons zoomed toward me, aiming for my face.

I rolled, and the Harpy slammed into the rock. It crumpled into a mass of feathers and tangled snakes. Its feet kicked, scrabbling for something to hold on to. I aimed my pistol and shot three bronze bullets into its body. Jets of yellow, sulfurous steam hissed from the wounds. Snakes stiffened and struck, their jaws snapping on air.

I fired again.

The Harpy shuddered. It emitted a long, drawn-out croak. Then it lay still. As I watched, its body began to deflate. Dead.

Were there others? I took cover behind a boulder and scanned the sky. The demon racket overpowered all other sounds. I couldn’t track any approaching Harpies by their shrieks. But my gut told me this wasn’t a solo attack.

There.
Two Harpies, incoming. I chose one and held it in my sights, waiting for it to come into range.

Almost…almost…

Now!

I pulled the trigger. At the same moment, the Harpies wheeled and split up. My shot missed. I locked onto one of the demons and fired again. Steam and feathers spurted from its wing. The Harpy dropped from the sky.

Staying in the shelter of the boulder, I scanned the sky for the third Harpy. Nothing. It was hiding somewhere, waiting for
me to step out into the open. I peered along the top of the chasm and into tree branches, squinting through the murk. Where the hell was it?

From the trapped demons’ screaming, a new sound emerged. I felt it before I heard it, a low thrumming that vibrated the ground, rising through the soles of my feet. The sound was a rhythmic pulse, like the beating heart of the earth. I glanced at my watch. Less than five minutes until moonrise. Pryce had started his ritual, and I was out of time.

I stood. From out of nowhere, a Harpy plummeted toward me. Bracing myself against the boulder at my back, I raised my pistol and fired off half a dozen shots. I twisted, but not far enough. The Harpy’s body sledgehammered into my right shoulder, bounced off, and hit the ground. Pain ripped through me, but I kept the gun on the demon. The Harpy rolled to a stop against a boulder, then lay wedged there, unmoving. Third Harpy down. Already its body was deflating, the stench of decay making me gag.

My shoulder throbbed and burned. I could feel it swelling. I tested my arm; I couldn’t raise it more than a few inches. The shoulder was dislocated, no question.

Under my feet, the vibration pulsed, deep and steady.

I looked up. Were there more Harpies? I didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean they weren’t waiting to strike.

A powerful voice rose, chanting, above the demons’ cries. With one command, it shattered the night. Wind rushed through the chasm. Thunder rumbled.

Ignoring the pain in my shoulder, I reloaded my pistol, ejecting the magazine and slamming in a new one. I clambered down the slope, slipping and skidding over the rocks, pain jolting down my arm with each bump.

I reached the muck of the chasm floor. Ahead, reddish light glowed. Mud sucked at my boots as I ran, slipping and sliding, toward the Devil’s Coffin.

Something hit me from behind, hard. I pitched headlong into the mud. I fell on my right side, agony shattering my shoulder. Swampy water flooded my mouth and nose. As I raised my head, snorting and sputtering, pain knifed my back. I twisted around. Feathers brushed my face as I encountered the spread, drooping wing of the Harpy I’d wounded. I brought up my pistol and fired left-handed into the wing. The Harpy shrieked. Its talons clenched, ripping my back. I ignored the pain and reached back
until the gun jammed up against something solid. Three shots, and the Harpy collapsed, a dead weight on my back.

Its talons still gripped me. I fired more bullets into its corpse—extra bronze to hurry the decomposition process. Lightning slashed the sky, the strikes coming fast and furious like strobe lights. The ground trembled. I struggled to push myself up.

The Harpy’s talons relaxed, retracted. The dead demon toppled over. As soon as its weight dropped away, I rolled out from under the corpse and pushed myself to my feet. I sprinted toward the Devil’s Coffin.

The wind was roaring now. It seemed to blow from every direction, all at once. Ahead, I could see Pryce’s silhouette. He stood before a huge cauldron, his arms raised toward the sky.

I fired but, left-handed, my aim was off. The bullet sparked off the cauldron. Pryce didn’t even flinch.

For a moment, everything stopped. The wind quit blowing. The thunder and lightning stilled. The cauldron’s demonic uproar was choked off. The sudden silence hurt my ears.

I lifted my pistol for another shot.

Pryce’s raised arms gestured as though parting curtains. A gash opened in the clouds, revealing a brilliant silver moon. Its light shot through the woods in a beam, striking the cauldron.

I fired.

A thunderclap shook the chasm, knocking chunks of stone from the walls. A rock struck Pryce’s head, and he fell. Had my bullet hit, too?

I ran toward him. Inside the Devil’s Coffin, the red glow intensified, lighting up the boulder cave. A robed figure stepped out of the glare. Its face was deep inside a hood. I couldn’t see whether it was male or female, human or demon—or something else altogether. The figure moved toward the cauldron.

“Stop!” I shouted.

The figure ignored me. It gestured, both arms sweeping upward, and the cauldron rose into the air. Pryce’s laugh echoed through the chasm.

I fired. The bullets passed right through the figure, slowing it down as much as they’d slow down a shadow. The figure turned to face the back of the boulder cave, the floating cauldron close behind it, dark shapes against the hellish light.

“Wait!” Pryce shouted. “Take me with you!” Grunting, he crawled up onto the flat slab of rock.

The figure didn’t pause. It floated to the back of the cave, then moved to one side. It pointed and the cauldron hurtled through the granite wall. The figure followed, melting into the rock. Pryce dragged himself toward the portal, but before he reached it the red glow blinked out, like someone had turned off a light switch. No trace remained of the figure or the cauldron. They’d disappeared.

Thunder, lightning, wind—all had ceased. The ground was still. I stood in a damp, chilly, overcast, utterly ordinary spring night.

Pryce groaned. I couldn’t tell whether it was in disappointment or in pain. I hoped it was both.

He lay on the stone where the cauldron had stood. Blood and mud streaked his face. The skin of his forehead was split where the rock had struck him. I approached him, my gun aimed at his head. He squinted at me, his features twisted in an ugly sneer. Then he smiled, baring blood-smeared teeth.

“Hello, cousin,” he rasped. “I knew I should have conjured more Harpies. But I needed all the demons I could get.” He gestured with his chin to where the cauldron had disappeared.

“What have you done?”

Pryce giggled. The high-pitched titter was disconcertingly like his father’s. “What’s done is done,” he said. “But the important thing is I’ve
done
it.” Another giggle. “There’s nothing you can do about it now.”

I kept the pistol pointed at his head. My finger tightened on the trigger. Now. I could end this right now.

From behind me, an amplified voice echoed through the chasm. “This is the police. You are surrounded. Lay down your weapons and raise your hands.”

I wasn’t surprised the cops had shown up. There were houses not far from the chasm, and I’d fired enough shots to start a small war. Someone must have called 911.

Pryce laughed. “Quite the dilemma, eh, cousin? Blow my head off, and you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison. Let me be, and…well, you’ve read the book. You know my plans.”

Floodlights lit the chasm. The cop with the bullhorn repeated his warning.

“You’re the one who’s going to prison,” I said. “You’ll die there as a mortal.”

“I don’t think so.” In a single motion, he sat up and brought something forward. I nearly pulled the trigger before I saw what it was: a spray can of air freshener. He pointed it at me like a weapon. “Do you know what’s in this can? Plague virus.”

Plague. The virus that had turned two thousand Bostonians into zombies. It was one hundred percent fatal to humans—for three days, anyway, before they reanimated.

It couldn’t hurt me. But there were humans nearby.

“Stay back!” I shouted to the cops. “Plague virus!” Pryce was probably bluffing, but I couldn’t take the chance. He’d stolen something from the Old Ones—Juliet had said so—and the Old Ones had engineered the virus.

“Repeat that,” commanded the bullhorn.