A new sense of urgency pushed her back to the dangling rope. The hairs on the back of her neck were up. People were supposed to feel like this right before they got struck by lightning. She attached a couple of ascenders to the rope and shined her light up at the hole in the ceiling. Amy blew a long whistle—that fucker was up there. She webbed up and wrapped her hands in the ascenders. They’d make it easier but she needed to stop whimpering to herself and get moving. Ten minutes later, she was drenched in sweat as her boots disappeared into the hole.
* * *
Silent minutes passed in the cavern. Enough time, at least, to ensure the raider was gone. A boulder in the wall cracked and sprouted a long, jointed leg, another, another and another. Yïn shifted from rock to spider and clattered down to the floor. She focused her many eyes on the hole that had shat that thieving woman and hissed. Venom dripped and scarred the metal floor. One of the huge columns of rock began to blur and shimmer as if seen through hot air. A great pair of wings erupted from either side, a long tail thudded down like a fallen tree and eyes glowed in the dark. Yïn faced her master. You should have let me.
Dampf folded its wings and peered down at its little demon. We need the Constable. She is bonded to him. The dragon craned its jagged head over to inspect the diamond horde. It bent in and listened. They were closer: the Pompiliads swarmed on the other side of this thin wall between worlds, now one brick thinner. Dampf reared back and inhaled, pulling in nearly all of the available oxygen. Yïn scuttled away into her corner and balled up tight. The dragon roared a downpour of phosphorous-white fire onto the diamonds, sealing over the missing chip. The flames ran dry and the molten diamonds threw an orange glow around the cavern, sunset underground.
* * *
At the edge of the parking lot, Amy stopped and cocked her head. That was strange, it didn’t look like rain but she could have sworn she heard thunder.
Chapter 22
George couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t from worries, though he had plenty, nor garden variety insomnia. George sipped coffee at his kitchen table and shook with cold while sweat dripped off his brow. The edges of things—the oven, the counter, that green ceramic frog cookie jar that’d he loved since he was seven—all seemed too defined, even a little luminescent. His skin crawled and his guts ached. He wanted to throw up, but couldn’t. More than anything, he wanted a drink but George was done with that.
A strange woman from New York City had come to stay in his house. She was abrasive at times and unabashedly at work to destroy what was left of his hometown. When she walked down the kitchen stairs in the morning as he was cooking breakfast, his heartbeat matched the tread of her foot on the risers. When she sat across the table from him and scowled over whichever online newspaper filled her laptop screen his cells aligned to point at her true north. When she walked by and threw a passing, casual hand on his shoulder, all the blood in his body fought to be under her palm.
When she had called him earlier that day from the police station George knew something had happened. Erica didn’t do needy, but there was some catch in her voice, some signal that said I can’t handle this. George had come and brought her back to the house and they’d talked it over. Not at the kitchen table, but in her bedroom—Erica snugged down under the covers and George sitting by the side of the bed. She’d given him all the details of her encounter, her eyes far away and her fingers gripping the edge of the quilt. She asked him if he thought she was crazy. He’d said no. She asked him if he believed what Will said about it being some redneck juiced out of his mind on moonshine. George had said yes. She grabbed his hand and asked him if he would stay until she was asleep. He’d sat on the edge of the bed until his legs cramped, but didn’t leave until her breathing slowed and her eyes went into REM.
That had been hours ago and dawn was on its way. It had been almost twelve hours now since his last drink. Granted, he had already cut way back since Erica came to stay with him, but this was the first time in many years he’d gone this long without the oily juniper burn in the back of his throat. He shivered and almost dropped his cup. He was bone tired. Blue black night sat outside the kitchen window. An early dawn bird chirped. George hoped a cat would eat it.
He wasn’t even sure why he was even doing this. It wasn’t like she was going to stay with him. It wasn’t even like they’d shared a kiss. Will and Amy had already gone to bed, but Erica and George (stupid to even think of their names coupled like that) hadn’t even held hands. What could he possibly offer a woman like her? And even if she did develop feelings for him, what then? She would never leave her firm and come live in Shard. George couldn’t survive in a place like Manhattan. It would suck him dry. George shivered. He realized the tenor of those thoughts had sounded an awful lot like his mother’s voice. “Wonder if I’m hallucinatin’ a little,” he said. His voice was hollow and had a funny little echo to it, the auditory equivalent of a halo. The DTs these were not—he’d already cut back enough to keep that from happening—but this was some badass withdrawal.
The echoing quality of his voice reminded him of the cavern and everything that was going on just beneath the skin of this strange little town. Had old Cyrus really gone on a white lightning roller coaster ride? It wasn’t the most unusual thing in backwoods Kentucky, but it didn’t feel right either. George wondered if it wasn’t somehow tied to that other one. What’d that, that dragon call it, the Pompiliad? He shuddered and shook his head. What if what Erica saw had something to do with the Wasp? Jesus, thinking of it that way didn’t help matters; put an image of a giant black hornet in his mind—buzzing around town like a helicopter, impaling children, old ladies and small dogs with its stinger. And had he mentioned lately that he’d really like a fucking drink?
Motion flickered in his peripheral vision and George looked up. A face hung in the kitchen window, pale skin framed by long colorless hair. The mouth gaped and the eyes were glazed over. George made a “Buh!” sound and shoved back from the table. One of the chair legs caught on the rag rug by the sink and spilled him to the floor. George jumped up like a jack-in-the-box and grabbed a long knife off the rack over the counter. When he spun around the face was gone.
For a moment, George just stood and stared at the pre-dawn light splashing up against the window glass. Had he really seen that, or was it just a really nasty gin blossom? He had to find out. George gripped the knife with shaking hands; the light along its blade jittered and jived like it was electrified. He walked down the dark front hall—not thinking about it, just moving—and stopped at the glass front door. The Archangel Michael glared at him. George looked at the flaming sword then down at his turkey knife. Yeah, uh-huh.
He whipped open the door and cool dawn air rushed in and over him. He flared his nostrils and caught the scent of something gone bad, sweet trash left in the summer sun mixed in with the usual coal burn. He looked left and right, nothing but stillness on the street. Even that fucking bird was quiet. Nothing to it, but to do it. George stepped off the front porch and strode around the house, knife held at the ready. God, he hoped that hadn’t been some stupid kid playing a prank because he was about to scare the living Jesus-jumped-up-and-gone-to-meeting-Christ out of them. Now that he thought about it, that face had reminded him of a kid, Maggie Owens. But he could be wrong. He didn’t have much occasion to get out to their little village and the Owenes didn’t get into town all that often either. Maggie’d be about fourteen now he guessed.
George rounded the corner and stopped. There was nothing there but kitchen window and the flower patch underneath. He’d just turned the earth there the other day while Erica was on one of her library trips and had been looking forward to planting mums when the fall got on a little more. That smell of rotten fruit and bad soil was stronger here, but even that was wafting away as the morning breeze came up and night and day swapped the sky. George walked over and hunkered down. The adrenalin caught up with him and a little moan escaped his mouth; his head was just fucking killing him. Oh, shit. Footpri
nts. Embossed in the fresh dirt like little accusations. Whoever had been standing out here gawking in at him had been shoeless and about the size of a fourteen year-old girl.
George felt like he had to pee. And throw up. And have a drink. Maybe all three in no particular order. A thought pulled his balls up tight: what if she was still out there watching him? George scanned the yard and even up into the high oaks, nothing but grass and empty branches. The light was coming on stronger now and gravity was beginning to yank at his bones. His shoulders slumped and he loosed a massive yawn.
“Little early for gardening, ain’t it?”
George whipped around and threw the knife. It landed flat in the grass about four feet out and well off to the left because George had no idea how to throw a knife. Will Two-Bears McFarlan stood with crossed arms, frowning and shaking his head.
“We need to get you a gun, son. That was sad.”
George stared at him bug-eyed and panting. “I think I peed a little.”
* * *
Will sipped his coffee and said, “Really? Cold turkey?”
George poured himself a fresh cup and sat opposite his friend at the kitchen table. “Yeah, well, sort of.” He was coming off shy, but that was all right. As much as he put his best friend through with his drinking down the years, George had every right to some humility. “I’ve been cuttin’ down over since,” he paused, “over the last week or so, so’s it’s not quite so hard.”
“Still kickin’ your ass, though, ain’t it?”
George smiled. “Why you look downright concerned, Sheriff.”
“Blow me. You should be sleeping, not drinking more coffee.”
“If I could sleep, I would.” George blew on his coffee. “Besides, if I were all snuggled up in bed I wouldn’t have been awake to see the Maggie Owens fright show. You’re one to talk anyway, Wilhelm. What the hell were you doing stalking around my house this early? You got a thing for me, just admit it.”
Will took off his red baseball cap and ran a hand through his hair. He felt like dog shit. “I’ve been up most of the night. I close my eyes and start dreamin’ dreams I’d rather not.” He got quiet a moment. George could feel he had something to say and just let the time spin out. There was no such thing as an awkward silence between brothers. “It’s started, George.”
“I, uh, I kind of felt something.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. When I picked up Erica at the station and she told me about what happened—well, I sorta just knew it wasn’t about old Cyrus getting a drunk on. He doesn’t even touch his own stuff anyway, does he?”
“No, you’re right he doesn’t. I guess I kind of told her that to calm her down.”
George chuckled. “She knew you were bullshitting her. I mean, she got it. She understood why you fed her a line, but it didn’t work. She was scared, Will, really freaked out. I think she’s not used to be being scared, like it’s an alien emotion to her most of the time. Half the reason she’s all off kilter about this is because she wasn’t in perfect control of herself.”
“I went up there, to the Owens place.”
“Uh-huh, and?”
“That body Erica said she saw? The one in the burning oil drum? It was gone, looked like it’d been drug off. Cyrus’s truck was gone, too. Erica said she saw it, but when I got there it was gone.”
“It’s that blue I.H., right?”
“Yup. I saw it when I got back into town, though. Parked in around the side of Charlotte Najarian’s house.”
George drank coffee and raised his eyebrows.
“So, I checked out the truck and there was some, ah, residue in the back that could have come from transporting a partially barbecued Kentuckian. When I knocked on the door, there was no answer so I kind of decided to do the probable cause thing and go in for a look.”
George couldn’t help but smile. “I never got the nuances there with probable cause. How do y’all know when it applies, Sheriff?”
“Pretty much whenever I feel like it does. And stop callin' me Sheriff, you numb whit. Anyway, so I went in, but the house was as quiet as a tomb.”
“Nice choice of words.”
“Yeah, lately my mind keeps running in that direction for some odd reason.”
“So where’s old Charlotte? Shit, Will, where’re the Owenses or Cyrus for that matter? What the hell is going on around here?”
Will stared at the table. “I told you. I think it’s started.”
“Yeah, but what’s that mean, man?”
“I don’t know, Georgie. It just feels like things are happening. You know how you always know the fire’s right there under our feet, chewing away at the seam? It kinda feels like that, like I can feel it all happening just out of sight.”
The two men were quiet a minute, sipping their coffee, musing. George said, “It’s recruiting.”
“Huh?”
“The spider and the dragon recruited you, Will. Then you recruited me. I think the Wasp thing is doing the same. They’re gathering their forces.”
“You know how you said Erica don’t like it when she feels out of control? I don’t much care for it either.” Will sipped his coffee and made a face. It was cold. He got up to pour some more and when he turned around George had a look on his face. “What?”
“Why can’t we leave, Will?”
Will sat back down. George’s eyes were showing a little too much white for his liking.
“We could just get lost and start over. Shit man, the only reason we stay here year after year is ‘cause we’re afraid of something different. We could just pack up our shit and haul ass on outta’ here. Let these creepshow cocksuckers fight it out on their ownsome.”
“It ain’t like I never thought of that, Georgie. But you remember what Dampf told us—we don’t stop it here, it’ll open the portal thing and the rest of them’ll come swarming out. We’re talking about end of the world type shit.”
“Can’t we at least get some help?”
Will pushed back from the table. “What do you want me to do, man? You think I should call up to the county seat? Get Tommy Ward on the horn and see if he can’t spare a few deputies to fight the second coming of a race of demons from another dimension? How’s that call going to go, do you think?”
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting you do. You can’t handle this on your own. We can’t.”
“You’re not thinking this through to the end of it. We could call in a hundred guns—fuck it, get the National Guard involved and make it a clean thousand. Know what would happen? We’d win, but they’d know about the doorway or portal or whatever Dampf and Yïn are sitting on down there.”
“So what?”
“You’re scared, George.”
“You’re goddamn right I am, but I still don’t see why getting everyone from Tom Ward to Dick Cheney’s private ninja army on our side is a bad thing against all this. So what if they know about the portal?”
Will sighed long and tired. “They’d start administrating, George. They’d start testing. They’d bring in NASA, the CIA, the NSA, the League of Extraordinary Fucking Gentlemen… They’d bring them all in and they’d end up doing what we’re trying to keep from happening.” George winced. Will nodded. “Now you see what I’m talking about?
George’s eyebrows bent up almost comically. “The officials would succeed where the Pompiliad failed. They’d open it.”
“Now you get why we gotta keep a lid on this?”
George put his head on the table with a thunk. His voice came up muffled and stuffy- nosed. “I’m so unhappy.”
Will snorted. “You could always drown your sorrows…in a nice warm glass of milk.”
“You’re a bad man.”
George’s head popped up.
“Yes?” Will asked.
“I have to get Erica out of here. I’ll tell her there’s been an outbreak or something.”
“Holy shit, George, no. You can’t do that. You can’t do anything that’s going to ge
t more people down here.”
“It’s not safe here!”
“Think about it, man. She leaves and tells someone about how Ebola has come to Kentucky we’re going to have the guys in spacesuits down here in about a minute flat.”
“What if I just tell her that Cyrus has gone overboard and that she’s gotta go until you catch him?”
Will crossed his arms. “Think it’ll work? She seems awful tough to me.”
George smiled a little. “She is, but she was also awful scared. I think we might be able to convince her to leave until this is over.”
“If it ever is. We don’t win, I get the distinct impression that there’s not going to be anywhere anyone can go to get safe.”
The sun was full up now and light swept the night from the kitchen. It looked like it was going to be another gorgeous late summer day in Shard. George gazed out into the bright yard and thought of his mother. Every now and again he wondered what stage of decomposition her body was in down under the old Methodist churchyard. The fire edged that property. Would the dry heat kill the bacteria in the soil and preserve her, or accelerate the process? The dead were supposed to rise during The End Times—that’s what she had believed, and preached. A bird twittered a welcome to the day. George squinted as if in pain. “I hate that fuckin’ bird. Wish I had a bazooka.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Will. “What’re you doing later?”
“I was going to try to scare my only houseguest out of town and then just, you know, shake for a while, maybe vomit some. Why?”
Will flashed an enormous grin. “Wanna’ learn how to use a machine gun?”