CHAPTER 6. HOLD ON TO YOUR HAT
Before anyone could speak, I was on one knee, untying Jane’s hands by memory.
“Shit man where’s the flashlight?” Gil squeaked. “I thought it was right here...”
“Get up,” I said, pulling the cord away and throwing it aside.
Jane was on her feet in a second, turning to face the sound. It seemed to be coming from the direction of the library’s main entrance.
“Got it,” Gil said, the flashlight clicking to life.
“Up, we must go up,” Jane said. Like a shadow, she disappeared. I grabbed Gil’s arm and pulled him after me as I struggled to follow the girl.
I got to the spiral staircase before Gil. The floor around me was coming alive to the sound of snake rattles. “Boss, let’s move.”
Gil arrived a few paces behind me. I took his arm and guided him up the steps. From above us, I could hear Jane’s voice. “Get that ogre up here to help me clear the window! There’s no other way out.”
“He’s coming,” Gil panted.
On the mezzanine, Jane led me to the alcove I’d blockaded with the bookshelf earlier. The wood had splintered, but the case had not totally collapsed. It was wedged into the small nook, blocking the broken window.
“Clear it off,” I said as I began tumbling the remaining books off the shelf. “Even I can’t move this thing if it’s this full.”
The books piled on my feet, Gil and Jane pulling them from the case as fast as their hands could move. I slipped my hands beneath now-empty shelves and lifted, muscles straining. I heard wood cracking and felt books fall past my head. I grunted, releasing the case. “More,” I said. “More have to come off.”
Like I said, I’m a big guy, but even I couldn’t lift a six foot wide, eleven foot high mahogany bookcase that was half-filled with books. Gil balanced himself on another case, resting his other foot in my hand, and together we lifted him to the higher reaches of the case. Jane climbed the case like a ladder, pulling books free as she went.
Thunder rumbled, and beneath my feet I felt the entire mezzanine level vibrate with a heavy impact. Footsteps, and they were getting closer. Much to my chagrin, I was right. They were damn big.
“Do you guys feel that?”
Gil looked down at me. “Unfortunately.”
“What is it?” Jane asked.
Lightning struck, illuminating the second floor. At the far end of the mezzanine level near the back of the library, I saw a pure white, lumbering shape. Lightning flashed again. It was at least seven feet tall, skin as flawless as ivory, broad black wings sprouting from its back and hanging at its sides like two great open claws. Speaking of claws, the pair it had were doozies.
“Shit, do you see that?” I asked, pointing.
Without lightning, the mezzanine was dark. The flashlight lay on the ground by my feet, Gil abandoning it when he chose to climb the case with Jane.
“See what?”
Lightning flashed once more. The monster was closer, the distance between us a mere forty feet or so. If we had one thing working in our favor, it was that the creature didn’t seem to be in a hurry. It walked with slow and steady surety, apparently in no rush to kill us.
“Whoa, ugly!” Gil said, tumbling off his perch and crashing to the floor. “Is that what I think it is?”
Jane leapt deftly to the ground beside me. “It can’t be,” she murmured.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Gotta be Sumerian,” Gil said breathlessly. “When you see something like that, you know it’s gotta be Sumerian. Those Sumerians and Akkadians and Babylonians, man, they didn’t mess around.”
“You’re right this time, old man,” Jane muttered, taking an unconscious step back. “It’s a Galla, a demon of death cursed to guard the Sumerian underworld, Irkalla.”
“Demon of death,” Gil gibbered. “Don’t see many demons of birthday parties or water balloons anymore these days. Always death and pestilence and destruction!” He bit down on his lip, grabbed one end of the bookcase, and pulled, the wood scraping across the plaster molding of the wall stubbornly. I grabbed the other side and pulled with him. It moved, but not enough.
“Care to lend a hand, dear? We are all in this together, right?”
Jane put her hands beside mine and pulled along with us. The case moved again. I looked back to our right as lightning flashed again. The Galla was closer, maybe thirty feet. This time, I was lucky enough to see the beast’s face. It had the head of a bull, twisted horns rising and curving over its head. Its chest was a knot of muscles and scars. A ring hung from the beast’s nostrils.
“Must go faster, lady and gent!” Gil said, grabbing and pulling once more.
I raised my leg and dropped it, smashing through a shelf with a crack. I raised it higher and broke another. When the shelves rose too high for my leg, I put my two big hands together to form one bigger fist and swung. If we couldn’t move the case, we’d go through it.
The wood splintered and fell to pieces easier than I’d hoped, and together Gil and Jane helped me literally pull the case apart. With the case in ruins, Jane slipped through the newly opened window and disappeared outside.
“Up you go, Boss,” I said, giving Gil a leg up, conscious of the fact that the Galla was maybe fifteen feet away. Maybe.
Gil disappeared out the window. Outside, I heard him bickering with Jane. I grabbed the frame, lifting myself up and out, but not before I picked up a sturdy piece of timber, complete with a long, crooked wood screw sticking out of it.
Outside, it was raining harder than I’d expected. We were all three on a small landing just outside the window, probably the kind of thing that was meant for a large flower box. Not meant for three adult-sized people.
“We gotta move,” I said, peering back down through the window and expecting to see the winged bull any second.
“Move where?” Jane said bitterly. “My ladder fell.”
I peered down the roof, seeing a long metal ladder lying across the lawn. It seemed a long way down.
“What floor are we on?” I asked.
“Callowleigh sits on a big steep hill,” Gil said, shouting over the storm. “On this side of the building we’re up pretty high.”
“And we can’t cross the roof,” Jane said.
“Why not?”
“It’s slate,” Gil said, pointing.
“And it’s goddamn pouring rain,” Jane finished.
I squeezed between the two naysayers and tentatively laid one boot down on the rooftop. As I shifted my weight to the foot, my boot slipped. I sputtered something as I lost my balance. Gil caught me before I pitched straight off the roof.
“Yes, it’s slick,” I agreed. “So what’s next, Boss?”
“Up,” Jane said, pointing. “We can use the peak of this window and leverage our way up onto the peak of this section of the roof. Moving along the top will be easier.”
“For fuck’s sake, why?” Gil demanded.
“Worst case you can put one leg on one side and one leg on the other, right?” I said.
“Right.”
“There’s got to be a way down,” Gil pleaded.
His doubt evaporated when the Galla closed one huge claw over Gil’s ankle. I lowered the mahogany plank and buried all five inches of the wood screw into the thing’s forearm.
“Up!” Gil said. “Definitely up!”
Jane went first, spidering her way up and over the peak without a problem. I helped Gil get a grip before getting a foothold myself.
Jane had reached the absolute peak of the roof and was hauling Gil up after her when the Galla broke free of the window completely and stepped onto the roof with a pair of hoofed feet. I was balanced on the window’s peak, board in one hand, one of Gil’s big white orthopedic sneakers in the other. I turned in time to see two meaty forearms moving towards my throat.
I gave Gil a last push before I turned and swung the board.
The Galla nearly caught it in one hand. Nearly. Unfortunately
for the beast, however, it didn’t. The board broke across the Galla’s bull jaw, tipping it backwards as thunder crashed.
“Dylan, give me your hand, man!”
I turned to see Gil reaching for me. He and Jane were on the peak, Jane holding his soaking wet tweed coat and leaning back to counterbalance Gil as he leaned towards me. I reached up.
Apparently, the bull had a hell of a jaw. My fingers were just inches from meeting Gil’s when the Galla wrapped two tree-limb-sized arms around me and lifted me with a swoop of its massive wings. I felt the crush of its strength just before my feet left the wet slate surface of the roof and it lifted me up into the air.