End of Days (Penryn and the End of Day #3) (32 page)

‘Four . . .’

Everyone scrambles. People shove and run in panic. The overcrowded audience and the show contestants have only four seconds to evacuate to the hideaway lattice and net beneath the bridge.

The singer onstage keeps on singing as if neither hell nor high water nor apocalyptic angels descending on us will stop him from giving the best performance of his life. He’s finished his catchy pop song and is now singing a love song.

‘Three . . .’

I have to clamp down hard on the urge to run like everyone else. I keep my position and put heavy-duty earplugs in my ears, leaving my noise-canceling headphones around my neck. I see others doing the same around the edges of the stage, the rafters, and the suspension cables.

‘Two . . .’

There are too many people rushing in the same direction. The hideout lattices we set up can only handle so many people below the bridge. It’s utter chaos, with everyone running and screaming.

‘One . . .’

As the crowd drains, they leave behind camouflaged gunmen who scramble into position.

A cloud of locusts swoops in from the mist faster than I expect in a flurry of stingers and teeth.

Locusts?

Where are the angels?

59

Shots blast into the locust swarm, but we might as well be shooting at the clouds for all the good it does. The locusts must have been attracted to the lights and sound that were meant for angels.

They’re landing on all fours around us. Gunfire shoots off everywhere as the ground crew kicks into action.

I pull out my knives just as a locust drops down from the sky in front of me. Its stinger looms over its head and jabs at me.

My arms automatically come up. I slice and stab. I’d give anything for Pooky Bear right now.

That thought makes me all the more vicious. I voluntarily gave Raffe his sword back.

I slice again.

The stinger whips out of the way of my blade.

The scorpion in front of me is doing its best to kill me. It’s moving its stinger so fast I have to wonder if it was a tap dancer in its previous life.

I’m drenched in sweat in seconds as I evade and try to fight at the same time. These little knives aren’t going to do anything but annoy it.

I spin to the side and give it my fastest side kick. My foot slams into its knee with a crunch.

The locust screeches and leans to the side as its knee breaks.

I bend low and swipe the other leg. The monster crashes down.

‘Stop!’ My sister runs to the middle of the bridge flanked by her pet locusts, yelling at everyone around her.

It’s a war zone with bullets zinging by, and she still runs out in the middle of all the chaos with her arms out. My legs almost give out at the sight of her.

‘Stop!’

I’m not sure who stops first – our fighters or the locusts – but both sides pause to look at her. Hope and wonder rise in me as I watch my sister stopping a bloody battle with just her conviction.

I don’t know what she would have done next, because a huge locust lands beside Paige.

The white streak in his hair is unmistakable and so is his demented anger. This time, Raffe isn’t here to intimidate him. He grabs Paige’s pet locust and lifts him into the air above him like a squirming baby.

‘No!’ Paige’s hands reach up like a little kid trying to get her ball back from a bully.

White Streak slams the smaller locust down against his knee, breaking the beast’s back with a snap.

‘No!’ Paige screams. Her crisscrossed face turns red, and the cords in her neck stand out.

White Streak tosses the broken locust onto the concrete. Ignoring my sister, he stalks around the broken beast.

The injured locust pulls itself forward by its hands. It tries to get away from White Streak, dragging its dead legs behind it.

White Streak is making a show of it, puffing up and standing tall for all to see as every scorpion-tailed monster watches. He clearly plans to show that he’s the king of the locusts and no one else can challenge him.

That means he’s going to have to kill Paige.

I sprint toward my sister, weaving through the spectators. Although the air boils with locusts, no one else is fighting on the bridge. Doc had warned them that some locusts might be on our side. Now no one seems sure what to do. Everyone on the bridge – locust and human – watches the drama unfold.

Paige’s face crumples as she watches her pet locust drag itself helplessly on the asphalt, unable to move its legs or tail. She starts sobbing.

The sight seems to enrage White Streak. He swipes at her with his tail.

I scream. Every time I’ve seen my sister win a fight, she’s had the element of surprise on her side. But this time, White Streak knows she’s a threat and is out to kill her.

Then someone shouts over the loudspeaker, ‘They’re coming!’

The dark mass of locusts shifts and churns above the bridge, blotting out the sky. Between the stingers and iridescent wings, I catch glimpses of an ever-growing tide of bird-of-prey wings.

The blood hunt is starting.

60

I try to slam my fear and anxiety into the vault in my head, but they’re too big.

When I look back down from the sky, Paige is ripping her teeth into White Streak’s arm. She’s alive and fighting.

I run toward her, trying to be as small as possible in case there’s a stray bullet.

In the center of the bridge, White Streak swats and tosses Paige onto the ground like a rabid dog, then he stomps his foot on her chest, keeping her struggling form down as he looms over her.

My sister is unrelentingly furious and thrashing beneath him. Watching her pet be crippled and crawl helplessly must have triggered something in her, something so violent and intense that it might just choke her.

Just as I get close, her remaining two locust pets fly into White Streak. They’re no match for the monster, and he tosses them aside easily.

The rest of the scorpion-tailed locusts fly in nervous, agitated loops above and in front of me, going in every direction and just barely avoiding crashing into each other. They seem confused and upset.

I can’t get past them and have to back off from their shifting barrier.

White Streak lifts his enormous stinger, getting ready to strike at my little sister, who is still thrashing under his foot.

I try to dart in between the swooping locusts, but their stingers are everywhere and I can’t get past. On the other side of the fight, I see my mom having the same problem.

White Streak’s stinger whips down toward my sister.

I scream and take a step toward them. A locust flies right into me, slamming me down onto the concrete.

Amazingly, Paige reacts faster than the stinger. She twists her body out of the way. The stinger jabs into the asphalt, embedding the tip in the bridge.

Before White Streak can pull it out, she bites into his tail. Blood bursts out around her mouth as if she bit into an artery. She rips out a chunk of his tail before he can swat her away.

This time, when he hits her, there’s desperation in his motion. This time, when he hits her, a locust drops from the sky and stings his neck.

White Streak swings and blindly grabs at the traitorous thing. He snaps its neck and tosses its dead body onto the street.

Another locust hits him with his body in a fast flyby. White Streak staggers, taking his foot off Paige for a split second. It’s long enough for her to scramble up.

From above us, two locusts dive to attack Paige.

She ducks from one and runs headlong into the other. My blood freezes as White Streak’s locust shoots its stinger toward my sister.

A shotgun blast hits Paige’s attacker.

The locust falls writhing on the ground. The shooter stands nearby, looking familiar.

Martin nods to Paige, with his rifle still aimed at the bleeding locust. If he keeps this up, I might even forgive him for lassoing Paige for being a monster.

Paige turns around and leaps to rip into White Streak’s throat.

Locusts begin swarming on Paige’s side, swirling above her as she rages. They’re drawn to her furious cries despite whatever influence White Streak has over them.

Another group of locusts swarms on White Streak’s side. I wonder if there is going to be an all-out war among them.

The ones hovering above Paige spin off to attack White Streak. The ones above White Streak drop to attack Paige.

Martin shoots at Paige’s attackers as they come for her.

Locusts clash midair, crashing and stinging until there’s a horde of them engulfing White Streak and Paige.

I can’t see what’s happening as they get buried under a mass of wings and stingers.

I think I stop breathing for a minute. I can’t see anything beyond the seething giant that is the swarm.

The locust cloud lifts from the bridge into the air as everyone watches. The wind generated from their wings buffets our hair and clothes, whipping us all. They float up into the sky until they blend into the mist, making it look like the sky is boiling.

They drift off over the bay, and I can’t see Paige or White Streak anywhere.

There’s nothing I can do for her now.

I have to accept that my sister has to go through her own fight. I just need to survive and be here for her when she gets back.

Don’t think about the possibility of her not coming back.

61

As soon as the locusts leave, I can see the sky filling with angelic warriors.

I catch myself automatically scanning the sky for Raffe, but I don’t see him in the mass of bodies.

I put my noise-canceling headphones on and shut my eyes to brace for what’s about to hit.

Even through my closed lids, I can see the blindingly intense spotlights turning on everywhere. The lights stab my eyes as soon as I try to open them.

I have to squint and blink several times to adjust to the brightness.

The angels shield their eyes behind their arms and pause in their flight. Several of them crash into each other. Many turn around to get away from the blinding light and fly straight into their buddies.

The lights stab my merely human eyes. I can’t imagine how painful it must be for the angels.

Then the giant speakers screech their feedback – the loudest and most piercing feedback I’ve ever heard, even through my noise-canceling headphones. All that intense noise blasting straight into the angels’ hypersensitive ears.

The angels slam their hands against their ears. With their eyes and ears assaulted, they’re staggering in the air, neither attacking nor flying away.

The angels’ exceptional night vision and sharp hearing is working to our advantage. Their superior abilities are their weaknesses now. They can’t turn it off. The intense lights must be killing their eyes. And that noise – hell, it almost makes
my
ears bleed with the sharp blast.

It helps to have Silicon Valley geniuses in your crew.

Freedom fighters with rifles pop up everywhere – beside the stage, along the bridge walkways, and behind the bridge supports. Although I can’t see them, there should also be snipers settled beside each spotlight and on platforms hidden beneath the bridge.

Gunshots ring through the night.

While the angels are staggering in midair, trying to see and think enough to get away from the god-awful noise, our fighters are shooting them down into the water. After what I saw when we fought angels in the sea the other day, it’s a good bet that most of them can’t swim.

By now, the great white sharks of Northern California should have found their way to the bloody bait we cast into the bay during the show. Here, sharky, sharky . . .

The feedback from the speakers changes and begins blasting death metal music so loudly into the sky that I swear the bridge suspensions are vibrating.

The twins were in charge of the music selection.

I catch sight of them on the side of the bridge, each with an arm raised, holding up their forefingers and pinkies in a devil sign, head-banging to the beat. They’re mouthing the words to the garbled voice screaming over the intense electric guitar and drums blasting out of the speakers. They might look pretty badass if it weren’t for their hobo clown outfits.

It’s the loudest party the Bay Area has ever heard.

62

Those of us on the ground crew help reload the bullets for the gunners. The goal is to try to knock the enemy out of the sky and into the shark-infested waters, but if some of them happen to fall onto the bridge, we’ll be ready for them.

I hope.

The lights turn off all together, plunging us into darkness. Doc and Sanjay insisted the lights flash to keep the angels from adjusting to the light and to continue to keep them blind. So the lights are on timers to turn off and on according to their guesses as to the angels’ ability to adjust.