Evil Eternal (20 page)

The mayor’s eyes glinted as he sought her out among the crowd.

She approached the stage on jelly legs, squinting from the harsh TV lights and flash of cameras. Mayor Spinelli called up other people: Rose Williams, Muriel Clarke, John Patrick, Paul Rosario, and, much to Aimee’s surprise, Patty Wilson, who walked from the back of the room and stood beside Aimee. “How come you didn’t tell me?” Aimee whispered, wide-eyed and bewildered that her best friend who’d helped her get ready for this night had neglected to inform her that she was also invited.

“Trust me, honey, that’s the least of your concerns tonight.”

Now what the hell did she mean by that?

The thundering of the assembly made it hard for her to think.

Rose Williams, who had baked her brownies when she’d worked through the flu and had even kissed her forehead to check if she had a fever, leaned forward to catch her attention. Aimee nearly gasped when the old matriarch of the office lifted the middle finger of her right hand, twisting her body so only she could see.

“And now,” Mayor Spinelli continued, “I bring you the beginning of the end and the end to all beginnings!”

Outside, it was starting to feel like yet another snowstorm was about to burst from the skies. Father Michael, hearing Aimee’s name mentioned inside, turned to Shane and growled, “Hold on to my shoulders, now!”

Shane checked to make sure his earplugs were in place and grabbed hold of the priest’s rock-hard shoulders. “It’s about…”

He was cut off as Father Michael jumped straight into the air, soaring across the street and above the Javits Center. His stomach flipped several times over as cold air bit into his face.

The policeman who had spoken to them just minutes earlier spotted them and dropped his piping hot coffee on the cold sidewalk.

“Did you just see that?” he said, swatting his partner in the arm.

“Yeah, nice move. Hold a coffee cup much?” He kicked the empty cup into the gutter, laughing.

“No, not that, I meant…” the rest died in his throat. He looked into the night sky and only saw the first flakes of snow twirl down, resting in the bristles of his mustache.

His partner, young and dumb but a good cop, said, “You want another?”

He rubbed his eyes, chalking it up to exhaustion from pulling a double and now jumping on OT for the convention coverage. “That’s probably a good idea.”

“You can fly?” Shane shouted. His hair blew out, stiff in the rushing wind.

“Only jump,” Father Michael surprisingly answered. “Very far.”

Two snipers stationed on the roof watched their approach. They were too shocked to even consider taking aim and pulling the trigger. Nothing in their training had prepared them for taking down flying people. Father Michael’s black overcoat billowed out behind him like great bat wings as they descended through the reinforced glass roof, shattering a section to pebbled bits. It was a long way down to the center of the main convention floor and Shane was sure they would be crushed from the impact. They landed with a loud
thud
, smack in the center of the main aisle, not far from the stage. Father Michael didn’t even grunt as his feet slammed into the concrete.

People around them jumped back, slamming into their neighbors in a blind panic. Those seated around them thrust their hands over their heads as the crushed glass rained down on them like hail.

Shane winced as the wind was knocked out of him and he slid off Father Michael’s back. There was a lot of shouting punctuated by escalating screams as people jostled to flee from the two men who had literally just crashed the party. Shane spun around, slightly bent over and trying to draw a deep breath. Instantly, there were men and women with guns everywhere, all pointed at them. He started to worry that he would be taken out of the game before it even began.

“Don’t shoot!” he shouted. He realized how pathetic and useless a thing it was to say but it was all he could think of at the moment.

Cain, wearing the flesh of the mayor, shouted above the melee, “What are you waiting for? Take them down!”

Shane and Aimee locked gazes. He saw her terror and confusion. Her eyes begged him to come to her, to once again be her hero. She took a tentative step toward the stairs at the side of the stage and was pulled back with a harsh jerk by Patty who was grinning like an asylum idiot.

The sound of a hundred hammers on a hundred guns being cocked back at the same time rose above the shrieking of the petrified congregation. Chairs were turned over and some people were trampled on like cheap carpets.

Father Michael grabbed Shane by the collar and said loud enough for him to hear through the foam plugs in his ears, “Motion for Aimee to cover her ears.”

Shane nodded, caught Aimee’s now-frantic eyes and placed his hands over his ears, shouting, “Aimee, do it, now!”

There wasn’t time to waste. Another split second and they would be in the crosshairs of every handgun and rifle in the building. Father Michael drew in a deep breath and began to wail.

Aimee, jerking back from the pain of the priest’s howl, slapped her hands over her ears and fell backwards as if she had been violently pushed.

Even with the earplugs, the high-pitched yowl that was rocketing from the priest’s lungs made Shane dizzy from misery. People fell to the floor, like flies bouncing off a Bug Zapper, their hands tightly clasped over bloody ears. Several of the rooftop snipers that had gathered around the hole in the ceiling fell to their deaths, landing on inert bystanders, crushing and killing them in the process. It was a blessed relief for them.

The lenses of the TV cameras exploded while the thick glass that was the skin of the Javits Center vibrated, dangerously close to shattering. There would be no more live broadcasts from the event, just as sure as there would be no one left alive if Father Michael continued much longer.

Shane dropped to a knee and searched for Aimee. She lay motionless at Patty’s feet while Patty remained standing, seemingly unaffected. Surveying the writhing crowd, he noticed a few people standing in the main hall, watching Father Michael shriek, his spine arched back so far Shane was sure it would snap. Some of those unaffected by Father Michael’s howling were even smiling. He tried hard to concentrate, to burn their faces into his brain because they were the ones in this crowd of hundreds who were about to do their best to ensure that he didn’t live to see another day. Unless they did what Father Michael had forewarned him about, in which case cataloging faces was entirely unnecessary.

In a flash, there was silence. Father Michael grabbed Shane by the arm, brought him to his feet and pulled the plugs from his ears. “Be ready!” he commanded.

Cain, still on the stage in his mayoral guise, bowed to them.

“Bravo, Michael. In one fell swoop you’ve managed to insinuate yourself into my party, which I knew you would, take out my means of broadcasting my triumph to the world and kill a handful of innocent people while rendering the rest senseless, deaf or both. You sure you’re not working for the away team?”

“It’s over, Cain.”

Cain swiveled his head back and forth. “I seriously doubt that. I’m sure those cameras caught a good portion of your antics before you so rudely reduced them to scrap. There are too many important people in this room right now to just sweep this under the rug. You’ve failed. After all these centuries, you’ve finally failed. I can’t say I thought I’d never live to see the day, but when it actually comes…” He produced a stream of mock tears and dabbed at them with a handkerchief. “You and your impotent little padres had your moment. Now why don’t you just go fuck off into the sunset and let me take care of things for a while?”

Aimee shakily got up from the floor just a few feet from Cain. Patty helped her along by wrapping a fist in her hair and yanking her to her feet.

“Patty, why?” Aimee implored, still shaken by the effects of Father Michael’s wail.

Patty answered her with a swift chop to her midsection, dropping her back to the floor. Aimee’s eyes fluttered like small bird wings and her pupils dilated as she fell into the deep sleep of blunt trauma. Her left arm fell across her chest, resting on the edge of the stage, her wilting palm imploring Shane to grab hold and save her from this madness.

“Nooooo!” Shane screamed as he rushed for the stage. Cain motioned for the six demons on the stage to intercept him. As Shane ran, he pulled a pair of blade-tipped crucifixes from his pockets.

Cain scooped an unconscious Aimee into his arms and jumped back from the fray.

Father Michael used Shane’s attack as a welcome diversion. He pulled a golden rod from an inner sling in his overcoat, attached a crucifix to the top, and with a rapid twist had his trident fully assembled and airborne. It sailed over the head of a middle-aged man coming his way, walking on top of dazed bodies. The man sneered and said, “You missed!”

The priest knew better and had crucifix-daggers in hand, ready to strike. The trident punched into a support at the entrance to the main hall, bringing it down in a hail of broken glass and twisted metal, effectively locking them in the main convention room and preventing anyone else from entering. The exit couldn’t even be seen behind the rubble. There were several smaller doorways behind the stage area which would need to be blocked as well, if he could get to them.

The man turned back to watch the shower of debris. When he next faced Father Michael, his human aspect had been erased. His face was covered by row upon row of gray, gore-slicked horns. His tongue lolled from his mouth and hung halfway to his chest. Father Michael stood his ground while keeping his senses alert for an assault from behind.

Shane raised his arms, his fists so tight the veins stood out, and yelled, “You want a fight, scumbags? Come on!”

All six people who lined the stage, from the elderly Rose to the young Patty, burst from their skin with a thunderous popping noise. Shane was covered in eviscerated flesh and blood as it washed over him like a hellish high tide, knocking him back onto the floor. The stench was a combination of raw, rotted chicken and clotted menses. One of the gold crucifixes fell from his hand and skidded out of sight. Wiping a handful of entrails from his eyes, he was confronted with a glimpse into a hell conjured up by the most delirious of madmen gripped in their sweaty throes of dementia.

There were no longer six people on the stage. Standing shoulder to shoulder, he was staring at a firing squad of insensate repugnance. Some had a multitude of bone-like protrusions bursting from head to toe. Of them, many were sharp-tipped, some blunt like battering blocks, while others appeared to be simply aborted attempts at some unknowable design by Satan himself. Their eyes burned red or yellow and he noticed that what had once been Patty was now a bloated abomination, half woman, half sow, with malformed teats and undulating ripples beneath her flesh, as though a hive of angry bees sought escape from their diabolical hive. It was twice the size of a man and looked incapable of movement. He wondered how something so large could have possibly been created from so small a girl.

“Takes your breath away, the sight of my children, doesn’t it, whelp?” Cain cackled from behind his wall of bestiality.

“I don’t know what
whelp
even means, but you make it sound pretty shitty.”

Shane watched in horror, his mouth dropping open, as a human arm slowly dug its way out of one of the demon’s chests, extending down to the floor. A thick set of talons wetly slid from its fingertips and then proceeded to sprout pulpy flowers, blossoming into corded, blackened arms with open mouths in place of finger pads. The tiny mouths screeched, sucking at the air, hungry and anxious.

Don’t puke, don’t puke, don’t puke
, Shane commanded his stomach. Gathering up whatever nerve he had left, and bolstered by his ghostly visitation the night before, Shane responded, “If those are your kids, you’ve been standing next to the microwave too long. Your sperm has seen better days. Why don’t you leave the baby making to the real men?”

For a moment, Shane was sure he saw Cain’s face lose its flagitious mask of arrogance.

And all at once, Shane and Father Michael were attacked.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The demon that had transmogrified into an obscene porcupine-headed man catapulted itself at Father Michael. Long gray quills sprouted along its head and chest like angry erections. It stank of still waters ripening with algae, bayed like a pack of wounded animals.

Dodging to his left, he slashed at it with a dagger, leaving a foot-long gash along its side. Blood and what looked like a blackened kidney poured from the wound. Stunned, the beast glared at the weeping laceration. It gave Father Michael enough time to leap, bridging the distance between them in the blink of an eye, land at the creature’s feet and deliver a fierce uppercut. Its jaws slammed shut and severed its distended tongue. The purple mass of flesh flopped on the floor, reminding him of a fish pulled onto dry land. He brought his boot down hard on the tongue, grinding it until it popped, vomiting maggots.

Father Michael was ready to deliver the final blow to the demon when he was slammed in the ribs. A demon with a half-dozen tentacles on each side of its twisted torso wrapped a slimy tendril around his ankle before he fell. It lifted him upside down and proceeded to whip him with a flurry of flashing tentacles. The porcupine-man regained its senses and charged at Father Michael’s suspended body. He was able to twist slightly so only his leg received a glancing blow from the demon’s spiked head. A quill buried itself in the meat of his thigh.