New Title 1 (20 page)

The serpent’s body moved forward, crushing dirt and pulverizing rock. Clancy pulled the trigger another three times, opening black wounds in the serpent’s neck, lower jaw, and skull.

“Least
these
bastards can be hit,” he muttered. “C’mon, get moving!”

Pastor Lindgren didn’t bother to answer as he clambered on all fours, fingers clawing at the crumbling dirt, tangling in broken roots and rocks.

The serpent swayed a moment, blood oozing from the bullet holes in its exoskeleton. Then, with a shrill, angry screech, it opened its mouth and lunged at the detective.

Clancy managed to fire two more times into the serpent’s maw before its jaws snapped shut on his upper torso, ripping it away from his guts and legs. The serpent yanked its prize into the air and opened its jaws again, swallowing, even as it died.

But Lindgren, trapped beneath the monster’s heavy body, wasn’t conscious to watch.

XXX

The three students froze at the faint sound of gunshots, then heard a shrill scream and more firing. They looked at each other, waiting.

Silence.

“Maybe that was the police,” Peter whispered.

“Maybe,” Alison said, not so certain.

“Well,” Jarret said, sweeping the room one last time with his flashlight, “whatever it was, there’s nothing down here.”

“Yeah. Let’s get going.”

They’d ridden their bikes past north campus, but it was empty and torn up, one lone spotlight beam showing that whatever foundations may have been dug there earlier were gone now. They’d silently biked back down to the cafeteria, where—after some argument—Peter had broken through the plate glass in the front door and they’d made their way down a service stairwell to the basement. It had been filled with old furniture, a water heater, a bunch of unmarked boxes that looked like they’d probably been there since the university began, and little else. Now they headed back up the stairs and out into the night, straining to hear any sign of rescue.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Car alarms were slowly sputtering down as they wore out their batteries. Nothing they hadn’t been hearing for hours.

“Maybe it wasn’t a gun?” Ally said. She’d only ever heard gunfire in movies before.

“No, it was a gun,” Peter said, sounding sure of himself.

“Let’s hope it’s not a looter,” Jarret said, flicking off the flashlight. “Disasters always bring out the worst in people.”

“We’re okay.” Ally did her best to sound encouraging. “Let’s go, huh?”

They lifted their borrowed bikes and started down the sidewalk again, taking wide detours to avoid the spots where the snakes had burst through and left everything broken.

“Hey! Hey!”

Ally pumped the brakes and dropped a foot to the sidewalk. A wide-eyed man stumbled up, looking young and frightened.

“Oh, man, I’m glad to see you,” he said, voice shaking. “Where is everyone?”

“I think they went to the chapel,” Ally said, pointing across campus to where a faint glow could be seen beyond the trees in the park. “The library fell, and they dug people out, so now the chapel’s kind of base camp.”

“Do—do you think its safe? From the snakes? And the earthquakes?”

“It’s God’s house,” Jarret pointed out.

“Yeah, like churches don’t fall down all the time.”

“I don’t know how safe it is, but if you’re looking for people, that’s the best place to go.” Ally gave the boy a sympathetic look. He was probably a freshman, he looked so young. “We think the snakes track by vibration, so walk really soft, okay?”

“Aw, man.” He looked on the verge of tears. “Can I come with you? You look like you know what you’re doing.”

“Better not,” Jarret said, solemnly. “We’re going toward the snakes, not away from them.”

“Are you crazy? Why?”

“To kill them,” Ally said, forcing herself to sound tough and confident. “’Cause we can’t sit around waiting for the police to rescue us.”

“Aw, man.” The boy shook his head. “Aw, fuck.”

“Anyway,” Ally said, getting ready to push off again, “you should go to the chapel. Don’t try crossing the moat—people are getting killed that way.”

“The moat?” the boy asked, confused, but Ally was already on the move. Peter and Jarret wished the boy good luck and headed after her.

They took a left and parked next to the science building. It seemed like the right place for a bunch of mutant snake monsters to hide out. Better yet, the quakes had already broken the plate glass in its front lobby, so getting in was easy.

“Maybe we can find something useful in here,” Peter said, looking around. “Like, killer chemicals or something.”

“What grade did you get in org chem?” Ally asked.

“A C-plus, but that’s because I missed a lot of classes for football.”

“Jarret?”

“I took bio and oceanography. How about you?”

“Same,” Ally replied. “You weren’t in my oceans class, were you?”

“Last fall?”

“No, I took it spring.”

“Did you go on the dive?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Of course.”

“Hey, guys, shut up,” Peter growled. “What if the snakes can hear us?”

“I don’t think talking makes a strong enough vibration,” Ally said, but she took Peter’s point and let the conversation drop. Stupid thing to talk about, anyway, in the middle of the apocalypse.

They proceeded quietly to the stairway, finding that it did, indeed, lead down.

Ally held her breath, half-expecting to find sleeping serpents and a bunch of slime-encased students, but Jarret’s flashlight beam revealed nothing but old air-conditioning parts and boxes, some shelves of dusty lab books and manuals, and a pile of camping supplies. 

“Hang on,” she said, squeezing through the boxes to the camping supplies. In a moment Jarret and Peter were next to her, rummaging through dirty canvas bags and old cardboard boxes.

“All right!” Peter said as Ally found a flashlight and flicked it on. The beam was yellowish and weak, but it held. They dug out two more that worked and put the ones with dead batteries back.

“Guess this is all of geology’s field-trip gear,” Jarret said, holding up a small propane camping stove. “Can we use this?”

“Well, it burns, right?”

“If you’ve got a match or a lighter.”

“Let’s see.” A little more digging unearthed a battered tin of matches. Ally checked them, then tossed them to Jarret. “You know, storing those down here just can’t be safe. Isn’t there, like, spontaneous combustion or something?”

“They’re safe as long as they’re in the tin.” Jarret slid it into his front pocket. “Anything else?”

“No, but if we get stuck here a few days, we should grab those sleeping bags,” Peter said, shoving everything back into the boxes. “If all the dorms are down.”

“Someone will come get us before then,” Ally said, feeling a nervous prickle run down her spine. “People will notice all the broken roads when it gets light.”

“If they aren’t fighting snakes,” Peter said, darkly.

“They’ll rescue us. There’s a campus emergency plan.” Jarret stood. “And your mom will make sure we’re okay, too, right?”

Peter looked up at him, then gave a crooked smile.

“Yeah. I pity the snake that gets in Mom’s way when she’s mad. She’s a total bad-ass lawyer.”

“Scary.”

“You bet.” Peter stood, picking his sloshing backpack up again. “Ready, Ally?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Let’s go check out the art trailer and social sciences.”

XXXI

Todd turned, ready to order Jack to start his invocation, but the occultist was down, pale and covered with sweat. Next to him, the ex-priest was speaking quietly.

Annoyed, Todd turned. The white spheres were gone, and so was Penemue.

“Amon, can you follow them?” he asked.

Amon slunk toward him from the back of the chapel, where it had been cowering throughout the fight. Todd didn’t blame it—a blessed chapel probably wasn’t the most comfortable place for a demon.

“I don’t want to,” it groaned, its eight legs stepping over Jack as if the fallen man were nothing but an obstacle. “You heard the Watcher. They are the dragons of
רוקניא
. They are the enemy of human and mal'akhim.”

“Dragons of...the void?” Todd hesitated, remembering the emptiness Amon had shown him. He let the shining doorway vanish and hoped he’d be able to open it again. “Is Penemue dead?”

“Do you want me to search hell for its soul?” Amon sounded eager.

“No.” Todd ignored the demon as its head drooped. “If it was right, you wouldn’t find it.” He rubbed his chin, then strode back down the aisle to Markham and Jack. The former priest looked fretful, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Is he dead?” It seemed to be the question of the minute.

“No.” Markham raised his head. “But he had a stroke two months ago, and this looks a lot like another one.” He dialed three numbers, listened, then snapped the phone shut again with an unpriestly oath.

“Amon, is this man dying?”

“No.” The demon snapped irritably. “Not yet. Do you want him to die, beloved? I could make him die. May I please make him die?”

Markham’s expression hardened, but Todd was already shaking his head.

“Relax, Amon. He’s on our side for now.”

The demon settled on the floor, its claws snagging and tearing at the dark chapel carpet, leaving darker smudges of ash behind. It muttered testily to itself, too low for Todd to hear.

“Tell me, Markham—what was Penemue doing?”

“Besides getting ready to kill all of those students?” The former priest glanced away from his friend to the far end of the chapel, where the students stood in a fearful huddle. “I don’t know. He seemed to think their deaths would keep the creatures from manifesting. I don’t understand why.”

“The dragons of
rokanya
. The void. Have you ever heard of them?”

“No.” Markham sounded distracted. “They sound like something Crowley might have made up.”

“Nobody made them up. They’re real, and they’re here. But why would they need humans to bring them into our reality?”

“Human are always tampering with things they should leave alone. Right, Jack?” Markham laid a gentle hand on his friend’s forehead.

Todd looked down, but the long-haired biker didn’t seem inclined to join the conversation, his eyes flickering back and forth as though seeing something invisible to the rest of them. He seemed to spend a lot of time looking at Amon. Todd leaned over and laid a restraining hand on the demon’s skull. Amon hissed, rolling a silver eye up to look at him.

“Like devils, for example,” Markham said pointedly.

“You relax, too.” Todd patted Amon and straightened up again. “We’re going to need all of the resources we can get to defeat those things. One of them just destroyed a Watcher.”