Point Pleasant (40 page)

Nicholas narrowed his stare as he evaluated Ben’s injury.

“What the hell happened?”

“I saw it.”

“Tell me,” Ben said, leaning forward.

“It was on the roof of the Gazette,” Nicholas started, but he paused to swallow. His Adam’s apple shifted under the strain. “For a second, I thought it was the other one. The archangel. Because it seemed to have wings. There were these twisting shapes coming out from behind its back.”

Ben perched on the edge of his chair and listened with rapt attention.

“But they weren’t wings, they were like…” Nicholas trailed off like he was trying to think of a way to describe what he had seen. “Tentacles.”

Ben raised both of his eyebrows in surprise. “Tentacles?”

Nicholas fidgeted with some of the papers on his desk, stacking them neatly as if to center himself through order. “They were waving all around.
It
was black. So black. Then it turned.” He pursed his lips. Ben was not sure if the sheriff would continue, but he spoke again. “It had red eyes. The thing we saw by the shed, it was—it was the same thing, Ben.”

The skin on the nape of Ben’s neck crawled as he tried to picture what Nicholas had just recounted.

“It just turned and looked right at me,” Nicholas said, his voice brimming with disbelief. “Then it raised up one hand, because it had arms too—long, gangly things. And the fucker, it waved at me. It was surreal. And then the building just exploded.”

“Nic…”

“I tried to save them,” Nicholas whispered. “I got Lizzie, I got her out. I’d just seen her go into the building before I saw the thing on the roof. But the others, I couldn’t. There was too much fire. It took Longino over six hours to put it out even with the rain. I thought the whole block would just be a pile of ash.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“
It called me
. The other one. It called me. I should have done something more. I should have done something else. They’d still be alive.”

Ben rose and moved around the desk. “No, Nic,” he said as he dropped to his knees beside Nicholas. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Lily was right. I shouldn’t have come back here. I shouldn’t have stuck my nose into any of this. It’s mad now because of me, because I’m helping Raziel. He was in the woods today. He was guarding us so we could work while he should have been watching out for the town.”

“Watching out for the town,” Nicholas repeated with a humorless laugh. “You mean doing my job.” He clenched his jaw and continued before Ben could disagree. “Did you find it? What you were looking for, I mean.”

“I got it in the Camaro,” Ben replied. “Took a while, but we finally found it. It’s a shield with these weird markings on it. I tried asking Raziel how the fuck we’re supposed to break it, but he didn’t answer. I don’t know, maybe he was trying to deal with—”

Ben trailed off and thought of Harper’s words from the day before.
Stop talking about it. It will come.
Ben still did not know if that was true, but he did not want to find out.

Nicholas leapt from his chair, and his tense stature radiated an air of determination. “Show me,” he said. “Let’s destroy the fucking thing.”

“Hell yeah,” Ben said, standing as well. He trailed Nicholas out of the office and down the hall.

Nicholas moved with purpose as he brushed past some of his officers. “Later,” he said when a short man in uniform with a stack of paperwork tried to catch his attention. “I’ll be back.”

Ben would have found Nicholas’ assertiveness and determination attractive under other circumstances. He followed Nicholas outside and around the corner to Dunmore where he had parked the Camaro.

Ben opened the trunk, and Nicholas peered inside. The shimmering light of the shield and sword reflected in his eyes.

“What…” Nicholas started, but he pursed his lips and kept silent. He picked up the sword and did not flinch like Ben had when he first touched the handle. Ben realized that Tucker had seemed unfazed as well.

“Are you seriously telling me this is an angel’s sword?” Nicholas asked, drawing Ben out of his thoughts.

“I think so.”

Nicholas offered the sword with the handle facing toward Ben before he nodded to his house. “Let’s go inside.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Ben. “I’ll get the shield, you open the door.”

Ben took the sword and the keys and was thankful to not have to carry the shield again as he trotted up to the front porch. He unlocked the door, held it open for Nicholas, and then secured the lock once they were inside.

Nicholas carried the shield into the kitchen and put it down on the table. He stood back and shot Ben a perplexed expression. “Can’t you call him?”

“I don’t exactly have him on speed dial, you know.”

Nicholas’ mouth tightened into a frown.

“I’ll try,” Ben said with a sigh. He cleared his throat and took out his phone. “Um, Raziel?” he asked the empty kitchen as if the archangel might have simply been in the other room. He ran a hand through his messy hair when there was no response. “What are we supposed to do now? Come on, Raz. Say
something
.”

“Raz? Really, Ben?
Really
?”

“Quiet,
Nic
.”

Nicholas rolled his eyes and slumped against the countertop.

Ben regarded the sword in his hand. His gaze fell over the shield and the demonic graffiti scratched into its facade.

“Fuck,
of course
.”

“What?”

“The sigil,” Ben replied and pointed at it with the tip of the sword. “He said it repels him. Maybe since it’s out in the open, he can’t communicate with me now.”

“So we have no idea how to destroy it and no way of finding out,” Nicholas said, throwing his hands in the air.

“I don’t—no, I guess not.”

Nicholas sighed with an exasperation that was almost aggressive. “That’s just great, Ben.”

Ben subsided a few steps. “I didn’t know, Nic.”

“It’s just the situation,” Nicholas said. He sounded almost regretful for his tone, but he crossed his arms and did not move from the counter. His body language screamed with the evidence of his annoyance, exhaustion, and general grief for what was happening to his town.

Their mutual silence was tense. Ben found he could not look at the sheriff. Instead, he returned to the edge of the table, still gripping the sword. The frontispiece of the shield—tarnished though it was by the sloppy scrawl of the sigil—seemed to glow brighter when Ben was near.

“We should take it out back,” he said suddenly. He bent to pick up the shield, and his arm muscles strained at the weight.

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to stab it with the sword,” Ben said as he staggered to the back door and gestured for Nicholas to open it. “Raziel said to destroy it. I don’t know how else you’d destroy an angel’s shield other than with an angel’s sword.”

“That makes sense, weirdly enough. But where are you going?” Nicholas asked, moving toward the door.

“Well, what if it goes nuclear or something? We should probably do this outside.”

“I think my kitchen is the least of our worries if
that
happens,” Nicholas said, fixing a withering glare on Ben. “We should take it back out to the forest. You should have left it there anyway. We don’t know what kind of damage this thing could do. What were you even
thinking
, Wisehart? You’re putting the whole town at risk if this thing blows up.”

Ben frowned at the detached use of his surname. “I should have just left it out in the open so
the other one
could find it and hide it again? What
was
I thinking
?
”

Nicholas squared his shoulders and said nothing, but he continued to eye Ben with a stare that was far colder than Ben would have thought possible after their previous evening together.

“Fine, I’ll take it back out to the woods,” Ben said, his tone harsher than he meant it to sound as he shifted the shield in his arms. He headed to the front of the house and heard Nicholas grumble a curse under his breath.

Ben returned to the Camaro where he deposited the heavy shield into the trunk once more, but he kept the sword in his hand as he opened the driver’s side door. Nicholas had followed Ben outside, but he gazed at the square as if deliberating about whether or not he should leave the town.

“You go back to work, Nic. I’ll take care of it.”

“You shouldn’t go out there alone,” Nicholas said. “If we’re quick, we could be back before they miss me.”

“You’re on duty, Sheriff,” Ben replied, though his use of the title lacked the same affection he had used that morning. “I’ll deal with this. Away from your town. Don’t worry.”

Nicholas scowled over the roof of the car. “Don’t be stupid, Ben. I don’t want you going out there alone. It’s not safe.”

Ben laughed, but the sound was hollow. “I’m used to being alone. Later, Nic.”

He slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. Nicholas tried to pull open the passenger side door, but it was locked. Ben cranked the engine and used his elbow to push down the lock on his side of the car when Nicholas hit at the passenger window with an open palm.

“Ben Wisehart, don’t you fucking dare drive away from me right now,” Nicholas said from the other side of the glass.

Ben rolled his eyes. He threw the Camaro into gear and pulled away from the sidewalk with a quick flooring of the accelerator.

“Ben!”

Ben sped away. He turned right onto Main Street and drove to River Bend Road without once looking in his rearview mirror.

Ben was so accustomed to being alone, to operating on his own, to answering only to himself that Nicholas’ authoritativeness felt like a splinter in his foot—half in, half out, and it stung like an asshole the day after a night without proper lube. He had spent the majority of his time in Point Pleasant dealing with the situation on his own, or with Tucker, even when Nicholas had promised to help.

Of course, Nicholas had a job to do. Ben did not blame his old friend for that, and the town needed its sheriff right now. Nevertheless, frustration still niggled at Ben on a deeper, personal level.

As Ben sped past Tucker’s farm, he realized the source of that frustration; he was too comfortable with the idea of Nicholas’ continued presence.

Ben had started to rely on Nicholas’ input, his promises, and his general
there
-ness. He had been thankful for the other man’s presence at three o’clock in the morning when the hideous voice of his dead father wafted up from Nicholas’ clock radio. He had felt a level of safety at Nicholas’ side even as they edged around a dark backyard to check for the thing with the red eyes. He had reveled in the comfort of Nicholas’ arm as it was slung over his shoulder while they sipped black coffee and discussed the possibility of a future together. He had
liked
knowing that there was a number saved on his phone that he could dial even if most of the times he had called it so far had left him with only an impersonal, pre-recorded request to leave a voicemail.
Of course
.

Other people let you down; other people leave you standing alone in the dark with only their backs to look at while you watch them walk away.

The Camaro’s engine whirred when Ben increased his speed. He passed the broken remnants of the road where Raziel and Azazel had held their apparent grudge match the day before. He seethed with what he knew was an irrational anger directed partially toward Nicholas but mostly toward himself.

Ben slowed and made a left onto the old road to the factory. He was mindful of his car’s suspension as he dodged potholes and fallen branches. When the factory came into view, he sped up again. Rather than stop in front of the building, he pulled the Camaro around to the side. He parked by the north wall where Tucker’s tire marks from earlier remained etched into the wet ground.

It was almost six o’clock, and the sun was setting behind the tree line. Ben got out of the car with the sword in one hand and opened the trunk. He pocketed his keys and pulled out the shield and a flashlight.

After he slammed the trunk shut, Ben glanced down to navigate over deep puddles of mud. He froze. Tire marks from Tucker’s truck and their boot prints from their earlier venture to the factory were not the only impressions in the mud. There were footprints as well.

But they were not human footprints; they were long, thin, and boasted imprints of what appeared to be talons—rather than toes—in the mud.

The tracks circled the breached wall. When Ben shone his flashlight onto the cement floor inside the opening, he saw that they had not entered the building. His eyes widened with horror, and he crossed over the relative safety of the salt line.

“Fuck, shit, fuck,” Ben muttered to himself.

The interior of the factory was much darker than before. He brandished the flashlight around the open space to double-check that he was alone. He placed the shield on the floor near where they had dug the pit and headed to the north wall.

The shotgun, salt, and sage were still in the trunk of the Camaro, and he needed them more than ever. Ben gripped the sword in his left hand. He aimed the flashlight’s beam toward the surrounding forest. The copse of trees revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

Don’t be such a baby, Benji
, he told himself, and the voice in his head sounded suspiciously like Andrew’s.
Just move.

Ben clenched his jaw, found his resolve, and stepped over the salt line. He moved fast. The mud was slippery under his feet, and he fumbled to open the trunk as the wind blew and sent a chill down his spine. The rustle of leaves overhead accompanied the slosh of his shoes in the muck and the jingle of the keys in his hands.

When he popped the trunk, Ben grabbed the duffel bag and shotgun. He clung to the sword, struggling to hold everything else in his left arm, and tottered around the rear of the car to return to the safety of the factory.

Then, he felt
it
—horrible, cold, and entirely too tangible,
something
wrapped itself around his right foot and pulled. Ben fell face first into the mud.