The Burning Man, page 40
part #2 of Kingdom of the Serpent Series
‘Was that an animal?’ Mahalia said, spooked.
From the bottom of the stairs came the sound of the front door being thrown open. Tombstone’s voice drifted up: ‘That kid definitely said he came in here.’
‘Okay, Jude Law!’ Nelson called. ‘This is Detective Nelson! Get your ass out where I can see you!’
‘Cops!’ Mahalia said. ‘He led them here!’
‘They’re after me, not you!’ Church said.
‘It looks like we need to find a new home,’ Crowther said. ‘Let’s try to get out of here with a little more alacrity, shall we?’
Crowther disappeared back into the room, but Jack waited for Mahalia to catch up with him; Church noted the tenderness of the boy’s expression when he looked at her.
As Church made to get up to follow, Mahalia planted her boot forcefully in his gut, then ran with Jack after Crowther. Gasping, Church managed to scramble into the room as the detectives thundered up the stairs.
The apartment was clean and orderly, but empty. In the final room, a ragged hole in the wall gave way to a crawl space and a ladder to the floor below. Church followed the sound of disappearing footsteps down and through two other apartments to a makeshift hatch that gave access to a large, dark industrial space, which appeared to be an old warehouse. It was a maze of vast, echoing rooms and low-ceilinged corridors with peeling, lime-washed walls.
Distorted echoes made it almost impossible to tell who was pursuer and who pursued. As someone approached, Church slipped into a space behind a heavy door that had been jammed open. It was Oakes, talking quietly on his mobile phone.
‘I’ve lost him for now,’ he said. ‘It’s only a matter of time. Kill the other two – we can’t risk any contact with the Key. And get someone to dump that sword in the river.’
He pocketed the phone and moved cautiously down the corridor, gun drawn. Church’s heart pounded. He had to get back to help Shavi and Tom, but that would mean losing whatever tenuous lead he had on Jack. In a city of nearly twenty-two million people, what chance would he have of finding the boy again? There was no choice. He had to trust Shavi and Tom to look after themselves.
For the next ten minutes he roamed the labyrinthine area, hiding whenever the echoes of voices or footsteps drew closer, but the exit proved elusive. Either the building was bigger than he thought, or whatever force was at play in the city was attempting to keep him trapped.
The animalistic howling rose up again, unmistakable but so low it could have been the wind blowing through an empty room. It was in the building with him.
As he rounded a corner into another long corridor, he was stunned to see Ruth at the far end, her head bowed as she worked the lock of a door. She got it open and peeked inside the room, excited by what she saw there. Was it Jack? he wondered.
Church couldn’t risk calling out to her, but as she prepared to enter the room, she glanced round and saw him. Her smile lit up her face. She beckoned to him eagerly and then went through the door.
Church raced to catch up. The door had closed behind her. His fingers were already on the handle when a shiver of doubt ran through him. Instinctively, he felt something was wrong. Why hadn’t Ruth waited for him, or left the door open?
He removed his fingers from the handle and listened. All was silent on the other side of the door. He shivered. It could have been his imagination, but he had the impression that something was waiting for him, listening for the moment when he would open the door. A chill ran through him.
Telling himself he was foolish, he gripped the handle again and began to turn it, but this time warnings shrieked in his head. He paused again, and in that instant he heard a barely audible sound on the other side, little more than an exhalation, but it filled him with unaccountable dread. As he released the handle and ran, he could feel on his back the weight of that door and whatever lay behind it.
Finally he came to a large echoing space where water dripped from a broken pipe high up in the shadows. As he made his way across it, the smell of fresh blood reached him. In an area illuminated by a shaft of streetlight coming through a dirty window lay Oakes. His stomach had been torn open, the pool of blood around him looking like a sea. Not all of him was there.
The brutality of the scene held Church in its gravity. He wasn’t aware of the approach until the gun was placed at his head.
‘Jesus H. Christ.’ Tombstone couldn’t tear his gaze from Oakes’s body.
Nelson bumped the gun barrel against Church’s temple. ‘You saw who did this?’
‘No,’ Church replied. ‘But you’ve got to get back to the precinct. Someone’s going to try to kill my friends. I heard Oakes order it—’
‘Shut up and lie down on the floor.’
8
‘Stand up. You’re coming with me.’ The policeman at the door of Shavi’s holding cell was not the guard who had been watching him for the last four hours. This one reminded him of an older Brad Pitt, good-looking in his youth but now starting to turn to fat from too long at a desk.
‘Is this more questioning? I have told you all I can.’
‘Shut up.’
He escorted Shavi past the interview room where he had spent an unpleasant twenty minutes with the detectives earlier that night, but when he bypassed the main detectives’ room and entered a deserted stairwell that took them two storeys below street level, Shavi’s unease grew. At that time of night, they encountered no other people.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Shavi pressed.
His guard didn’t answer. Eventually they came to a small room cluttered with filing cabinets, where Tom was slumped in a chair, dried blood around a bruised cut on his forehead. The policeman locked the door behind them before taking out a gun that was not police issue. He proceeded to fit it with a silencer.
‘If you haven’t guessed by now, he’s one of the spider people,’ Tom said.
Shavi glanced around for a weapon.
‘Don’t bother,’ Tom said, ‘unless you want to give him a lethal paper cut.’ He added ruefully, ‘I never thought you would be the Brother of Dragons to die.’
‘You know we will lose one of our own?’
‘I’ve known for a long time that one of you will go very soon. It was just a flash … more an impression … a blue flame being extinguished.’ He shrugged. ‘No point making a meal of it. It wouldn’t have helped matters to have everyone worrying about their mortality.’
‘It must be difficult for you to continue with that knowledge … with all the other knowledge of future suffering you must have.’
‘It’s not been a holiday in the sun. Not that I’ll have to worry about it any more now.’ Tom appeared almost to be welcoming his impending death.
The policeman levelled his gun at Shavi. ‘On your knees.’
‘I am not afraid to die,’ Shavi said, getting down. ‘I have lived a good life, filled with experience. I have known love and friendship. I have attempted to do something worthwhile with the time I have been granted here.’ He smiled at the guard. ‘And this is not the end.’
Sweat stood out on the policeman’s forehead, but he couldn’t resist the compulsion to tighten his finger on the trigger.
Behind him, a pot plant on a filing cabinet began to waver as if caught in a breeze. The leaves shivered, grew larger and then erupted in an explosion of greenery that lashed around the policeman’s head. His hand jerked as he pulled the trigger and the bullet whipped by a half-inch from Shavi’s head. The leaves continued to sprout rapidly, wrapping around the policeman’s face faster than he could tear them free. They forced their way into his mouth and nose, and he crashed to the floor, unconscious.
Shavi wrenched the door open to reveal Laura, hands on hips. ‘Three cheers for Chlorophyll Kid,’ she said.
Shavi threw his arms around her and lifted her off her feet. ‘I knew you would have a use sooner or later,’ he teased.
‘Takes it out of you, the whole growing plants thing. But I’m getting better at it.’
‘I was sure you were going to be the one to die,’ Tom muttered as he pushed past her.
‘The world needs me as a balance to miserable old bastards like you.’ She prised herself free from Shavi’s hug.
‘How did you find us?’ Shavi asked.
‘I remember crossing over and then …’ Laura struggled to recall. ‘Somebody was there, grinning at me. That’s all that comes back, the grin.’
‘The Puck,’ Tom said. ‘He likes to guide, but not interfere.’
‘So.’ Laura grinned. ‘New York. Hedonism capital of the Western world. Tell me we’ve got time to hit a bar, a club, get off our faces—’
‘Of course,’ Tom replied. ‘Pamper yourself. Meanwhile, Shavi and I will get the sword, rescue Church, find the Key and save the world.’
9
‘Thank you,’ Nelson said into the radio before turning to Tombstone. ‘That’s a confirmed sighting of our three runaways – in the vicinity of Grand Central Terminal.’
‘This is a fucked-up world,’ Tombstone said as he pulled into traffic. He was still queasy from the shock of seeing the spider Church had pointed out, embedded in Oakes’s body, shortly before it freed itself and attempted to scurry away. Nelson’s shoe had ended its run. ‘The Army of the Ten Billion Spiders? What is that, like the Jesus Army but with extra legs?’
‘All that matters is that they’re mind-control agents,’ Church said.
‘Don’t think for a minute that I believe any of this,’ Nelson said. ‘All I know is that things don’t fit and until they do, I’m keeping you near.’
‘My friends—’
‘Still no sign of them.’
‘And why are you so important, Jude Law? British Secret Service? Or just an asshole with paranoid delusions?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Course you can’t.’
They drove up Park Avenue to East Forty-Second Street and Vander-bilt Avenue where the imposing Beaux Arts facade of Grand Central Terminal presented itself to them. The first hint of dawn was visible in the sky, but it would be a while before the trains started running.
‘Don’t go for another jog,’ Nelson cautioned as they got out onto the deserted street. ‘This time I will shoot. Only to wound, but it hurts like hell, believe me.’
‘If they’re trying to skip town we’ll need to call for back-up to cover all the gates,’ Tombstone said.
As a newspaper delivery truck passed, its rumble merged with the chilling low, moaning cry, this time clearer: Weeen … deeg …. Another truck cut off its ending.
Some underlying quality of the sound chilled them all. It conjured up images of wintry wastes, and frigid skies, and blood on snow, as though a stream of information was encoded in a precise combination of notes and timbre.
Nelson considered what he had heard. ‘It’s saying a word,’ he concluded.
‘Yeah? It’s not in my dictionary,’ Tombstone replied.
‘ “Wen-dig,” ’ Nelson repeated.
‘The last syllable is “oh”,’ Church said.
Tombstone consulted his BlackBerry, ‘Okay, Google. Wendigo. “A traditional belief of various Algonquian-speaking tribes, particularly the Ojibwa/Saulteaux, the Cree, and the Innu/Naskapi/Montagnais”.’ He struggled over the pronunciations. ‘ “A malevolent spirit that can possess humans or take on a life of its own. A ravenous beast with a hunger for human flesh that can never be sated. It consumes the victims down to the last bone and drop of blood. It carries a feeling of winter famine with it. Icy blizzards rise up around it, trees crack, water freezes, snow clouds form.” ’
‘So our killer thinks he’s a mythical beast,’ Nelson said.
Church knew the truth but kept it to himself.
Tombstone glanced towards the station entrance. ‘Sounded like it came from inside.’
They raced through the columned entrance to the stairs that swept down into the cavernous main concourse. The four-faced clock above the information booth ticked away the seconds. Overhead the ceiling was painted with an astronomical design, but all the constellations were backwards: a reflection of reality.
‘Is it me or is it cold in here?’ Tombstone said.
A cleaner trundled a yellow trolley across the floor. After he had passed, Church registered some quality in the sly glance the cleaner had given him – it reminded him of the detective who had warned Oakes at the precinct. He hurried down the steps, but the cleaner was nowhere to be seen.
The Wendigo cry drifted over the empty concourse.
‘Shit. I wish he’d stop doing that,’ Tombstone growled.
The sound of running feet made them all whirl. A shout followed. Jack, Mahalia and Crowther ran through one of the platform entrances, to the annoyance of a rail employee who was now barking into his radio and running after them. Tombstone, Nelson and Church sprinted in pursuit, through the entrance, down steps and into a brightly lit tunnel.
The temperature dropped drastically as they ran. Frost glistened on the walls. Small drifts of snow appeared here and there.
Rounding a corner, they nearly fell over another dismembered body. The railway employee was missing his upper half. Blood formed a garish crescent across the frozen floor ending in a Jackson Pollock spray up both walls.
‘Weeen-dee-gooh!’ The sound of hungry birds over Arctic wastes, loud, nearby.
Tombstone backed against Nelson, gun raised. Church saw in their eyes that they were beginning to grasp the truth.
At the end of the corridor, he glimpsed Jack. He’d barely run a few paces towards him when the raging sound of wings heralded the arrival of the ravens flooding into the corridor. Church threw himself onto his back to avoid them. They swirled to block his path.
When they finally retreated, the corridor reverberated with the rumble of the first train of the day entering the station.
Tombstone dragged Church to his feet. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he yelled with anger born of incomprehension.
Church looked along the corridor to where he had glimpsed the Jack that he now realised was not Jack, and from where the Morvren had emerged. ‘I’m starting to get an idea,’ he replied.
Screams drew them onto the platform. Snow encrusted the roof of the newly arrived train and the windows were covered with an impenetrable hoar-frost, apart from the driver’s cab which was splattered on the inside with blood. Crashing and rending boomed within as a terrible force tore through the carriages.
Further down the platform, Jack, Mahalia and Crowther were rooted with fear. This time Church knew they were real.
As Church ran towards them, a door exploded out from a carriage halfway between Church and the detectives. From the frozen interior emerged something that had the form of a man but moved with the loping gait of a beast. Wild, black hair framed a skull-like face, the bottom half of which was smeared red with blood. It was larger than any man, with powerful, sinewy limbs that ended in broken, red-stained nails. As it moved, it appeared to alter shape briefly, becoming all beast with thick, grey fur and yellow-green eyes, before reverting back to its original form.
Shot after shot from the detectives’ guns crashed into the Wendigo. It roared with annoyance at Nelson and Tombstone before continuing to prowl towards Church and the others.
‘Why won’t it die?’ Jack said.
Nelson and Tombstone reloaded and continued to fire.
Church could smell it now, meat and wet fur and a heavy animal musk. The cold grew more intense the nearer it came.
‘Oh, God,’ Crowther whispered.
Just as the Wendigo was about to leap, Church turned his back on it and shouted, ‘Stop this now! I’m not going to play the game any more! See, I’m walking away!’
The Wendigo’s breath rasped on the back of his neck, but it didn’t attack. Church walked past Mahalia, Jack and Crowther towards the end of the platform.
Ahead of him the air shimmered and two shadowy shapes appeared as if emerging from a heat-haze. They launched themselves at each other, rolling and punching and clawing as they fought fiercely. The indistinct figures became a raven and a coyote, both trying to rip out each other’s eyes, and then two young men: one had jet-black hair, yellow eyes and pointed features, the other long brown hair and green eyes with a broader, flatter nose. They continued to roll around the platform like brawling children, snapping and snarling.
Church got between them and threw them apart. ‘Stop fighting!’
The two men crouched on opposite sides of the platform, glaring at each other.
‘You cheated!’ the one with brown hair said. ‘There was to be no involvement in the game.’
‘You cheated!’ the other one said furiously.
‘Game?’ Church interjected angrily. ‘People have died.’
‘Well, they’re only human,’ the brown-haired one said slyly.
‘Who are you?’ Church asked.
The brown-haired one bowed. ‘Your people like to call me Coyote or Akba-Atatdia, or First Scolder. I am the cleverest and the trickiest and no one can ever beat me.’
‘Except me.’ The other bowed, too. ‘Your people like to call me Raven. Or KwekWaxa’we. Or Chulyen, Hemaskas, or a score of other names. And I am the cleverest and the trickiest.’ He sighed. ‘Though it is always he who plays tricks on me.’
‘So you set loose the Wendigo—’
‘He did that,’ Raven pointed at Coyote.
‘—and all those people were slaughtered for some kind of stupid competition?’
Raven looked sheepish. ‘But that is why I chose you, Brother of Dragons, to prevent the mayhem this fool unleashed. And because I was selected as your totem, and you already have the Morvren at your disposal. I helped you every step of the way, and he hindered you.’
Church looked from one to the other with contempt. ‘Some day humans are going to move up the ladder, and then we’re going to put all you gods out of business.’
‘Surely not,’ Coyote said. ‘Then what will you do for fun?’
Drained, Church turned to walk back up the platform. The Wendigo was gone. But so were Jack, Mahalia and Crowther. Nelson and Tombstone stood in a trance, guns hanging limply.
