Sara.
Behind him, Magnus saw her, too.
“’Tis the east,” Magnus called up to the loft. “And fair Sara is the sun. I brought your boyfriend for a little visit.”
Magnus had a tight hold on the hood of Colding’s parka, keeping him at arm’s length. Magnus was too smart to jam a gun into Colding’s back, where a sudden move might point the barrel at empty space. Colding knew the MP5 would be low, on Magnus’s hip. If Colding spun and made a move, the MP5 would blow his ribs and stomach to pieces.
More movement from the loft, just a hint, and from a different place. “You think I give a fuck about that piece of shit?” The voice came from the shadows. “That bastard sent me to die.”
“Oh, come on,” Magnus said. “You know that was me.”
“Bullshit. I’ll shoot both of you right now. And this time, Magnus, I’ll finish the job.”
Colding looked toward the sound of her voice, but he couldn’t see her in the loft’s dark depths. Damn, but she was smart. Colding’s right hand made a fist, his index finger pointing out, his thumb up—the shape of a gun. He slowly moved his left hand and pointed at his chest. He had no idea if she’d understand, or even do it.
And if her aim was off at all…
CLAYTON RAISED HIS head.
“Oh… I need a vacation.”
The old town burned all around him, he had a broken left leg, the creatures were coming and some Canadian shit-eater had cut off his pinkie. He stayed low and still, trying to take it all in before he did anything.
Movement on his left, about twenty yards away, at the edge of town where the trail led into the woods. A flash of fleshy yellow.
Burning wreckage surrounded him, blurring the air with shimmering waves of heat. If he stayed still, it might hide him from the creatures for a few minutes. But if he didn’t move, sooner or later they’d get him.
Clayton slowly turned his head to the right. The lodge was on fire, the dry old wood glowing red from flames that shot thirty feet into the air. No shelter there.
But behind the lodge, just past the hazy flames, he glimpsed a small bit of a familiar black-and-white pattern. Clayton grimaced, readied himself for the pain, then started crawling.
7:10 A.M.
The fire in the rafters spread slowly but steadily, filling the church with a spastic, flickering light. Shadows jumped, making the pews and the big crucifix vibrate with evil life.
Do it, Colding thought, as if she might somehow read his mind. Do it, shoot me.
Magnus stayed behind Colding, but kept calling up to the loft. “Sara, why don’t you send Feely down? I’ll trade you for Colding. I don’t need you. I just need Feely. You don’t know enough to be a danger to me.”
“Then why did you try to kill me?” Her voice came from yet another spot.
“I didn’t try to kill you. I tried to kill Feely and Rhumkorrf. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“So was my crew.”
“That’s why we gave you hazard pay,” Magnus said. “Use your head. Jian is dead. Rhumkorrf is dead. Now all I need is Tim and this is over. You and Colding can go on your way. If you make it off the island, more power to you. At least then you’d have a chance. What do you say to that?”
Silence.
“What good is Colding to me if he’s dead?”
“He’s not dead,” Magnus said. “He’s standing right—”
A gunshot roared out. Colding felt a sledgehammer slam into his chest. He instinctively jerked backward. His feet caught on a pew and he toppled into Magnus. Colding landed on his right side, then flopped facedown and didn’t move.
MAGNUS SLID HIS body half under a pew, hoping the .40-caliber bullets couldn’t punch through it. Another shot rang out—the bullet smacked into the frozen, rotted wood.
“What do you think of that, Magnus?” the loft shadows called out. “Now you ain’t got jack shit to trade, you sick fuck!”
He popped up from behind the pew and opened fire on the choir loft. The wood railing came apart in a shower of splinters. Sara popped up in yet another new spot—Magnus ducked back down just as she fired again.
SARA STAYED ON her belly, shooting between the spokes of the choir loft’s rail. The madly flickering firelight made it hard to target Magnus, who kept crawling around under the pews and popping up to spray the loft with bullets. Sara could barely breathe from the smoke. She had two shots left, maybe three—dammit, she’d lost count.
I shot him. He WANTED me to shoot him.
Colding had to be wearing a bulletproof vest; that was the only reason he would want her to do it. Shooting him had robbed Magnus of the human shield, and in a twisted way taken Colding out of danger. She silently prayed that she hadn’t somehow misunderstood his signals—that she hadn’t just killed the man she loved.
Sara pushed herself back from the loft’s edge so that she was out of Magnus’s line of sight. She rolled several times to her left. Had to keep moving. A burning feeling shot up her leg. She kicked, knocking away a smoldering piece of rafter. Flames crawled across the ceiling above her. Sara rolled a few more times, carrying her away from the hot spot. She lay flat and eased herself back to the loft’s edge.
7:11 A.M.
Colding coughed. A thin stream of spit and blood landed on his chin. It felt like someone had driven a baseball bat through his chest. He slid a hand under his bulletproof vest. It hurt, hurt like a bitch, but his fingers came away without blood. The blood in his mouth, it seemed, came from the lip he’d bitten through.
He looked under the pews, the only vantage he had from his prone position. He couldn’t see Magnus. Pieces of burning rafters dropped every few seconds, little meteors plunging down. Some of the pews danced with fire, some were just smoldering. Flames wiggled across the warped wooden floor. Acrid smoke expanded through the church, choking out oxygen and stinging his eyes.
Colding rose to his knees and peeked over the pew. With this much cover, Magnus could be hiding only a few feet away. Colding knew he had to make a run for the altar and the loft stairs, had to reach Sara, but Magnus could cut him down with ease.
Behind him, the tall, heavy, double doors swung open and smashed against the inside wall, flooding the burning church with morning light. A dozen yellow sail fins rose above the pews, spreading out, moving forward.
The pain in his chest forgotten, Colding stood, rounded the pew’s corner, and sprinted for the altar.
WHEN HE HEARD the big doors slam open, Magnus peeked out from behind the altar’s thick crucifix. Through the shimmering heat haze and the growing smoke cloud, he saw a dozen nightmares trot into the church—muscles thick like lions on steroids, massive heads with jaws wider and longer than a crocodile’s, strange yellow dorsal sail fins flipping up and down in twitching anticipation.
Movement on his left. Human movement. Colding, up and sprinting for the right edge of the altar. Drop him, remove a variable, move on to the rest. Magnus brought up the MP5.
I’VE GOT YOU now, fucker.
Sara had seen Magnus hide behind the thick crucifix, then watched and waited for her shot. In a brief moment of total awareness, the world slowed and she saw everything: the monsters spreading out through the church, Colding sprinting for the stairs, Magnus coming around the cross and raising the MP5.