As it glided northward toward their hotel, Coldmoon, clinging desperately to the railing, could hear the stuttering sound of an automatic weapon, tiny bursts of flame stitching themselves along the underbelly of the beast. This was followed by a muffled roar, the brute screaming in pain as it was struck by a more powerful blast.
They kept climbing until they were just below the top, above the treetops with a clear line of fire in all directions. Looking northward, Coldmoon could see the beast attacking a building, beating its huge wings against it, circling up and dashing itself once more against the structure, screaming all the while. Bricks, broken pieces of wood, and glass flew into the air before falling back into a widening cloud of dust. It swerved off and, with a hideous screech, resumed its circling rampage.
“Jesus,” Coldmoon muttered, more to himself than to Pendergast. It looked like that thing had just taken out the upper floor of their hotel.
The beast began circling toward them again.
“Get ready!” Pendergast cried, wrapping an arm around a rung of the ladder while he pulled out his 1911. Coldmoon did the same, bracing himself, Browning in one hand. There was a sharp snapping sound as one of the attachments to the steeple ladder broke off with a green puff of oxidation. This was followed by another snap. The ladder began to sway.
He couldn’t think of that now. He had to focus on the creature.
It was closing in on the church. Up close it seemed more alien than ever, almost like a projection, with a semitransparent shimmer moving in waves across its dark leathery hide, looking almost like the exoskeleton of an insect.
Coldmoon took a bead as he tried to control his breathing, his pounding heart. As the monster glided past, not fifteen feet from them, he fired one round after another, evenly and carefully, aiming at the creature’s center of mass. He could hear, directly above him, Pendergast’s measured firing as the agent emptied his mag.
The beast was hit. It twisted in midair, emitting a dreadful screech at the upper frequency of audibility, like talons on a blackboard — and came back around, flying straight at them.
“Down!” Pendergast cried.
Coldmoon needed no encouragement. He holstered his Browning and half climbed, half slid down the rungs, the creature closing in. With a judder of metal, the rotten ladder snapped free from a row of fastenings and swung out into space. Coldmoon lost his footing, grabbing desperately at a rung with only his hands as he dangled in limbo, swaying a hundred feet above the ground, bodies and cars below like so many tiny toys... but then it swung back, picking up momentum, and Coldmoon managed to get his feet back on the bottom rung as the ladder slammed against the steep roof. He jumped desperately for the narrow balcony below and fell heavily onto it. It swung wildly away once again with Pendergast still clinging to it. Grasping the parapet, Coldmoon reached out and pulled the senior agent onto the walkway. The two dove into the carillon nest just as the ladder peeled away entirely — and the creature struck the steeple.
There was a shuddering crash and the entire structure jarred sideways with a mighty cracking of wooden beams and a cascade of slate shingles as the top began to shear off.
Coldmoon dove through the open trapdoor, tumbled partway down the spiral staircase before recovering his footing, then continued down at top speed, Pendergast behind him. The staircase crackled like fireworks as its wood frame shattered, showering them with splinters. They reached the bottom just as the entire tower tore away, plummeting into the crowded street with a thunderous roar, sending up a great plume of dust.
Coldmoon and Pendergast emerged into the nave just as the creature came back to hit the church broadside. It thrashed against the windows, beating out the stained glass and showering everyone inside. The crowd surged toward the doors, panicking to get out amid the rain of glass and falling beams. Pendergast grabbed an old woman and led her out the back door, Coldmoon following with a child, emerging into a small churchyard in the back, while the creature abandoned the church and flew off, resuming its circling of destruction.
In the churchyard, they paused to recover their breath — and their wits.
“We need heavier weapons,” Pendergast said as he ejected an empty mag and slapped in a fresh one. “These do minimal damage.”
Coldmoon checked his Browning. “Listen to me. That heavy weaponry won’t arrive in time. We know how this is going to end; we saw the future — Savannah in ruins, this church burned to the ground.” He looked into Pendergast’s eyes and saw real despair.
Pendergast reached out and grasped his shoulder. “There is one thing.”
“What?” Coldmoon cried.
“Maybe the future can be changed.”
Coldmoon stared at his partner. There was a new look in his eyes.
“How?”
“Don’t follow me,” Pendergast said. And then he was gone without another word.
Coldmoon turned. The creature was coming around once again, bloody talons extended, ripping into the crowd of fleeing people.
He had four rounds left. He braced himself, holding the Browning with both hands, and aimed as the monster swept toward him.
69
In the shelter of the old war monument, Commander Delaplane had set up a makeshift emergency command center, commandeering Senator Drayton’s campaign bus to do so. He was gone — gone for good — and his people had all fled. But the bus was exactly what she needed, fitted out with a police scanner, radio, fast internet, and several flat-panel television screens tuned to news channels. It also had an independent source of power, necessary now that pockets of the city had been plunged into darkness.
What she was witnessing was incredible, unfathomable — and so she’d tried to push the disbelieving part of her mind away for the time being and concentrate on the tasks at hand. The grandstand had gone up like a bonfire and was still burning furiously. The park was now mostly clear of people, at least those still alive and mobile; left behind was a vast scene of horror, with the wounded crying out in pain and the dead left trampled in grotesque positions on the grass and surrounding walkways. Yellow beams from portable torches or flashlights winked here and there. Some EMTs had arrived and were struggling to do basic triage, but they had few ambulances or equipment.
The problem was, people couldn’t escape the historic city center except on foot. The narrow streets leading away were jammed with abandoned cars, blocks and blocks of them, many ablaze. Most of the EMTs and fire crews were unable to get through. In addition to the hordes of tourists in town, thousands of people had been bused in for the rally — those very buses parked on side streets causing blockages of their own. People were desperate to take shelter somewhere, anywhere. Her radio crackled with reports of restaurants and hotel lobbies flooding with humanity. And the hellish creature was flying around in a fury, killing indiscriminately, bashing into buildings, and knocking down power poles and streetlights.
She and her officers were desperately trying to get an orderly evacuation underway, but the scene was proving too chaotic. She’d never seen anything like it. Many people, including some of her own officers, were literally losing their minds.
A news helicopter had appeared with a camera crew, flying along the southern end of the historic district. She could see the simulcast on one of her television screens in the bus. They certainly had stones — or were just plain stupid. When the monster spotted the chopper, it went straight for it as it might a rival, talons extended. Grabbing a shotgun from the weapon cache, she ran outside the bus just in time to see the chopper spiral down from the sky, crashing just beyond Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. A ball of fire rose up over the rooftops, enveloping the West Broad Library in smoke and flame.