I crept around to the side of the building, keeping to the shadows as I slid my back along the graffiti-covered wall. There were four big windows on the first floor. Their glass panes had been smashed long ago. Now the windows were boarded from the inside with sheets of plywood. Light bled out through the corners of the boards and from under the wooden double doors in the middle of the wall. I pulled my gun. A muffled voice came from inside. I couldn’t tell what it was saying, but one thing was unmistakable. It was a woman’s voice.
Damn. Underwood hadn’t told me who would be inside. On the drive over I’d imagined it would be men like Tomo and Big Joe, thugs who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me dead if I didn’t shoot them first. But a woman?
No survivors, that was what Underwood said. So be it, then. Whoever was in there probably had it coming anyway. I wasn’t about to let my first shot at getting some concrete answers slip through my fingers.
I gripped the gun tighter and tried the handle on one of the doors. It was unlocked. I pushed it open and stepped through.
Inside, the warehouse was a single enormous open space. The hardwood floor was bare and scuffed. Two rows of thick, wooden floor-to-ceiling support beams spanned the room like carefully arranged dominoes. Saucer-shaped metal light fixtures hung on long chains from the ceiling—or what was left of the ceiling. There was a wide, gaping hole in it that looked like something heavy had broken through, and recently. The floor below was littered with debris, chunks of cement, and large pieces of wood and tar from the roof. Old wooden crates and heaps of broken, waterlogged furniture had been pushed against the walls in stacks, forming a makeshift circle around the center of the room. What I saw within that circle stopped me in my tracks.
I noticed the woman first. She was short, not more than five feet tall, with long, thick black hair. She wore jeans and a bulky cargo vest over a plain long-sleeved shirt. She held a wooden staff horizontally in front of her with both hands in a defensive stance. Mounted at the end of the staff was what looked like a small black ball. Whoever she was, she didn’t see me. She was too focused on the six men in front of her.
They had their backs to me so that all I saw was their long, slate-gray trench coats. They didn’t have any weapons that I could see. They advanced on the woman, forcing her back toward the crates behind her, penning her in. Six big men against one small woman. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but I didn’t like those odds. It was clear from the look on her face that she didn’t either.
I raised my gun and took a cautious step closer. My foot accidentally kicked a small chip of fallen cement and sent it skittering loudly across the floor.
Shit.
The six men stopped moving. Their trench coats split apart down the middle and blossomed out to their sides. Too late I realized they weren’t trench coats at all.
They were wings.
All six of them spun on me. I’d expected to see the scowling, beefy faces of mob enforcers, but these weren’t men. They weren’t even human. Their faces were gray, craggy, and elongated like the snouts of hairless dogs. They had long pointed ears, short stubby horns that sprouted from their brows, and black, deep-set eyes that fixed me with a glare that said I was about to become dinner. One look at their wide, tusked mouths and ivory dagger teeth and I was sure there was room enough on the menu for me and the woman both.
Too shocked to move, I blinked instead, which wasn’t much help.
The woman saw me then, and shouted, “Run!”
The winged creatures shrieked, a sound as loud and piercing as a siren. They launched themselves into the air, wings flapping, and as they came at me I had just enough time to wonder what the hell I’d walked in on.
Five
I forced my arms to lift the gun and take aim at the flying creatures. I was still stunned at the impossibility of what I was seeing, but somehow I managed to pull the trigger four times in rapid succession. The nine-millimeter slugs slammed into the chest and face of the creature at the head of the pack, only to ricochet off its skin. It paused in midair, surprised but not hurt, then continued toward me with the others. The beat of their huge, gray, batlike wings created drafts strong enough to stir the dust and debris on the floor.
Whatever these things were, bullets couldn’t kill them. And bullets were all I had. I was screwed.
I ran for the warehouse door, but one of them dropped down in front of it, blocking my exit. It had a withered yellow eye that looked like an old wound from some long-ago fight. I skidded to a halt, pointing the gun at it out of blind instinct, but Yellow Eye just chittered at me. These things weren’t scared of guns.
While I was distracted, another one rammed me from behind, knocking me to the floor. Its claws felt like razors slashing through the back of my leather coat, through my shirt, and into my skin. I gritted my teeth against the pain and rolled over. The flayed, bleeding skin on my back burned where it touched the hard, filthy warehouse floor.
The creature landed on me with its full weight, pinning me to the floor. It brought its face closer, near enough for me to see the Y-shaped scar on its cheek, and to get a whiff of its earthy, abattoir odor. Scarface sniffed me like it was checking the bouquet of a vintage wine. Then it recoiled, not liking what it smelled.
“You don’t smell so great yourself, you ugly son of a bitch,” I said.
Scarface opened its wide, toothy maw in an angry roar. I swung my gun up, jammed the barrel between its jaws, and pulled the trigger. The muzzle flash lit up the cavernous interior of its mouth, illuminating a field of small, nubby teeth that lined the inside of its cheeks. Scarface unfurled its wings and flew back up to the ceiling, coughing and gagging on the gunsmoke but otherwise unharmed. Damn, what did it take to kill these things?
More to the point, what the hell were they?
I wondered for a moment if this might all just be in my head. As an explanation, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. I’d read somewhere that if the human brain went without sleep for ten days it started to hallucinate. Twenty days and it bordered on insanity. I hadn’t slept in a year. Prior to that I couldn’t be sure, but it was possible I’d never slept in my entire life. Maybe it was finally catching up with me. How insane would a man have to be after a lifetime of sleep deprivation?
But the scratches in my back felt real enough. No hallucination could be that excruciating. As impossible as it seemed, this was really happening.
I got back on my feet and tucked my gun into my pants. It was useless against the creatures, but I knew better than to toss it. It was Underwood’s Golden Rule, drilled into my head since day one: Never, ever lose your gun. You never know when you’re going to need it.
Across the room, the short woman was swinging her staff at the creatures. They hung in the air above her, bobbing and feinting just out of reach. She grunted and bit her lip in frustration. Scarface had rejoined the pack, and together the creatures trilled and clucked. The sound was alien but unmistakable. They were laughing at her. Toying with her before moving in for the kill.
I glanced at the open door. Yellow Eye had gone to join in the fun, too, leaving the door unguarded. Just outside, I could see the brick wall that sheltered the warehouse from the surrounding piers. The low, distant hum of West Side Highway traffic floated to me. It would be easy to escape, to leave this insanity while the creatures were distracted and run back to the safety of the world I knew. Getting out while I still could was the smart choice.
The short woman grunted as she swung her staff at the five chittering things flapping in the air above her. I looked at her, then back at the exit. Screw this. I took a quick step toward the door. Then I stopped.