“I can’t go any farther,” Ashley screamed, pressing herself against a solid wall of shadow.
“Outta the way.” Squire pushed her aside. He placed his hands against the cold, sticky surface and closed his eyes. It was just as he thought: This had been the exit a few minutes ago, but since something was happening to the environment outside, it had almost healed over.
Almost.
Squire could still sense a place on the other side, and since he had no desire to suffocate within the stinking bowels of a shadow path, he decided to do something about it.
He swung the golf bag from his shoulder and rummaged through it, pulling out a battle-ax.
No need for anything dainty here.
“Get behind me,” he told the girl, as more gunshots rang out.
Squire raised the ax above his head, chancing a quick look behind him. The path was constricting faster, squeezing Tattoo Man and Dog Boy in its shrinking grip, buying him just enough time.
The goblin let out a scream, putting everything he had behind the strike as he brought the blade down on the hardening wall of shadow before them.
The blade buried itself deep within the solidified midnight, but he believed he could see a hint of a light from the world that still existed behind it. Yanking the blade back, he hefted the mighty ax, striking the wall again and again.
“We ain’t got much time,” he said to Ashley, hacking at the wall once more and then grabbing the edges of the cut and pulling.
Ashley hesitated at first but then joined Squire with gusto, sinking her fingers into the gelatinous dark and ripping away chunks to open the passage.
A sickly light leaked from the opening they’d torn, and it appeared large enough for them to get through, but the way the wall was healing up, it wouldn’t be for long.
“Now,” Squire ordered, pushing Ashley toward the hole.
She started to protest, fear creeping into her eyes, but he insisted, shoving her into the gradually diminishing crack and forcing her through to the other side.
He was about to follow her when he felt a powerful grip clamp down on his ankle.
“Going somewhere?” the tattooed man asked as he slithered on his belly through the intestine-like passage that was collapsing all around them. The schnauzer boy had managed to make it past his partner, crab walking toward him, mouth open to bite.
A quick backhand across the face was enough to discourage the youngster, but then Squire watched as Tattoo Man, who was still holding him with one hand, pulled his gun up in the other and prepared to fire.
Squire knew he had only seconds before the passage he’d cut healed up twice as thick as before, trapping him here, and he didn’t cotton to that at all. He glanced down, seeing the hilt of his ax sticking up from the softening surface beneath his feet, and yanked it free with a moist sucking sound. He managed to bring the ax down on the wrist of the hand that held his ankle, just as the tattooed man fired his gun with the other.
Yanking his foot back, Squire found that he was free, but he’d also been shot, the bullet punching its way into his shoulder, forcing him to drop his battle-ax.
But things weren’t any better for Tattoo Man.
He was screaming, clutching the stump of his hand, as Squire pushed himself backward toward the fissure-less than half the size it had been mere moments before.
Sensing that it was now or never, Squire dove headfirst into the passage, forcing his way through the tight squeeze of the wound he’d cut in the hardening blackness. It wasn’t easy; the walls of the passage attempted to crush him as he wiggled his way through. He’d always been curious as to what it would feel like to be born, and figured that this was probably the closest he’d ever get to having the experience again.
The passage was closing behind him, but he could see a hint of soft light ahead. His shoulder screamed in protest, but Squire didn’t listen. There’d be time for pain later, when he was still alive and on the other side with the time to bitch about it.
He clawed at the membranous caul that had formed over the exit, pulling himself through, out into the light with a series of grunts and a scream of freedom.
Out of the frying pan.
“Don’t want to be doing that again anytime soon,” he said, rolling on his stomach and starting to stand. He saw that Ashley was there, but her stare was fixed on something he had not yet noticed.
And then he saw that she was staring at a naked and perfectly muscled human figure standing with arms outstretched. Wings of fire grew from his back, and the words of some ancient magickal spell spilled from his mouth to seed the air.
Squire knew where they were, and they hadn’t gotten very far. They were back inside the old mansion, but he could feel that something wasn’t right. It was moving… The magick spell that the man was casting was taking the entire estate to someplace else.
Out of the frying pan, he thought, feeling reality whizzing past him.
And into the fire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They were going to make him watch.
Remy was hauled to his feet by two of Stearns’ goons, as the deaths of more than a million people were set in motion.
There was a flurry of activity in the television studio. Technicians moved about a glass control room above the main studio while more of Stearns’ techs were attaching thick cables to the external skeleton of metal that the sorcerer wore, cables that trailed across the floor to the strange machinery that was part of the little girl’s bed.
“Quickly now. Quickly,” Stearns bellowed.
Remy could not take his eyes from the Grigori calmly standing beside the child’s bed, waiting to do their part.
He was disgusted, nauseated by the idea that they and he were actually of the same species. He’d suspected that the Watchers-the Grigori-had been driven insane by their banishment to the world they had helped to corrupt, but he never imagined how truly crazy they had become.
Or how far they’d go to show it.
“I get it,” Remy yelled over the voices raised in preparation, temporarily bringing silence to the studio.
Armaros was looking at him now with cold, dead eyes.
“I get it,” Remy said again. “You’re pissed…pissed at God for forgetting you, pissed at yourselves for being so damn weak, and pissed at me for killing your leader.”
He could feel the fury radiating from them in waves; it was like static electricity, charging the very air. It made the hair on his arms stand on end.
“But don’t do this,” Remy begged. “Take your anger out on someone who deserves it… Take it out on me, if you have to.”
Armaros drifted closer.
“The great angel Remiel,” the new Grigori leader scoffed. “You actually believe this is all about you? Such arrogance. But then again, what would we expect from one of the Almighty’s elite?”
The fallen angel moved to stand before Remy.
“This isn’t about past angers and sorrows,” Armaros said. “This is about the future of this world…of humanity and of Heaven itself.”
Remy wasn’t sure he understood. “How can the killing of a million of His flock be seen as a positive move toward the future?”
“Are you so blind?” Armaros asked. “Can you not see the signs? There’s a war coming…and the world of man will become a battleground.”
“It’ll never come to that,” Remy said, trying to hide his uncertainty.
“The signs are there, Remiel, whether you choose to ignore them or not. What we are doing today is preparing the world…preparing the people for what is to be a time of great loss.”
“You keep talking, but I still don’t see how killing a million people and giving a sorcerer this kind of power is preparing the world for anything.”
“We did this to them, Remiel,” Armaros said. “We steered them down this road to decadence. This will be our chance to make things right, to set them on the path to believing again.”