It all changed in an instance. Joshua swerved violently to avoid the hulking mass of a horned demon that appeared behind them. Out of control, they ploughed through the glass front of a shop in a storm of glass shards. As the car slammed into the counter of the shop and stopped dead, the air bags in the car exploded out, forcing Sam and Joshua hard back into their seats. None of them had been wearing their seatbelts. Sam felt the hard impact as Grace’s head connected with the back of his seat.
Sam turned around in his seat, fighting against the confining mass of the airbag. Grace was lying on the rear seat, groaning. Suddenly, the Lemure were upon them once again. Long, grey taloned hands reached for her through the rear window, clutching at her clothes. Stunned, but now aware what was happening, Grace screamed again.
Sam wrestled with the airbag, finally popping it and tried to struggle through into the back seat. Next to him, Josh was trying to get through his own airbag to reach the gear shift. Grace was being pulled through the rear window. Sam grabbed her clothes desperately but he was in an awkward position and it was hard to get a good grip. He could feel her slipping away.
He changed tack and jerked his car door open, knocking two Lemure off their feet. He drew his swords but the situation was impossible. Wreckage from the crash was impeding his swing and more Lemure kept piling into the shop. He saw Grace being dragged out of the car and he screamed his frustration.
“No!” he yelled, trying to fight his way forward.
Countless Lemure stopped him, throwing themselves at him, heedless of the few that fell under his swords. Other Lemure were swarming over the cars roof, trying to get at Joshua on the driver’s side. Fortunately, they couldn’t — part of the shop counter effectively blocked that side of the car.
“Sam! Sam!” He could hear Joshua yelling his name and he turned. Joshua had deflated the airbag. The Bentley roared to life. “Get in! We have to go!”
Sam threw himself into the car. He glanced backwards. Surrounded by a mass of Lemure bodies, Grace was disappearing out of the shop. Inside the car, three Lemure had forced themselves through the shattered rear window and were reaching for Joshua and himself. Sam quickly dispatched them with three short thrusts of his wakizashi, showering the leather upholstery with cinders.
Joshua threw the car into reverse and the Bentley charged out of the shop, grinding over shop wreckage and scattering the Lemure. He put the car in gear and the wheels spun, producing black smoke of burnt rubber.
“There!” said Sam. Ahead of them was the pack of Lemure carrying Grace, moving rapidly away from them down the street. “After them!”
The Bentley shot forward. More and more Lemure launched themselves at the car. For relatively stupid creatures, they seemed to know exactly what they were doing, trying to prevent the two boys reaching Grace.
Sam sensed a familiar presence above them and then the Bentley shuddered under a massive impact. Sam and Josh both ducked. With a horrible screech of tearing metal, the entire roof of the Bentley was ripped off. The Astaroth roared in satisfaction, still clutching the torn section in the claws of its hind legs. It dropped it, the roof clattering on the bonnet of the car, forcing Joshua to swerve again.
Sam stood up, fighting for balance as Joshua swerved again and again, trying to keep the Astaroth off them. Sam struck upwards, fending off the claws of the massive flying demon above them.
The Lemure carrying Grace were getting further and further away. Suddenly, he realized what their destination was — what it had always been. A church. The gateway. They were taking Grace to hell! At the far end of the street, he could see it. It looked like any of the hundreds of small churches that littered the city, with white washed walls and a slate roof. The sign above it said it was a wedding chapel.
The Lemure weren’t far away. Even with the power of the Bentley, they weren’t going to get there before them. Like the Lemure, the Astaroth seemed to know what it was doing, forcing the car to veer off so it couldn’t intercept the fleeing creatures.
More Lemure piled onto the car. Now Sam was forced to split his attack, dispatching any Lemure who got in through the roof and keeping the Astaroth at bay. Sam knew they were fighting a losing battle. Next to him, Joshua seemed to share the same thought.
“We have to get out of here,” Joshua said, his voice high with panic. “We can’t save her. There’s too many of them. We have to go.”
“No!” roared Sam. “We’re not leaving her. We’re going to save her.”
Visions of the poor family in the airport terminal of Jacob’s Ladder swarmed into his head. He thought of the woman in the street of his home town that he hadn’t been able to save either. So many people had been taken. He hadn’t been able to save those people and still berated himself for not trying hard enough. He wasn’t going to let the same happen to Grace. Grace was a good soul a good person. An innocent. He wouldn’t condemn her to Hell. She didn’t deserve it. Wasn’t this what Gabriel wanted him to do? Wasn’t this part of what he was left behind to accomplish?
“Don’t stop,” Sam roared, spearing another Lemure with his wakizashi.
Joshua turned to him, his eyes wide. “What do you mean?”
“I mean don’t stop. Go straight through, into the church. It’s the only way to save Grace.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“I’m deadly serious. Drive the car straight through the wall and pray we don’t hit Grace.”
The church loomed in front of them. Ahead, the Lemure carrying Grace had just disappeared inside it. As the Astaroth suddenly seemed to sense their intent and renewed its attack with even more vigor, one of its claws snagged Sam’s arm. He ignored the pain and struck upwards with his longer blade, burying half the blade in the armoured body. The Astaroth bellowed in pain but didn’t stop its assault. At the last second, however, it was forced to as it soared upwards, narrowly missing the small steeple before it. If the cross had still been on the roof, it would have impaled itself.
Joshua accelerated. The rapid thud of Lemure bodies bouncing off the car sounded like heavy rain. He looked at Sam and this time, by unspoken agreement, they both put their seatbelts on.
The Bentley hit the curb and kept right on going. For a fraction of a second, they were airborne and then, suddenly, they were crashing through the wall of the church.
12
PRESENT
“Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:. .”
Sam must have lost consciousness for a moment. The Bentley had crashed through the outer wall of the church and then slammed into the far inner wall, where it now rested, wrecked beyond repair. The collision had been horrendous, and he tried not to think what would have happened if they hadn’t been wearing their seatbelts. That was the only thing that had saved them given that the airbags were already wrecked.
Inside the car, Joshua was still out cold, his head resting against the steering wheel. Blood oozed from a cut on his scalp. Sam undid the clasps on both their seatbelts and tried to rouse his friend. Blearily, Josh finally came to, looking around slowly in confusion.
“Come on,” said Sam. “Out of the car.” He got out, moving to the driver’s side to assist Joshua as he looked around.
All the pews in the church had been removed. In the open space in the dead centre was a pentagram. It was nothing like the chalk pentagrams Sam had drawn; the outlines of this one seemed to be blazing with an unholy fire. Braziers, filled with what smelled like sulphur, burned at the five points of the symbol.