telephone cable.
“Clara, reckon your time ain’t come yet,” Ace said, calm, moving deeper into the cave and standing at the head of the flat stone. Like a heathen priest at an altar.
Clara rose from darkness behind the stone, her hair wet. The dying light made an orange fright mask of her face.
“This way,” Bowie whispered, throat dry. The cave was as cold as the river had been, as if the darkness and the thundering water sprang from the same source.
“They want the baby, Ace. Our baby.” Clara’s voice was small and frightened. Bowie hadn’t realized just how young she was. Just a dumb kid making a bad choice. Bowie knew all about bad choices.
“I know, honey,” Ace said, dropping the knapsack. “They don’t understand the mysterious ways of God. They got cast down from heaven way too early, and never learned about blood sacrifice. About getting washed free.”
Bowie didn’t know why the creatures were waiting to strike. Maybe Ace really was a messenger. An untouchable. Whatever the reason, Bowie didn’t see any advantage in waiting. He burst from the concealing shadows, tripped over a hidden wedge of stone, and fell to his knees as the gun bounced away from him. He scrabbled for the Python, felt its cold, smooth barrel, and came up just as the air erupted with a cacophony of shrieks and movement.
Clara dove into the darkness with a splash.
Splash?
Bowie fired once, blindly, the muzzle flashing blue-white. The bullet whizzed and made a meaty smack, but he couldn’t tell what it hit. A knobby tendon brushed his shoulder, and he threw out a panicked fist. The creature was already gone, joining its brethren.
At the head of the table, where dinner was served.
Ace.
“Deliver us from evil,” Ace shouted as the creatures swarmed him.
Bowie ran toward the place where he’d last seen Clara. The water surprised him, rising fast to his knees. She swam into him with panicked strokes. He yanked her to her feet and dragged the dripping, dazed woman toward the entrance. Water swirled around his feet, and he understood why the creatures had held back. They sensed the rising floodwaters, had probably dodged them countless times over the aeons.
Bowie was afraid he’d lost direction, but the drilling hiss of the rain outside provided a compass point. One of the creatures clawed him, running a line of fiery red stripes down his neck, but Bowie didn’t slow down or fight back.
He ran Connie! -
— toward the roaring avalanche, into the blinding whiteness, and this time in the dream he reached her, pulled her to safety And they rolled together under the wet, cleansing rain as the cave screamed and vomited a geyser of fire and sulfuric smoke and steam, as the Earth rumbled, as boulders spun down from the hidden heights and crashed around them. Bowie tugged Clara toward the river, not because the churning rapids offered rescue, but because they offered a swifter escape, even if escape meant a suffocating death.
At least, if God had any mercy at all, their corpses would be washed far from this gate of Hell.
Bowie had Clara’s hand, dragging her as the rocks tumbled down from the cliffs above. He lost his grip, reached again, and made contact in the darkness. Daggers raked his forearm and the white noise of the deafening blast gave way to a piercing
Skeek skeek skeek.
One of them, free of the cave, or else late to Ace’s party. Its foul, blood-drenched mouth was near his ear, seeking his jugular, and beneath that corrupt odor was a soft and familiar trace of chamomile and mint.
Dove.
Except the earthiness of her scent had given way to the sepulchre stench of grave dirt. And she wanted him more fiercely than she had the previous morning. He ran his hand along her body, which was slick and nude, limbs twining against him in a mockery of their lovemaking. Any kiss she would plant now would be final. No more good- byes.
“Run!” he shouted at Clara, realizing Fate had provided him yet one more chance to fail. A stone the size of his fist bounced off the Dove-creature’s shoulder.
In the blackness and thick precipitation, Bowie couldn’t make out the creature’s face, but his mind painted it in vivid and sordid shades. And he pictured the teeth that wanted to punch their way into him and drink from the fountain of his heart.
The creature’s demonic strength pinned him back against a long, moist sheet of rock. He ran his left hand along her hips, looking for a crevice to attack. He rammed his fist between her legs but Dove was no longer a woman. He was drawing back for another blow when his fingers touched the rope coiled around its leg. He yanked the slack line, hearing a metallic clatter against stone. Thrusting his elbow under the creature’s chin, Bowie felt gray pressure rising against the back of his eyelids. He was losing consciousness.
Another shriek erupted, and Bowie thought a second creature had joined the attack. At least the end would be quick.
Instead, the Dove-creature shook, its oily, wet hair slapping against Bowie’s cheek. “Go back to Hell!” Clara screamed, banging a stone against the creature’s head.
Bowie couldn’t see Clara, but judging by the location of her voice, she had launched herself onto the creature’s back and slowed its assault. Bowie pulled the rope until his fingers felt the knot, then the piton. He rammed upward with all his strength, spearing his former lover in the gut. A viscous substance colder than the rain oozed over his fist.
He withdrew the steel spike and rammed again, this time toward the leathery lips that nipped at his cheek. The metal shattered teeth and bone.
Skeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
The thing that had loved him in human form now wailed in the agony of a second death. The talons lost their grip on Bowie and went toward the source of the wound, the sinister throat emitting a sick, deflating wind.
Bowie ran his hands along the creature’s repulsive hide until he touched Clara’s skin. He grabbed the woman and pulled her free.
“That was no angel,” Clara shouted against the downpour.
“Nobody’s perfect,” he replied.
He wrapped one arm around Clara’s slick, naked body and slid into the edge of the frothing current. The rain was so thick, he could barely tell where it ended and the river began.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Morning had never looked so beautiful.
Farrengalli peeked out of the cave at the pink clouds that rimmed the horizon. The storm had been awesome, so intense that he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to hear the creatures if they attacked. He’d seen the Jim Castle fucker chomp on Raintree while the Chief dangled like a squirming worm on a hook. Proof that Farrengalli had been right: Those things were vampires, goddamn it.
Too bad there was nobody around for him to gloat, “I told you so.”
Dove, the dumb babe, had tried to rescue the redskin, climbed down the rope naked, without a weapon. Castle had made munch meat out of her, too. Farrengalli wondered how long it would take them to come back to life and go looking for some spicy Italian salami.
He didn’t intend to be around long enough to find out.
He finished the last granola bar, washed it down with river water, and played the extra rope (not the one that had entangled Raintree-no, he couldn’t bear to touch that one) down the side of the cliff. He gazed out over the gorge. The flood had carved new routes in the rocks, torn trees out by their roots, pushed up beaches of fine grit. Though the rain had stopped a couple of hours before sunrise, the river was still thick and brown, a rush of mottled chocolate milk.
