Together, we wrestled him to the window and tossed him out. He splashed into the water about as gracelessly as the window had, bobbing face-down as we scampered after. The water was bitterly cold. It came up to my waist, and seeped into the knife wound in my thigh, bringing with it a dull, woozy ache that set my head reeling. I pushed past it, dragging the pilot to the shore and collapsing to the grass as Kate emerged dripping beside me. Just a couple dozen yards away, the Fifth Avenue traffic roared and honked, but I barely noticed. I was shivering and exhausted, and all I wanted to do was lay on this bed of grass and sleep. But Kate was having none of it.
'Sam, c'mon, we've got to go.' She grabbed my by the wrist and yanked. I stayed down. She tried again.
'Sam, those sirens are getting closer. And we've got an audience.'
I raised my head and looked around. Dotting the park were a couple dozen onlookers, watching us with expressions of confusion and surprise. Then, one by one, their faces changed, each becoming a twisted mask of hatred. Black fire raged in their eyes. As one by one they began to approach, I found my feet, putting an arm around Kate and ushering her toward the low stone wall that marked the border of the park.
'Sam, what's going on? Who
'Demons – foot soldiers, I'd guess. Ever since I first failed to collect you, they've been watching me.'
'It doesn't look like they're content to watch you now.'
'No, it doesn't. Mu'an blamed me for the attack at Grand Central – for the war that's brewing now. I'm sure he's not the only one. I suspect they've tired of waiting for me to do my job.'
'So what happens if they catch us?' Kate asked.
'Torture, death, an eternity of torment. You know, the usual.'
'Let's make sure they don't catch us then, OK?'
'That's the plan.'
We reached the wall, and I helped her up and over. When she reached the other side, she gasped.
'Oh, Jesus, Sam – they're gaining.'
A glance over my shoulder told me she was right. There were maybe a dozen of them, approaching at a brisk walk. I noticed then that they were not alone – the park was dotted with figures in suits and trench coats, fedoras worn low over faces obscured as if by an inner light. Angels. They weren't pursuing us like the demons were; they just hung back. Watching. Waiting. For what, I didn't know – and I wasn't about to stick around to find out.
I vaulted over the wall, and hit the sidewalk at a run, dragging Kate along by the wrist. The pain in my leg wasn't so much forgotten as rendered unimportant. The promise of eternal torment does wonders in adjusting one's priorities.
We darted into traffic amidst a squeal of brakes and a blast of horns. A dozen shouted curses hurled our way. I paid them no mind. Behind us, the demons had broken into a run, and were one by one hopping the wall, as graceful and powerful as a pride of jungle cats. As traffic resumed behind us, I headed south-west along Fifth. Across the street, our pursuers followed suit. As a delivery truck rumbled past, obscuring us from view, I reversed directions, darting north-east with Kate in tow. She let out a yelp as I jerked her arm, and then got wise to the plan, sprinting beside me with all she had.
A roar of anger, guttural and animal, sounded from the other side of the street. The demons had spotted us, and once again followed. The truck had provided meager cover, and our head-start couldn't have been more than half a block. The demons ate into our lead with glee, scrabbling across the hoods and rooftops of the midtown traffic as easily as bricks on a walkway. As we reached the corner of Sixtieth, I felt a surge of adrenaline. Before us was a subway entrance, just two narrow sets of steps leading downward to the darkness below. If only we could catch a ride, I thought, we might just shake these guys. Together, Kate and I descended, our feet barely touching the steps, while behind us, the demons closed the gap.
We were greeted by the warm breath of subway exhaust, stale and sickly sweet. As we descended, we passed beneath a mural of birds in flight – once no doubt brightly hued, they'd been beaten a dull graybrown by years and years of grime. They hovered like vultures, circling in anticipation of a meal soon coming. I hoped to God we'd disappoint them.
A snarl behind us, a frightened gasp. One of the demons had reached the entrance to the subway stairs. He wore the flesh of a bike messenger, though he no longer moved as if human – he scrabbled along, half walking, half prowling on all fours, his eyes so full of raging darkness that it spilled outward from them, flickering black across the tiles of the stairwell. He pushed aside a woman in a jogging suit – the one who gasped, no doubt – and she tumbled down the stairs, landing in an awkward heap at my feet. Two others joined him at the head of the stairs – a woman in a brown tartan business suit, now streaked with dirt and grime, and an overweight man in a hot-dog vendor's apron, his face sweaty and purple from the unnatural exertion, a set of greasy tongs dangling forgotten from the apron tie around his waist. The bike messenger spoke then – just one word, and in no language that I understood, but I recoiled nonetheless. Those two syllables seemed to rise from the pit of hell itself, rendering every curse, every epithet ever uttered by Man a mere shadow, a trifle, a charming colloquialism.
It was then that they came for us.
I would say they came like animals, but that's not exactly true. Animals must abide by basic laws of nature and physics, but these things hold no sway over a demon. No, they came at us like death, like damnation, like the devil himself. They clawed and scratched their way down the stairs, crawling and bounding along the floors, ceiling, and walls – as if all three surfaces were the same, as if all three had been put there for the express purpose of conveying them to us. Soon the stairwell was filled with the dust of broken tiles and the spatters of their vessels' blood, the vessels that were so much more fragile than the monsters they disguised. I'd like to say I fought, or schemed, or even ran, but the truth is, in the face of their imminent arrival, I did nothing – just stood there, stock- still, watching. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I surrendered to my fate. I'm not proud of it. I'm not even ashamed. At that moment, there was simply nothing else that I could do.
Lucky for me, Kate didn't feel the same. Maybe it's because, deep down, she still had hope to cling to, where I had nothing but regret. Maybe I was just a coward. Maybe it doesn't matter, because when she yanked on my arm, she shook me from my dazed and sorry state. We hopped the turnstiles and sprinted together across the platform, in that moment denying the inevitability of our fates. Whatever had come over me had passed. But that didn't mean we were out of it yet. We were cornered, and they were coming fast.
Scratch that – they were here.
