the whole magazine into the thing. If nineteen bullets weren’t enough to stop the thing, then there wouldn’t be much else that he could do except to say a quick prayer and run like hell for the staircase behind him.
The Nightshade still hadn’t moved. If it was going to wake up, it already would have already done so, he told himself.
Steadying his aim, Jake crouched slightly lower in his stance and locked his arms in their current position. He drew in a deep breath and slowly began letting it out, squeezing the trigger as he did so, the motion one long steady pull just the way he’d been taught at the range, his eyes never leaving the target.
The creature opened its eyes and looked at him in the same instant that the gun fired.
The Nightshade took the shot high in the space between its shoulder and its neck, snapping its head back with an audible crack. As force of the shot slammed its body against the wall, its feet suddenly losing their grasp on the crossbeam overhead, causing it to drop to the floor.
Jake adjusted his stance, sighted, and fired again before the sound of the first shot stopped echoing around the small room, putting the second bullet cleanly into the side of the beast’s head. The passing slug tore a hole through the creature, taking a large chunk of skull with it as it tore its way back out, spraying the wall and floor with a grisly mixture of blood and bone.
Silence filled the room as the echo of the two gunshots faded away.
Jake held his ground, waiting for the beast to move.
It’s dead, it has to be. Nothing can take that kind of damage and survive, he thought to himself. Even so, he held his ground, his breath frozen in hopeful anticipation, the adrenaline surging through his body like a raging river.
The minutes slipped away.
Neither he nor the beast moved.
Jake waited a full five minutes before lowering his arms, his muscles shaking with the sudden release of tension and the overload of adrenaline in his system. It seemed he suddenly remembered to breathe again, and the air came rushing into his lungs.
Relief flooded his system.
Then the sudden rasp of a claw on stone sent his heart slamming into overdrive.
The Nightshade was moving!
The beast had pushed upwards on its arms while at the same time drawing its feet underneath itself for support, forcing its body up into a crouch, its claws scraping the floor as its limbs fought to obey the commands its damaged brain was sending out to them. Yet that wasn’t what made Jake stare in dumb amazement; it was something far worse.
The Nightshade’s skull was slowly beginning to heal right before his eyes.
The bullet had left an exit wound the size of a grapefruit, as he knew it would. The edges of this cavity were slowly drawing themselves together now, new flesh and bone flowing out of the skull like clay, matting itself to the other sides and knitting them together. In a matter of moments there would be no evidence that the wound had ever existed.
And then the beast opened his eyes.
In the space of a second, Jake realized two things with cold hard certainty.
The first was that the creature was laughing at him.
The second was that he was about to die.
It was a testament to his stubborn pride that the second fact unfroze him from his pose of immobility and got him moving again, his right arm swinging back up, his finger tightening on the trigger even before the gun was in line with its target.
Unfortunately, this time the Nightshade was faster.
Jake managed to get off one shot, the slug slamming into the creature somewhere between its left shoulder and ribcage. Then the beast’s clawed hand smashed into Jake’s own, leaving bloody furrows down the length of his forearm and knocking the gun from fingers that had suddenly gone numb from shock and pain. Without any hesitation, the same arm that had struck him seconds before came back around in the opposite direction, this time striking the side of his head with the back of its hand, the blow hard enough and strong enough to knock Jake clear off his feet and halfway across the room.
The Nightshade moved closer, and suddenly it did laugh, the sound striking Jake like ice pouring into his veins, the hair on the back of his neck rising in response.
The laugh was low and chilling, and utterly inhuman.
Unless he did something, and did it quickly, Jake knew he was going to die.
He could clearly see that his left leg was bent at an unnatural angle just below his knee. Moving caused white-hot pain to flare in his leg and he had to clamp down his teeth to keep from screaming aloud.
The creature was halfway across the room now, no more than ten feet away. Its arms were outstretched, its hands, if you could call them that, clenching and unclenching in what Jake imagined anticipation of sinking those great claws into his unprotected flesh. As it approached the Nightshade unfurled its wings like a cobra spreading its hood. Their length cast him in shadow as they blocked out some of the light from the lantern on the other side of the room, the sound of their movement like the rustling of reeds in the gentle spring breeze by the riverside.
The sound was anything but reassuring.
Knowing that he had only seconds before the beast was upon him, Jake gritted his teeth against the pain he was feeling and tried to gather his good leg underneath him, using the wall against his back to support his weight as he pushed himself into a semi-standing position.
By the time he managed to accomplish that, the beast stood before him.
Jake stared into the creature’s inhuman eyes and fear washed over him in a wave.
But the stubborn side of him, the one that forced him to try to shoot the beast even after he’d seen it heal itself, that side again rose and coaxed his courage back out of hiding.
If he was going to die, at least he would do it on his feet, facing whatever was to come. His left hand tightened into a fist at his side, a meager defense considering what he was facing, but reassuring in its own, simple way.
All right, you bastard, he thought fiercely, let’s see what you’ve got.
As if in answer, Moloch reached out swiftly and grasped both of Jake’s shoulders in his iron grip. He dragged Jake closer, a hideous smile splitting his mouth open to reveal the double-rows of needle-sharp teeth that lined his jaws.
The pain from the motion of his broken leg was too much for Jake.
Darkness closed in around him.
Out of that darkness came a voice, a voice full of menace and hatred, a voice that scurried up his spine with millions of tiny, ice-cold feet to reverberate against the walls of his skull with enough intensity to cause physical pain. It was a voice that was felt, not heard, directly inside his mind.
'You are cattle,' said the beast, with the confidence of a predator trying to explain to dull-witted prey. 'You have always been cattle. That is your rightful place. Watch!'
Suddenly the darkness was swept aside, to be replaced by visions of violence and gore, of a land and a time long since forgotten and passed behind. Jake’s senses were overwhelmed by the blood and sudden violence, by the smells and sensations that came through the tide of the Nightshade’s memory. They were so real, so vivid; a drama of such scope that he was not only an observer but also a participant, locked within the creature’s mind.
As he hung there, desperately trying to fathom a way out of his predicament, the beast’s voice echoed inside his mind.
'Cattle! If it were not for the meddling of the Elders, things would not have changed; the balance would not have been disrupted. Now you can find no solace amongst them. This time, things will return to the way they were supposed to be.' His tone turned to one of grim satisfaction. 'Cattle you were, and cattle you shall become again.
'There are none left to oppose me!'
Moloch leaned forward, his mouth opening wide to reveal those rows of gleaming teeth. A forked tongue flicked out to dart here and there about Jake’s face, leaving trails of glistening mucous where it came in contact with his flesh.
Moloch’s vile laugh filled the tiny room.
