The bishop didn’t scream. He snarled with fury and twisted around in that death grip.
“In the name of Christ!” he roared into those dead, red eyes, into those greasy, slick fangs, and he shoved the cross into that peeling face…
And it
And from where came that impossibly bright light arcing from where the cross smote the flesh?
The ghoul howled with pain and thrashed its burly head and tried to duck back from that acetylene cross.
But it would not let go of the bishop.
Instead, it squeezed. Spasmodically, monstrously, it clamped tighter its beast arms and the bishop wailed as his insides were vised together but he never let go of the cross, never stopped jamming it into the burning face, never stopped cleansing him.
Even as he died.
“No!” shouted Kirk, aghast, leaping forward. “Let him go, you filthy…”
“Kirk!” cried Felix. “No! It’s too late to—”
But the deputy didn’t listen. He took one more quick stride. Then two. And he was within a yard of the death grip when the ghoul, still in agony from the dead bishop’s cross, had finally had enough. It jerked backward and threw the bishop’s limp form away, his arms as thick as branches flying outward from his body and his right forearm bashed full on into the deputy’s forehead…
And crushed his skull…
And snapped his neck…
And Kirk turned and looked with astonishment at Felix and then the gunman saw/felt the light go out behind the eyes.
And his strong young body slumped lifeless to the floor.
Felix was still staring, wide-mouthed and unbelieving, at his dead comrade when something crashed hissing and snapping into him from the blind side. They went careening over sideways into a side table and Felix heard the table legs splinter and crack and he ended up propped against the tilted tabletop but these were only minor distant details beside the spitting decay smell of the ghoul grabbing and hissing at him and Felix managed to twist about and jam his left hand into the throat under those snapping jaws and then he was eye to bloody eye with the monster and…
Those eyes burned red and primal and they wanted him. Those slick gooey fangs snapped for him. And he began to lose his grip as the gray skin at the zombie’s throat slid away under his fingers and the hissing increased and the monster had him by both sides of the head and it leaned hard down to reach him, his throat or his cheek or his eyes and the pupils were almost sideways with some impossible glint.
Supernatural, Jack Crow had told him.
And the gunman wrenched his pistol under the monster’s chin and emptied it.
BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM
The monster warped and howled with each impact, spitting black decay and pain, but it still held him and those claws on either side of his head jerked with his pain and cracked the gunman’s head like a thunderclap against the tabletop and Felix… lost it.
The concussion, the impact… Am I dead? he wondered, as all became fuzzy and indistinct and the shattering sounds and shrieks of battle faded down.
Or just dying? Or knocked out or…
The black man lay a few feet from him, twitching and shivering. Not dead, but not coming.
And the vaguely conscious part of Felix thought this was very good.
And then he thought he should maybe find his gun and:
Here it is, in my hand.
And then he reached around and got a new clip-he knew how to do that. He knew how to change clips and he did and then he held the newly loaded gun in his lap and felt very proud and he felt the blood from his head injury flowing down his neck and he saw the other monsters had come to also, understood that they had been only temporarily stunned by the silver bullets.
And by God’s House.
The bishop is dead, thought Felix.
Kirk Thompson is dead too, he thought next.
Soon I will die, too, won’t I?
But I still have my gun and what I will do is: I will shoot them when they come near me and it will not stop them but it will hurt them and that is better than nothing and…
And so he lay there, stunned, against the overturned table, and watched them come for him.
And saw Jack Crow save what was left.
He saw it from a long way off, it seemed, as though Jack and the monsters and even the rest of the building, were far, far away. But he still saw it. And what he saw, even from the end of his conked tunnel, was amazing. Jack Crow did things Felix couldn’t imagine being done. He did things no one else but Jack Crow, Crusader, by God, Jack Crow, could have done.
He was everywhere at once. And had to be. The other goons had arisen at the same time as the black man at Felix’s feet, and though they were slow and ponderous and unthinking, there were too many of them. And they were so hungry, reaching for him, lunging at him, grisly fingers grasping and clawing and — And Jack Crow bashed ’em back. He emptied his crossbow and emptied his pistol and grabbed up a handful of pikes and laid into them. He bashed them, he spitted them, be carved them with splintered ends. There was no one else:
Adam guarded the women in the entry hail. Cat was out bringing up the Blazer. Felix lay almost comatose against the shattered table. For the next few crucial minutes there would be no one else to hold them off but Jack alone.
And Jack didn’t seem to give a shit. He went after them with a ferocity that Felix, even stunned as be was, could hardly believe. It was like some sort of grotesque juggling act. Jack would slam two of them down somehow, but by that time two more would have arisen again, spitting and hissing and reaching for him. And he would slam them down again, spear them with the pikes or shoot them through their faces or once, just flat bust them in the mouth with his fist.
He’s incredible, thought Felix. He’s bigger than life.
And then he thought: I’ve got to get up! I’ve got to
But then Jack was there, beside him, speaking softly but quickly: “C’mon, buddy. We’ve gotta move. C’mon!”
And then be turned and kicked the black man full in the face, the one with nine silver bullets in him, who had only now started to rise again.
“C’mon, Gunman,” said Jack, lifting him with surprising gentleness, to his feet.
Pain seared through Felix’s skull when his head came loose from the table and he saw Jack wince in sympathy but they didn’t stop, they got Felix up and they got him moving and the pain began to clear his head and then they were in the entry hail and the women were there, Annabelle and Davette, huddled together against a wall and dammit if Annabelle didn’t manage a smile for them.
And then Jack and Adam were closing the huge sliding oak doors to the living room and dragging some antique side table across the marble to barricade it. The other doors were already closed with other furniture stacked against them. Only the massive front door, standing open to the returning rain, was free.
“Your head,” said a small voice.
Felix turned and saw Davette, her hand frozen in midair where she had started to reach for his wound.
“I’m all right,” Felix managed to say.
And she nodded vaguely and stepped back to Annabelle and Felix thought: Move, Felix! Wake
And he shook his head for more pain and gritted his teeth and looked down at the Browning still in his hand and…
And it helped. Some.
