“It’s Next Door getting close,” Aubrey said. “I’ve felt something like this before. The riders are about to move into their new bodies.”
Something unreal moved past my legs. I felt its wake.
“I really want this over with,” I said.
By the time we got to the warehouse, I felt like the old high school science class movie of an ovum surrounded by a million flailing sperm. The air was full of unseen creatures bumping and pressing and shifting against me. There were so many, I stopped being able to tell one from another, my body just registering them as a constant, repulsive crawling. There was nothing in the early morning light to show that any of it was happening. If anything, the strangeness of the light made the world seem static, like we’d driven into a still frame from a movie. Aubrey dropped me by the train tracks. We didn’t speak, but as I lifted the rifle out of the back, his hand touched mine. The double sensation of real, human contact and the press of riders just outside reality moved me, and I was tempted to kiss him. He pulled back and I hefted the weapon, already loaded with its unpleasant black bullets. I made my way to the corner of the little building we’d picked, looking down on Google maps like God and angels. I leaned against the masonry block, the blue paint flaking away. The boxcars loomed to my left like great, blind, industrial cows. Nothing moved.
Fifty or sixty cars filled the parking lot, and three huge silver buses were parked against the side of the building. A chain-link fence surrounded the whole place. Two gates opened to the street-one wide enough for semis to negotiate with ease, one no wider than a door. The second was closer to me, chained shut. When I lifted the scope to my eye, I could read the numbers on the combination lock.
Aubrey’s minivan appeared on the street, coming down from the north, then passed out of sight, making its way toward his assassination post. I wouldn’t be able to see Aubrey or Ex and the windowless van from where I was. I sat crouched in the long, blue shadows of morning, my back against the wall, invisible creatures pressing against me.
“Hey,” Uncle Eric said. “You’ve got a call.”
I plucked the cell phone out of my pocket, cursing myself quietly for not putting the phone on vibrate, and let the barrel of the rifle lower toward the ground. The display only told me that it was a conference call. I picked up before Eric spoke again.
“Hey,” I said.
“Are you in place?” Ex asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Okay,” Aubrey said with a small, coughing sigh. There was a rustling on the line and something clanked. “I’m set.”
“Midian and I are heading in,” Chogyi said. “You’ll see us in just a moment.”
His voice was calm. Just hearing him sound like that loosened the knot in my belly a little bit. I almost smiled.
“Okay,” Ex said. “Focus on drawing Coin out. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be watching for the signal.”
“Good luck, everyone,” I said, then I dropped the call, put the cell phone back in my pocket, and knelt down, the rifle held between me and the wall. A flock of pigeons rose from the far side of the tracks, swinging wide around the green-gray warehouse and then away, as if they wanted nothing to do with any of us.
Ex’s car pulled up on the street, its engine unnaturally loud in the comparative silence. Chogyi Jake got out of the driver’s side. Midian emerged from the passenger’s, moving with the same awkwardness he always did. Chogyi Jake lifted a black nylon duffel bag out of the car’s diminutive trunk and unzipped it. Midian slouched to the smaller gate in the chain-link fence, then slowly, painfully knelt. I shifted my weight, the gravel crunching under me. Chogyi Jake pulled a blue silk robe from the bag, pulled it on over his clothes, then leaned down by Midian. I picked up the rifle. Through the scope, I could see the chalk in Chogyi Jake’s hand, the symbols taking shape all around Midian. The vampire’s eyes were closed, his hands open on his bent knees, his smile showing teeth black as fresh tar. Seeing them both in the crosshairs felt ominous, but I didn’t look away.
Chogyi took his place behind Midian, one hand on the ruined scalp, the other palm raised toward the new- risen sun. When the slow, strange call of his voice reached me, I caught my breath.
The song that rose from them was one of the strangest sounds I’d ever heard. Sorrowful and accusing, it most reminded me of an Islamic call to prayer. The invisible things pressing against me shivered, paused, and then went wild. Their frenzy made me grit my teeth. I could feel them over every inch of my skin, writhing and beating against me. Chogyi Jake’s call rose again, seeming to echo against itself, like someone singing a round, even though there was only one voice. Midian wasn’t smiling anymore. His ruined lips were moving, his head shaking back and forth, his eyes shut. Sweat was pouring down Chogyi Jake’s face and neck. I could see the rivulets glitter in the light.
The warehouse door opened with a scream of old hinges. I looked up. At this distance, the man who came out could have been anyone. I had expected him to walk unnaturally, pulled out to us like an unwilling marionette, but his steps were perfectly regular. Through the scope, I could see the dark slacks and simple white shirt below the inscribed face I had glimpsed when Ex brought me here before. Randolph Coin, or whatever had taken up residence under the dead man’s skin. I placed the rifle against my shoulder the way Ex had shown me and kept my eye on Coin as he crossed the wide parking lot, reached the chain-link fence, twirled the combination lock, and opened the small gate. Something shimmered as the gate opened. For a moment, I saw inhuman faces in the air.
Coin stepped out to the street. My heart was tripping over, wild as the riders that whirled in the still air. Coin’s face, caught in my crosshairs, filled me with a sense of dread and terrible, inhuman power. I heard the sound of gigantic wings again, and I didn’t know if it was my imagination or something more. My breath was fast and shallow.
This was it. This was the moment Eric had envisioned. This was why he’d been killed. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and lay my finger on the trigger. I centered the crosshairs on Coin’s chest. Chogyi Jake’s song faded to silence.
Coin’s lips were moving. I thought he said the words
Except I didn’t.
Two sharp cracks came from off to my right as Ex and Aubrey fired. I saw the blue-eyed woman at the apartment, Midian firing a round into the back of her head. My finger tensed, but I couldn’t pull it back. He’s not human, I told myself. He killed the only person who ever tried to take care of you. He’s evil. I heard myself grunt with effort. The rifle in my hands didn’t fire.
In the crosshairs, Randolph Coin looked up. I raised my head, taking in the scene without magnification. Chogyi Jake had stepped back toward the car, the blue robe fluttering in a wind I couldn’t feel. Midian was struggling to his feet.
Coin turned his head, looking down the street, then gestured with one hand like he was shooing away a fly. Two gray streaks left him, trails of smoke spiraling back along the paths of the bullets toward Ex and Aubrey. I must have shouted, because he looked toward me. When I put my eye to the scope again, his face was turned toward the little building that I was half hidden behind, his eyes shifting rapidly as he tried to find me. I centered the crosshairs on his forehead, but he lifted his palms. Eyes stared out from them-not tattoos but real, human eyes. I froze. He opened his mouth wider than I would have thought possible and shouted a single syllable.
I saw the wavefront come out from him in an expanding sphere of golden light. The concussion wasn’t physical, but it pushed me back all the same. I couldn’t breathe. The things pressing against me became visible for a moment, insectile and wild and nightmarish. I pulled the rifle back up, standing with it braced against my shoulder, but Coin had already stepped back through the gate. The fence was closed, and he was walking calmly back across the parking lot to the warehouse and his army. I fired now, three fast shots that did nothing but bruise my shoulder. Coin didn’t even look back. I dropped the rifle and ran.
Midian lay on his back on the sidewalk, his chest heaving as he sucked in breath. Chogyi Jake was in the street, his back against the front tires of Ex’s car and his eyes closed. I heard my own voice in a stream of words equal parts prayer and obscenity. I found myself kneeling in front of Chogyi Jake, his hand in mine. His skin felt cold, but his eyes opened and he smiled.
