Angel Fall (11 page)

The girl wailed,
“The music kills. Don’t listen to it.”

With mysterious slowness the creature drifted through the web toward him. As it drew nearer, the crimson moonlight shone through its body, and Alex saw that there was something inside…a soft, flickering glow. He cringed. Sweat poured down his face.

The girl screamed, “Get the torch. Burn it.”

Dropping his stick, Alex grabbed the torch. But as he did so, from behind him came a deep, rumbling growl. He spun around.

The dog.

But he almost didn’t recognize it. It was so much larger. Its teeth were bared—teeth like knives. And its eyes were burning. With a snarl it rushed at him, grabbed his jacket, and pulled him off his feet. He tried to get away; his jacket tore and he was loose. Struggling to get up, he heard the girl scream, “
Look out!
” The spider was dangling at the end of the tunnel. Alex grabbed the torch and was jabbing it at the spider, when a roar shook the mountain. He swung around. The dog had gone mad. Its jaws dripped with foam.

It roared again and moved toward him.

Alex lunged.

It attacked.

Razor teeth pierced Alex’s forearm and wouldn’t let go. He screamed, desperately beating its head with the torch. Finally he jerked free, but the creature came at him again. With all his strength, Alex burned it and bashed it, slowly forcing it to the edge of the chasm. Then with one fiery, screaming lunge Alex pushed the beast into the void.

“Look out!”

He turned.

The spider was above him.

Delicate crystal legs were reaching…groping the air. In a last desperate move Alex flung the torch at it. The instant the fire touched the web, the strands exploded. With a howling roar the blaze leaped through the gorge and raced across the mountain, consuming the web in an inferno. And as each strand burned and broke, it combined with millions of others in a hideous discord, as though all the strings on every harp in the universe were breaking. Most terrifying of all was what the flames did to the crystal spider; the creature didn’t writhe, it didn’t even move. It simply hung, trembling, as its legs melted. Then came the wonder.

Suddenly the glow inside the transparent body burned with a shimmering brightness. And in that brightness…a
face
appeared. A woman’s face of ethereal beauty filled with overwhelming sorrow. Alex looked into soft eyes that had never held the slightest hate.
And those eyes looked at him
. From out of her agony a sweet voice began to sing.

As the creature’s body melted and the web gave way, for one moment the lovely face hung above the chasm. Then with a wordless whisper it dropped into the gorge. But at the very instant of dying, the light, which was her soul, flashed upward, carried away like a spark on a mighty wind.

Alex saw…and she was gone.

F
ar away, in a room on an island of mist, an old woman stood trembling. Her eyes filled with tears. She was looking up at a picture frame that hung with six others; its glass flowed with crimson, and it echoed with the last notes of a harp.

“Farewell, Weaver,” Bellwind whispered. “You were the most beautiful of us all. What a price you paid to hold him in. But now the Destroyer has come. Farewell, Faylin…my little sister…until the Mountain calls.”

A
freezing wind blew through the empty gorge, but Alex didn’t feel it. He clung to the rock wall, shaking, gripping the stone so hard that his fingers turned white. The face, the web, the music, all were gone, leaving only a fading sweetness in the air. He couldn’t understand what had just happened. The face of a beautiful woman inside a spider? It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be real. But the memory of her overwhelmed him. It was the most beautiful, gentle face he had ever seen, and as she died she had looked at him—a single piercing gaze filled with
love
.

Love for the one who was killing her.

All of his life Alex had dreamed of being a hero. In his dream he had seen his face in the posters that hung on his bedroom walls. The blazing rock stars and sports stars. The superheroes. Nothing could touch them because they were like gods. And someday he would be a hero too. All he needed was a chance. As he had waited for it, he had dream-lived it. Dream-lived it through his anger and loneliness, dream-lived it through the nightmare of his parents’ divorce, dream-lived it through all the tears and screaming rage. In his mind he was the hero who kept his family together, who protected his sisters, who carried the hurt of his parents’ selfishness, who wasn’t like his father—that
scum
who had run away.

But in a single look the dream had shattered. A hero? He had burned to death the most beautiful gentle creature he had ever seen. And a voice whispered that he had been warned. She had played the harp for him, filled the air with the music of Heaven. When he wouldn’t listen, the dog had tried to stop him, but he had killed it too.

In the eyes of the woman he saw himself for what he really was. A hero to his family? He had despised them all. Amanda and Tori he had teased and mocked for no other reason than it brought him pleasure. And his mother—he had hated her for the weakness that made her wallow and sob. To the people who loved him most he had been like a murderer. The dream was gone, burned with the body of the crystal spider. But if he couldn’t be a hero, who would he be at all? Better to stop living.

Alex inched out onto the ledge. As he gripped the rocks, he stared into the chasm.

So easy to let go…

So easy to make the pain end forever.

But just as he was about to do it, he turned his head and saw her—the girl standing in the moonlight with her black hair swirling in the wind.

“You saved my life. You’re
very
brave.”

Brave? Is that what she’d said?

“It tried to kill me. Did you see its ugly face?”

Slowly his mind took hold of the words.
Yes, he had seen it and it was ugly. What had he been thinking?

“I’ve watched it eat people—tear them to pieces and suck their blood. I was so scared. A lot of men have tried to kill it, but the music fooled them. It made them see things that weren’t there. But it couldn’t fool you. You were too smart.”

The music. That was it. The music had tricked him. It was like a drug. There was no beautiful face. And the whispering in his mind—it was just a lying echo trying to make him kill himself.

“I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t saved me. You’re such a hero.”

Instantly Alex’s world stopped crumbling, and all the shattered pieces fell back into place. She had said it. He really was a hero after all, and the truth was all that mattered. He was so relieved that he almost sobbed.

“What’s the matter? Are you all right?” The girl moved a step closer to the gorge.

“I’m…I’m fine.” He hoped she didn’t hear the quiver in his voice.

“It’s freezing out here. Come on inside and get warm.”

“Inside?”

“The cathedral. It’s where I live.”

“You
live in there?
”

“I know it looks a little strange, but it’s okay.” She sensed his hesitation. “You aren’t afraid, are you?”

“No.” The question aggravated him. Hadn’t he just killed a monster?

“Do you need help getting across?”

“I think I can handle it.”

The girl laughed. It wasn’t a friendly sound. “Well, what are you waiting for? Come on.”

Fighting his irritation, Alex began creeping across the ledge. Instantly he felt a stab of pain.
His arm—the dog had bitten it
. He’d been so caught up in the battle with the spider (yes, that’s the way he was remembering it now) that he’d barely noticed the wound. His forearm was slashed to the bone. Not much bleeding…which wasn’t good. Slowly the stabbing pain gave way to a throb. He was losing strength in his left hand.

“The dog bit you. Is it bad?”

“It’s pretty deep and it may have been rabid.”

“There’s help inside.” She hurried toward the building.

Alex crept forward. Soon he almost forgot the ache in his arm because every inch took him closer to the most awful monstrosity that he had ever seen. When he reached the other side, all he could do was stare at it in shock. The thing that she had called a “cathedral” lay like a gash on the face of the mountain. The web had masked its true ugliness and squalor. Now all the chaos was visible in every writhing detail. Hundreds of broken towers jutted toward the sky. Grimy spires and pinnacles crowded in senseless profusion. Tortured walls coated with filth twisted and turned, mile after mile across a wide rock ledge.

Was it really a cathedral?

Just looking at it, Alex felt a crushing weight of misery and madness. Out of it seemed to rise a miasma of agony, as though all the groaning prayers and grinding penance of endless centuries had congealed into a haze of silent screams. Far away he could just make out the tallest pinnacle of all. It rose like a bloody needle above a gigantic vaulted chamber. In front of it, spilling down the face of the mountain were thousands of broken steps that ended in a moonlit gorge. Long ago, people must have climbed those steps. But why? Why would anyone want to come to such a place of terror? As his eyes traced the insane heap, suddenly he was overwhelmed with such despair that it felt as though his life were being sucked into a sewer. His gaze shifted to a wall a few feet away. It was covered with deep-carved eyes. The heaviest cluster was around a massive door banded with iron. In front of it, at the top of a crumbling staircase, waited the girl. And she was
smiling
.

“Come in and we’ll take care of you.” She reached for a handle.

“You said you were locked out.”

With a soft laugh she opened the door…and vanished inside.

So she was lying.

Slowly Alex walked to the steps and looked up. Though the eyes in the wall weren’t real, they seemed to glare at him with revulsion as though he were a rodent that had crawled out of a hole. More than anything he didn’t want to climb those stairs and go through that door. Something told him to run and never look back. But in his misery he knew that he couldn’t do that either. If he ran, where would he go? Back out to freeze on the mountain? To die of an infected wound? He told himself that he was an idiot. Okay, she had lied about being locked out, but the spider really was going to kill her. And this old building where she lived, maybe the people who built it thought stomach-churning ugliness was pretty. And who was he to say they were wrong? There was no such thing as “wrong.” Just different. He’d learned that in school.

Forget the building.

Think of the people.

Hadn’t he come all this way to find other people? Well, he had found them. Inside was a beautiful girl who thought he was a hero. And he needed help. His arm was throbbing. So why was he standing out here in the cold?

But try as he might, Alex couldn’t bring himself to walk up those steps. Each time he lifted a foot, a horrible pain shot through his arm. As he stood unable to move, he suddenly heard a sound that made him forget the terrors of the cathedral. From behind him came the same haunting moan that had echoed across the mountain. But now it was much closer. Slowly it rose into an agonized wail. Alex turned…and stared.

Something was coming up out of the gorge…

Above the chasm hung the shadow of a dog.

And it was growing.

The beast had come back from the dead to attack him, to tear him to pieces for what he had done. Around him echoed a cry of heartbroken sorrow. But all Alex heard was a roar.

He ran up the stairs…pulled the door open…and stumbled inside.

With a thundering crash the huge door slammed shut behind him.

Panting…shaking…he tried to catch his breath. Instantly he felt like a jackass. What was wrong with him? There was no ghost dog out there. The thing was dead, lying in a bloody heap at the bottom of the mountain. The shadow was only a mist in the moonlight. And the moan—just the whistling of the wind. He hoped the girl hadn’t seen him.

As Alex cursed himself, he slowly became aware of his surroundings. He was standing in an oily darkness, the air damp and warm and filled with a cloying stench like the reek of a filthy toilet. A large chamber surrounded him, lit only by a shaft of moonlight. And it was hot.
Really
hot. Sweat began trickling down his face. Peeling off his jacket, he almost screamed—his arm felt like it was about to drop off. Where was the girl? He needed medicine and a bandage. Carefully he wrapped the jacket around the wound.

As the pain subsided, he heard dripping…a slow, thick plop like gravy into a bowl. A few feet away stood an ancient fountain in the shape of a tree with branches like hands with long drooping fingers. They were covered with softness like furry gray-velvet skin. He realized that the softness was everywhere. Walking over, he touched it…and drew back in disgust. It was mold. Like on old food in a refrigerator. And it was so thick that it must have been growing for a thousand years. The fountain was full of it. A pool of furry slime rippled with each drip. His stomach gave a queasy lurch. What a hideous place to live. He was turning to search for the girl, when he saw a broken reflection in the ooze.

He looked up.

In the ceiling hung a stained-glass window, a tapestry of red and purple moonlight, and embedded in it was a figure cut from jagged crystal, a man with black hair and a long robe. His ghostly face was so utterly cold and his squinting eyes so real that they made Alex shudder. Where had he seen that face?

The plane!

It looked exactly like the man who had been with the woman and the baby on the plane. And just like on the plane, the man was glaring at him with such hate that it felt like any second he would crash down from the glass.

Then the figure moved. The arm shifted an inch. He was sure of it.

And that was it! Even the freezing wind and the ghost dog would be better than this. Rushing to the door, he tried to pull it open, but it wouldn’t budge. He pulled harder. Was it jammed? Suddenly fear prickled the back of his neck.
It wasn’t jammed. It was locked
. At that moment the girl’s soft voice called to him.

“What’re you doing?”

He spun around. Across the chamber a flicker of candlelight came through an open doorway. But the girl wasn’t there.

“Unlock this thing, I want out.”

Soft laughter. “You can’t go out that way. That door’s only for coming
in
.”

“Open the frigging door right now.”

Another soft laugh. The candlelight began to fade as though she were walking away.

“Hey, come back here. Where are you going?” As he ran across the room, he was so enraged that he never saw the change in the window above. The image of the man had vanished. All that remained was a silhouette in empty glass.

Rushing into the next room, Alex was ready to let loose with a string of profanity, but he never got the chance because the candlelight was gone. In a split second all his fury drained. She was playing a game with him. A stupid
game
. Why would she do that? She knew he was wounded and needed help. Now she was screwing with him.

Suddenly he hated her. She was just like everybody else. If she was trying to freak him out it wasn’t going to work. So the dirty, ungrateful little witch wanted to play games. He’d show her. He’d find her wherever she was. And when he did…

Alex scanned the room. It was like the hall of an old castle. Red moonlight flooded through a hole in the ceiling. By the dim glow he could just make out the walls. They were covered with hundreds of paintings. It was some kind of gallery, and the paintings were portraits. Alex didn’t know anything about art, but he didn’t need to. Even in the moonlight he could tell that they were the work of a great master. Each was lifelike to the smallest detail. Especially the eyes.

And as he stared at them, a strange realization came over him. All the portraits were of children—every single one. And they seemed to look back at him with anguish and pleading. It was eerie, almost as though they were watching him, following his every move. Suddenly finding the girl didn’t matter. He had to get out of this awful place. And if the only way out was through the locked door he would break it down.

Alex was about to run from the room when the dim candlelight flickered through another doorway at the end of the hall. With it came whispering and laughter. “You’re so slow. What kind of a world do you come from? It must be full of turtles.”

It was then that he knew the truth: he was caught like a rat. She had lured him here, and now she was playing with him. Terrified, he turned and tried to run back into the room with the fountain, but instead, he crashed into a wall of paintings. The door he had just come through wasn’t there anymore.

Another trick.

Feverishly Alex shoved the paintings aside and groped in the mold. It had to be there, but he couldn’t find it. Swearing, he pounded on the wall, and once more, the soft laugh whispered around him. He had to play the game. There was no other choice. The only way out of the gallery was to follow the candle. And the glimmer was fading.

As the shadows merged into darkness, a terrible thirst swept into him. And it wasn’t a thirst for water. It was a thirst for light. Suddenly nothing mattered but light. To be without light was to shrivel and die. As the flicker disappeared, the thirst took control, and all he could do was run after it.