Graveyard Shift (22 page)

T
hey came in all shapes and sizes, from every unlit corner, spilling from the fireplace's gaping mouth, from cracks in the great stone walls. In the stained-glass windows the creatures portrayed in battle scenes came slowly alive, escaped their prison, and came flopping down to the floor.

Another door opened in another corner of the room. There was no welcoming light inside this one, though, only a pitch-black nothingness. A procession of Deathhead agents stormed out.

And worse: the Mawbreed, an entire nest of them, oozing through gashes in the stone floor and walls, sitting up out of the shadows. I hadn't forgotten how hideous they were. Their coiled, wormlike bodies were semitransparent, with pale fluids pulsing under the skin. Their limbs, with their bristling
suckers, reached far and wide. The ravenous mouths they had for heads craned above them, tasting the air.

In no time the room was alive with them, demons of every description. I couldn't see the elders in the portraits anymore — they must've gone into hiding. If they had, I couldn't blame them.

A siren sounded, loud enough to shake the building's foundations. Clouds of plaster dust fell from the ceiling. Sounds of stampeding footsteps and discharging weapons echoed from the hallway.

I looked at Mr. October in distress. “This is on me, isn't it? I'm to blame for all this.”

“What's done is done. Now that they're here, we'll have to deal with them the best way we can. Run me an errand, Ben — go and check the receipts room. This shouldn't be happening if Sukie has filed your father's card. The numbers may still be out of alignment.”

I faltered, keeping an eye on a Mawbreed that had drawn too close for comfort.

“You're trying to protect me, aren't you? You're sending me out to keep me away from this.”

“I
need
you to go. The name is high priority and must be filed by someone who knows what they're doing.”

We retreated a few paces, keeping distance between us and the Mawbreed's suckered hands. Mr. October twitched his walking stick toward it, uttering something inaudible under his breath. The Mawbreed drew back.

“Go now,” he said as a team of Vigilants crashed into the room from behind us. “Take care as you do, though. They may be everywhere. Remember what you've learned, Ben. Remember what you can do.”

“Mum's still in the building. . . .” The full horror of that thought hadn't hit me until then. “If they're everywhere, what about her?”

“She's in the only safe place. You haven't been in the waiting room before, have you? The elevator music they play there is written in ancientspeak, with ancientspeak lyrics. They couldn't go in there even if they dared. Now will you please get along and do as I say?”

As I started away, a creature from one of the windows came scampering across the floor, silent and stealthy as a cat, with eyes and mouths surfacing all over its shiny black body. A half-dozen Vigilants closed around it, cutting it off from Mr. October.

At the same time, a sucker-covered arm flashed down from the darkness near the chandelier, looping around one guard's neck and hauling him screaming up to the ceiling.

His screams followed me from the room. The last thing I saw before stepping outside was Mr. October unleashing a fireball with a flick of his wrist. It detonated in front of the fireplace, trapping three invaders inside it, turning them into thrashing masses of flame.

The hostilities weren't confined to the conference room. Out in the hallway, a dozen Vigilants were caught in a free-
for-all with twice as many Shifters. The plasma weapons seemed to have little or no effect on the intruders. One lizardlike demon took a hit to the neck that spun it around, dazing it only briefly before it came again, leaping through the air and changing in midflight to a jellyish form that fastened itself over the head and shoulders of the guard who'd fired.

Other guards and demons were locked in hand-to-hand combat — in some cases hand-to-claw or hand-to-tentacle combat. I threaded my way among them, past a Vigilant with an axe in his hands. He lifted it high above his head and brought it down on a Shifter, which turned itself into an eel the instant before the blade fell. Then there were two eels, sliding away in opposite directions, one growing a new tail, the other a new head. One snapped its jaws at my ankle as I darted past the dispatch room.

The receipts office door stood open just ahead. This far down the corridor was clear of fighting, but new shadows were shifting and crawling all through it. Whatever was inside them would soon come out. I had no time to lose.

The first thing I saw in receipts was Sukie, passed out in the chair, bent forward over the desk. Her head rested on the typewriter and she held a freshly typed card between her fingers. She was breathing but clearly out of commission. It only took me a second to work out why.

To the left, inside the door, a demon was standing over the telegraph — one of the Deathheads. It didn't see me at first but watched the machine as the latest list chugged out. They'd
lost control of one soul tonight, and the demon was here to steal many more in return.

It seemed to sense me then and turned its head, narrowing its empty eye sockets into slits. The lipless mouth leered. I couldn't be sure if it was the one from the old Willow house or another just like it, but its decaying gray hands were fully formed and long-fingered.

“You,” it said.

Without a thought I flung myself at it, hitting the creature full-on with my shoulder. It spun away and landed neatly on its feet, flashing out a hand that caught me squarely in the chest.

It was like being hit by a bus. The pain didn't even register until I'd flown back across the room, smashing into a bookshelf against the far wall. I slumped to the floor in a rain of books. A screaming pain drilled through my upper body. And now the Deathhead turned from the telegraph, crossing the room with a single leap to stand above me.

“We'll finish what we began,” it said. “I'll be a cause of celebration in my domain when I take back your precious soul.”

But only the Mawbreed could take living souls, I remembered. This one would have to kill me first.

I sucked in air, fighting an urge to close my eyes as the demon bowed over me. I mustn't look away. I had to think clearly.

Use the gift,
I thought.

Your God-given talent,
Mum's voice echoed through my head.

Your developing skills,
echoed Mr. October.
Remember what you can do.

The demon craned lower and nearer until I felt its foul grave-breath on my face. I'd remember this in my dreams, I thought, if I lived to dream again.

“Now then,” it whispered, prodding my chest. A set of needling claws sprouted from its slimy fingertips. “One small incision here, another larger one there . . . Your measly body's no use to us, but your life force is a topic of heated debate where I come from. You're leaving here with me.”

It wasn't until then that I saw it, that I knew what to do. The gift wasn't something you thought about; in fact, the harder you thought about it, the harder it was to pull off.

I wish I could do what you do.
Becky's words floated back to me from that first time, our first walk home from school.
Picture it in my head and put it down on the page as I see it
. . . .

That was the key. I'd always had it, one way or another. I'd had it, but I just hadn't known what to do with it till now.

All I really had to do was picture it. It was almost like drawing from memory.

The demon felt it. It seemed to sense what I had in mind. It lurched backward, opening its mouth wide and screeching as I got to my knees. Smoke rose gray and thick from the collar of its black suit. Its body began to quiver.

I pictured it now, seeing it clearly, holding it steady in my mind. Sometimes the sketches didn't work out as intended. Sometimes, as with the fire children, they were almost exact. What I was imagining now was happening right there in front of me. A rattle escaped the Deathhead's throat as its bony head began to melt.

Now I was on my feet again. The demon reeled away, thumping against a wall, both hands at its own throat. It stumbled past the telegraph machine, looking for an escape. But there was no escape for it now — only an exit.

What features the demon had ever had were now so blackened and warped out of shape that I didn't recognize it. I waited, but only a heartbeat, until it plodded another step farther into the corridor. It stood there, rocking on its feet, wailing from what was left of its throat.

“See you in the great beyond,” it gargled.

“That's right. Take this back to your leader.”

And with that, the sketch was complete.

The demon exploded in a great whoosh of dark red matter, a million tiny fragments of it blasting in every direction. A spray of heat and smoldering debris filled the space outside the door, then gradually dispersed until there was nothing left but red mist.

The siren was still screaming. I leaned across the desk.

“Sukie?” I said.

She looked lost in sleep, but managed a very slight nod.

“Nnn . . . be OK . . .” Her hand twitched the typed card toward me. “Take this. . . .”

I certainly hoped she'd be OK. The priority now, though, was the records office. The hostilities wouldn't begin to die down until I'd been there.

As I took the card from Sukie's hand, the telegraph stopped and settled, the new list protruding from its front. I couldn't leave the list out in the open. Others might come to steal it. It wouldn't be good to pocket it, either, in case anything happened to me.

I took it and hid it between two thick volumes on the shelf above the desk.

“Sukie,” I said. “If you can hear me, the new list is between volumes one and two of the
Apocalypti Phrase Book, Unexpurgated Edition
, OK?”

“Nnn.”

She nodded. She was coming around, but I couldn't stay. The fighting was still going on in the hallway and the Shifters seemed to have the upper hand. Two of them were arguing over a Vigilant's corpse as they both tried to extract its soul at once. Another guard was taking a beating from a creature that looked half man, half octopus. All eight of its hands were at his neck, and it threw him back so forcefully that his body left an imprint on the wall.

The records office was in turmoil too. The enemy had found a way in. Demons in shadow form soared about the airy white space, attacking drones on their rolling ladders, breaking open filing cabinets with pincer-shaped hands.

I saw a worker up in the heights seized and thrown aside like a rag doll before plunging fifteen floors, about two hun
dred feet, hitting the marble floor not far from me with a bang and a spray of red. Another was dead before he hit the ground, torn apart in midair by the intruders. His body came down in three separate pieces.

Meanwhile, the guardians of the records, the bats from the rafters, were defending their space. They dive-bombed the demons in packs of twenty or more, snapping and lashing with silver-needle teeth and claws. In every quarter of the vast room, airborne fights to the death were in full swing.

One misplaced name, one theft, had caused all this. I'd never be able to look anyone here in the eye again. And after what I'd done — I supposed everyone knew by now — the last person I needed to see was Miss Webster.

But that's who I was running to. Her little booth seemed impossibly distant, nothing but a soft smudge on the horizon. Crossing the floor toward it, I caught sight of a many-armed shape rushing down at me. The bats were on it in a split second, a small army of them tearing it to shreds. The shadow petered out like a snuffled flame and frittered away like dust.

“I hope you're very pleased with yourself,” Miss Webster said sourly. There was so much spider activity about her head, her perm seemed to be moving by itself. “But there's nothing I can do, thanks to you. Can't you see all our staff are occupied? Your card will have to wait.”

“It can't,” I said. “The numbers — the numbers are out of alignment.”

“Of course they are. I'm not a fool. And whose fault is that
anyway?” She scowled across the room as another employee fell many floors screaming. Then she turned the scowl on me. “We can't process anything with all this disruption.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't think —”

“That's correct, you didn't think. You'd better give me the card anyway. I'll hold on to it until someone is free.”

“No,” I said bluntly.

“What did you say? Give it here,” Miss Webster said, brushing a cobweb from the tip of her nose.

“I'll file it myself. That's what I'll do.”

“Don't be an imbecile. Look around you. This is unprecedented, unheard of. You're not even qualified.”

But it was the only way. Balance the books and contain the incursion. I started from the booth, turning to ask one last question.

“Miss Webster, where are the
H
s? This has to be filed under
Harvester
.”

She clucked her tongue and sighed dramatically. “If you had any sense, which you clearly haven't, you'd do well to wait. But if you must —” She broke off to check her ledger. “You'll find them on levels 53 and 54.”

I hurried to the steps that spiraled up to level 1, daunted but knowing I had no other option. As I started up the staircase, a formation of bats clouded around me, circling my shoulders and head. At close range, their beady eyes and pink-fanged mouths were worrying, and at first I thought they'd come to attack — that they'd mistaken me for an intruder, or maybe they were demons in disguise.

But they had other ideas. They hovered there, waiting for my next move. They knew what I was carrying and what it meant. They'd come to escort me all the way.