Shimmer: A Novel (42 page)

Chief Grainger had climbed out of the plywood debris of the oil paintings kiosk, bruised and battered but unbroken. Though he’d lost the golf club, one of the mall patrons handed him a crowbar no doubt recently acquired from the hardware department of one of the department store anchors. When Grainger witnessed Gideon sever one of the demon’s horns, he guessed the rest of the plan and rushed forward gamely, on stiff legs, crowbar held high.

Grainger landed a solid blow against the base of the remaining horn, but the weapon inflicted considerably less damage than Gideon’s off-world sword had. Worse, the demon’s proto-flesh abdomen produced a tentacle that wrapped around Grainger’s forearms and began to crush the bones. Grimacing in pain, he dropped to his knees. The crowbar fell from his numb fingers and clanged against the tiles.

A moment before Grainger’s bones would have succumbed to the increasing pressure, Gideon’s sword sliced through the proto-flesh tentacle. And before Carnifex could form another dangerous appendage out of his unformed abdomen, Gideon drove the point of the blade up through Carnifex’s chin, through the roof of his mouth and into his infernal brain. Driving the demon backward, Gideon climbed on his chest to maintain pressure on the tip of the blade. Carnifex made a mewling, gargling sound. Though his limbs jerked with uncontrollable spasms, the demon lord refused to die.

“The crowbar,” Gideon said. “Quickly! While I have him pinned.”

Grainger picked up the crowbar and slammed the pointed end under the base of the horn. Flesh split but the bone seemed undamaged. “It’s not working!”

“In his weakened state, it will,” Gideon assured him. “
Believe
that it will. There’s magic in faith as well.”

Grainger nodded, his jaw clenched in determined. He swung the crowbar down again, harder than the first time. And again. Bone cracked. Grainger smiled. “This is for
Lintz!”
he shouted with the next blow. “And this is for
Gossett!
You bloodthirsty
bastard!”
The tip wedged into the skull. Grainger pulled it out and struck again. “For
Albano!”
Sweat streamed down his face.
“Die
you
stink
ing
fil
thy
son
of a
bitch!”
The horn hung at a right angle. Grainger tossed aside the crowbar, grabbed the pendulous horn and twisted it around in two complete rotations until it broke free of the skull.

Carnifex’s teeth had savaged his own lips. Blood—his own now—flowed freely down either side of his wide, distorted face. When the second horn broke loose, the demon’s flesh sagged. The gargling sounds from his throat changed, became more distinct, an attempt at articulation. Curious, Gideon pulled his sword out of the demon’s head. And Carnifex spoke in wet, strangled words, “Know this…human. You have…won nothing! This…is not… over.”

Gideon scoffed. “Sure looks like the end to me.”

“You have…no idea…what is…coming for….
Master…?”

With a massive, quaking shudder, the demon’s body began to shrivel. Carnifex’s flesh became dry and powdery, sloughing off his enormous skeleton. Then the bones themselves became brittle, cracking and breaking under their own weight, transforming into a gray dust that vanished before it had time to accumulate on the mall floor. Eventually, all that remained of the hell lord were the two severed horns.

As Gideon collected the horns, Thalia thought they too might fade away, to cease to exist in the human world, and yet they remained after everything else was gone. Thalia finally had enough energy to stand. She took tentative steps forward, each movement at great cost. The pounding in her head felt like a vise tightening against her skull until she thought her bones would collapse under the pressure.

A shimmering vision appeared.

Four people emerged from a floating rift. Another step forward, squinting against the darkness that fogged her sight. Familiar faces. Logan and Fallon and they had brought back the others. Liana was crying but alive.
Alive! Thank God!
For a moment the crushing pain was relieved by her joy, but only for a moment. Logan and Fallon carried a limp burden, a man covered in blood and missing an arm. She recognized his face the same moment she watched him die.

Grainger hurried to Liana, took her hands in his with a relieved smile on his blood-streaked face, hugged her briefly, and then stepped back with a little more decorum. Liana nodded gratefully but her face was drawn, her expression lost.

Silent tears ran down Thalia’s face. She stumbled forward, reaching out toward them, knowing that the nightmare never really ended. A brief remission, not a cure. Hadn’t she known all along? Lied to herself to get through the day, to be there when Liana breathed the air of her own world again. Before… before…

She wanted to run to Liana, to hold her close one last time while the whole was more than jumbled pieces, but she could barely walk. She leaned forward and said in a small singsong voice, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star…” She gasped in sudden pain. “How I wonder… wonder what…?
Why…?”

She tumbled forward into darkness, beyond pain.

And her world shattered again.

Chapter 54

Logan was certain Barrett had clung to life long enough to step through the rift. With the first fresh breath of earth air inside him, Barrett had sagged in Logan’s and Fallon’s arms. At first, Logan prayed he was simply unconscious, but as they laid him down, Logan saw his wide but sightless blue eyes, and the muscular echo of a grim smile fading from his lips. Then a clang as the sword finally slipped from the warrior’s grasp.

From that point onward, Logan became numb to his surroundings and to the bustle of activity around him. If the battle in the mall had not already ended, he would likely have been the next casualty. Fallon watched him strangely but he couldn’t find any words. He simply stared. Liana, already distraught, seemed surprised by Grainger’s attention, and then cried out when Thalia collapsed. She rushed to her fallen sister’s side. Logan feared that Thalia had died as well, but couldn’t prod himself to inquire. He stared and thought he might continue to stare forever.

Fallon wrapped an arm around his waist and directed him toward Gideon and Grainger, both wounded, neither seriously. They, at least, would live.

When somebody shouted that the doors were working again, hundreds of people streamed out of stores, popping out of hiding places with faces that were masks of shock and horror. He wondered what they would remember. How many of them would accept what they saw? How many would remember only the explosion and attribute it to a bomb, or a terrorist attack, assuming a hallucinatory agent had been involved? How many had simply cowered in the dark, waiting for the unknown horror to pass?

Thalia was awake again, but seemed to be babbling or singing a children’s song or a lullaby. Logan had trouble focusing on the words. People around him shouted in what seemed a foreign language.

Grainger barked orders on his epaulet radio.

Minutes later—or maybe it was hours later—more police and emergency workers arrived. They searched for and attended to the injured first. But most who had suffered injuries had died, except for a few struck early by flying debris. Not many who had come into physical contact with the Reaper of Flesh would live to tell about it. The EMS crews collected bodies. And body parts.

Logan sat beside Fallon on the low wall near the wishing fountain and thought it was much too late for wishes. She looked at him and spoke softly, but had to ask the question twice before he could parse her words. “Has it ever been this bad?”

He shook his head.

“Remember when you said you would never let me go?”

Slow nod. Seemed like a long time ago.

She took his face in her hands and the pleasant rush seemed far away, as if dulled by a shot of Novocain. “Well, I won’t let you go either.”

Tears brimmed in his eyes.

She tucked his head against the side of her neck. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he whispered.

“We did all we could.”

“I know,” Logan said, “but he died in our arms.”

“We brought him home, Logan. We gave him that at least.”

“You know what mine is? My greatest fear? My own personal hell?”

“Logan, you don’t have to talk about that.”

“You should know,” Logan said. “I owe you that.” He stroked her raven-black hair for a moment, trying to muster the courage to tell her what he feared most. “My fear is that I will lead my family, everyone in the world that I love, to their deaths. That my talent is really a curse that will doom them all.” He took a deep breath and the long exhalation racked his body like a feverish chill. “Even you.”

“Logan, you are not the Pied Piper of Doom,” Fallon said. She lifted his face and stared into his eyes. “Listen to me. Your fear is as unfounded as mine was. Your talent—yes,
talent
—has saved lives. More than once. And if not for you, those spider creatures would have killed Liana too. We found her in time because of your talent. You can’t ignore that.”

“You helped me,” Logan said. “Boosted me.”

“We help each other,” Fallon said. “As we were meant to. That’s why we’re all here.”

Logan watched Liana leading Thalia out of the mall. The latter woman’s head was down and she was wringing her hands while she babbled about forgetting something, something she should never forget, but it was oh so hard to remember. Liana spoke to her in a comforting tone, trying to calm her agitated state.

“Thalia held off the darkness long enough to help Gideon and Grainger defeat Carnifex,” Fallon said.

“I think she knew it lurked inside her,” Logan said. “And kept it at bay as long as she could.”

“I’ll try again, Logan,” Fallon said, placing her hand over his. “I’ll keep trying until I find a way to remove the darkness.”

Gideon walked beside the stretcher transporting Barrett. The sheet draped over his body was stained red in several spots. Before they wheeled Barrett away, Gideon lowered the sheet and said goodbye to his brother, kissing his cheek, gripping his arm, and squeezing his hand. “Proud of you, little brother,” Gideon said with a quaver in his voice. “Never said that enough. But it was always in my heart.” He released a shuddering breath, replaced the sheet, covering Barrett’s face again, and addressed the paramedic pushing the stretcher. “He was a hero. You take care of him.” The paramedic nodded solemnly and rolled the burdened stretcher toward the exit.

Logan and Fallon slipped off the wall and fell in stride with Gideon, who now carried two swords and had the demon’s horns tucked in his belt. “Brutal day,” Gideon said, his tone carefully measured. Logan nodded, once again at a loss for words. “But we did good here,” Gideon continued. “All of us. Let’s never forget that.”

Logan spoke, but the words came from Ambrose.
“In umbra ambulamus.”

“Yes, we walk in shadows,” Gideon said, nodding. “But we walk in shadows to defend the light.”

Liana escorted Thalia into the Walker house. Gideon volunteered to brief Ambrose so that Logan could drive Fallon home. “You’ve been to hell and back,” Gideon said before stepping out into the pouring rain. “Literally. You deserve a break.”

Logan climbed into the driver’s seat of the conversion van; Fallon moved up beside him to the passenger seat. Neither spoke, but the silence between them was companionable. The rhythmic swishing of the windshield wipers had a soothing effect. But not for long. Logan drove below the speed limit toward her house, the needle on the speedometer dipping as his unease grew.
Carnifex is dead,
Logan thought.
The rift closed with him. So what’s wrong?

“Logan? Are you okay?” He glanced at her and quickly looked away. “Logan, your hands are trembling on the steering wheel. Tell me!”

He turned the corner onto her street. Flashing red lights washed across the white van, streaked across Logan’s field of vision, transforming the falling rain into an unending splash of blood.

Fallon’s eyes grew wide. She leaned forward in her seat, staring in shock and disbelief.

The bike lay in the middle of the road, undamaged.

“No,” Fallon whimpered.

The rusted blue Ford pickup had swerved to avoid the bike’s rider. The front end had smashed into a utility poll. A group of people had clustered under umbrellas on the far side of the street. A mother clutched her crying son to her chest, his bike helmet askew.

“Oh, God—no!”

Fallon released her seatbelt buckle and jumped out of the van before Logan could park. She stumbled on the slick ground, caught her balance, and darted past the police car. The police officer at the scene raised his arm to stop her, but she struggled to get past him.

“That’s my father!” Fallon screamed hysterically. “My father!”

In his haste to park, Logan ran the right front tire up onto the curb. He rushed after Fallon, hoping to spare her the sight he knew awaited her.

Voices from the crowd filtered through to him. “—way too fast.” “—wasn’t paying attention.” “—no seatbelt.”

Logan approached the pickup truck from a wide angle. Saw the shattered windshield streaked with blood. And the familiar figure slumped over the steering wheel. The precise image he had glimpsed when he’d glanced at Fallon’s face in the van. What he’d seen in the vision, but couldn’t see from his current vantage point were the bottles of beer which had shattered against the dashboard on impact.

The police officer was holding onto Fallon as she strained to reach her father. “Help him! You have to help him! Call somebody!”

“I’m sorry, miss,” he said compassionately. “It’s too late.”

Fallon turned wild eyes toward Logan, her tears lost in the rain. “Tell him, Logan! Please tell him. This isn’t right! It can’t be right.”

Logan took her in his arms and held her. As long as she needed him, he would hold her. And keep his promise.

Epilogue

“What do you suppose he meant at the end?” Gideon asked. “We’d defeated him but it almost seemed as if he was gloating.”

Ambrose shrugged. “Perhaps Carnifex was unwilling to admit defeat. When he had nothing else with which to fight, he uttered vague, empty threats. He dealt in fear, after all.”
A plausible explanation,
Ambrose thought. But Carnifex’s final words troubled him as well. Another puzzle to solve, but best that the others take time to recuperate and not worry about the horrors tomorrow might bring.