Desolation (28 page)

But he was limping. The foot he’d reattached – it was tender. The Narrow Man felt nothing, but Oscar could experience pain.

Amber got to the other side of the road while he stopped to allow a car to pass, then she clambered awkwardly over a low fence, got out of sight behind the house there, and shifted. The pain was manageable once again and she started running, her mind alight with possibilities. She hurdled a low wall and carried on. She could hear him behind her, the Narrow Man, running. Catching up.

Good. Let him.

She jumped another wall, landed in another backyard. She ran for the patio door, her scales prickling against her skin as she put her head down and crashed through the glass. She stumbled against the dining table. No alarm went off. No one cried out in shock. Beyond the tinkling of the glass, the house was quiet. She looked back as the Narrow Man dropped into the yard. He saw her, hefted the axe.

Grimacing against the pain in her shoulder, Amber ran for the hallway, grabbing a poker from beside the fireplace as she did so. She experienced a moment of blind panic when she couldn’t figure out how to unlock the front door, but then stumbled out, pulling the door shut behind her.

A car passed on the quiet street, but she didn’t revert and she didn’t run. Instead, she stepped sideways, pressed herself against the wall, and crouched.

A moment later, the front door opened again. The Narrow Man was Oscar Moreno once again, and he stepped out, still smiling, still holding the axe, his gaze directed at the street, expecting to see her running.

But Amber wasn’t running. Not anymore.

She straightened and swung the poker with all of her demon strength. It caught Moreno across the back of the head and he went down, went straight down to his knees, the axe clattering to the ground.

She hit him again, heard the poker
crunch
against his skull, and Moreno slumped face down. Blood began to mat his hair.

In this form, he bleeds
.

Amber screamed at him, a scream of triumph fuelled by fear and hate, and brought the poker down a third time. She would have stood there and split his head wide open if a police cruiser hadn’t swung round the corner. Before the snarl had even escaped her lips, the cruiser had braked and Novak was jumping out.

Amber dropped the poker and ran back inside the house, into the dining room towards the broken patio door. Two other cops, Woodbury and Duncan, were closing in. She stumbled backwards, turned left, ran down a short corridor into a bathroom, backed out and ran into a bedroom. She slammed the door, looked around. Novak passed the only window, his gun drawn.

Amber whirled, searching for a weapon. A shotgun, baseball bat, anything. She tapped her pockets. Found a key.

She pulled it out. Dacre Shanks’s key. They’d tried it and it hadn’t worked, but that had been out there, on the other side of the boundary. She was in Desolation Hill now, where the key had been made. If there was anywhere it’d work for someone who didn’t have a damn clue how to use it, it was here.

She jammed it into the lock of the bedroom door and the image of another door, a door of dull metal, flashed into her mind with such startling clarity that it momentarily filled her vision. She turned the key, only dimly aware of what she was doing, then turned it again, and pulled it from the lock as she opened the door. She stepped out, not into the corridor of the house she was in, but into a concrete cell about the size of a modest living room. The door slammed shut behind her. It wasn’t the wooden door she’d opened. It was metal. The one she’d seen in her head.

And in the centre of this room was a Shining Demon.

A
STAROTH HAD BURNED FROM
within, turning all but a few jigsaw patches of his skin translucent. His brother was not so hellishly ethereal.

Naberius was on his knees in a circle, his wrists bound by short chains set into the floor, the manacles scratched with a hundred tiny symbols. Like his brother, he was hairless. Like his brother, his eyes were black. That was where the similarity ended. His dry, cracked skin was the colour of ash, and a paleness seeped from those cracks to bathe the cell in a weak, restrained light.

He looked up at Amber without surprise. It was as if he had only been trapped down here 20 minutes, not 200 years, such was the placidity of his features.

She opened her mouth to speak, but could think of nothing to say.

Instead, he spoke. “Release me.” His voice was soft. “Release me from these chains.”

Amber was strong. She was confident. In demon form, she was nothing like her old self. And yet here she felt all those familiar doubts and insecurities rising to the surface. Down here she was weak, despite her horns. Down here she was pathetic. “I … I can’t,” she said.

“You shall be rewarded. The chains bind me. Release me and I shall grant you your deepest desires.”

Amber stepped backwards to the door. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and that’s all she could think of to say. She turned, slid the key into the dull metal door, and screwed her eyes shut. She focused on a door she knew well, she pictured it in her head, and she turned the key twice and took it from the lock and she opened the door and stepped through—

—into her bedroom. In Florida.

The a/c wasn’t on. It was hot and stuffy. Across the room, Balthazar and Tempest from
In The Dark Places
gazed mournfully out from their poster. Her laptop sat upon her desk. Her bed was made. She’d grown up here. It was her bedroom, filled with her things, yet it wasn’t. Not anymore. The act of leaving, of running, had sealed this house away from her. It looked like her home and smelled like her home – that hot, cloyingly sweet smell – but it no longer
felt
like her home.

She stepped into the hall, moving quietly despite the fact that her parents and their friends were still in Alaska.

She didn’t sweat. Of course she didn’t. She could feel the heat, but it didn’t bother her, not as a demon. She walked into the kitchen. Grabbed an apple. Took a bite and munched. Went to the refrigerator and found a carton of milk, poured herself a tall glass. She lobbed the apple into the sink, took the milk into the living room, leaving bloodstains wherever she went.

On the piano in the corner (her mother was a wonderful pianist) there was a framed photograph. A family photograph. Amber and her parents. Bill and Betty standing side by side and in front, smiling and oblivious to what was to come, was little girl Amber.

She dropped the photo, crushed it with her heel.

Taking another swig of milk, she dumped the rest of it over the couch and went back to her bedroom, dragging her hand along the corridor wall and smearing it with blood. She grabbed a bag, stuffed it full of clothes. She took her laptop, too, and a teddy bear she’d had since she was a kid. She put the bag on her back, closed the door, slid the key in and tried to remember what the doors looked like in Virgil’s house.

“Goddammit,” she said to no one.

The motel then. She pictured the room she’d stayed in, pictured the door. She wasn’t in Desolation Hill anymore, but maybe the fact that she wanted to return there might spur the key on to cutting her a little slack. She focused, turned the key, and turned it again, then pulled it out as she opened the door …

… and stepped on to the landing in the Dowall Motel, and the first thing she heard was her mother’s voice.

“He doesn’t know anything,” Betty said. Amber crouched, her fingers turning to claws once again. It took her a moment to calm down. She hadn’t been detected. Her mother’s voice was coming from below, in the lobby. They didn’t know she was here.

Her mother spoke again. “Will you please stop him from crying?”

Amber got to her hands and knees and crawled to the banisters and looked down as Grant tossed Kenneth Dowall over the desk, where he had the good sense to stifle his moans and shut the hell up.

Grant, Betty and Bill stood around in all their red-skinned glory.

“Now what do we do?” Grant asked. “Go door to door?
Have you seen this girl?
It’s done. It’s over. Let’s admit to this failure and go back to the job we were given.”

“By Astaroth,” said Bill.

“Yes,” said Grant, “by Astaroth. Before he realises what we’ve been trying to do.”

“You’re scared,” said Betty.

“Of course I am,” Grant said. “And if you’re not scared then you’re a fool. Listen to me – we took the risk. We did. It was a worthwhile risk, but it just didn’t work out for us. These things happen.”

“It’s not over yet,” said Bill.

“The hell it isn’t,” Grant said. “We have to cut our losses.”

“I’ve always hated that phrase,” said Bill. “I don’t lose, Grant.
We
don’t lose. We find Amber – we find the key. None of this will matter when we release Naberius. Then we’ll have all the power we’d ever want.”

“There’s no such thing,” said Grant, “not for you two. Your ambition is going to get us killed.”

A door was kicked open, somewhere Amber couldn’t see, and two men came sprawling into view. They ended up on their knees.

“Found these two fighting outside,” Kirsty said, walking in behind them. “More wannabe demons.”

Serial killers. Amber’s concern over their fate faded dramatically.

“I believe our luck is about to change,” said Bill, smiling. “Gentlemen, so good to meet you. I have a feeling you’re going to bring us some good news. We need some good news. My friends are beginning to doubt the course we are currently on. But you … you have been sent here to reaffirm the wisdom of our decision. What’s in it for you, you ask? If you help us, you can live. That’s a reward that just keeps on giving, now, isn’t it? We’re looking for a black Charger, gentlemen. Tell me at least one of you has seen it.”

“We’re looking for it, too,” said the first killer. “I … I thought we were on the same side.”

Bill smiled. “You’re not on
our
side, little man. You’re merely one of Astaroth’s pawns. But you may be of use to us if you’ve seen the black Charger.”

“I … I haven’t.”

Bill’s smile faded. “Unfortunate,” he said, and kicked the killer’s face through the back of his skull. He turned to the other one. “What about you, my friend? Have you seen the black Charger?”

“Or the girl?” said Betty. “Overweight, with brown hair?”

The second killer licked his lips nervously. “I … I haven’t seen her yet. Her name’s Amber, right? The, uh, the demon girl? I haven’t technically laid eyes on her yet, but if you want, if you think it could help, I can go outside right now and keep looking for her.”

“No, that’s all right,” sighed Betty, and reached down and snapped his neck.

“What do we do if we can’t find her?” Kirsty asked.

“We will,” said Betty.

“How? She’s going to be extra careful now that she knows we’re here. We’re not going to stumble across her again.”

Bill sighed. “Are you still with us?”

“What?” Kirsty said. “What does that mean?”

“Are you with us?” he repeated. “We’ve gone over a hundred years working together, and haven’t we reaped the rewards?”

“Sure,” said Kirsty. “But now Alastair and Imelda are dead,
after
Imelda betrayed us, and the only reason the Shining Demon isn’t trying to kill us right now is because he thinks we’re bringing him your daughter. We’re on dangerously thin goddamn ice.”

“We just have to remain calm,” said Bill.

Kirsty’s eyebrows rose. “That’s our plan? Remain calm? If the Hounds get Amber before we do, not only will we not have the key, but we’ll have proven ourselves useless to Astaroth, and then we’ll be right back where we were. I don’t like being on the run, Bill. It doesn’t suit me.”

“This is ridiculous,” Betty said. “We’ll find Amber, all right? We’re her parents. We know her better than anyone. We’ve been right on her heels every step of the way so far, haven’t we? And she’s not running anymore, so now is our chance to catch up with her. After everything we’ve done for you, Kirsty, I would think that a little good faith wouldn’t be too much to ask for.”

“Everything you’ve done for us?” Kirsty said, letting her anger cloud her perfect features. “It’s your fault we’re in this mess in the first place! At least
our
kids died when they were supposed to die!”

“Oh,” Betty said, squaring up to her, “I’m sorry for raising a child who can actually
think on her feet
.”

“You’re proud of her?” Kirsty said, frowning. “You’re actually proud
of that little
toad
?”

Betty struck Kirsty – hard – across the face, and the slap stunned the room into silence.

“Now, ladies …” Bill said, stepping forward.

Kirsty held up her hand. “Don’t say a goddamn word, Bill. Betty, you ever touch me again and I will rip your arm off.”

“Fair enough,” Betty said. “I’m sorry, Kirsty. I didn’t mean to do that. We just need your trust for another few hours. Give us until midnight. I swear to you, we will find Amber, we’ll get the key, and we will help Naberius tear Astaroth to shreds.”

“Midnight,” Kirsty said.

“So where do we start?” asked Grant.