Desolation (35 page)

“They don’t look like they’re going to kill me?”

“No, they really don’t. Not at all.”

“Okay, good,” said Warrick. “I won’t mention it when I see them. If I mention it, I’ll only draw attention to it, and then it’ll be this whole big deal and they’ll feel embarrassed and I’ll feel embarrassed and it’ll turn into this huge awkward thing where no one will know what to say and we’ll all be super-nice and super-polite to each other and … Am I still on speaker?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, come on! Dude! A little warning, you know?”

“Get back here, Warrick, before you’re seen. And before you say anything else stupid.”

“Yeah,” Warrick said, and sighed. “I’m really sorry, Amber and Milo. I didn’t mean anything bad. Please don’t hate me.”

“We don’t hate you,” said Amber.

“When I said psycho demons, I didn’t mean you. You’re nice demons.”

“We know. It’s fine.”

“Thanks for being cool, Amber. Milo, I notice that you didn’t say anything just there, which might mean that you’re mad, or it might mean you’re just being your usual quiet self. I hope you’re not mad, man. I’ll see you in a minute. We can hug it out.” He hung up.

Ronnie pocketed the phone, and turned to Amber and Milo. “Looks like Hell Night can begin.”

“Yes, it does,” Amber said quietly.

“I’m not hugging him,” said Milo.

“So that’s it?” Jesper asked. “One phone call and now you can bring me to Naberius? That’s the signal? You’re killing me! Don’t you understand? You’re killing me!”

“I said the same thing to you when we first met,” said Amber.

“Is that what this is?” Jesper asked, eyes narrowed. “Payback for how I treated you? Is this some kind of petty revenge? Then maybe you’d want to beat me, before you hand me over? Well? Want to beat the old man, to make him regret ever messing with you? Hmm? Maybe crack some ribs, break my nose, blacken my eyes. Eh? Would that make you feel better? Would that make you feel like heroes?”

“Why does everyone keep calling us heroes?” Milo muttered.

“Then beat me!” Jesper roared. “Cripple me! Kick my head in! Kill me! If I’m going to die, then at least have the fortitude to do it yourselves!”

“Like you were going to?” Austin asked quietly.

Amber enjoyed seeing the look on Jesper’s face, caught between anger and guilt and shame. It was a beautiful sight.

“We don’t know how long the Hounds’ radar will take to right itself,” said Milo, eyes on the sky as the sun dipped to the horizon, “so we better do this now. Amber, you should probably get the key.”

Amber nodded. It was her idea, after all. Her plan. It had sounded so easy when she’d first uttered the words. So simple. Kill Jesper. He deserved it. He more than deserved it. And yet here they were, about to deliver an evil old man to his death, and she couldn’t even look him in the eye. She took a breath, a deep one, and Kelly squeezed her hand before letting go. Amber slipped into the Charger, opened the glove box, and reached in for the key.

A cold feeling blossomed in her chest and spread quickly outwards. It drained the blood from her face.

She hunched down, dug both hands in, pulling out maps and booklets and spare ammunition for Milo’s gun.

“The key’s gone,” she said. No one heard. She got out of the car. “The key’s gone,” she said again.

They looked at her. Milo frowned. “What?”

She stepped away while he searched. No one spoke.

Milo stood. His hands were empty. “That kid,” he said. “The kid with the birthmark who stole the gun.”

“He took the key,” Amber said.

Jesper barked a laugh. “Mice and men!” he said. “Mice and men and murderous demons!”

“Shut the hell up,” said Ronnie.

Jesper ignored him. He was practically dancing. “What are you going to do now? Eh? You’ve let the Hounds in, but without Hell Night there’s no one to take them on. They’re going to find you. They’re going to kill you!”

“Astaroth probably instructed them to kill you,
too
, dumbass,” said Linda.

“You were going to hand me over to be killed, anyway,” Jesper shot back. “Killing me to save yourselves, and now there’s no point in even doing that. What’s the plan now? Are you going to start running again? You’d better. The Hounds are coming for you.”

The van came up the hill. Two demonstrated his happiness by running in small circles excitedly.

“The Narrow Man’s key,” said Amber. “We’ll use that.”

Jesper sneered. “You’ll never get it.”

“He can be hurt,” said Amber. “Did you know that? I bet you didn’t even know that. When he’s Oscar Moreno, he can be hurt. I hurt him. I did it once and I can do it again.”

“Then you’d better do it fast,” said Jesper.

The van parked behind her, and the door opened and she knew something was wrong when Two started barking. Then there were was an arm around her throat and she was yanked backwards as Grant jammed a gun into her jaw.

A
MBER SHIFTED, BUT
G
RANT
just increased his hold on her. Kirsty shoved Linda, who went flying into Milo, and yanked Kelly towards her. Her parents were there, too, leaping from the van. Ronnie lunged at Betty, but she hit him, a strike that sent him spinning, and pounced on Austin as he tried to run. Two came hurtling at Bill, but he kicked him away, and the dog yelped and rolled in the dirt.

Milo had his gun out now, and held it in a two-handed grip, but he was outnumbered. Four guns against one.

“I’ll rip your head off if you try anything,” Grant said in Amber’s ear.

“Drop it, Mr Sebastian,” said Bill. “You shoot any one of us, and the other three will kill your friends. And my daughter, of course.”

“Let them go,” Milo said, not lowering the weapon.

“We plan to,” said Bill. “As soon as we get what we came for.”

“Hey, man,” Warrick said, coming round from the driver’s side with his hands open, “what the hell is going on? What the hell, man? I gave you a
lift
. What the hell are you doing?”

“They’re Amber’s parents,” Ronnie said, teeth gritted.

Kirsty sneered at Warrick, revealing her fangs. “You are some kind of stupid, you know that?”

Warrick stared at her, then at the others, trying to comprehend the damage he’d done. “Shit,” he said.

“Don’t blame the idiot,” said Bill. “We can be very convincing when we want to. He just gave a ride to some folk from out of town who’ve been caught up in all this madness … He was rescuing us, weren’t you, Warrick?”

“You don’t talk to me,” Warrick said, hunkering down and wrapping his arms around Two protectively.

Bill laughed, then looked back at Milo and the others. “Give us the key. That’s all we want. We don’t even want Amber anymore. You’re nothing to us now, sweetheart. Just hand over the key and we’ll let you get back to whatever it is you’re doing.”

“We don’t have it anymore,” Amber said.

“I feel I have to warn you,” said Kirsty, twisting Kelly’s arm so much that Kelly cried out, “our patience is not to be tested here.”

Betty smiled. “Things are, as you can probably tell, somewhat fraught between us right now. And the Hounds have breached that handy invisible wall that had been keeping them out, did you know that? You did? Oh, that’s interesting. Have we … have we stumbled into the middle of some kind of plan? Bill, darling, I fear we may have inadvertently become a monkey wrench in the works.”

“That is regrettable,” said Bill.

“Very,” said Betty. “But taking all that into account, I’m sure you can understand when we ask if we could just skip the part where you deny you have the key, and get right to where you give it to us. If we could do that, that would be peachy. Otherwise, we’re going to start killing your friends. You seem to have a lot of them, for once.”

“If you hurt anyone, you get nothing.”

“We’ll start with the ones you’d hardly miss,” said Bill. “This old-timer only has a few years left in him, anyway.”

“I’m not with them,” Jesper said quickly. “I can help you, I can—”

Bill shot Jesper between the eyes.

Linda cried out and Ronnie cursed and Jesper’s corpse toppled over backwards and hit the ground.

And Amber, staring at the body as the blood leaked out on to the dirt, felt a curious sense of regret, that she hadn’t been the one to kill him.

Bill pointed the gun into Ronnie’s face. “This one now? You don’t seem too upset about that guy. Would I get more of a reaction if I were to shoot this one?”

“Or maybe we’re taking the wrong approach,” Betty said. “Maybe we should start with the youngest.” She pressed her gun against Austin’s head. “Now,” she said happily, “will you please give us the key?”

“We don’t have it,” said Ronnie. “It was stolen.”

Amber nodded. “Stolen from the car, Betty, I swear to Christ.”

“We’re not lying to you,” Linda said.

“So who has it now?” asked Kirsty.

“We don’t know,” Amber said. “Just some kid. He didn’t know what he was stealing, he just stole it.”

Betty shook her head. “That’s unfortunate. It really is.” She held Austin at arm’s length and her finger started to tighten on the trigger.

“I know!” Austin said. “I know who it is!”

Betty raised an eyebrow. “You do?”

“Yes! The kid with the birthmark! I know his name! I know where he lives!”

Betty lowered the gun, and hunkered down, smiling at him. “And can you take us there, young man?”

Austin nodded.

“What’s your name?”

“Austin.”

“Hello, Austin. I’m Betty. That’s my husband Bill, and these are our friends. Would you like to help us get this key? If you do, I promise I won’t kill you. Cross my heart.”

Austin nodded again.

“How about that?” said Bill. “We have a peaceful resolution for once, if you discount the dead old man. We’re going to take Austin here, and we’re going to take the van, and we’re going to retrieve this wonderful key we’ve been hearing so much about. And none of you are going to follow us, because if we’ve timed it correctly and the police in this town are even half as efficient as we’ve heard …”

The sound of cars, approaching fast. Headlights.

“Someone must have tipped them off,” said Betty, smiling. “We’ll take our leave of you now.”

They all started moving backwards towards the van. Grant adjusted his hold on Amber, using her as a shield in case Milo started shooting, but there was space between them now, space to move. His overconfidence had left him open. Vulnerable. If Amber didn’t make a move now, all would be lost, so she turned her fingers to claws and she swiped.

He didn’t see her arm move, his black scales had no time to form, and she ripped his throat out as easily as slapping him.

He let go of her and let go of his gun and stumbled, hands at his throat, his eyes wide and his blood pumping. Kirsty screamed and Amber threw Grant’s gun to Milo, who caught it in his left hand as he fired his own gun with his right.

Betty pulled Austin into the van and Bill jumped in behind the wheel and suddenly there were cruisers speeding towards them and the air was filled with screaming and gunshots and sirens, and the cruisers skidded and the van lurched, wheels spinning, and Austin was crying for help, but the world was a jumble and Amber tripped over Grant’s leg, almost fell.

She caught glimpses. Saw Milo exchange fire with Novak and his officers. Saw Betty, leaning out of the van, firing at the cops as the van fishtailed. Saw Kelly leap into the Charger. Warrick scooped up Two and ran for the trees. Officer Ortmann dived at Ronnie and Ronnie hit him and Ortmann went down, got back up again as a grinning demon. She saw Linda grab Ronnie’s arm and they ran for the trees as well. Saw Milo dive into the dirt behind the Charger. Saw Kirsty coming straight for her.

Amber jerked back. Kirsty’s claws missed, but she kept coming. She took Amber off her feet, screaming into her face the whole time. Amber twisted, threw her off, scrambled up as Novak started firing at her. She ran. Warrick and the others had gone into the trees heading down, towards town. She ran into the trees headed up, into the hills. Bullets struck branches close to her ear. She glanced back, saw Milo behind the wheel of the Charger as it sped away, saw the cops jump in their cruisers to give chase.

And she saw Kirsty, coming up the hill after her.

Amber ran on, reaching out for trees to grab on to, to pull herself up. She was almost at the top of the hill when Kirsty’s claws swiped at the back of her right leg, slicing into the unprotected meat, and she cried out, fell, turned over as Kirsty descended on her. She managed to bring her good leg in between them, managed to settle her foot right between Kirsty’s breasts while she grabbed Kirsty’s wrists.

Kirsty’s face was a mask of hatred. “I’ll kill you, you bitch, I’ll rip your—”

Amber straightened her leg with a snap, and she had time to register Kirsty’s shocked expression before she was launched backwards. Kirsty fell for what seemed an eternity, the hillside dipping beneath her, refusing to halt her plummet. Finally, it was a tree that put an end to her free fall. She struck it and flipped round it, hit the ground and went tumbling down out of sight.

Amber tore her jacket off, twisted it, and tied it tight around her leg. She got up, grabbed a tree, and kept climbing.