The Gathering Dark

Praise for THE SHADOW SAGA

‘Reading
Of Saints and Shadows
again, I was amazed how many elements now familiar in the vampire and thriller genres appeared in
Saints
first. Golden’s imagination and expert plotting wove these elements into a startlingly original book, as exciting to read now as it was when it first appeared on the rack’

Charlaine Harris

‘Christopher Golden has reinvented the vampire myth into nonstop action, suspense, and fascinating dark fantasy. [He’s] an imaginative and prodigious talent who never lets genre boundaries hold him back’

Douglas Clegg, author of the
Vampirycon
series

‘Filled with tension, breathtaking action . . . and a convincing depiction of worlds existing unseen within our own’

Science Fiction Chronicle

‘Harrowing, humorous, overflowing with characters and plot contortions, abundantly entertaining . . . a portent of great things to come’

Douglas E. Winter,
Cemetery Dance

‘Golden combines quiet, dark, subtle mood with Super-Giant monster action. Sort of M.R. James meets Godzilla!’

Mike Mignola, creator of
Hellboy

‘A breathtaking story that succeeds in marrying gore and romance, sex and sentiment. A brilliant epic’

Dark News
(Paris)

‘The most refreshing books in the vampire genre since Anne Rice wrote
Interview with a Vampire
, [Golden’s novels] are completely in a class by themselves’

Pathway to Darkness

‘Passionate . . . excellent . . . and a surprise explanation for vampires. Brilliant’

LitNews Online

‘Wildly entertaining . . . like mixing Laurell K. Hamilton with the dark ambivalence of an H.P. Lovecraft story. The pacing is always pedal-to-the-floor, the main characters are larger than life and the demons and other assorted monstrosities give Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos a run for their money’

Barnes & Noble Online

The Shadow Saga

Of Saints and Shadows

(July 2010)

Angel Souls and Devil Hearts

(October 2010)

Of Masques and Martyrs

(December 2010)

The Gathering Dark

(February 2011)

Waking Nightmares

(May 2011)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the award-winning, bestselling author of such novels as
The Myth Hunters
,
Wildwood Road
,
The Boys Are Back in Town
,
The Ferryman
,
Strangewood
, and the Peter Octavian series. He has also written books for teens and young adults, including
Poison Ink
,
Soulless
, and the upcoming
The Secret Journeys of Jack London
, co-authored with Tim Lebbon. A lifelong fan of the “team-up,” Golden frequently collaborates with other writers on books, comics, and scripts. He co-wrote the lavishly illustrated novel
Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire
with Mike Mignola, and the comic book series spin-off. With Tim Lebbon, he has co-written four novels in the Hidden Cities series, the latest of which,
The Shadow Men
, hits in 2011. With Thomas E. Sniegoski, he is the co-author of the book series
OutCast
and
The Menagerie
, as well as comic book miniseries such as
Talent
, currently in development as a feature film. With Amber Benson, Golden co-created the online animated series
Ghosts of Albion
and co-wrote the book series of the same name.

As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies
The New Dead
and
British Invasion
, among others, and has also written and co-written comic books, video games, screenplays, and a network television pilot. The author is also known for his many media tie-in works, including novels, comics, and video games, in the worlds of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
,
Hellboy
,
Angel
, and
X-Men
, among others.

Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His original novels have been published in more than fourteen languages in countries around the world. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com

First published in the USA by Ace Books, 2003
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster, 2011
A CBS COMPANY

Copyright © Christopher Golden, 2003

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

The right of Christopher Golden to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Gray’s Inn Road
London
WC1X 8HB

www.simonandschuster.co.uk

Simon & Schuster Australia
Sydney

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-84739-927-4
eBook ISBN: 978-1-84739-950-2

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Typeset by M Rules
Printed in the UK by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading, Berkshire RG1 8EX

For Lily Grace Golden.
Everything I ever dreamed.

First and foremost, profound gratitude to Ginjer Buchanan, for never losing interest in Octavian and his world. There are still many journeys ahead.

Thanks are also due to all the folks who wrote or e-mailed or badgered me at conventions to return to The Shadow Saga. I hope you’re as pleased as I am.

Special thanks, as always to my wife Connie and our children, with whom all things are possible. And a grateful nod to all of you who’ve lent an ear or an eye or the force of your telepathic encouragement . . . especially Tom Sniegoski, Megan Bibeau, Jose Nieto, Lisa Delissio, Amber Benson, Rick Hautala, Bob Tomko, Jeff Mariotte, Allie Costa, Hank Wagner, Nancy Carlson, and the indefatigable Peter Donaldson. To my family, each and every one, with love.

No matter how much the city did to clean up the underground, the subway always stank like piss. New York Transit cops hustled a homeless woman in a rank, stained parka older than its owner up the stairs toward the street. The rattle and roar of a train came up from deep within the crosstown tunnel, followed almost immediately by the hissing hydraulic scream of brakes. Newspapers blew across the tile floor.

In the morning it would be spotless. The night crews would have done their work. The electronic news tickers that ran along the walls and the small screens that carried images from the highest-paying content provider would be sparkling, without a smear or smudge.

Depressing as hell.

Peter Octavian had seen many faces of this city over the years, seen it rise and fall, breathe new life into the world, grow cruel and corrupt and yet somehow also vibrant and joyous. To his mind, the fascistic effort to clean up Manhattan drained the city of its character.

Nights like this, though, he could pretend he was back in another age, a time when he understood more about people. For it was raining up above, the storm clouds heavy and low, the puddles growing, the streets slick. Taxis pretended not to see you in the rain, which meant the subways were flooded not with rain but with people who wished they were safe in the back of a private cab.

Grime from the streets was tracked all through the station. The tile walls dripped with accumulated moisture. The air itself was damp and cold.

A rare smile on his handsome, stubbled features, Octavian pushed through the turnstile, turning up the collar of the heavy canvas jacket he wore. It hung past his knees and seemed to rasp as he walked. All around him, city people rushed home from working late, or out to meet a date, and never once did any of them meet his gaze. But he watched them. His attention would have been barely noticeable even if someone happened to glance at him, but still he was wary, always on guard.

Some people were not what they appeared to be. It was a dark truth he knew perhaps better than anyone else on Earth.

Sometimes shadows were just shadows and the monsters were right in front of you.

He took the steps two at a time. Even before he emerged from the station, the cold rain sliced down into the shelter of the underground, tiny pinpricks like ice needles jabbing at his face. Defiant, he stepped out onto the sidewalk and lifted his face to the roiling storm above, the night sky dark with layers of black. The winds blew the rain nearly sideways, and his hair, already damp from walking to the station downtown, quickly began to drip streams of water down his face. He paused to orient himself, then turned north and strode quickly across the street.

A cabbie blared his horn. There came the shush of tires through a puddle and the sprinkle of water onto the pavement. The rain itself, each individual drop, seemed to reflect the neon glitter of the city’s electric life. People hurried by in ones and twos, huddled under black umbrellas like mourners.

Half a block later, he heard the music. A Caribbean rhythm, an old Bob Marley tune, though Marley himself was decades dead. This was a new millennium leeching from the last, filled with a dread of the unknown future.

Octavian thought it wise, that dread. As the twenty-first century grew from infant to toddler, humanity could reach higher, touch the sky, open doors perhaps better left closed. Already the human race had learned a great deal that it might have wished never to know. The past brought comfort, memories of safety. Or the illusion of safety. Yet that was enough for most.

The chant of Marley and the Wailers rang sweetly from the open door of a dive bar called The Voodoo Lounge, whose neon sign was only half lit. Just inside the door stood an enormous man with ebony skin and a bald pate that gleamed with reflected neon red. His left eyebrow had two thick rings through it, and a long, rough scar curved from above his right eye, through the brow, and across the bridge of the nose to his left cheek.

When he smiled, a miracle happened. The giant became handsome. His name was Agamemnon. Though Octavian could not imagine a child with such a name today, the man insisted it had been given him at birth by his mother, and he would accept no substitutes, no nicknames nor terms of endearment.

“Peter!” he rasped, voice like distant thunder. “What brings you?”

They shook hands.

“Agamemnon. Good to see you. Had a call from Bradenton.”

“He’s on the bar tonight,” Agamemnon said. “Listen, you don’t have a cigarette, do you?”

“Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s a shitty habit. Just gives my hands something to do.”

Octavian nodded as though he understood, and perhaps he did. Why else did he paint if not to give his hands something to do? He stepped through the open door of The Voodoo Lounge and the music pounded against his eardrums. Despite laws to the contrary, smoke wafted across the air. It had the distinct scent of hashish.

“Hey!” Agamemnon called. “Buy an umbrella!”

A small, uncommon smile creased Octavian’s features. Once upon a time, it would not have been so rare.

The place was packed with people, and now he understood why the door was open. Though it was cold outside, the body heat within was almost infernal. Men and women of every race pushed up to the bar, jostled with one another for position or simply to cop a feel. On the dance floor, bodies gyrated, beads of sweat glimmered on foreheads wrinkled with intensity. Laughter bubbled in the air and the pheremonal musk of sex sought and promised hung heavy as the rain’s own moisture on the room.

Bradenton was at the bar, grinning broadly as a woman removed her top. Her breasts were dark and perfect and she leaned back so that all those around her could get a look.

“That’s worth a double shot!” Bradenton crowed, then poured her three fingers of tequila.