Bloodless

66

Following Pendergast, Coldmoon sprinted up the basement stairs and into the lobby. The normally sedate space was quickly filling with a crush of panicked people streaming in from outside, seeking shelter. Some were sobbing with fear, others hysterical, a few drunk. As they pushed their way through the flow, Coldmoon wondered where the hell Constance had gone to when she’d slipped out of the room like a cat. God knew what that bloodthirsty woman was going to do.

Once they were outside, the situation was even more chaotic. To the south, in the direction of the political rally, he could see a monstrous flying creature circling like a buzzard, its outline shimmering with an otherworldly gleam, a strange glowing cross, almost like a scar, on its left wing. Something — a body — was gripped in its claws. Pulling his firearm, Pendergast ran toward it, against the crowd, and Coldmoon struggled to keep up. The air was filled with the din of screaming, sirens, and sporadic gunfire. The sidewalks and streets were packed with panicked people trying desperately to get away, to get anywhere, as long as it offered refuge from the creature.

As he watched in awe and horror, the monster flung away the corpse in its talons, which went tumbling off into the darkness, and then swooped down on the terrified crowd still in the park, to a chorus of screams and a scattered volley of weaponry. It rose again, beating its wings, with several fresh writhing people in its talons, wings shimmering.

Coldmoon stared at the fearful thing, trying to keep moving, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. This was not Wakinyan, the Thunderer, the sky spirit his grandmother had told him of. Nor was it Unktehi, the huge horned serpent that had troubled his childhood dreams. No: this was some terrible amalgam, a foul obscenity, a battle-scarred monster that had no place on Earth or in mythology.

No place on Earth...

“Keep up!” Pendergast barked as they struggled toward the park, while the thing whirled overhead, tormented by gunfire as a bull might be by fleas. It dropped once in a while to scoop up more people, ripping them apart in midair, flinging the pieces away and then diving again, in a fury of bloodlust.

Pendergast dodged and weaved through the flow of people like a cat, Coldmoon in his wake. “We have to get closer to it,” he said. “And gain some altitude.” Then, suddenly, he pointed. “The church!”

Coldmoon heard a crash ahead and saw the amplifier towers toppling over in a shower of sparks and sizzling arcs of electricity. A moment later, flames licked up from the giant wooden stage, swiftly growing into a conflagration. The fire seemed to excite the creature, driving it almost to madness: it circled around, wings brushing the fire and scattering burning lumber, and made a loop above Whitaker Street, wingtips clipping trees and striking the façades along the park, sending glass and bricks crashing into the crowded street. A car, crushed by a falling tree, burst into flames.

The fabric of the Whitaker Street Methodist Church loomed up, its steeple outlined against the fire. They ran up the front steps. The oak doors of the church were closed and locked, terrified people huddling in the portal. Pendergast snaked his way through them, went for the lock on the door, and in a moment had it open.

As people streamed into the sanctuary, Pendergast veered off toward one side. They paused to catch their breath and take stock. Coldmoon could see the orange light of the burning grandstand flickering through stained-glass windows.

“This way,” Pendergast said.

He had found a stairway behind a door, and they began climbing, taking the stairs two at a time. In a moment they came out in the choir loft, facing a wall of organ pipes. But Pendergast was already making for a locked door in one corner; a quick twist of his wrist and it flew open, revealing an old iron staircase spiraling up into darkness.

Round and round the tower they climbed, until they were stopped by a ceiling with a trapdoor. Pendergast slammed it open with his shoulder and climbed into a small square room surrounded on all sides by louvers. Countless small bells hung suspended by ropes from horizontal beams: the church’s carillon. But Pendergast, paying no attention to these, pushed his way through the louvers, triggering a din of tinkling bells, and came out on a small walkway that surrounded the steeple. Coldmoon could see they were above the treetops. The monster, still circling, was coming around in a long, lazy loop that would take it directly past the church.

“Higher,” said Pendergast. He swung up, grasping a rusty iron ladder fastened directly to the outside slope of the steeple itself.

“Wait!” cried Coldmoon. “Don’t you realize this is hopeless?”

Pendergast paused ever so briefly.

“We already know what’s going to happen!” Coldmoon shouted. “We saw it!”

“Nothing is certain!” Pendergast replied fiercely, and began climbing.