Bloodless

74

Coldmoon, standing amid stalled and burning cars on Drayton Street, had long ago emptied the spare he carried for his Browning Hi-Power. Now he was out of ammo and the monster was still wreaking havoc, circling and diving, tearing apart anything that moved — people, terrified dogs, pigeons, cars. Most of the crowd had managed to get off the streets and take refuge inside buildings, but the thing, seemingly enraged to the point of madness, had begun attacking the buildings themselves, tearing away at the façades with its talons, its terrible wings beating: Wakinyan, the Thunderer.

The power was out everywhere, the scene lit only by fires, with the exception of buildings equipped with their own generators. The city was rapidly becoming what Coldmoon had seen some forty minutes earlier on the giant news screens in Times Square: a burning ruin.

He knew in his heart there was no way to change the flow of time; if he had truly seen the future, then everything they were doing now was futile. Pendergast had, characteristically, vanished — off on some desperate gambit, probably — but even he couldn’t change what was predestined. Coldmoon felt enraged at his own powerlessness. Where was the National Guard, the military, the SWAT teams? What was taking them so long? It might be too late for Savannah, but the beast that was pounding it into ruin was still very much alive. Alternate universe or not, there had to be some way to destroy it — there had to be...

He heard gunfire directed at the monster. It seemed to be coming from the direction of Gaston Street. There must still be some pockets of resistance, maybe cops. He could join up with them and, if he was lucky, might even find some extra ammo. He jogged toward the sound, weaving among the cars.

As he approached the corner of Whitaker and Gaston, he saw Commander Delaplane with about half a dozen of her officers. They had taken cover among some wrecked buses and were firing at the maddened creature swooping and circling above. He ran over and crouched next to Delaplane. She was a mess: muddy, uniform askew, bleeding freely from a long gash in her left forearm. A telescoping baton lay beside her, twisted crazily out of shape like a coat hanger.

“What happened to you?” he asked, nodding at her arm.

“Close encounter.”

“You all right?”

“Now that I’m back here by our ammo dump, I am.”

She gestured in the direction of a canvas-covered object near the rear of one bus. Coldmoon scurried over to it, keeping low; he filled both mags with 9mm rounds.

“Where the hell are the troops?” he asked, coming back around.

“We’re the troops.”

“What about the National Guard?”

She paused to fire a shot, then ducked back down. “They’re ‘mobilizing.’ Say they can’t get through, can’t bring in additional choppers because that thing’s already torn two of them out of the air, so they’re bringing in MRAPs and tanks. But even those need to clear a path.”

“It’s been forty minutes!”

“The longest damn forty minutes in history.”

Reacting to their fire, the thing came around and raked the top off the closest bus with its talons, rocking the vehicle and scattering metal and plastic everywhere. It angled in again, gliding low, and suddenly there was a high-pitched scream close at hand as it snatched up a female police officer crouching next to them. The beast rose sharply upward, beating its great wings as the cop screamed and fired until the brute pierced her with its gore-encrusted sucker tube.

“Motherfucker!” cried Delaplane. She leapt up and backed away from the bus to get a better field of fire, emptying her weapon into the creature in a display of almost insane courage.

The thing flung the husk of the officer away and swooped down once more, this time aiming directly at Delaplane, talons extended. Coldmoon crouched and readied his weapon, even though he knew it was futile as it came in at Delaplane, claws extended. She was a goner. He cried out in frustrated rage, unable to avert his eyes.

And then something strange happened. The thing seemed to flicker in and out like a bad television image shot through with snow. There was a loud crackle of electricity; arcs of lightning shot up from each of the beast’s wings, meeting over its head in a burst of ionization. Breaking off its attack, it rose up, seemingly confused, mounting higher and higher. Its bluish metallic glow grew stronger as the thing emitted a stutter of agony. It began to twist and thrash, bellowing, its crackling blue aura flickering and intensifying... and then it seemed to come apart in midair, the flesh separating from its bones and falling away in streamers of light, the entire beast coming down, slowly at first and then faster, as it fell apart, turning into a shower of bones, which tumbled down and landed on the grass of the park — shiny metallic bones, along with a horrible little skull with yawning eye sockets and a metal feeding tube. Everything came to rest on the grass, smoking; and then even the bones began to flicker and crackle with sparks and crumble to glowing dust before finally winking out of existence completely. In a moment nothing was left but scorched grass, drifting smoke, and the oily stench of burnt rubber.

“What did I just see?” said Delaplane softly, lowering her weapon.

“I have no idea,” said Coldmoon.

A hush fell as the cops around them began to rise from their places of cover, staring with shock and wonder as the smoke dissipated.

“The fucker just...” Delaplane began, then fell silent a moment. “It just did a Wicked Witch on us.”

At that moment, Coldmoon heard a crash, and a massive army bulldozer appeared on Gaston, ramming stalled and smoking cars aside. As it moved into the park, it was followed by a line of tanks and MRAPs full of troops.

“And here comes the cavalry,” said Delaplane acidly. “Right on time.”