Den of thieves

Chapter Eighty-Nine

The demon howled in agony, and Malden had to hang on to the door frame not to be knocked down. It was a hideous thing to look upon, but he could only imagine its pain. It-Malden could not bring himself to think of the thing as a “he”-must have experienced every instant of its new life as an eternity of suffering.

As Hazoth had said, it was not ready to be born. It had no skin on its stringy muscles and it oozed pus every time it stretched. Steam lifted from its back in great white coils, and where its feet touched the marble floor, the stone grew slick with its blood. In shape it was not unlike a horribly deformed hound, though it had seven legs-none of them the same length or shape. Sprouting from its shoulders on long thick necks were a row of human skulls with wicked fanged jaws. The eye sockets were filled with wet red membranes that throbbed and sucked at the air. Malden assumed that was how it scented, and that this was the only sense it possessed.

When it screamed, the sound issued not from the clacking jaws of the skulls but from a gaping mouth in its chest filled with round half-formed teeth.

It pawed at the floor, stumbling like a newborn foal. Every footfall made the entire house shake. Its skull heads wove through the air at the end of the clumsy necks, and its nostrils squeezed shut, then shot open again. One by one the skulls turned to point directly at Malden. How it could smell anything through the thick reek of brimstone in the air was an open question, but he had no doubt it was quite aware of him.

Malden shrank back as far as he could, yet it was as if he were transfixed, so horrified by the thing’s appearance he couldn’t move.

The demon took a tottering step forward, its multitude of claws clacking on the floor.

Time to run.

The paralysis of horror left him in a rush of blood to his legs. Malden slammed the door behind him, only to hear it splinter and crack as the demon rammed its way through. By that point he was well down the hall beyond, nearly at the door of the library. The demon squeezed into the hallway and came galloping toward him, no longer so awkward or graceless. It was fast-far faster than he was-and it would be on him in a second if he didn’t move. He flung himself at the door to the library and, thank the Bloodgod, it flew open.

Inside the library he leapt over a divan just as the demon smashed through the doorway, shattering the door frame with its odd number of shoulders. It reared up and swung two of its legs through the air, an instant away from crushing Malden beneath one foot that looked like a hoof and another like the paw of a wolf.

Malden threw his arms across his face, knowing that if the thing struck him even once, it would be his end. He rolled back and away from the beast as it came lurching forward — and then stopped in mid-attack.

Kemper, I hope you made it this far, Malden thought. He’d given the card sharp strict instructions to include the library on his itinerary as he made his way around the house, but Malden also knew that if there had been any danger of being caught, Kemper might have cut his circuit short.

Yet now the demon sniffed and sucked at the air, and its skull heads craned around the room, searching something out. Malden edged away slowly, crawling backward on his hands so as not to make any noise, in case the thing had ears hidden somewhere on its body.

One of the skull heads fixated on a particular glass-fronted bookcase. It brought a second head around to sniff as well, as if making sure it had the right scent. Then it threw all of its considerable mass at the case, pulverizing the glass, sending the books flying, smashing through the thick wooden shelves. It savaged the case with its jaws and its huge wet mouth, striking again and again with its claws and hooves and talons until it battered through the wall behind the case as well.

A lone playing card, the six of acorns, floated out of the wreckage and drifted to the floor. The demon stamped on it, tore it to shreds with its teeth, and swallowed the bits of paper that remained.

By the time it was finished, Malden had already broken for the next door, and the next hallway.