Vespers

Forty-Five

About midway up the twelve-story statue,vespers had begun swirling around Gentry, scratching and biting. The detective ducked his head into his arms and continued running up. He didn’t have to see where he was going in order to get there. All he needed to do was keep his right side pressed to the railing and follow it up. The pain in his ankle had become a constant ache, which was preferable to the sharp jabs he’d been suffering before.

Every once in a while he shouted Nancy ’s name, hoping that she might hear him and respond. Hoping that she might find a way to buy herself another second or two until he could get to her.

It wasn’t until he was near the statue’s shoulders that he heard a response. He also heard something else: the continuous grind of metal against metal. He felt gusts of fresh air. Still holding the crowbar, he crouched when he was just below the landing. With his arm slung across his face to protect it from the vespers, he raised his eyes above the crook of his elbow. He peered through the crisscrossing support beams.

He saw the bat on the staircase of the upraised arm. She was tucked up in the folds of the bunched sleeve. All around her, copper plates had been torn away while others were swinging on single rivets. Though none of the support beams were broken, several were bent, and the arm was tilting slightly toward the front of the monument. He could tell because the stairs had torn away from the landing and were leaning seaward.

The belligerent vespers forced him to move before he’d had more than a moment to reconnoiter. He clambered up to the landing, leaning as much as possible on his right leg. God help him if the bats hobbled that one too. His immediate goal was to try and get the big bat away from the statue’s arm so Joyce could get out.

As the detective began to move forward, the creature dropped from the stairs, landed heavily, then turned slowly. The animal was bowed very low, its chin nearly on the platform. It was bleeding from its neck. Swatting vespers away from his face, Gentry watched as the wounded giant crept slowly across the broken body of Officer Berk. The bat inadvertently dragged the corpse several feet as it crawled toward him. Berk’s shredded belt came off. Blood-soaked shreds of his uniform stuck to the landing.

Gentry backed away as more and more vespers picked at his arms, his shoulders, his legs. He held the crowbar in one hand and clawed desperately at vespers with the other. Between close-up glimpses of tiny white teeth and velvety wings he thought he saw movement behind the giant-

The giant bat heard it and turned, still low to the ground. As she did, her head snapped to the side as Joyce smashed it with Officer Berk’s nightstick.

The creature reared up, shrieking, its huge body centered on the tripod of its powerful legs and thick tail. Its head and shoulders pushed against the top of the statue’s sleeve. The copper bulged and broke as the creature rose into the dawn sky.

“ Nancy!”Gentry cried. He motioned her toward him.

“No, go back!”

“Not without you! Comeon! ”

The young woman hesitated a moment longer. Then she tossed the stick aside, scrambled around the bat, and ran toward Gentry. An instant later the creature came down hard, causing the metal landing to bend in the center. The floor tilted and seemed to suck Joyce back; she grabbed the handrail of the spiral staircase to keep from sliding toward the creature. The monster swept at her with its hook, but Gentry had dropped the crowbar and pulled Joyce up and over the railing just as the claw sliced by. Roaring with rage, the wounded creature hunched its head deep in its huge shoulders and charged forward.

Holding Joyce close to him, Gentry started running down the stairs. He was glad he’d tied the ankle bandage tight. It was all that kept his foot from crumbling beneath his weight. The giant bat crushed the railing and crawled after them, face-down, vespers spiraling ahead of it.

“What are youdoing?” Joyce screamed.

Gentry couldn’t answer. He was out of breath and concentrating on staying ahead of the main body of vespers. He was also watching his feet, paying attention to what was below them.

Waiting.

The steps shook as the creature descended. It was difficult to tell how far behind she was, but it wasn’t far enough: Gentry could not only hear but feel eachchung as the bat’s hooks came down ahead of her.

It was a dizzying descent, and when they were nearly at the bottom Joyce stumbled and fell. Gentry stopped, turned to help her up, and saw the bat just yards above. The lowest of the vespers attacked them as Gentry grabbed Joyce under the arms, held her against his chest, and pulled her down. Just a few more steps.

“Get ready, T-Bone!” he shouted.

Gentry reached the rubber-topped landing in the pedestal. He threw himself on top of Nancy.

“Now, T-Bone!”

“Almost there!” T-Bone shouted back.

Gentry looked anxiously around the base of the column in the center of the room. There was a cable attached to it; at the other end, T-Bone was lying on his back, working beneath the transformer box.

Gentry looked up. The bat was winding its way down the last turn of the spiral staircase. Gentry saw its bloody mouth and flaming eyes and more of the small bats swirling down.

“We’re out of time, man!” Gentry cried.

“No shit!” T-Bone said. He slid out and quickly knee-walked to a smaller box beside the transformer.

The bat crawled down the last few steps. The detective and Nancy moved to the other side of the column. The creature looked at them over the railing and spread its wings.

“Say cheese,” T-Bone said as he punched the circuit breaker on.

There was a click, then a hum as electricity shot through the cable to the steel core. The giant bat stiffened. Its wings trembled at its side and its mouth spread silently in every direction. There was a sizzle from the column as wisps of smoke curled from the torso and right wing where the bat was still touching it. The white bone around its hourglass nose quickly grew black, and the bat’s head rolled down. Its eyes and claws went wide and stayed that way.The huge muscles of its chest and shoulders grew taut and the fur seemed to dissolve, then the skin darkened and smoked. From behind came a flood of death as bat after bat brushed the column and exploded into small, living torches. Some of the vespers dropped quickly, others circled widely for a moment before falling, a few tried to fly away. Many of them squealed, but most of them died silently.

As he looked back at the fiery cascade, Gentry covered Nancy with his arms and chest to protect her from the burning bats. He didn’t want to move from the rubber ledge and risk touching the handrail. Not while the power was still on.Her head was tucked against his armpit, her breath coming fast and hot, and she hugged him tightly. Her fingers were in constant motion, running over any part of him she could find. Gentry didn’t take it personally. He suspected that Nancy was happy to be feeling anything at all.

After several long, long seconds, the giant bat finally moved. It looked down, though Gentry wondered it if was even aware of them. Slowly, it rose on violently trembling legs and opened its wings as though it wanted to fly. It lifted its head and looked up-at its nest? Gentry wondered.

Its wings opened wider, to their fullest extent. The left wing rose and touched the copper skin of the statue’s foot. Sparks and a sound like crumbling paper rolled up the side, in and out of the folds of her robe, lighting the statue as it rose. The electrical wave ran into the statue’s arm and up the torch and ignited the cluster of thousand-watt bulbs behind the yellow and red glass of the flame. It burned, bright and brief, as the rising sun lit the millions of windows in the countless buildings across the breadth of Manhattan.

And then the electrical fire died. The bat relaxed. Its burned wings descended like shrouds, and its eyes shut and its legs crumpled. Smoke rising from its flesh, the bat did a slow pirouette as it dropped into the narrow space between the staircase and the pedestal wall. It fell for just a moment, landing hard on a cross-section of metal struts, and then everything was quiet. The light of the sun quickly diluted the strong orange glow of the bats that burned on the steps around them. The surviving vespers flew off quickly to the top of the statue.

Only now did Gentry become aware of the fact that Nancy was crying. He continued to crouch where he was and hold the young woman.

“Gentry! Hey, Detective, you guys okay?”

“We’re fine, T-Bone,” he said. “Good work. Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome,” the big man said as he walked around the column. He was smiling broadly.

Kathy Leung came running up the stairs. She was carrying the camera on her shoulder, videotaping her ascent. When she arrived, she shut the camera off and handed it to T-Bone. Then she knelt on the step below Gentry. She smiled at the detective and winked. “Thanks for the exclusive, Robert.”

“I did it all for you, Kath.”

“Were you able to get some of those fireworks?” T-Bone asked.

“Oh yeah.” Kathy looked up at Joyce.

“Cool,” T-Bone said. “There’s your transfer and my raise.”

Kathy regarded Joyce. “Doctor, is there anything I can get you?”

Gentry lifted his arm. Joyce slipped from under it. “No thanks.”

“You sure?”

She looked at Gentry and smiled faintly. “I’m sure.”

T-Bone looked over the side. “Kath, you may want to shoot this too, before the SWAT guys get here and seal it all off.”

“We will,” she told him.

“Hey, and thanks for listening to me, Detective,” T-Bone went on.

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t Itell you not to bring that motherfucking bat down here? Man, that is some nasty smelling fried animal.”

“Sorry,” Gentry said. He looked at Joyce. “The airis a little foul in here. You up to walking outside for some of the fresh stuff? Assuming I can get my legs to work.”

“Not just yet,” Joyce said. She rose unsteadily. “There’s something we have to do.”