Desolation (25 page)

“Good point,” he murmured. “Amber, be a good girl and go fetch the magic key, would you?”

Instantly, Amber thought of Phil Daggett’s gun, the one with the silencer, that Milo had dropped into the back seat. It was probably still there. The gun would even the odds. The gun could solve her problems.

“I’ve a better idea,” said Betty, like she knew just what Amber was thinking. She yanked Kelly from Amber’s arms and Kelly cried out. “We’ll send this one instead.” She grabbed a handful of Kelly’s hair, and twisted. “Go to the car, whatever-your-name-is. In the glove box – Amber, the key’s in the glove box, isn’t it? – in the glove box you’ll find a key. If that glove box doesn’t grow teeth and bite your hand off, bring the key back to us and I promise we’ll let you walk away. Do you think you can manage all that?”

Kelly had her jaw clenched. “Sure.”

Betty smiled beautifully. “Good. Off you go.”

Betty released her. Kirsty tossed Kelly the car key and Kelly started for the Charger.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Amber was the first to turn, the first to see Officer Thornton – Lucy – standing there, a look of alarm on her face and her hand on the butt of her gun.

Bill raised his hands slowly, and smiled. “Good evening, Officer,” he said. “We were wondering—”

“Shut up,” Lucy said, scanning their faces. She saw Amber and her frown deepened. “Oh goddammit.”

Betty stepped towards her, hands open and palms up. “We just came to bring our daughter home, Officer,” she said.

“Stop walking,” Lucy said. “I mean it, lady, stop walking this instant.”

Betty stopped. “Of course, Officer. Whatever you say.”

“I’d like to make a complaint, actually,” Grant said. “These people stole my car.”

“That’s a lie,” said Bill.

“The hell it is!” Grant responded. “You drove all the way up here in a stolen car and I want him arrested, Officer!”

Grant stepped away from Bill, glaring at him, backing up towards the gate.

“Sir,” Lucy said, “I’m going to have to ask you to stop moving.”

“Arrest him!”

“Stop moving!”

Grant turned, puzzlement on his face. “I’m not the one who did anything wrong!”

“Sir, go back to where you were—”

As she spoke, Lucy drew her gun, and that was the signal. Amber’s parents and the Van der Valks shifted even as Betty slapped the gun out of Lucy’s hand. Grant lunged, grabbed her, and threw her. She hit the edge of the tow truck and spun away from it, sprawled on to the ground.

“Surprise,” Kirsty said, closing in with her teeth bared.

“Yeah,” said Lucy, standing, “surprise.” And then she shifted.

O
FFICER
L
UCY
T
HORNTON GREW
taller, broader, and strangely angular, the lines of her bones pressing out against her skin – that skin now a deep dirty green, and rough, like sandpaper. Her uniform struggled to contain her. Her hands were talons and, while she had no horns, her mouth was twisted into a permanent grin.

She was on Kirsty before Kirsty even knew what was happening, slamming those heavy knuckles into her face. Grant charged and Lucy hurled Kirsty at his legs. He tripped, sprawled, and Lucy kicked him under the chin. Then Bill was there, taking her off her feet. They fell, grunting and cursing and rolling into the shadows.

Amber shifted without even realising. She saw her mom go for Lucy’s gun and she ran, dived, closed her hand around the barrel.

“Let it go,” Betty snarled, doing her best to pull it away.

She elbowed Amber in the face and Amber growled and twisted, and Betty tumbled over her and now they were rolling as well. Amber’s black scales rose in response, as did her mother’s. The gun went off and Amber jerked away and ripped it from her mother’s grip. It went spinning under the tow truck. Betty grabbed Amber’s horns and slammed her head into the ground, then scrambled up and went after the weapon.

Amber rolled on to her back, her vision blurring. She heard an engine trying to turn over, and a voice. Kelly’s voice.

“The car won’t start! Amber!”

Amber looked up. Through the tears, she saw Kelly poking her head out of the Charger’s window, and suddenly her head cleared and she was getting up. She staggered a little, but her balance returned even as she was stumbling for the car.

“Move over,” she commanded, and Kelly slid to the other side. Amber got in behind the wheel.

“It won’t start,” said Kelly. “I know cars and this isn’t gonna—”

Amber barely touched the key in the ignition and the Charger roared to life. Red headlights snapped on, catching Bill and Kirsty beating the crap out of Lucy. Amber put the car into gear, surged forward. Kelly knew what to do without Amber even saying it. She opened the door as they drew alongside Lucy, yelled, “Get in!”

Lucy kicked Kirsty away from her and spun, ran for the car, and jumped. Kelly caught her and pulled her inside and Amber slammed her foot on the gas and they peeled out of there. They scraped the gate as they passed, crashed on to the road, and in four seconds they were at the top of the street and turning right.

Amber took a series of corners, always staying away from other traffic. Lucy and Kelly swayed with each turn, until finally Amber started to slow down.

“Holy crap,” Kelly whispered. She cleared her throat, and regained a little strength in her voice. “Okay then, before anything else, I would ask that everyone in this car go back to being more or less human. Can we do that?”

“Sure,” said Lucy, and reverted. Amber followed suit.

“Thank you,” Kelly said, and looked over at Amber, and grinned. “We’re so cool.”

Amber laughed, more from nerves than any sense of cheeriness. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, we’re cool, all right.”

“Hush, you,” Kelly said with a wave of her hand. “We so rock. Did we not escape the clutches of the damned? No offence meant to demon-kind, of course.”

“None taken,” said Amber.

“Likewise,” muttered Lucy, rubbing her bruised jaw.

Kelly looked around the car. “This is a hell of a machine. I feel like we should be listening to Zeppelin or Skynyrd, y’know? Maybe some ‘Carry On, My Wayward Son’. Let’s see what we have here …”

Amber was focusing on the road, and didn’t notice Kelly reaching for the radio until she flicked it on. Screams filled the Charger with more than just noise – they brought with them overwhelming anguish and fractured memories of pain and regret and loss that reached inside Amber’s mind and wrenched it in on itself, and the Charger swerved into a parked car and jolted sideways on the empty street and Amber reached out, flailing, knocked the silver dial to the off position, and silence – warm, welcome, glorious silence – seeped through the car.

Amber blinked away tears. Beside her, Kelly was crying.

“What the hell was that?” Lucy asked, her voice small.

Amber shook her head.

With trembling hands, she restarted the car, and pulled into the side of the road. All three of them got out.

Kelly wiped her eyes. “I don’t like that song,” she said, before turning to Lucy. “We saved your ass.”

“Your friends were trying to kill me,” Lucy responded.

“They’re not my friends,” Amber said. “They’re my parents. And … well, and
their
friends. But Kelly’s right. We could have driven off and left you there.”

“You were trespassing on state property.”

Kelly nodded. “And we saved your ass on state property.”

“You owe us,” said Amber.

“I don’t owe you jack shit,” Lucy said. “If anything, you owe me. What, you thought those heads grew bullet holes by themselves?”

Amber frowned. “You were the one shooting at the Hounds?”

“No one else was gonna do it, and I figured you could use more than a running start.”

“Thank you. Jesus, thank you. You saved our lives.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think you’d come straight back into town. If Novak finds you, he’ll shoot you on sight. Probably me as well. Why couldn’t you have just kept running?”

“Desolation Hill is the only place we’re safe,” said Amber, hugging herself to keep warm. “If you could convince Jesper to let us stay …”

“Not gonna happen,” said Lucy.

Her radio squawked and they froze. They listened to a garbled message that abruptly cut off.

“What was that?” Kelly asked.

“Reports of shots fired,” said Lucy. “You’re gonna have to get going. I’ll let you go this once, but, if I see you again, I’ve got to do my job.”

“Your job is to protect and serve,” said Kelly.

“Yeah,” Lucy said, “protect and serve my
community
, which is a pretty messed-up place, morally speaking.”

“We’ll go,” said Amber. “If Novak catches us, we won’t mention you. But what deal did you make? I know about Naberius, I know about Hell Night, I know what happens, but this isn’t that, is it? It’s something else.”

“We didn’t make a deal.”

“Then how did you get your power?”

“You really don’t have time for this.”

“Talk quickly.”

Lucy sighed. “After Naberius was imprisoned, and Mayor Jesper started thinking about what lay in store for him, he decided the best thing to do was to try and kill Astaroth. But he didn’t know how. He needed to experiment.”

Amber frowned. “He summoned another Demon, didn’t he?”

Lucy nodded. “A smaller one. A weaker one. He told you about the markings that keep Naberius in that cell? Those are the same markings he used to keep Ardat-Ko in a circle, down in his cellar, for over a year.”

“Ardat-Ko?”

“Also known as the Smiling Demon. Every day for the first eight months, Jesper would go down into that cellar and try to kill her. Every day he’d fail. He started sending us down, with strict instructions on what to do. We didn’t fare any better.”

“Wait,” said Amber, “how long ago was this?”

“Sixty years or so. I’m the first woman they had on the force. The only one, actually.”

“Wow,” said Kelly. “Sixty years. You look amazing.”

“Thanks.”

“There’s no sagging at all.”

“I can’t take all the credit,” Lucy said with a shrug. “A good fitted bra is essential. Anyway, Ardat-Ko. She didn’t get hungry. She didn’t get tired. She didn’t get angry. She just stood in that circle and smiled while we tried to kill her, over and over again.”

“So what happened?” asked Amber.

“She started talking to us,” said Lucy. “We had orders – do not engage her in conversation. But she knew things. She either read our minds or she read us … and one by one we began to talk back. She offered us great rewards if we released her. She wasn’t as powerful as Astaroth or any of the big guys, but she told us that if we let her out, she could make us strong, let us live for many lifetimes …”

“Did you let her out?”

“I was tempted. I was. So were the others. But Novak was unshakeable. So Ardat-Ko offered
instant
power, right there from within the circle. She persuaded us to trust her with a small knife, and she cut off the fingers on her left hand. Her thumb too. She told us to eat.

“I didn’t believe her. I thought she was trying to poison us. I knew that people who’d made deals could eat other demons to gain their strength, I’d heard about that – but we were ordinary. For all we knew, her blood alone would be like acid to us. But Ardat-Ko promised us that even ordinary people could absorb power by eating the flesh of a being like her. She was right. We felt stronger. Healthier.”

“So you released her?”

“No,” said Lucy, “we didn’t. Novak said he didn’t believe her. He said she’d just vanish the moment she was free. He wanted more power before he let her out. I don’t think she minded. I don’t think it hurt, what she did to herself. And anyway, once she was released, she’d just grow those limbs back.”

“How much did you eat?”

“Her arm,” said Lucy. “Her right leg. Half of her left. Every day she’d have a new portion ready for us. Every bite we took, we got stronger. We started to show signs of … well, of becoming demons ourselves, but we didn’t stop. We couldn’t. We got to her right thigh before she realised she wasn’t getting out of there.”

“And then you ate the rest of her.”

“We did. The most unsettling part was that she kept smiling the whole way through.”

“And Jesper knew about this?”

“Of course. The Chief tells him everything. Jesper loved the idea of having his own demon police force. We wouldn’t be able to keep the town safe otherwise.”

“You get a lot of demons through here, huh?” said Kelly.

“We do. And serial killers and psychos of all descriptions. Desolation Hill draws them in, but these last few days we’ve seen the numbers grow. Because of her.” Lucy was looking at Amber.

“And you take care of them,” said Kelly. “Demon cops, protecting their community. And what about the child murders? What do you do about them?”

Lucy’s face turned stony. “What child murders?”

“For the sacrifice,” said Amber. “To keep Naberius going, to keep him supplying the town with power.”

“One a year,” said Kelly. “Or hadn’t you noticed that?”

“Lot of people go missing,” Lucy said. “Not just in this town. In every town. Kids, too. It doesn’t mean they’ve—”