Nocturnal (82 page)

It was too late to debate morality — Bryan was out there, exposed and alone. Pookie was a captive. If John hesitated, both would surely die.

John heard a barely audible buzz. He turned to look at Adam, who held up the receiver — it blinked red.

Bryan had hit the button.

John leaned in close to Alder and Adam.

“Hit the head if you can, but if you’re rushed just shoot center-mass,” he said. “Clear the ledge, then start chucking grenades to cause more confusion. We need to make them think there’s hundreds of us, so they run instead of attacking. You guys ready?”

Alder and Adam nodded.

John wasn’t ready, wasn’t even close, but the time had come.

He turned and walked down the tunnel toward the ledge.

Black-furred hands held him aloft as if he weighed nothing more than a child.

He couldn’t breathe.

This was the end.

From off to the left, Pookie saw something small flying through the air. Had a spectator thrown a rock? It landed somewhere behind Pookie, clattering against the old wood.

Then he heard a hiss, like a hundred sparklers going up at once. Light
flared from behind him,
intense
light, casting his shadow forward onto the prow and the people gathered there.

“Mommy,” the creature said, and then Pookie felt his back start to get hot.

The crushing hands let go. Pookie fell to the deck, surprised at the sudden freedom. Firstborn stepped over him and ran toward the back of the boat, as did the snake-face, the dog-face and the girl with the metal whips. Pookie turned to see where they were going, but had to flinch and avert his eyes from the bright light blazing near the ship’s cabin. He looked back at Rex, who stood there, blinking, not moving, flickering shadows playing off his face.

Echoing gunfire sounded from up on the ledge to the left of the prow. Pookie looked in that direction. Some kind of commotion up there: muzzle flashes, people scrambling, bodies falling off the edge and plummeting to the floor below.

And then, off to the ship’s left, he saw something amazing — a man leaping off the cavern’s ledge thirty feet above. He sailed toward the ship, rising up nearly to the ceiling before arcing down, his blanket falling away behind him. Legs bicycle-kicked the air. Arms rowed forward like a long jumper’s. He wore a black peacoat.

Bryan?

Pookie locked in on the black mask, on the scrawled white death-grin coming closer, closer.

In midair, Bryan’s hands shot behind his back and came out holding pistols.

Pookie had a moment to think
that’s pretty fucking impressive, home-slice
, then Bryan started to tilt forward, out of control. Arms flailed and legs kicked awkwardly — Bryan smashed into Rex’s back, knocking the boy’s body forward and driving him face-first into the deck’s broken planks. Bryan and Rex skidded through the wood, spraying up jagged splinters and bits of board, then they fell through the deck and vanished from sight.

B
ryan dropped into darkness, things smacking him in his face, his arms and his hands as he fell. He hit hard on his head and shoulder and came to a stop.
Landing —
something he’d have to work on.

He struggled to stand. He still held a five-seven in his right hand. His left hand was empty. He’d lost that gun and it was easy to see why — his pinkie and ring fingers flopped sickly, both broken at their base knuckle.

Cracked boards surrounded him. Old dust choked the air. He’d smashed through the upper deck and apparently one below that. Fifteen feet above, he saw the jagged hole in the deck and the mast lights rising above it. He had to get up there, had to reach Pookie and the others. Bryan struggled to stand amid the angled pile of wood. He got his footing, then bent and
jumped
. He cleared eight feet and landed on the second deck. Another quick leap took him back to the main deck.

Gunfire and screams echoed through the cavern. At the back end of the ship, the cabin wall and door blazed with crawling flame. Something inside cried out in a deep voice. Monsters beat frantically at the flames, trying to put them out. Bryan saw Pierre and Sly and Firstborn, the whip-woman who had killed Robin, all of them trying to fight the fire, but he couldn’t take them on now: he had to get the hostages out first.

He looked toward the poles holding Verde and Chief Zou and the others. Blocking the way stood the nerdy kid with the distended belly. He wore bent horn-rimmed glasses and held a silver Zippo in his right hand.

In a practiced motion that would have made the most hard-core hipster chain-smoker green with envy, the kid brought his left hand up, flipping open the Zippo and lighting it with the same motion.

The kid’s cheeks puffed out, like he was about to puke. His stomach made a gurgling noise Bryan heard even over the crackling flames. The kid held up the Zippo and let out a sound that was half-belch, half-roar.

Flames billowed out, a spreading fireball ripping toward Bryan’s face.

Bryan stepped back over the hole in the deck and dropped down as the fireball ripped the air above him.

From John’s right, an insectile monster scrambled over the dead body of one of its brothers and rushed in. John spun to face it, pulled the shotgun
trigger twice — the first blast hit it in the chest, the second in the head. The thing flew back, half of its obscene face ripped away. Something hammered John’s left shoulder, driving him against the cavern wall. Clumps of dirt and stone broke off around him — someone was shooting at him.

“Alder! Sniper!”

“I have him,” Alder said. Alder knelt, aimed his cane at a blanketed gunman on the cavern’s opposite ledge.

Fingers scraped at John’s left foot. He looked down — a little red-haired girl, no more than ten, crawling up from under the ledge, her tiny fingers reaching out for his foot. The look in her eyes:
murder, hate, hunger
.

John swung the shotgun muzzle down, held it an inch from her face and pulled the trigger. A cloud of brain and bone, the girl spun away down to the trenches below.

Alder’s cane-gun fired; the sniper fire ended.

“Damn, I’m good,” the old man said.

More monsters were closing in from the right and also from the left, where Adam fired away with his five-seven.

John reached for his grenades.

Hands and feet tied, Pookie fought to standing position. He had to act. The fat kid — the one who had
breathed fire
at Bryan — was only a few feet away, looking down into the hole in the deck. Pookie pushed off both feet and hopped toward the boy.

Got to keep my balance, I swear I’ll hit the treadmill if I get out of this alive
 …

The boy heard Pookie coming; he started to turn but he was too late. Pookie threw himself at the boy’s legs. The boy wavered for a moment, arms whirling, then he fell into the hole.

Bryan saw the fire-breathing kid fall through the hole in the deck. The dying words of a burn-covered teenager flashed through his mind:
demon, dragon
.

He aimed his five-seven and fired three times as Jay Parlar’s killer crashed down to smash face-first into the broken wood. Bryan jumped high again, this time putting his right foot on the second deck and pushing off that, the one-two leap carrying him up to the main deck — he had scrambled fifteen feet
straight up
, just like that.

Bryan found himself standing over Pookie Chang.

“Untie me for fuck’s sake!”

Bryan holstered the five-seven and drew his Ka-Bar knife. He sliced through Pookie’s ropes and helped the man to his feet.

A big, resonant voice screamed from inside the burning cabin. “Elle brûle … elle brûle!”

Explosions echoed from the ledges, joining the cacophony of gunfire, crackling flames and the echoing screams of fear, pain and anger.

Bryan drew the five-seven, then gave it and the knife to Pookie. “Cut everyone loose!”

Pookie nodded and ran toward Chief Zou.

Bryan’s other five-seven had to be around here somewhere, or maybe he’d lost it below, but either way he didn’t have time to find it. He looked up at the crucified Erickson thirty feet above — he couldn’t leave the man up there. Bryan ran to the mast … made of
human skulls
?

All the eyes … all the teeth
.

Bryan jumped onto the mast, his feet breaking skulls as he climbed. He was so strong now, so agile; he scaled the mast like a chimp shooting up a tree trunk. His ravaged left fingers screamed in white-hot complaint, but there was no other choice.

He found himself face-to-face with the Savior.

ba-da-bum-bummmm

Bryan stared at Jebediah Erickson. Jebediah Erickson stared back.

This was his
brother
.

Bryan hooked his left arm over the crossbeam. With his right hand, he grabbed the spike sticking out of Erickson’s right palm.

He met Erickson’s eyes again. “You ready?”

Erickson’s bloody, split lips smiled. “I’m glad I was wrong about you.”

Dangling thirty feet above the deck, Bryan yanked the spike free. Erickson snarled, but he didn’t cry out. Blood splattered down on the white skulls and the dry wood below.

Bryan swung behind the mast and moved to the other side. He again hooked his left arm over the crossbar, grabbed the spike pinning Erickson’s left hand and ripped it free.

The old man slid his right hand behind the mast, holding himself up as he bent at the knees and reached down with his left to yank at the spike nailed through his feet.

Another explosion, more screams — John and the others were using their thermite grenades, using everything they had. The air started to fill with smoke. Bryan felt the cabin fire’s heat even from up here on the mast.

“Bryan!” Pookie’s voice from below, followed by gunfire.

Bryan let go and dropped. He bent his legs as he landed, absorbing the impact but still stumbling to the right. Mr. Biz-Nass cowered at the base of the skull-mast. Zou and her daughters ran to him. Robertson had the knife and was cutting away at Verde’s ropes. Pookie stood tall, firing away at an advancing wave of white-robed men. The masked men would fall or flinch, but there were too many for him to stop them all.