Desolation

  “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—”

  “Do you know where the Narrow Man keeps the kids he takes?”

  The words dried up in Lucy’s mouth. Then she shook her head. “The Narrow Man is an urban legend. He’s not real.”

  “He’s taken another one,” Kelly said. “Austin Cooke. Snatched him right out of his bedroom because the town voted for it.”

  “No,” said Lucy, “Austin Cooke ran away. He was being bullied and he … he ran away. The voting thing is a scare tactic to keep little kids from misbehaving.”

  Kelly stepped right up to her. “I’m sure Austin was suitably terrified when the Narrow Man came for him.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Lucy said, shoving Kelly backwards.

  “Where does he keep them?”

  “He’s not real!” she shouted.

  “Where does he keep them?”

  “He doesn’t exist!”

  “Where does he keep them?”

  “I don’t know!”

  They looked at her.

  She snarled. “You don’t think we want to stop him? Me, the others … But Novak won’t hear of it, and he’s our Chief. He gives the orders, we carry them out.”

  “You’re not carrying out his orders right now,” said Amber.

  “And I’m regretting that,” said Lucy. “Just like I’m regretting helping you out against the Hounds. But hey, shit happens. You’re gonna get in that car of yours, that goddamn evil car, and you’re gonna pick up your friend and get the hell out of town. And you,” Lucy said to Kelly, “you’re gonna do the same. You think Novak or any of my fellow officers are gonna let you off with a caution if they catch you? You’re dead. Understand that? They’re gonna put you down, all of you. Go. Get out of here. And if I see you again? I’ll shoot you on sight.”

  AMBER WOKE ON A couch with a blanket over her head.

  For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. Then she remembered the Hounds, and her parents, and Kelly directing her to the old man’s house. Virgil someone. The van had already been there when they’d arrived, and Amber herself had taken Milo and laid him on to the back seat of the Charger. His pulse had been slow and his breathing shallow, but he was in the Charger and the Charger would heal him. It would. It had to.

  Because tonight was Hell Night.

  She pulled down the blanket, expecting it to snag on her horns, but it passed easily over her face. She checked her hands in the early morning light. Pale. Flesh-coloured. She hadn’t shifted while she slept. The urge was there, she could still feel it, but it was lessened. Weakened.

  She wasn’t surprised. She’d been expecting it, actually. More or less depending on it.

  She laid the blanket aside and sat up quietly. The others were still wrapped up in their sleeping bags on the floor of Virgil’s living room. She’d only met him briefly the previous night. Kelly had introduced them and he’d gone off to bed. She wasn’t sure if the other old man – Javier, she thought his name was – was Virgil’s housemate or his lover. The thought of two old gay men living up here in Alaska would have made her heart warm were it not for the town they’d chosen to move to.

  She
put her shoes on and stood. The clothes she’d been wearing last night, or at least the rags they’d turned into, were now stuffed in a garbage bag. The ones she had on were wrinkled and let the chill in, so she hugged herself as she crept out of the room. Two raised his head, looked at her, yawned and went back to sleep. Amber walked over to the door that led to the garage, but hesitated before opening it. She uttered a silent prayer to someone, somewhere, and slipped inside. The Charger was parked on the other side of the van.

  “Please be okay,” she whispered. “Please be okay. Please be okay.”

  She rounded the van, approached the Charger, and leaned down to peer through the window. The blanket she’d used to cover Milo was lying on the back seat.

  Milo was gone.

  Coldness swept through her and she reeled away from the car, that parasitic car that healed and sustained him, but also fed off him. It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder what it would do if he was too badly injured, if he died during the night. Would it leave his body be, or would it absorb it, consume it completely and leave nothing, not even bloodstains on the upholstery?

  Milo walked up beside her. “What’s wrong with you?”

  She leaped away from him in shock, then grabbed him and hugged him. “You’re alive!”

  “Uh, yeah,” he said, enduring the hug with his arms by his sides.

  “I thought the car had eaten you!”

  “Nope.”

  His clothes were fresh. He smelled of soap. She released him and covered her heart with her hands, feeling it beat. “You’re okay?”

  “I’m sore,” he said, “but yeah. Feeling fine. I couldn’t find my boots.”

  “They’re gone.”

  “Damn,” said Milo. “Those were my favourites.”

  He went to the trunk, which sprang open at his touch, and grabbed a pair of walking boots from his bag.

  Amber watched him put them on. “You’re sure you’re feeling okay? You were pretty messed up.”

  “The car takes care of me,” he said. “So do you, for that matter.”

  “I look after my employees.”

  Milo gave her one of those smiles. “Oh, that’s right – I’m being paid for all this, aren’t I? Bodyguard and chauffeur. How much do you owe me by now?”

  “Forty or fifty grand?” said Amber. “No big deal. It’s not like you’re doing this for the money, after all.”

  “It’s for the love of the work,” he said, and straightened up. “So you want to fill me in on what’s been happening? I noticed those two from the jail in the living room, and that’s an old man’s shower. There’s a seat.”

  “His name’s Virgil,” said Amber. “He’s not from here, and he’s on our side. He might be gay.”

  “Good to know.”

  “The other two in the living room are Linda and Warrick. There’s also a dog. My parents are here, too.”

  “In the living room?”

  “In town. Astaroth sent them, but now they want Dacre Shanks’s key so that they can make a deal with Naberius instead.”

  “Devious bastards, aren’t they?”

  “I know what the town festival is. They call it Hell Night. Jesper’s freelancer, someone called the Narrow Man, he makes the sacrifice, Naberius gets juiced up, and the town gets juiced up right along with him. The town changes, and everyone over the age of eighteen shifts.”

  Milo frowned. “Into demons?”

  “Yep. Oh, also? The cops are demons, too.”

  “I figured as much. Anything else?”

  “A kid has gone missing. Austin Cooke. The Narrow Man has him. But we know who the Narrow Man is. He disguises himself as a guy called Moreno, and he owns a hardware store. Kelly and the others, they said he’s a shapeshifter.”

  “Is that so?”

  “You ever meet one of those before?”

  “Not that I’m aware,” Milo said, and opened the car door, reaching into the back seat. He came out with Phil Daggett’s silenced handgun.

  “But I still don’t get it,” said Amber. “Okay, Jesper killed kids because he was old and weak and they were easy prey, but the Narrow Man is, like, this big supernatural bad guy. So why doesn’t Jesper tell him to go after some of the grown-ups?”

  “Maybe because he wants the adults to share the blame,” Milo said. He ejected the magazine and checked it. “If they all agree that this is how it should be done, if this is the price they’re willing to pay for their precious Hell Night, then they shoulder the responsibility.” Satisfied, he slid the magazine back in, then flicked the safety on.

  Amber waited until he was done before saying, “We haven’t had a chance to talk about what Jesper said.”

  “That old bastard said a lot of things.”

  “But he mentioned a Demon – Demoriel. You recognise the name?”

  Milo shook his head. “I don’t, but Jesper sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, doesn’t he? Add in the car thing, and it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s this Demoriel who turned me into what I am today. Not that it changes anything. Now that I know his name, I’m not about to go knocking on his door to ask him some questions.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Just checking.”

  He smiled. “You really thought I was going to abandon you?”

  “No,” she admitted. “But I thought I’d give you the opportunity.”

  “Mighty kind of you, but you’re stuck with me, I’m afraid.”

  “In that case, I have a plan.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “A plan,” she said. “I have one.”

  He frowned at her. “Is it any good?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  He leaned against the car and folded his arms. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Well, I was thinking, what do we need to do? We need to get rid of the Hounds, right? We can’t do that alone.”

  “Are you proposing teaming up with your parents?”

  “What? God, no. No way in hell.”

  “Good,” said Milo. “I don’t think that’d be a smart move.”

  “Can I tell you my plan, please? Thank you. Here’s what I understand about Hell Night. It’s a blast of power, right? Or it’s a, it’s a needle full of adrenaline, and when it’s plunged into Naberius’s heart – like, metaphorically – his power explodes, and when it explodes it’s siphoned off to recharge the barrier. But it also bubbles up here in town and changes ordinary people into violent, murderous demons. That’s the side effect. That’s what Jesper didn’t expect. But he’s adapted, because that’s what he does. But the barrier is the main purpose. It gets recharged because it needs to get recharged. I woke up just now like this. Normal. No horns. You feel it, too, right? My skin isn’t itching anymore.”

  “You think Naberius’s influence is weakening?”

  “I do,” Amber replied. “I think each sacrifice releases a blast of power that recharges everything for exactly one year. We’re in the last few hours of last year’s sacrifice, and I think that if we can stop tonight’s sacrifice from going ahead, the barrier will get so weak that the Hounds can break through. Maybe. Hopefully.”

  Milo looked at her. “Letting the Hounds in? That’s your plan?”

  “The first part of it, yes.”

  “The second part has a lot to make up for, just to warn you.”

  “We want the Hounds to ride in, because, once they’re through, we give Naberius his sacrifice.”

  “Are … are you proposing we kill the kid?”

  “It doesn’t have to be Austin, does it? It doesn’t have to be a kid. It can be anyone. In fact … I think it should be Jesper himself.”

  “And how does that help us?”

  “Once Naberius gets his sacrifice, Hell Night begins, and everyone over the age of eighteen in this town will turn into a bloodthirsty monster. The Hounds come rolling in, and suddenly we won’t be outnumbered. We’ll have a whole army around us.”

  “Who would want to kill us as much as they’d want to kill the Hounds.??
?

  “Sure. But if we can – and I mean all of us – if we can find a safe place to wait it out, the Hounds – and my parents – will be the only targets available.”

  Milo scratched the stubble on his chin. “That’s … that’s a pretty good plan.”

  “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “No, Amber.”

  She beamed.

  “But that means that not only do we have to find the kid, but we’re also going to have to snatch Jesper before tonight. Any bright ideas on how we do either of those things?”

  “Snatching Jesper is easy. We still have Dacre Shanks’s key, right? We’re just going to stroll into Jesper’s office, take him by the spindly arm, and stroll right back out again. As for finding Austin, Kelly and the others think that he’s being hidden in the hardware store. Everything closes early today, at lunchtime, so that’s when they’re going to break in, and I think we should help them.”

  “They’re going to break into a hardware store? In broad daylight?”

  Amber faltered. “Well, I think … I think they’re planning on going in the back door.”

  “They’d want to.”

  “So what do you think? Should we help them?”

  Milo hesitated. He reached into the car, opened the glove box, put in Daggett’s gun and took out his own holstered weapon, then straightened and clipped it on to his belt. “It might be dangerous,” he said, “but it’s not like I almost died last night. So why the hell not?”

  VIRGIL DROVE THEM IN the Sienna, his eight-seater minivan. Javier sat up in the passenger seat and they talked the whole way, hurling insults at each other. It seemed half-hearted, though. They were nervous.

  Amber lay with a blanket on top of her, jammed in tight with Milo and Kelly. Kelly passed the time by tapping her fingertips on Amber’s arm. It was a nice sensation. In the row in front, Two was licking Linda’s face, much to her quiet disgust.

  The Sienna pulled up. Nobody moved.

  “Looks clear,” said Javier.

  “No one around,” said Virgil.

  The others sat up. They were parked in the alley behind the hardware store, separated only by a wall that even Amber herself could scale. Like Virgil and Javier had said, there was no one around.