They gave the representative a wide berth on their way to the Charger. Milo took them the long way round, and they passed behind stacks of pallets and crates and splashed through stagnant puddles that waited in the dark. Amber could have complained, but this was very serious business, and so she kept her opinion to herself. Feeling very proud of how responsible and adult she could be sometimes, she walked into Milo.
“Oops,” she whispered, “excuse you.”
He didn’t answer, which was rude. She looked beyond him, to where her mother was standing in front of the Charger.
Kirsty was there as well, and Grant, and of course Bill, who had his arm round Edgar. Edgar stood rigid like the slightest movement would cause Bill to tear his head off – which was probably true, now that Amber thought about it. But, as Amber stepped into the light, Bill smiled, and let go, and Edgar scuttled away.
“Hello, sweetheart,” Bill said. “You’re grounded.”
“Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friends?” Betty asked. “Mr Buxton, please forgive my daughter’s manners. I thought we’d raised her better than this, I truly did. I love your wings, by the way. I’m a big fan of wings. Kirsty, haven’t I always said how much I love wings?”
“For as long as I can remember,” said Kirsty.
“For as long as Kirsty can remember, I have always said I love a good pair of wings. And they are a fine pair, Mr Buxton.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” said Grant. “One of these kids is definitely doing their own thing, aren’t they? Here we have our beautiful Amber, resplendent in red, and Mr Buxton here, gracious in grey … but Mr Sebastian, I am afraid, is distressingly dull.”
“Come now, Milo,” said Bill, “we’re all friends here, aren’t we? After all, you drove off with my daughter – I imagine that makes us practically family. And your good friend Edgar has told us all about you, so why don’t you join us? Show us your true face.”
“This won’t end well for you,” said Milo.
Bill lost his good humour. “Grant, do me a favour, would you? Shoot him in the head.”
Grant smiled, went for the gun tucked into his waistband, but Milo’s gun leaped into his hand and suddenly the night was filled with gunfire and Amber was stumbling sideways, Buxton’s arm round her waist.
She fell to her knees and Buxton was gone, and she felt a tremendous gust of wind and heard the beating of his wings. More gunshots, and shouting, and, just as Amber was making sense of it all, Kirsty was standing in front of her.
“You little pest,” she said, and rammed a knee into Amber’s face.
Amber fell back, the world a crazy place of tilting horizons and bright spots exploding before her eyes.
“You insufferable little bitch.” Kirsty lashed a kick into her side that sent Amber rolling. “I never could stand you, you know that? Out of all of them, you’ve been the most annoying. Just so goddamn glum all the time. Always watching that ridiculous TV show with all the pretty people moping around.”
Amber tried getting up, but Kirsty’s fist came down like a rock.
“Why’d you have to be so glum? What do teenagers have to be glum about?” Kirsty picked her up by the throat. “Why couldn’t you have just learned to have fun?”
Kirsty headbutted her and Amber staggered back until she toppled.
In a daze, she watched Buxton throwing Bill against a cargo container, and Betty charge into him from behind. He was bigger than them, and probably stronger, but there were two of them, and when they worked as a team they were a lethal partnership.
Kirsty grabbed Amber’s hair and yanked, and Amber cried out as she scrambled to her feet. Kirsty twisted her head round, till Amber was watching Grant pummelling Milo.
“Want to know a secret?” Grant said when Milo dropped. “I hate you guys. You know who I mean, right? You car guys. Your whole act just seems so self-conscious. You drive a cool-looking car. That’s your entire thing. Where’s the sense in that?”
He kicked Milo across the ground.
“How close do you have to be to it to get the full benefit of your deal? Closer than this, am I right?” He looked up at Kirsty. “Hey, honey, how close do car guys have to get?”
“Fifty paces is the standard, last I heard,” said Kirsty.
“Fifty paces,” Grant repeated. “You’re, what, sixty paces right now, yeah? Around that? So close. So very close.”
Milo started dragging himself towards the Charger.
“That’s the spirit! Never say die!” Grant stood on Milo’s leg. “Well, never say die until you do die, and by then what’s the point, am I right?”
Kirsty laughed, and Amber slammed her elbow into her nose and broke free of her grip.
While Kirsty bellowed her anger, Amber went stumbling. Whatever high she was experiencing was beginning to ebb, but it had already lost its appeal. She was truly terrified, and she had no idea what to do.
She should have run. They all should have run when they had the chance.
Kirsty rammed into her from behind and Amber hit the ground, but managed to roll, managed to get up before Kirsty could grab her. She ducked the grasping hands and now she did run, but Kirsty was right behind her and sounding very, very angry.
Kirsty’s hand found her hair and yanked again, even harder this time. Amber’s head snapped back and she fell to one knee, and Kirsty had a hold of her now and Amber hurtled into a stack of pallets and they tumbled down around her, the edge of one smacking into her skull. The world spun and darkened. Hands on her. Kirsty’s voice. Kirsty’s face, hazy and bloody and furious. Pain blossomed and Amber fell against something. The Charger. She felt a tinge of surprise somewhere in the corner of her mind when it rolled backwards a few inches.
Amber’s vision cleared in time to see Kirsty closing in. She braced herself against the car, got a hand to the hood, and pushed herself off, experiencing the dizzying notion that such a push was all the Charger had been waiting for. It rolled backwards at an unnaturally steady pace.
Amber swung a punch that Kirsty dodged, and got a swipe of her talons in return. They cut through her clothes, cut through her skin before her scales had a chance to form, and Amber made a noise like a wounded cat and Kirsty laughed.
Amber backed away, watching the Charger as it rolled silently along the even ground. Kirsty frowned, turning to see what was commanding her attention. Her eyes widened.
“Grant!” she yelled. “The car!”
Grant looked over, and Milo straightened up and Amber saw him, saw Milo, for the first time.
He was glorious. He had grown no taller and no broader, but his skin had darkened to an impossible black, a black that drank in the light around it so that his outline merged with the shadows behind him. The horns on his forehead were curved and sharp, three or four inches long, and when he smiled the same red light spilled from his mouth as shone from his eyes.
Grant turned and Milo plunged his talons into his gut, lifting him off his feet even as Kirsty screamed her husband’s name.
AMBER MOVED THROUGH A small maze of crates, away from the fighting, got to the crane and ducked behind the control cabin. She lifted her blood-drenched T-shirt. The claw marks across her side were not that deep, but the pain still made her grimace. She took a deep breath and moved on, keeping low until she neared the representative. He watched her approach, seemingly unimpressed by the sounds of violence from the other side of the stacks.
“You’ve eaten,” he said.
“Yes, I have,” she responded.
He peered at her. “You haven’t got long before your blood is useless to me. Make haste.”
Amber walked to the table, to the five jars of blood and the single empty one. The representative handed her a scalpel.
“Looks sharp,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“Do I have to cut my arm? I’m already bleeding. Could I use that blood?”
“You may.”
She nodded, moved the jar to her side, then looked up. “W
hat does he do with it all? The Shining Demon, I mean? Does he drink it? Bathe in it?”
The representative didn’t answer.
Amber smiled nervously. “Not going to discuss your boss’s personal habits, are you? I can understand that, I guess.”
“You are wasting time.”
She nodded. “Where’d your boss come from, anyway? Is he from hell? Was I in hell when I spoke to him?”
“Questions are irrelevant.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah, okay.”
“Your blood.”
“Yes. My blood.”
She put down the empty jar, and picked up a full one.
The representative frowned. “Be careful with—”
“I’m sorry?” Amber said, and flung the jar against the same pyramid of pipes that Imelda had impaled herself on.
Blood burst from exploding glass and the representative gasped, too stunned to move. Amber turned her hands to claws and destroyed two more jars before he barged into her. He was surprisingly strong for someone so old, but she scooped up one of the remaining jars while he grabbed the last one. He held it close to his chest, his eyes narrow.
“Why?” he snarled.
She tossed her jar into the air, caught it one-handed. “My parents are monsters. Your master’s a Demon. Why would I ever want to be part of that?”
“You have no idea what you’ve done,” the old man said. “You have no idea what this means for you.”
Amber shrugged. “I imagine a lot of people are going to be very angry with me. But I don’t mind that, because your boss is going to be very angry with you, too. You let this happen, after all. You were stupid enough to let me get this close. Looking at it like that, all this is kind of your fault.”
“Give me the jar.”
She held it up. “What’s the point? Big Shiny won’t be happy with two jars. It’d be an insult, right? So come on – I’ll smash this one, you smash that one. Let’s see who can throw it further.”
“My master requires six jars,” said the representative. “When your parents and their friends eat you, four more jars will be filled.”
“Huh,” said Amber. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
She went to throw, but the representative lunged, snatching the jar from her hand a split second before his shoulder rammed into her chest. Knocked off her feet, Amber hit the ground and rolled to a stop. The representative carefully placed the two jars back on the table.
“You’re pretty spry for an old guy,” Amber muttered.
“You have caused much disruption,” he said.
“Yeah.” She stood, the harbour wind playing with her hair. “So what are you going to do about it, old man?”
The old man looked at her, and grew. His arms and legs lengthened, tearing his clothes, reducing them to rags. He loomed over her, ten feet tall and rake-thin. His skin turned grey and smooth, almost rubbery like a shark, and his eyes closed over and his nose sank in and his lips stretched, impossibly wide, turned black and parted, revealing a second mouth that was no more than a hole ringed with curved teeth.
It wasn’t a man anymore, it was a thing, a creature, and it shrieked at Amber, but she was already stepping backwards as a thousand different nightmares flooded her memory. She tried to run, but her foot slipped on some of Imelda’s remains and then the creature was upon her.
With her left arm jammed under its chin, she tried to keep it at bay. The teeth of its second mouth were moving, undulating in their eagerness to get at her. Protective scales formed on her skin. Its breath was cold and foul, and it was strong, stronger than her, and no matter how hard she pushed, it drew closer and closer, and with one final surge it clamped its mouth on her shoulder.
Amber screamed as the teeth sank in like her scales weren’t even there. Beyond the pain, which was exquisite in its striking clarity, she could feel those teeth beginning to bore through her flesh. She grew talons on her free hand and tried to plunge them into the creature’s ribcage, but couldn’t pierce its rubbery hide. She toppled, fell, the creature on top. Blood ran down her arm, her back, her chest. She screamed and raked and clawed and battered, but it didn’t notice. It just drank.
She brought her knees in, got her feet against its body and tried to straighten her legs. The creature was too strong. Its grip was too secure.
“Please,” Amber cried, “stop!”
The pain reached new heights as the creature adjusted its position. She turned her head away, looking desperately for something to use, something to fight it off with. Imelda’s shoe was right there, but it didn’t even have a sharp heel. Beyond it, no more than ten paces away, was the table.
She grabbed the shoe, doing her best to ignore the agony, and took careful aim. She threw, but the shoe sailed high and wide, missing both of the remaining jars.
She saw Imelda’s other shoe. Her last chance.
She reached for it with her foot, managed to nudge it back towards her, then got her heel behind it and bent her leg, dragging it across the ground to her waiting hand. This time she didn’t even bother to aim. She just lobbed, and the shoe missed the jars but hit the table, and the jars fell off the edge and smashed.
Instant relief as the creature snapped its head up, shrieking its fury when it saw what Amber had done.
She immediately pushed herself away, scrambled up, leaping to avoid its attempts to reclaim her.
Clutching her shoulder, she plunged into the stacks of pallets and crates. Didn’t look behind her. Didn’t want to and didn’t need to. She heard it coming. It skittered and clattered and scraped and shrieked. She imagined it reaching for her with those long arms, those grasping hands, and pulling her towards its terrible funnel mouth. It wouldn’t release her again, she knew that. The next time it clamped that mouth on her, it would be the end.
She darted left, wincing against the pain as she squeezed through a gap between cargo containers too narrow for the creature to follow. It reached for her, almost snagged her, but she kept moving, her horns knocking against the metal, preventing her from turning her head.
She emerged the other side, went stumbling, wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and cry, wanting this pain to just go away, but she kept running, across an open space now, trying to find cover before the creature found her.
She ran right into a dead end, whirled to try another route, and froze.
The night was cold. The night was freezing. Amber could suddenly feel every particle of air pressing against her skin. She could feel every strand of hair that the breeze played with. She could feel every bruise and laceration. She could feel everything now, on this cold night in New York, as the creature closed in.
Amber backed off. The creature moved closer.
An engine started up and she glanced to her left, saw Milo at the crane controls. There was a heavy whine behind her, a cargo container lifting off the ground, and she spun and ran right for it. She jumped, caught the edge with her good hand, looked down to see the creature leaping for her. Its fingertips grazed her leg, but it lost its grip. It hit the ground, scrambled up, screeched its rage as she heaved herself on to the top of the container. The crane took her higher and she clutched her shoulder, blood still pouring through her fingers. Higher she went, and higher, the sea breeze brushing past her skin, and she looked down, saw Kirsty throwing Milo into a pillar.
She lay back, grimacing in pain, looking up at the light-polluted night sky. The container swayed the higher it went, the breeze becoming a wind that was getting stronger and colder, but at least she was safe up here.
The container eventually stopped rising. Turning her head to her left, Amber could see the Statue of Liberty. She could see Manhattan, and across the Hudson into Newark. She could see tugs on the river, bright lights bobbing on blackness. What a sight.
She rolled on to her stomach and inched towards the edge. She’d never had a problem with heights before, but this was different. She wasn’t strapped into a rollercoaster at Disney World here. She wasn’t strap
ped into anything.
She looked down, down, all the way down. Whoa, that was a long way. Amber suddenly felt very vulnerable and very light, as if one of these strong gusts could just nudge her over the edge. She watched the people below fighting, couldn’t really tell who was who with the way they kept moving in and out of the light. She looked for the creature, and frowned when she couldn’t see it. Then she caught movement out of the corner of her eye – there it was, climbing up the crane arm.
Coming for her.
She moved back from the edge, got to her hands and knees, and crawled for the nearest steel cable. Gripping it tightly, she stood, watched as the creature reached the top of the crane arm and started across.
“Milo!” she screamed. “Gregory!”
The wind whipped her words away. She stood there, hanging on to the cable, watching the creature get nearer. She couldn’t run, couldn’t hide, couldn’t escape and couldn’t fight. She couldn’t fight that. The only thing she could do was die. She looked down. She could end it now. Step off and plummet. Terrifying but painless, and infinitely better than what was to come if she stayed where she was.
Sobbing, Amber lifted one foot, or tried to, at least. But it wouldn’t budge. She tried to fling herself forward, but her body disobeyed. Her legs wouldn’t move and her hands wouldn’t let go.
“Please,” she whispered to herself, but her body didn’t listen. It refused her commands. It wasn’t going to go to its death quietly, no matter how much she might want it to. It wanted to fight. It wanted to survive.
Her body buzzing with an energy like electricity, an energy that could send her sprinting or make her seize up like jammed machinery, she watched the creature get closer. It was practically overhead now. Soon it would drop down, and she had nowhere to run, and it would clamp that mouth on to her again, and it’d kill her. There’d be no surviving that. Without a doubt, it would kill her where her parents had failed, and the witch had failed, and the vampires had failed, and the serial killer had failed, and that guy had failed, back at the diner. What was his name? The name of the guy whose finger she’d bitten off? What was his goddamn name?