Страница 32 из 54
He was the only person that could pull their asses from the fire.
They were nearing the Public Garden now, and Casey had become oddly quiet, hands covering her face. But then the faint light of the city seeping into the car through the torrential rain began to diminish, and Remy flinched at the sudden nails-on-a-blackboard sound of claws dragging, dragging across the roof of the Toyota.
"Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God," Casey began to repeat over and over again, peering out from behind her fingers at the encroaching shadows.
"Hang on," Remy called as he banged a sharp left into a narrow public alley, barely missing a large green Dumpster.
"Get ready," he said, over the sound of flapping wings.
"Ready for what?" Casey cried, the panic in her tone intensifying. "Ready for fucking what?"
Remy slammed on the brakes as he spun the wheel, sending the car fishtailing toward the back entrance of a brick building on the left-hand side of the alley.
"Get out now!" he yelled as he fumbled with his own seat belt.
She nearly flew out the door, then raced around the car to join him in front of a large metal door painted an ugly shade of maroon. Remy pounded on the door.
"Francis, open up. It's me!"
The light of the streetlamp began to dim and the sounds of flapping wings seemed to be coming from all around them. Remy glanced over his shoulder to see his car swallowed up in the advancing wave of darkness.
He pressed Casey against the metal door in front of him and continued to pound. Where is he? he wondered, his own sense of panic begi
"Where are the scrolls?" came a nasty voice from behind them.
Remy recognized it as the one he had stabbed back at Casey's apartment. He spun around to face the encroaching shadow, putting himself between the darkness and the girl.
"Francis!" he screamed, one last time as a skeletal hand reached from the roiling ebony mass.
Voices within the cloud of blackness began to chatter excitedly, then suddenly he was falling backward, landing in a heap atop Casey as the metal door was pulled open.
A tall, balding figure with horn-rimmed glasses, wearing only a T-shirt, boxer shorts, and a frayed terry cloth bathrobe stepped over them, aiming a pump-action shotgun into the darkness outside.
The weapon roared, and the creatures in the darkness screamed in pain as each shot found its target. Plumes of orange fire erupted from the barrel, and like the purifying rays of the sun, it burnt away the darkness and all those concealed within its folds.
Remy lifted his head to see that the last shot had been fired, and that now only the legitimate night remained. He helped Casey up from the ground.
The man in the bathrobe turned, smoldering shotgun by his side, a look of distaste on his face.
"Remy Chandler," he snarled, reaching into the pocket of his bathrobe and removing the nub of a cigar.
"Hey, Francis."
The man lifted a finger to the blackened end of the cigar and ignited it with an orange spark of flame. He took a puff, letting the smoke swirl above his head.
"What crap have you managed to drag me through this time?"
Chapter twelve
It wasn't like Remy to doze off, but the dry warmth of Francis' basement abode worked its magic. Sitting in the beat-up leather recliner, Remy felt his eyes grow impossibly heavy.
And then they were closed.
He found himself at the desert train station again.
It was dark and a freezing-cold sleet sliced down from the bruise-colored sky. The sound of rain hitting the fragile wooden canopy that draped over the station was nearly deafening.
But Remy didn't know what deafening was until the locomotive suddenly appeared before him, like some great leviathan surging up from the depths, its whistle wailing like the death cries of a world not yet ready to pass from life.
The great train nestled into the station, its u
Carefully, he walked to the edge of the platform and, turning his head to the left, gazed down the length of cars that made up the train's serpentine body. A sound
like the throb of a pulse emanated from the train, and Remy was compelled to walk along the platform, searching for signs of riders. He stood upon his toes, peering in through the dusty windows at the rows of seats, and saw that the cars were empty.
The throbbing pulse of the train quickened, and he began to wonder if the monstrous conveyance was about to move on when he heard the racket of movement coming from a freight car attached to the last of the passenger coaches.
Remy went closer, the thumping of activity intensifying. He approached the car, reaching for the latch, desperate to satisfy his curiosity. But before his hand could close upon it, the sliding wooden door began to shake. He could hear the clatter of hooves and the neighing of horses from inside.
He stepped back, just as the door exploded outward, the force of the blast sending him sprawling into a wooden bench. The air was filled with the stench of acrid smoke, and something else. A wild scent… an animal smell mingled with the reek of electricity.
Remy wiped dust and dirt from his eyes as he raised his head, and in the clearing haze he saw that he was no longer alone upon the platform. And he saw that the train had indeed been carrying passengers, though he wished with all his heart that it hadn't been the case.
The four figures sat astride their mounts, watching him through the whirling smoke and dust. He knew who they were, even though he'd never met them before.
War, clad in a black leather duster, a red scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face, his eyes hidden in the shadows cast by a wide-brimmed Stetson, sat upon a steed the color of drying blood. To his left, sitting erect
in a pearl saddle upon a mount blacker than coal, was Famine. She was adorned in flowing robes of white, her face emotionless and cold, like that of a china doll. But her eyes, they were dark and deep and hungry for the life of the world. To the right of War stood a horse more dead than alive, raw, open sores covering its emaciated body. Its eyes were the color of pus, and a thick drool leaked from its lipless mouth. Pestilence slouched in the saddle, his nearly naked form cadaverous and pale, a swarm of blackflies forming a perverted halo around his skull-like head. And on the end was the most fearsome of the riders, this one's steed appearing healthy and strong, and its muscular flesh as white as winter mountains. The rider Death wore a suit of armor that looked as though it had been crafted from the bones of some great beast. Piercing eyes that blazed a fiery red peered out from inside the darkness of the horseman's horned helmet.
Remy slowly got to his feet, his gaze never leaving the riders clustered before him.
The white steed lifted its head, sniffing the rain-filled air, and brayed, its cries causing a rumble of thunder and a flash of lightning so bright that it seemed to illuminate the world.
Remy shielded his eyes from the searing light, and when he dropped his hands, the monstrous train was gone, as if it had never been there at all. A broad expanse of empty desert spread out from the platform, and when he looked to his left he saw that the riders were now all pointed in that direction, gazing out over the flat, barren plain that seemed to go on forever.