“Walker?” the priest called weakly.
But as Walker glanced back again he saw one of those silhouettes stumble, saw it fall, and then another began to hurtle through the veil of snow toward him. The third followed, running and sliding along the trail, moving with silent strength and confidence, and Walker knew. Just knew.
Irritated by his lack of response, Father Cornelius pulled away from Kim and turned around, starting to berate him for his rudeness. Then the priest saw the figure springing along the trail with agility none of them could have duplicated.
Kim shouted that it was back.
It emerged from the storm, figure solidifying enough that Walker could make out the familiar shape of Armando Olivieri. But Olivieri had never moved like this, never been graceful or powerful or fearless, and this thing was all of those and more.
Walker reached for his gun, drew it out with numb fingers, and those same numb fingers fumbled with it. The weapon bobbled, seemed almost to dance away from his grip. Reaching after it, he knocked it into the snow at the edge of the path, and then all of the calm he’d mustered fled him. Flushed with fear, heart seizing in panic, he dove after the gun and hit the ground, scrabbling in the snow. The gun had made an imprint but vanished into it. Father Cornelius and Kim shouted at him and at Olivieri even as Walker dug around for the gun, and he knew he was about to die.
The thing came at him and he heard it laugh as it grabbed his head, ripped away the hood and the fabric of the balaclava that covered him. With the other hand, it tangled its fingers in his hair, got a fistful, and yanked backward in the same moment that his own fingers found the gun.
As it hauled him back, he twisted in its grasp and spun, aiming the gun at Olivieri’s face. The professor’s eyes gleamed with that internal fire, the glint of tainted orange light, and the demon grinned. Olivieri released Walker and stepped back, raising his hands as if in surrender. With Olivieri’s mouth, the demon laughed.
“Shoot him!” Adam called, rushing up now to shove between Kim and the priest. “You can’t give it a second to—”
“Oh, yes,” the demon said with Olivieri’s lips. “Shoot me.”
Walker stared at it. For a moment his vision had shimmered and in the billowing snow he had thought he’d seen another face, a misshapen thing with horns and a mouthful of black needle teeth. Then still a third face, his little boy’s. Charlie’s.
Shoot me, he heard inside his head.
“What’s the point?” he snapped. “It’s only going to jump again!”
The orange eyes flared brightly and Olivieri snarled. Then, abruptly, the professor’s face changed. The light went out of his eyes and he stumbled forward a step. Walker nearly pulled the trigger, prompted by that step forward, but then he saw Olivieri’s sorrow and confusion and he understood that the demon had left him.
He only had a moment to wonder where, and then he felt it slide into him. A shudder rocked him, a mixture of pleasure and regret and a sorrow so deep that he yearned for the release of death. The filth spread through him and he imagined it as a kind of poison or infection, a stain seeping deeper and deeper, so that the urge to peel away his skin gave way to the desire to dig deep into the flesh, to drain the marrow out of his own bones. Anything to be rid of the filth inside him.
In that moment, Walker understood insanity. He opened his mouth to scream, but the screams were only silent things that echoed inside his mind, because his mouth was no longer his own.
Neither were his hands.
Walker could see out through his own eyes, but he felt the evil inside with him. He felt his arm move and tried to fight it, but the demon had control. The intruder violated his flesh and his heart, the core of his soul, and he could feel its glee. Its jubilation.
“No,” Professor Olivieri said, arms out, moving through the blizzard toward him.
Walker’s right hand lifted the gun. He felt the twitch of his finger as the demon pulled the trigger twice. The shots rang out, echoed by his own screams, lost inside his head… and then he fell forward, dropping to his knees.
The demon had left him.
“—it, Walker!” Kim was screaming. “Fight it!”
You can’t fight, he thought, not sure if his voice would be his own.
Olivieri lay on his back on the snow, hands over his chest. Blood welled up through holes in his coat, steam rising as the bright red spilled down the fabric and began to melt snow, a vivid pool of color.
“I’m sorry,” Walker said. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.”
Olivieri coughed and blood sprayed from his lips, then began to drool from the corner of his mouth. Meryam and Adam went to him, kneeling on one side while Walker stared in mute horror on the other, his flesh afire with shame that he had been so easily used, his body perverted for such evil purpose.
Kim stood behind him with Father Cornelius, who had begun to say the prayers that accompanied the last breaths of the dying in his church.
Walker bent forward, eyes pressed shut, cradling his own gut as he fought to hold on to some sense of himself.
When he opened his eyes again, Olivieri had stopped coughing. The dying man stared at him, but it wasn’t Olivieri anymore. The demon grinned up at him, eyes gleaming, and it laughed softly, a wet chuffing almost lost in the whistle of the wind.
“Poor Ben,” the demon rasped, blood bubbling out of its mouth. “You thought you could fight me, but how easy it was to cast your will aside. I can’t wait to meet Amanda. I can’t wait to get inside Charlie. The things I’ll make him do.”
Walker stiffened, all of the self-loathing and guilt burning right out of him.
“You’re not getting anywhere near my boy,” he said.
Again the demon laughed. He spoke again, more quietly this time, but Walker bent forward and he could make out the words, even in the storm.
“You’ll never get away from me, you fool. You’ve taken me with you.”
Sneering, Walker raised the gun again, this time in full control. But then the light went out of Olivieri’s eyes—both natural and unnatural—and the professor’s head slumped to one side. His body went still.
Walker got up, legs unsteady.
“It isn’t right to just leave him,” Father Cornelius said.
“What else can we do?” Meryam asked weakly.
Walker spun and took aim at her left eye. Meryam froze, but he swung the gun over to aim at Adam’s chest, then at Father Cornelius.
“It’s me, Walker,” the priest said, his voice a tired rasp. “It’s only me.”
For a long, breathless moment, Walker stared at him, then glanced around at the others. They were all just themselves, it seemed. But only for now. It had gotten inside of him. Adam had been possessed as well. Father Cornelius and Kim had each been at least temporarily tainted by it. It could take any one of them, any time it wanted. Which meant that Walker had to start thinking differently. He was not going to let the demon off this mountain. It would never get the chance to threaten the people he loved. If that meant he had to kill them all, and then eat a bullet himself, then that was exactly what he would do.
A last resort, he thought.
But as a shaking Mr. Avci came stumbling along the trail, his own gun trembling in his hands, Walker wondered how long he could wait before the last resort became the only choice.
Somewhere out there in the storm, Hakan and Calliope might still be alive, but he wasn’t counting on it. Without them, that left six survivors.
And a long way still to go.
“Adam, lead the way,” Walker said.
Hesitating, Adam stared down at Olivieri’s corpse. At last, he gave a nod, but his eyes were devoid of hope. He took Meryam’s hand and they started down again. The others fell into step, all of them keeping close now.