Her husband pointed ahead to where their daughter was walking hand in hand with the hooded figure of Patrick Shepherd. “She insisted. Is something wrong?”
“Everything is wrong,” Manisha whispered, trembling. “Our supernal guide is close.”
“Patrick, can we stop for a moment, I need to rest.” Dawn released his right hand and sat on an air vent, using the back end of her coat for padding against the frosted surface. “Sorry, my feet hurt.”
“Mine, too.” He leaned against the corner of the rooftop’s five-foot ledge, gazing below at Mott Street. “Columbus Park is only a few more blocks. Would you like me to carry you? I can put you on my back, just like I used to do with my own little…”
His voice trailed off, his eyes focused on the street below.
“What is it, Patrick? What do you see?”
The Chinese were efficient, he had to give them that. As the plague-infested bodies began multiplying, they had moved quickly, disposing of their dead directly into the sewers in the most efficient way possible — by dropping them headfirst down the open manholes. At some point, the seemingly endless procession of corpses had piled up below, clogging the makeshift burial ground. As a result, every manhole on Mott Street was stuffed with bodies, the legs of the last deceased protruding out of each open aperture upside down.
Inverted bodies, protruding feet first from the earth… The Scythe vaccine latched on to the long-extinct memory as if hooking a fish, dragging it up from the abyss and reeling it to the surface.
Wisps of gray mist rolled over Mott Street—
— revealing a muddy landscape that stretches for a thousand miles in every direction. The dead are everywhere — mottled, rotting corpses. Most lie in layers in the muck, others remain buried headfirst up to their waists in the bog. Prolonged exposure underwater had peeled the drowning victims’ clothes from their flesh, in some cases the flesh from bone.
It is a valley of the dead, a fermenting graveyard of tens of thousands, the aftermath of an unimaginable natural disaster… or an act of God.
Shep snapped awake, his body trembling, his mind still gripped by the terrifying images. Instinctively, he dropped to his knees and hugged Dawn with his one good arm, his shaken spirit somehow soothed by her aura.
“Patrick, what is it? What did you see?”
“Death. On a scale I could never imagine. Somehow… it was my fault.”
“You must go.”
“Yes, we have to leave this place.”
“Not us. Just you.”
“What are you talking about?” He pulled away—
— and that was when he saw the spirit. The luminescent blue apparition appeared to be hovering over Dawn, whispering in her ear, instructing the child as she spoke. “You must leave us to tend to another flock.”
“What flock? Dawn, is your spiritual companion telling you this?”
“Ten levels below us is Malebolge, a pouch of evil where the innocent are being accosted. Go to them, Patrick. Free them from servitude. We will meet you outside this circle of death when you have completed the task.”
Patrick regained his feet, his eyes transfixed on the Light as he staggered backward—
— nearly toppling over Virgil. “What’s wrong, son? Not another vision?”
“This was something different. Something much worse. Genocide. Destruction. The End of Days. Somehow, I was there for it, only it wasn’t me. But I caused it. I was directly involved!”
The others gathered around.
“Try to remain calm, we’ll sort this out.”
“I have to go.”
“Go where?” Paolo asked. “I thought you needed to find your family?”
“I do.” He looked from Virgil to the girl, the spirit’s light fading behind her. “But first I need to run a quick errand.”
She was drifting between the pain of consciousness and the finality of darkness, the terrifying presence of the three circling predators ultimately keeping her from passing out.
She was bent over the tabletop, her jeans pushed down around her ankles. Her body trembled, her skin crawling as they moved in for the kill.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but could not escape the abusive aftershave of the one called Ali Chino. The lanky Mexican lurked before her; still she refused to look at him. She gagged as he licked her neck. She trembled as the blade of his knife glided past her throat and down her blouse. He removed each button with a flick of his wrist. She involuntarily jumped back, discovering Farfarello.
The Sicilian was twenty. He tore off her bra and groped her breasts from behind, his hands as callused and cold as his soul. Her mind blotted out the Sicilian and Mexican, the two followers having been relegated to leftovers at the feast. It was the alpha male who caused her to tremble, the demon pulling down her panties, groping her from behind.
Wanting her for himself, Cagnazzo shoved Farfarello aside. The Colombian was a psychopath. A monster who lived to inflict pain and suffering. Gavi Kantor cried out as the twenty-seven-year-old’s blistered fingers probed her with one hand, readying himself with the other. He leaned forward. Whispered in broken English, “This is going to hurt. It’s going to hurt bad. And when I’m done, I’m going to do it again with my gun.”
For thirteen-year-old Gavi Kantor, there was nothing left. No more fear, no more spent nerves, no emotions or prayers. The butterfly had been broken on the wheel, the last hours of her existence taking with it her identity, her future, her past.
The Colombian bent her over the desk, getting no resistance.
And then, suddenly, there was another presence in the room — another predator.
There are three of them… and the girl. She is in her early teens, her shirt torn open and bloodied, her lower body naked, stretched belly down across a desk. Dark eyes greet him as he enters the den of iniquity. The teen cries out. The garbled words need no translation.
“This is not our battle, Sergeant. Leave the premises now!”
“Not this time.”
Cagnazzo looked up, startled. “Who the fuck are you?”
Patrick Shepherd’s eyes widened, his nostrils flared. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m the Angel of Death.”
The prosthetic arm whipped through the air, its curved blade slicing cleanly through the front of Cagnazzo’s neck and esophagus until the steel edge lodged between the Colombian’s fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae. Shep kicked the dead man loose from his scythe, then turned his attention to the other two slave traders.
Farfarello, pale as a ghost, crossed himself and fled.
Ali Chino, his body paralyzed in fear, watched the bloodstained blade loop upward from the ground, splitting the inverted V between his legs — tearing through his jeans as it sliced open his testicles. The castrated Mexican youth screamed in agony, then fell forward, clutching his gushing privates… knocking himself out on the desk.
Gavi Kantor covered herself, her body trembling. “Whoever you are, please don’t hurt me.”
“I won’t hurt you.” Shep retracted his hood, revealing himself to the girl.
The teen dressed quickly, staring at his face in the flickering candlelight. “I know you…. How do I know you?”
“You’re shivering. Here, take my coat.” He slipped off the ski jacket, handing it to her.
“My name is Patrick. We need to get out of here.” He searched the dead Colombian, removing a.45 caliber Smith & Wesson from his waistband.
“They kidnapped me… they were going to… oh my God—”