Gythe began to hum a song, a little song. Whenever she sang in the park and played her harp, people stopped talking. They fell silent to listen. She hummed desperately, hoping the voices would fall silent and they would stop hurting her friends.
The voices didn’t grow silent, but they changed. They sounded bewildered. They called to her. Like the demon who had come on board the ship. The demon had been trying to find her.
Gythe hummed her little song to try to drown out the sound of gunshots. She put her fingers into her ears and closed her eyes, and the voices were again talking about pain and death and hatred.
Accusing voices. “You left us to die here below!”
“It wasn’t our fault!” Gythe wept, her silent voice answering all the others, those who were also silent. “We couldn’t hear you. We didn’t know…”
When Dag saw Father Jacob and Sir Ander lying in the street, he was certain they were dead. He could not see them clearly, with the smoke swirling about, but neither man was moving. Dag had made a swift assessment of the situation as he came up on it. Two demons were on the rooftop of a warehouse with what appeared to be a mounted swivel gun. They had not yet seen him. At the end of the lane, a man stood with his hands in the air. Two demons were in front of him, their weapons aimed at him. He was obviously pleading for his life. In a bold move, the man fired at one of the demons and threw whatever he’d been holding in his other hand at the second demon.
Dag did not know this man, but any enemy of the demons was a friend of Dag’s. He shouted for the man to duck. The stranger reacted with a speed which indicated he’d done this sort of thing before. He hit the pavement. Dag fired his musket and had the satisfaction of seeing half a demon’s head dissolve into a bloody mess. The man was on his feet before the smoke cleared. The man fired another pistol at someone who had apparently been hiding in the alley and then kept on going, leaving Dag and his friends to fend for themselves.
Dag shrugged. He supposed he couldn’t blame the gentleman. He looked up to see the demons training their swivel gun on him and made a backward scramble to take cover against the same warehouse the demons were using to mount their assault. Expecting grapeshot, Dag was startled to see the swivel gun shoot a ball of green fire. The flames struck the pavement right where he had been standing. The blast flattened Dag back against the wall. Smoke stung his eyes; chunks of cobblestones slammed into him. Fortunately, his steel breastplate protected him from the worst.
Dag swiftly and expertly reloaded the musket and looked up to see what the demons were doing. They had mounted the swivel gun on the roof directly above him. The demons could look down and see him, but they could not bring their weapon to bear on him. Dag had counted on this when he chose his cover. Seeing their heads poking over the edge, Dag fired the musket. The heads vanished.
Dag reloaded. So long as he stood in this place, directly beneath the swivel gun, the demons could not hit him. The moment he moved, the green fireballs would blow him apart. He was considering his options when suddenly he didn’t have any.
Brother Barnaby came running into Bitter End Lane, heading straight for Father Jacob. Dag looked up to see the gun’s muzzle swinging about, taking aim at the monk. Dag swore roundly and fired the musket at the demons. Not waiting to see if he’d done any damage, he slung the gun by its strap over his shoulder, lowered his head, and charged across the street. He slammed into Brother Barnaby and they both went down. Dag shielded the monk with his body as a green fireball exploded in the air above them. Dag could feel the heat radiate through his armor.
He scrambled quickly to his feet. Brother Barnaby was dazed, probably wondering what had hit him. Dag seized hold of the monk by the collar of his habit and dragged him into the shadows of a building, hoping without much hope that they were out of range of the swivel gun. Once there, Dag let loose of the monk and took the opportunity to reload the musket.
“You all right, Brother?”
Brother Barnaby was bleeding from a gash where his head had hit the stones. He winced when he tried to stand. His body would be one massive bruise tomorrow. If they lived that long.
Barnaby nodded and said shakily, “I have to go to Father Jacob.”
Glancing up at the roof, Dag saw the two demons huddled over the swivel gun. They should again have fired by now. Perhaps there was something wrong with it. Nice to know Hell was fallible.
“Go, Brother, if you must! Be quick. I’ll keep you covered.”
Barnaby ran to Father Jacob while Dag kept an eye on the demons. He was cheered to see the priest lift his head at the sound of the monk’s voice. Brother Barnaby put his arm around Father Jacob and helped him to stand. Both came running back to the building where Dag was standing with his musket, watching the demons.
“How is Sir Ander?” Father Jacob asked.
“I don’t know,” said Dag. “I thought I saw him move-”
“I’ll go to him,” said Brother Barnaby.
“Wait!” Dag grabbed hold of Brother Barnaby’s arm.
The swivel gun was still on the roof, but the two demons were not.
“Maybe they’ve run off,” said Brother Barnaby hopefully, eager to go to Sir Ander.
Dag grunted and kept fast hold of the monk.
It was well he did. Four demons emerged from the side street next to the warehouse. All four were armed, each of them carrying the hellish green-fire cannons they’d used to attack the Cloud Hopper. They walked purposefully toward the little group huddled by the building.
Dag had one shot with his musket, one shot each with the two pistols in his belt. He would not have time to reload and that left him one demon short. Dag eyed Sir Ander. The knight lay in the street; his dragon pistol-the match of Stephano’s pistol-near his hand.
“Father Jacob, is Sir Ander’s gun loaded?” Dag asked. “Did he fire it before he was attacked?”
Father Jacob thought a moment, then shook his head. “I wish I could tell you for certain. I don’t think he did, but I can’t remember.”
If the pistol was loaded, that gave Dag his fourth shot. If it wasn’t…
“Guess I’ll find out,” Dag muttered philosophically.
He rose to a kneeling position, fired the musket, dropped it, ducked his head, ran in a crouch to the fallen knight and snatched up the dragon pistol. Dag rose and pulled the trigger. Flame flashed, the pistol fired. Dag thanked God and threw it down. He drew the first of his two pistols with his left hand, flipped the gun from his left hand to his right, raised it, and fired.
He had one more shot, one more pistol left. All this time, he’d been thinking only of firing. He had no idea if he’d hit anything or not. He hadn’t dared take the time to look. What he did know was that, inexplicably, none of the demons were shooting at him.
Dag dropped to his belly, grunting as the metal breastplate dug into his ribs. Two of the demons were down; he didn’t know for how long. The other two stood with their weapons in their hands, but they weren’t looking at him. Their hideous faces were turned away; they were staring at something off to their left. One pointed. The other started to walk in that direction.
“Gythe!” Brother Barnaby cried.
Dag could see Gythe crouched on the door stoop, her arms covering her head. The demon was heading straight for her.
“I’ll go to her,” said Father Jacob. “Cover me!”
“Father, no-” Dag began, but before he could finish, the priest was running across the street.
“Son of a bitch!” Dag swore and raised the pistol, not wanting to fire unless he was certain he had a shot. After this, his only weapon was his knife.
The lane was thick with smoke. Dag could barely see the priest, and he was hoping the demon would have the same trouble. But apparently the fiends could see, for a demon was tracking Father Jacob with his gun. Dag shouted and yelled and stood up. Seeing the threat, the demon shifted his aim.