“I take back what I said about this being too easy,” Hernandez said.
“Noted,” Leo said. “Assume the padre is sending company. Anything that comes our way in a black robe that doesn’t have blond hair, shoot first and ask questions when we’re out of this fucking freak show. Conserve ammo, keep it quiet if you can. Keep your poppers handy, but don’t pull the pins unless I give the word. We don’t know how strong that bridge is, and I don’t want to swim back.”
No one appeared out of the mist by the time the squad reached the shelf. A quick sweep turned up seaweed, some smooth pieces of bottle glass, and what was left of the priest. The left side of his head was bloody, and he’d had the misfortune of slamming chest-first onto a log. The driftwood had splintered, punctured his lungs, and pulped his ribs. The body stank, the trademark scents of freshly voided bowels mixing with the digestive juices in a ruptured stomach. Hernandez did a cursory check, and shook his head when he didn’t find a pulse. Leo swore.
“This change anything boss?” Frost asked, keeping his muzzle trained on the bridge.
“No,” Leo said. “We get in, get the girl, get out.”
Up close the bridge was more than stable. A solid, stone structure, it looked as if it had been carved by hand and smoothed by a millennium of ocean currents. The support pylons stretched a full ten yards above the bridge proper. Roughly six feet in diameter, the shafts were inscribed with faded pictograms of sea creatures, men, and things which were a little of both. At the pinnacle of each pillar perched statues of bulbous, black creatures; things with glassy eyes and distended mouths atop rounded bodies with flabby bellies and lithe, powerful limbs.
Leo gestured, and they formed a staggered line. There was no cover except the thin mist, the darkness, and the sounds of whatever the Dagonites were conducting. If anyone glanced back across the bridge their cover would be blown. The men advanced, stepping carefully across the slick rock with their shoulders hunched low and their weapons trained on the flickering shadows that grew more distinct all the while. The bridge ended a hundred yards into the ocean, terminating in a huge cul-de-sac. Pylons ranked like standing stones, and beneath each one stood a young woman with her arms chained above her head. Dozens of robed people stood in a crescent facing the ocean. Flames leaped from a central pit, painting the scene like a fresco on the wall of a chapel in hell. The chanting rose higher, then higher still; a single cry from a hundred throats shrieking up at the clouded stars like a signal beacon.
Suddenly the chanting ceased. The wind died. Even the waves, which had pounded toward the shore, calmed to a gentle lapping. The squad split to either side, crouching and blending their bodies with the outlines of the pylons. They listened. For several moments there was nothing but the sound of the ocean and their own nervous breathing. Beyond the fire, something splashed out of the ocean, and hauled itself onto the platform with the meaty slap of flesh on stone. The stink of fish oil, and the heavy, acrid smell of brine wafted on the breeze. The water parted again and again as others broke the surface and clambered onto the temporary shore. In moments the newcomers outnumbered the congregation, standing in the spaces between the pillars at the very edges of the firelight. The chorus moaned, and there were no words in it; just a raw, animal sound of elation and anticipation burbling into the darkness. Someone screamed; a high-pitched shriek only a young woman in abject terror could manage.
“Shit” Leo snarled, surging around the pylon. “Go, go, go!
They rushed the platform, and the last of the mist parted like rotting silk. The congregation whirled, robes open shamelessly as they stared at the interlopers. Flesh drooped from their bones, hanging in pallid folds the color and texture of pale cheese. Their long-fingered hands bore delicate webs, and thin, watery drool ran from the corners of mouths grown too wide to close completely. Stooped and hairless, they were a world apart from the women hanging from the pillars all around.
“Nobody move,” Leo said, raising his voice along with his rifle. “Just stay where you are and — ”
Something moved. Darkness parted, and firelight danced over something out of a scuba diver’s nightmare. The thing had a jaw set with the thick, curving teeth of a barracuda, the pebbled, monotone skin of a shark, and the black, empty eyes of a predator. It stared at the invaders, flickers of too-human curiosity in its dark gaze. It sucked a heavy breath through the thick, fleshy flaps along its ribs. It opened its mouth, and the back of its head erupted in a spurt of gore, punctuated by the muted crack of a single rifle shot.
Time slowed.The first creature flopped to the deck, and its fellows rushed to its aid; a phantasmagoric wave of upended evolution that was all claws and teeth, suckers and tentacles. The beak of a mollusk snapped beneath the deflated, slitted remnants of what might once have been a nose. Hands gone boneless and rubbery reached out from the ends of arms that bore bony fins and spiny spurs. Voices that could once have spoken the words of men howled animal defiance, and were answered in kind.
Leo fired a burst into the over-developed chest of a thing with a squid’s head and scapula like a manta ray’s wings. Carmichael blasted buckshot into something that looked like the love child of a flounder and a puffer fish whose guts stank like rotting kelp. CB and Hernandez stepped into the gap, firing short bursts one after the other until the rapid-fire chatter blended into a single, continuous snarl. Frost squeezed his trigger, and every round carved a .30 caliber trench through a target’s brain pan.
It was over in seconds. Shell casings littered the ancient stone, and cordite clouds hung thick and blue as cigar smoke. The creatures, whatever they were, didn’t need silver bullets or mumbo jumbo to make them stay dead. Blood ran in not-quite-red pools, and two dozen bodies lay in twitching, leaking heaps. The worshipers lay alongside the fish men, caught in between men and monsters even in death.
“Reload,” Leo called. His voice was calm, but his hand shook. It took him two tries before he popped his empty clip.
“What… what the fuck?” Carmichael demanded. His eyes were very wide, and his nostrils were flaring as he took shallow, rapid breaths. “Leo, what the fuck?”
Leo took two fast steps and slapped Carmichael hard across the face. The big man stumbled, and wheeled around. Carmichael brought his weapon up, but when he squeezed the trigger the hammer made an empty, hollow click. Leo held his gaze, and Carmichael looked away. He took a shaky breath, and swiped a thumb beneath his balaclava.
“Shit,” Carmichael said. “I’m bleeding.”
“Bleed on your own time,” Leo said. The words were barely out of his mouth when the ocean around them erupted. Water spumed up, and something in the darkness howled. The howl was taken up, until the very sea keened. “Find the goddamn girl! We lose her, this whole thing goes tits up!”
They ran, adrenaline and purpose kept them moving. Some of the girls were dead, their nude torsos punched through with bloody holes. A few others had been slashed by the creatures, their glazed gazes contemplating the carnage with vacant curiosity. Three of them were still alive, and one of them was Sarah Prendergast. She stood on the balls of her feet, every muscle trembling with the effort of holding completely still.
“Get them down, and let’s get the fuck out of here,” Leo said.
Frost drew his sidearm and fired. It took seven shots, but in seconds the survivors were free. A dark-haired girl sobbed and ran past them, slipping through blood and bodies as she headed for the shore. The second girl stumbled forward, lips trembling. Her skin shone like obsidian, slick from the ocean and tight with goose flesh.