“What the hell…?” I gasped.
“Sorry,” was all Sam said, but we were already stumbling downhill, the wall looming in front of us, and I had to slow down so suddenly I almost ran into the list of carved names of dozens of folk, probably soldiers, who might have faced last moments much like this one. I spun and squeezed off a round-five left-but the men chasing us had already taken protected positions behind the headstones. None of them was more than a dozen yards away, and four or five beams converged on us like the end of a failed prison break from some old comedy film.
“There’s nowhere to go, Dollar!”
“Drop dead, Howly,” I shouted, “you probably said that last time, too.” But I couldn’t muster much bravado while we were making such an attractive, easy target.
“Throw down your gun or I’ll blow the shit out of your friend Sammariel, and you’ll still be in as much trouble as you already were.”
“Don’t do it,” Sam said quietly.
“Not many alternatives as far as I can see.” I held the gun up and showed it to him, then dropped it into the grass. At Howlingfell’s urging I kicked it several yards away. Once he was satisfied he shouted for us to get down with our hands behind our heads and stay that way. I was flat out of ideas so I did what he said, wondering if I would at least get a chance to stick a finger in one of his squinty little eyes before Eligor’s crew started working on me for real. Sam let himself down beside me, heavy and slow.
“You got another gaff hook in that coat?” I whispered.
“Not even a safety pin,” he said. “You shouldn’t have given up your gun, Bobby.”
“Yeah, well, you seriously owe me a bunch of explanations.” I kept it quiet because Howlingfell was moving toward us. “And I’m not going to let anyone shoot you until I get ’em.” But it was all bullshit, of course. We’d managed to catch Howly and his men by surprise once, maybe even twice if you counted going for the boat in the first place, but although we’d proved Eligor’s enforcer could be tricked, he wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice and I was fresh out of new ones. As if to demonstrate his newfound caution Howlingfell came toward us almost crabwise with his gun pointing right at me, and stopped when he was still six feet away. A man’s height. The depth of a grave.
“No more bullshit from you,” he said. “No more smart talk. Thought it was funny shooting me in the nuts that time, did you?”
“Subtle,” I said. “But hilarious, yes.”
“Fuck you, little man. You won’t be laughing much longer. Do you know what Grasswax said, even after we’d cut out half the shit in his body and showed it to him?” Howlingfell made his voice whiny. “‘I can still feel it!’ That’s what he said. Talk about hilarious! ‘Don’t squeeze-it still hurts!’And those guts weren’t even connected to him anymore! That’s what Eligor’s special doctors can do.” He smirked, the gun still pointed at my throat. “The boss promised I could have a front-row seat for your show, and I’m going to enjoy every moment.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone, but the gun never moved, and he was out of my reach anyway. He flipped it open like it was some kind of Star Trek communicator and thumbed a button. While he was waiting, he turned to his men behind the tombstones, who were still pinning us with their lights. “When I’m out of the way you can blow the big one to ribbons,” he called. “Use the darts on the smaller one.” Someone must have picked up on the other end of the call, because he suddenly dropped his voice to something several shades more submissive. “Boss?” he said to the phone. “Yeah, it’s me. Mission accomplished.”
We don’t always get a chance to pick our last words wisely, but I hope when my time comes I’ll have better luck than that. No sooner had Howly snapped the phone shut and begun to back out of the way when something came over the wall from behind us and hopped down like a monstrous black toad, landing in a crouch just in front of me and Sam. I could feel the heat radiating from it immediately, but I had only an instant to see the horribly familiar spreading black horns and the black, alien shagginess of its face as it looked around, blue flames pluming from its nostrils, then someone behind one of the headstones opened fire. I threw myself to the side and hugged the earth as bullets spattered off the memorial wall. Some of them must have hit the ghallu, but I knew already it didn’t give a toss about anything but silver, and it didn’t mind silver much more than I would an uncomfortable sunburn.
To his credit, Howlingfell was not going to lose his prize without a fight. He stepped toward the thing with his gun raised and started squeezing off shots in quick succession, half a dozen, a dozen, the ejected shells winking in the moonlight as they spun through the air and fell to the sparse grass. Then he took one step too many and, despite all the rounds he had fired at it, the horned thing seemed to notice him for the first time.
Two steaming, slate-black hands big as shovels snapped out and folded around his arms, then jerked him off the ground. For a moment Howlingfell fought back, thrashing and shouting in the creature’s grasp as smoke rose where it clutched him. Then the ghallu’s jaws unhinged-there’s no other word-gaping impossibly, hideously wide, exposing flames like a crematory oven. I only had time for one horrified look before it shoved Howlingfell’s screeching head and then his shoulders into that dreadful fire. His legs kicked pointlessly as the monster sucked the round bit with a face on it right off the end of his spine, then spit the charred lump onto the ground before flinging Howlingfell’s slack, boneless body out into the darkness beyond the lights.
Guns were flashing and cracking now, automatic fire, and even as I scrabbled wildly on the ground for my automatic I saw the ghallu lunge toward the place where all the guns were blazing. My hand closed on something hard, but it was only Howlingfell’s phone. I held onto it and kept groping desperately until I finally found my gun.
Howly’s men probably shouldn’t have fired at the ghallu: apparently it was prone to distraction. The demon-thing was among them in a second, tearing Howlingfell’s enforcers into pieces and flinging those pieces so violently in all directions that I could feel spatters of warm blood even as I smelled burning flesh. I stuck the phone in my pocket so I could hold my gun in both hands, which was necessary because I was shaking like a Chihuahua in the snow. But I didn’t fire. No way was I going to stand and try to shoot it out again with this thing that swallowed even silver bullets like Tic-Tacs. But I couldn’t really think of anything else to do, either.
“Bobby! Here!” Sam was waving frantically from the far end of the wall. I put my head down and ran toward him, more worried about getting hit by a stray shot than by design, because the Terminator from the Tigris was shredding the guards he’d reached, and though the rest were still firing at the monster as they ran away, it was with a distinct lack of conviction, let alone careful aim.
“This way,” Sam called, already in a flat-out sprint and making pretty damn good time if he was as exhausted as I was. “That big fucker doesn’t know what side it’s on, does it? I guess your headless friend didn’t get exactly the kind of back-up he was hoping for.”
“As far as Eligor’s concerned, they’re all disposable,” I panted. “As for Howlingfell, I hope he’s back home roasting on the tiles of hell right now, but he’s no longer our problem. That thing…it isn’t going to stop until it catches me, and once it finishes barbecuing Howly’s men, it’s going to be right behind us.” I wheezed and coughed, staggered and almost fell. Too much talking.