Crimson Shore (Agent Pendergast, #15)(83)
52
Gavin’s gun went flying as the creature seized his wrist; he drew Gavin toward him with a growl, twisting the wrist hard as he did so. There was a faint crackle of tendons. Gavin grimaced in pain but did not scream; he stared, as if in shock.
Constance remained frozen. So this, she thought with a strange detachment, is Morax—the demon. And yet it was human, or mostly so. A tall man with a dreadfully deformed face: a prognathic snout, with projecting teeth that pushed out from behind rubbery lips, and a sloped forehead with a massive sagittal crest that rose up like a bony Mohawk across his knobby skull. His skin was sallow and streaked with filth, his yellow skin puckered with pustules, scabs, and a thousand tiny scars; his eyes were a dark orangey brown; his body was ropy; he was bald and naked; and his stink filled the perfumed confines of the altar room. But the tail—the tail—was what most arrested her attention. It wasn’t a typical animal tail, but rather a long rope of pink flesh that was utterly limp, its club-like end bristling with wiry hairs. The tail had no life; it dragged behind him like a flaccid, paralyzed limb.
The man gripped Gavin’s wrist with a hand as massive as a bear paw, with spade-like fingers terminating in brown nails. He stared at Gavin, his pupils contracted with hate. The two seemed momentarily frozen in a grotesque tableau.
And then the creature made a sound, an angry hissing sound, which broke the spell.
Gavin, wincing, spoke with remarkable presence of mind. “It’s all right, Morax. Everything’s going to be fine. You’re home now. Let go of me, please.”
Morax repeated the guttural hiss. It sounded like shunnng, or sohnn, but Constance couldn’t catch it.
“You’re hurting me,” said Gavin. “Please let go.”
In response, Morax gave Gavin’s wrist another savage twist. There was a sharp cracking sound. The sergeant gasped, but—much to Constance’s surprise—kept his composure.
Even if she had not heard Gavin’s story, it would have been obvious that these two had a long and troubled history—a history, it seemed, that was about to reach its end, one way or another.
The two were so focused on each other that Constance realized she had an opportunity to escape—if she moved carefully. The way by which she had first entered the chamber, however, was blocked by the two antagonists. She would have to escape deeper into the tunnels.
She took a step back, and then another, careful to keep her eye on the confrontation.
“Morax,” Gavin said, “I’m now the leader of the coven, which means that we’re partners, in a way. It was wrong, what’s been done to you over the years, and—”
With a sudden roar, the creature yanked Gavin’s hand and wrenched it off as he might a turkey drumstick. Blood spurted from the ragged wrist. With a cry Gavin staggered back, frantically trying to stop the bleeding, now wide-eyed with terror. The demon roared again.
Constance walked calmly and slowly along the rear wall of the room. The two were so fixated on their struggle that they had forgotten about her completely. Whatever was going to happen to Gavin, it wasn’t good, and she did not particularly wish to see it. The creature was as swollen as a toad with incandescent hatred.
“Please,” Gavin said, his voice breaking. “We respect you, you’re very important to us… I’m so, so sorry about what happened. It’ll all be different now, with me in control.” He held out his good hand in a gesture of supplication.
Morax, enraged by this speech, roared incoherently and seized the other wrist, twisting it hard; this time Gavin broke down, issuing a shrill scream and sinking to his knees; and that was the last Constance saw of him as she slipped around the corner into the darkness of the central corridor and the deeper tunnels beyond.
53
Pendergast paused at the lip of a low sand dune and gazed down into the ruins of Oldham, which lay in a scrubby hollow scattered with deformed pine trees. The storm was abating, with the rain having temporarily ceased and the wind dying. But the sea continued to pound the shingle beach with ferocity. A full moon appeared fitfully, casting a feeble gloom through the ruins, the walls half buried, the scattered cellar holes, the bits of crockery and sea glass gleaming dully in the wet sand.
The creature’s tracks had been almost obliterated, but there were still indentations in the sand and shingle that Pendergast was able to follow—some of which were the creature’s, along with smaller ones that he felt certain belonged to Constance.
From the position of the cellar holes, Pendergast was able to determine where the main street had once passed through town. At the far end he saw a broken brick wall on a larger foundation of granite blocks: undoubtedly the ruins of Oldham’s church. He walked to the edge of the church’s cellar hole, a deep basement area faced with cleaved blocks, scattered with loose bricks, wood planks, trash, and—at the rear—a rotten canvas sailcloth.
He climbed down into the ruined cellar and shone his light around, quickly focusing his attention on an uncovered iron plate at one end, near the sailcloth. Going over to it, he knelt and examined the hinges. A close examination revealed it had been used—and often. He lifted it carefully, making no noise, and shone his penlight in. A narrow stone staircase led down to a damp tunnel, which in turn snaked off into darkness.
Hooding his light, he slipped inside, easing the plate shut behind him. Switching off the light, he crouched on the stairs, listening intently; the sounds of the surf were now muffled, but no noise appeared to issue from underground: only the rising stench of death and decay, overlaid with a faint scent of burning wax.