Chapter 10: The First Sip of Ruin
The sound of Paul’s fist connecting with Bev Keane’s jaw was a wet, satisfying crack. Her head snapped back. She stumbled, more from shock than force, a hand flying to her mouth. When she pulled it away, her fingers came away smeared with blood that looked black in the guttering candlelight. Her eyes, wide with pure incredulity, found his.
“You struck me,” she whispered, the words distorted. “You struck a servant of God.”
“You’re no one’s servant but your own,” Paul gasped, cradling his throbbing hand. The action had cost him. The compulsion to go to the angel roared back, a tidal wave of need that made his knees buckle. He didn’t fight it this time. He used it. He turned and ran, not toward the window, but for the main doors, shoving through the panicked crowd.
“Stop him!” Bev shrieked, but her command was lost in the screaming.
The church was a slaughter pen. Warren Flynn, Riley’s younger brother, was pinned against a pew by the resurrected zealot, whose mouth was just buried in the old man’s neck. The wet, sucking sounds were louder than Warren’s choked gurgles. Across the aisle, Mildred Gunning, her eyes now glowing with that same faint amber light, wept hysterically as she stalked her sobbing neighbor. “I’m so sorry, I’m so hungry, I’m so sorry,” she babbled, before lunging.
Riley stood frozen for a heartbeat, watching Paul disappear through the doors. The line his mother and Leeza had formed was crumbling into individual battles for survival. Sheriff Hassan had his service pistol out, but he was just staring at it, then at the attacking neighbors, his face ashen. He couldn’t shoot. They were still people, even now.
“Riley!” Annie screamed, as a newly-turned fisherman lurched toward her.
Riley moved. He didn’t think. He grabbed a heavy brass candleholder from a nearby stand and swung it. It connected with the fisherman’s temple with a dull thunk. The man went down, twitching, but his eyes stayed open, fixed and hungry. He’d be back up in seconds.
“We have to get out!” Riley yelled, grabbing his mother’s arm. “Leeza, Ed, come on!”
They fought their way toward the exit, a tight, desperate knot. Riley used the candleholder like a club, batting away grasping hands, shoving past terrified faces he’d known his whole life. He saw Sturge, the ferry operator, trying to shield his wife, his face a mask of heartbreak and confusion. There was no time to help everyone.
They burst out into the cold night air. The rain had started, a fine, icy mist. The sounds from inside were muffled now, just screams and crashes against the heavy door.
“The rec center,” Ed Flynn said, his voice rough. “It’s got a solid door. A lock.”
“Go,” Riley said, still staring at the church door. “Get everyone you can find there. Board it up.”
“Where are you going?” Annie demanded, her fingers digging into his sleeve.
“After him.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He took off at a sprint, not toward the rectory, but toward the cliffs. The path was slick with rain and mud. The roar of the ocean grew louder, a constant, angry boom. The wind carried another sound—a high, desperate cry that wasn’t the wind.
Erin.
On the cliff’s edge, Erin Greene fought with a naked, feral desperation. The angel had her pinned, its massive, leathery wings beating against the air, sending sprays of freezing brine over them both. Its face was a nightmare of too many angles, its mouth a distended gash of needle-teeth. It wasn’t trying to turn her. It was trying to open her.
One clawed hand pressed against her swollen belly, not with malice, but with a terrifying, clinical curiosity. The other clamped over her mouth, stifling her screams. Erin bit down on the hard, scaly flesh, tasting something coppery and alien. She kicked, her boots finding no purchase on the wet grass.
My baby. Not like this. You don’t get this.
She twisted, finding a rock with her scrabbling hand. She brought it up and slammed it into the thing’s temple. It didn’t flinch. It made a sound, a low chittering that vibrated through her bones. The claw on her belly pressed down harder.
A shadow fell across them.
Paul stood there, silhouetted against the storm-laced sky, rain plastering his hair to his skull. He held no cross. He made no prayer. He just looked at the creature, and the creature looked back. The compulsion that had dragged Paul here was a physical wire between them, humming with power.
“Let her go,” Paul said. His voice was quiet, almost conversational.
The angel’s head tilted. Its grip on Erin eased a fraction.
Paul took a step closer. “You want a vessel? You have one. You want obedience? You have it. But not her. Her life is not yours to take. Her child is not yours to corrupt.” He was shaking, every word an agony of defiance. “You take what I offer, or you get nothing.”
He was bargaining with a devil. Offering himself as a permanent fixture, a willing prisoner, in exchange for two lives.
The angel studied him. It released Erin completely. She scrambled back, gasping, her hands immediately cradling her stomach. The creature took a lumbering step toward Paul, its wings folding against its back. It stopped inches from him, its breath a foul, hot wind. It raised a claw and traced a line down the side of Paul’s face, not drawing blood, but claiming him.
Paul didn’t blink. He held its gaze, his blue eyes empty of everything but a weary resolution. “Go,” he whispered to Erin without looking at her. “Run. Now.”
Erin stumbled to her feet. She looked from the monstrous form to Paul’s resigned face. There was no victory here. Only a trade. She turned and ran, her sobs lost in the wind.
Riley found him sitting on the cliff’s edge, legs dangling over the abyss. The angel was gone. The only sounds were the rain and the crashing waves far below.
Paul didn’t turn as Riley approached, his footsteps careful on the slippery grass.
“Is she…” Riley started.
“She got away,” Paul said, his voice flat. “It let her go. For a price.”
Riley sat down beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed. The proximity was an anchor. He waited.
“I sold myself tonight, Riley,” Paul said, staring into the black void. “Permanently. I told it I would stop fighting. I would be what it wanted. The perfect host. The obedient son. In exchange, it leaves Erin and her baby alone. It was the only currency I had left.”
He finally turned his head. In the dim light, Riley could see the track of clean skin where the creature’s claw had marked him, standing out against the grime and rain. It looked like a brand.
“So that’s it?” Riley asked, his own voice husky. “You just… give up?”
“I’m not giving up,” Paul said, and for the first time, a spark of something flashed in his dead eyes. “I’m changing the terms of engagement. I’m inside the house now. Maybe from inside, I can burn it down.” He looked at Riley, his expression devastatingly open. “But I can’t do it if I’m worrying about you. Or Erin. Or anyone else. You have to be safe. You have to get off this island.”
“There’s no ferry. Sturge is… back there. In the church.”
“Then find a boat. Steal one. Take your mother, take Erin, take anyone who’s still clean. Go to the mainland. Tell them… tell them anything. A gas leak. Mass hysteria. Just go.”
“And leave you here with that thing? And Bev? And a church full of… of whatever they’re becoming?” Riley shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“Riley, you have to.”
“No.” Riley said it simply, finally. “I spent years in a cell I deserved. I’m not leaving you in one you don’t. We either burn it down together, or we don’t burn it at all.”
Paul looked at him, the rain mixing with the tears on his face. He didn’t argue. He just leaned his head against Riley’s shoulder, a gesture of utter exhaustion. They sat in silence for a long while, watching the impossible dark of the ocean.
“They’ll come for us at dawn,” Paul murmured. “The ones from the church. They’ll be hungry. And Bev will lead them.”
Riley nodded. He reached over and took Paul’s cold hand, lacing their fingers together. The brand on Paul’s face seemed to pulse in time with their linked hearts.
“Let them come,” Riley said.