Douglas Preston - Crimson Shore

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.

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.

He drew his Les Baer and listened once again. Still nothing.

Switching the penlight back on, he examined the stairs and saw clear signs of recent passage, including sand, moisture from the storm, and a partial — but clear — bare print. Once again, he felt a deep disturbance at this; it was an incontrovertible sign of how he had overlooked crucial evidence. But even as he sorted through that evidence in his mind, he could not arrive at an explanation for the sudden appearance of a monstrous, barefoot mass murderer in Exmouth, or why it had chosen this moment to unleash its ferocity on the town.

Deep anxiety for Constance’s safety warred with caution inside him as he descended the stairs and crept forward, moving cat-like along the tunnel. Scratchings, both ancient and fresh — pictographs, demonic figures, symbols, odd Latin phrases — all mingled together on the walls.

And then he heard it: an animalistic murmur, a sibilant, quasi-human utterance. He froze, listening. The sound was distorted by the web of tunnels. Now came a voice, pleading and indistinct, again too unclear to make out the words or even the sex of the speaker.

A beast-like roar echoed through the tunnels. Another roar came rolling down, and then in response, a reasonable-sounding voice, pleading, first quietly and then louder and louder, ending at last in a high-pitched, horribly distorted scream.

Pendergast broke into a run; the tunnel divided and he took the right fork, heading in the direction the sound seemed to have issued from. But there was another fork in the tunnel, which he again took, only to be halted by a cul-de-sac. He turned and retraced his steps even as a second hideous scream reverberated; it was a male voice, he could tell that now, but its terror was so profound that its owner could never have been recognized.

But where was Constance?

Turning down yet another passageway, his flashlight beam reflected off what appeared to be a pool of blood; he raised the light to reveal two corpses, lying on their backs, limbs splayed, eyes wide open. He recognized them both as inhabitants of Exmouth: one was the fisherman who had given Constance a ride to the police station, the other he had seen one evening at the bar at the Inn. Both had been torn apart in the most horrifying and brutal way imaginable. Bloody bare footprints led away from the mess. Pendergast examined the scene with his flashlight. It told a horrifying story indeed.

And then, as if to underscore the horror, the fresh sounds of torture and pain came rolling down the tunnels.

Constance Greene felt her way along the slick walls of the tunnel with both hands. She had left behind what dim light there was, and she was now cloaked in a profound darkness. Her hands were still cuffed, and her stiletto was tucked once again into a pocket of her dress. The sounds of extreme agony and torture continued to echo through the tunnels. Constance had seen and heard many unpleasant things in her lifetime, but few if any were as sickening as what was clearly transpiring behind her.

The sounds were now dying out, as Gavin evidently sank into death. She turned her attention back to the problem at hand — escaping from this hellhole and the insane creature that tenanted it. She hoped — although common sense told her it was unlikely — there might be a second exit at the far end of the tunnels. If not, then perhaps there might be a place in which she could hide and wait for an opportunity to slip out.