Markes. ‘But why all the beds?’
‘Not for lava,’ said Rollo. He pointed to the figures lying with their limbs entangled on each bed. ‘For people.’
‘That’s just stupid,’ said Markes.
But Naif scrambled between the stacked chairs over to the wall hutch where the church binoculars were always kept. One damaged pair lay inside it. She hurried back to Markes and Rollo, fingers shaking as she spun the focus wheel.
‘Let me look,’ said Rollo, impatiently.
‘Wait!’ She braced the binoculars against the railing. The image came to her in pieces as she shifted her view. First a girl, anyone, but young like her or Suki or Charlonge, lying still on the bed. The girl seemed peaceful.
She moved the glasses, to the next bed. Another girl. No. Someone she knew. Lottie.
Naif shifted the glasses lower.
Something clung to the dead girl’s cheek. No, not clinging. Attached. It was sucking at her skin through a large, puckered crease that could have been a mouth. A tentacle strayed over the girl’s neck and chest, stroking tenderly, lovingly.
A Night Creature.
She shifted the glass lower again, expecting to see Lottie’s lower torso and legs alongside the curled body of the creature. But as she moved the lens down, their abdomens appeared to be melded together, tapering down to just one set of human legs.
Naif lifted the glass higher again.
Saw Lottie’s head and lifeless face.
Across.
The Night Creature’s skull shared Lottie’s pillow. Pale fluff, the beginning of hair, and the pale pink of new skin intersected by oily flesh. Chests melded as well. Skin merging into skin.
Changing!
Lottie’s body was being subsumed into the Night Creature the way a spider would drain an insect.
Naif dropped the glasses in shock and they spun far below to smash on the stone floor.
A globe left its hovering position and skittered across the nave. It shot out a beam of blue light that burned the binoculars where they lay.
Naif turned to Markes and Rollo. ‘Stop Eve from forcing the main door open. They mustn’t go in there. The globes are weapons. They’ll be killed.’
Markes reacted first, throwing himself across the jumble of furniture. Rollo scrambled after him, ‘Dark Eve! Dark Eve!’
Naif followed more slowly. Despite taking the black bead, pain shot up her leg every time she put her foot down. It affected her balance and she banged against things. A bubble of nausea pressed up under her ribs. Soon the pain would take over her mind altogether.
She struggled to bring back the lessons she’d learned, separating the pain from the rest of her mind. Think past it.
Each step became a miracle of concentration. By the time she reached the first swing of the stairs, hell had disgorged into Danskoi.
The outside door had breached and Night Creatures clamoured over each other to enter.
‘Eve!’ bellowed Rollo, who was ahead of her. ‘Don’t open the inside doors!’
But by the time Naif reached the second swing of the staircase she saw the glow of the armed globes pulsing across the narthex like the strobes at the clubs.
The Leaguers and the other gangs were in there, dodging the globes and fighting the tide of Night Creatures trying to enter. Their screams of pain filled the church.
Naif joined Markes against the wall at the bottom stair.
‘Over there!’ He pointed to Eve and Joel.
Dark Eve and Clash had chopped and slammed their way back towards the outside door. Eve held her shield high with one hand deflecting the beams from the globes, while she wielded her hammer in the other. Joel fought to keep a circle of space around Charlonge and Suki. Suki thrust and slashed with one of Eve’s long knives.
‘Where are they going?’
‘There are lights in the sky outside. I think it’s Ruzalia. I can see the echo-locaters.’
Through the open doors Naif glimpsed spotlights wheeling across the ground, sending the Night Creatures scuttling for darker places.
And something else: the outline of a metallic shape on long spidery legs.
Lenoir!
Naif.
‘Watch out!’ Markes shouted in her ear.
Some of the Leaguers, forced into the corners of the narthex away from the globes, had found the gallery stairs. They began trampling each other to climb them.
Naif and Markes pushed against the rush towards Eve and Joel. They climbed the fallen pews, helping each other over. Screams followed them, and so did the smell of blood.
A Night Creature dropped from the ceiling, knocking Markes to the floor. It attached to his neck like a leech. Markes tried to pull it off but it slipped a tentacle around his neck and tightened it to form a slipped