Devil Sent the Rain - D. J. Butler Page 0,7
watermelon in a Gallagher stage performance, and the creature’s body dropped.
Adrian scooted around the end of the bar. He shot a glance towards the stage and saw the rest of the band, backed into a corner around the shattered window and fighting off the swarming creatures. If anything, the wind and the rain seemed to be holding the monsters back as much as the band’s weapons, but the weather also made it impossible for Twitch to fly out.
They’d all have to jump, Adrian guessed. Oh well, twenty feet or so wasn’t too much of a fall—as long as one of them made it without breaking a leg and could drive the van. If the wind hadn’t actually flipped the van upside down, of course. Once they were inside the van, its wards of obfuscation and silence should help them evade pursuit and get away.
The six-limbed thing still trembled and shuddered as Adrian kicked it out of the way, switching to a new clip.
Mouser looked up at him, terrified. “I thought it was some kind of gag,” she squeaked, meeting his eyes.
“Yeah, I’m laughing my ass off,” Adrian grumbled, now wondering why he had bothered saving her. He grabbed her by her forearm and pulled her to her feet, looking at the cuts on her shoulder. There were a lot of them, and they were bleeding, but they didn’t look too deep. He tucked the Ingram under his arm, grabbed a bar towel and wrapped it around her injury.
“The big guy, Fafnir or whatever,” she continued, a little hysterical, “he said they were going to play a prank on you with your gear. He promised me fifty bucks if I kept you distracted. He said you wouldn’t be able to keep your eyes off a shiny electronic toy.” She sobbed, but just once, like a hiccup full of tears.
“Son of a bitch.” Somebody knew him too well. But who could that be? And if they knew him well enough to know how much he liked gadgets, what else might they know? Obviously, whoever it was knew how to find the band. They’d set a trap, and the Notorious Gentlemen had stepped right into it. “I’d make a joke about thirty pieces of silver,” he snapped, “but even my delusions don’t have that much grandeur.”
Adrian’s heart pounded in his chest and his throat felt constricted. Stay awake! He told himself and slammed his knuckles against the hard wood of the bar. He looked back across the hall and saw Twitch the falcon soaring again, but this time into the center of the room, flying with the cold, wet blast of the wind over her friends’ heads.
Squeeeeeeal!
Adrian turned, fumbling to get control of the pistol. He kept his eyes open only long enough to see four flailing talons come lunging at him across the bar—
* * *
Knock, knock, knock.
Adrian knew he was dreaming. That didn’t make it any better.
“Come in, Ade,” his uncle called from behind the cracked door.
Adrian pushed the door open, screaming silently. He didn’t want to see his uncle. He tried to look at the floor, but he was only dreaming and he couldn’t control what his dream-self-did. His dream-self looked up at his uncle.
No! he wanted to yell, but couldn’t.
The boy Adrian had never said “no,” and had never been able to say what he always suspected: that it had been his uncle who had killed his father. In his dreams, Adrian could only watch his nightmares replay, again and again.
“Don’t you want to learn about wards of silence?” his uncle asked. His uncle’s head was a wolf’s head, but not the head of a real wolf—it was cartoonish, with a long muzzle like a clown’s oversized shoe, complete with a slack lower jaw for a floppy sole and a slavering tongue that hung wet and pink and threw hot drops of saliva around as his uncle talked.
No more silence! Adrian screamed inside, but his dream-self was more hesitant. No more cooperation!
“I think I can do that one. C-can we talk about wards of shielding?” he suggested.
His uncle’s study was red-ribbed and fleshy, like the inside of a whale. His uncle sat at his desk. Adrian the dreamer knew that if you pulled the top left-hand drawer all the way out and reached under the desk, you could find a small hidden shelf. That was where his uncle kept the Eye, and Adrian knew it because in real life, years ago, he had found the Eye and stolen it.