Crimson Shore

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.

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.