The Seal of Solomon (Alfred Kropp 2)

I had trouble forming the words, my teeth—the teeth I still had left in my head—were chattering so much. “I’d rather you did.”

“I have come as far as I can go.”

“Me too,” I said. “But I’ve got to go farther. I’ve reached the end of hope too, Samuel, but I still gotta go farther because stopping here means I really am dead. I’ve been hugged by demons, but I’ve been hugged by angels, too, and that’s why I’m going on. You can stay—but I’m going on.”

I tried to think of something else to say, like the perfect words existed that would change his mind and, if I could only think of them, he would come.

There wasn’t anything he could do if he went, but at least I wouldn’t be alone. More terrifying than the thought of facing them was the thought of facing them alone.

I punched the button and my door opened. I stepped out and pulled the black sword from behind the seat. I slipped it between my belt and pants.

“Will you wait for me at least?” I asked. He didn’t say anything.

“Good-bye, Samuel,” I said.

I stepped away from the car, the door rotated with a soft whine, and the sound of it snapping closed seemed very loud.

I walked toward the circle of light, my breath swirling around my head in the frigid air, and for some reason I felt twenty pounds heavier, as if they had done something to mess with gravity. Above me lightning flickered silently behind the opaque screen of fog, sometimes bright enough to cast a shadow of my shuffling self onto the frozen pavement that glistened with ice particles. I could barely lift my feet by that point.

I didn’t look back. I didn’t have the strength to turn my head. My mouth hung open a little as I gasped for air. The odor rising from my body was incredible. It made my eyes water. I had thought it was the smell of rotting fruit, but I knew now it was the stench of death.

Through my tears I saw glimmering shapes gathered around a huge hole in the earth, a black pit that the light above seemed to flow into, like water being sucked down a drain.

I had reached the devil’s door.

55

My mind started to cloud with terror, that same paralyzing fear that I felt in the desert, beneath the tarp with Ashley, only this time there was no hand to grasp. I could barely move my legs by this point and every breath hurt.

“Saint Michael protect me,” I blubbered around my broken teeth. My voice sounded muffled in my own ears. “Saint Michael protect . . .”

One of the glowing shapes standing before the pit moved forward, its crown shooting dazzling beams of blue and red and green light. I stopped as it approached, mostly because I didn’t have another step in me.

On thy knees, carcass.

I went down with a whimpering sob at the feet of King Paimon. My chin fell to my chest. It was over. What was I thinking? I couldn’t win against these things. Samuel was right. It was madness. Paimon would never believe the lie I was about to tell. That was the really weird thing about evil. Lying to God was better than lying to the devil: God will forgive you.

Where is the Seal?

“I don’t have it.”

I felt pressure like a massive fist closing around me, squeezing, and the image of Agent Bert blowing apart in the desert flashed through my mind.

“But I know where it is!” I choked out, and the pressure eased. “I—I’ll take you to it, O Mighty King.”

Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then something lifted me up until my feet dangled a few inches above the ground, and I hung there like a slab of meat on a hook.

A massive gray shape filled my field of vision, dominated by a slathering mouth and sharp teeth the size of the CCR parked in the fog-tunnel behind me. Its body was segmented like a worm’s and it had no feet, but it did have huge, leathery wings folded against its twenty-five-foot body.

“I was going to trick you, but now I know I can’t trick you. I’ll take you to it,” I sobbed. “I left it in Knoxville, and I’ll take you to it . . .”

All I wanted to do at that moment was to please him, to give him what he wanted.

Then, quicker than I could take my next breath, I was on the monster’s back, behind the towering form of Paimon, and we were rocketing

skyward.

The concentric rings of sixteen million fiery riders broke apart as we approached, and then I couldn’t see anything because we were passing through the clouds. Wind roared in my ears and red flashed behind my eyelids as the lightning snapped and danced all around us. Then my eardrums started to pop and a stabbing pain shot through my chest as the air grew thinner.