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“I doubt it,” Todd said dryly. He could open a portal to Penemue’s most likely position, but he was reluctant to do so in front of the pastor and the detective. Revealing his nature to Markham and Langthorn was risky enough.

“We’ll catch up with him later,” Jack said, still gazing mildly at Clancy. “So, what happened?”

The detective related his side of the story, his voice steadying as he spoke. Todd straightened as he heard the details of Jackson’s death. Suddenly, the pieces slid into place and the nagging sense of recognition that had been bothering him vanished.

He half-turned, searching past the surface reality for the sliding jigsaw probabilities that surrounded them.

The probabilities were moving swiftly, flickering and changing through iterations that traced an infinity pattern across the numberscape, twisting and revolving around a set of all-too-familiar attractors: himself, Andrew Markham, and Jack Langthorn.

Todd lifted a hand and ran his forefinger across his bottom lip, searching for something more definitive.

Nothing. The formula was discernable, but its end point—its end point could be any one of a wave of points stretched across the infinite.

He drew his gaze back. The detective had pulled a plastic bag from his pocket and was handing it to Jack. “We found two of these at the scene,” he said. “One was broken. Do they have something to do with all of this?”

“Sonofagun, Andy, look what we have here,” Jack said, sliding a clay disk out of the bag and tilting it toward the remaining spotlight.

“A goetic seal,” Todd said, reaching out to run a finger over the marked surface. “Blood-imbued earth.”

“Andromalius,” Jack read aloud. “I don’t know that one.”

“Neither do I. This would be a lot easier with my library.” Markham already had his phone out, fingers working the touchscreen. “Next month’s bill is going to kill me. All right, here we are.
Legemeton
. Andromalius. Seventy-second spirit, earl, form of a man holding a great serpent in his hand. Brings back thieves and goods that that were stolen, discovers wickedness, blah blah, treasures that be hid, rules thirty-six legions of spirits.”

“The bit about a serpent sounds like our Leviathan link,” Jack said.

“And the part about treasure,” Todd added. Everyone looked at him, so he felt compelled to elaborate. “There are several mythical motifs associated with dragons and serpents. First, they live in caves or under ground. Second, they guard treasure. In the earliest stories, they guarded the passage to the afterlife, or wisdom of some kind. Later, their treasure became secularized as mere gold and jewels.”

“But what does it mean?” Lindgren asked, worried. “What did the seals do?”

“I expect they kept those things quiet. Perhaps the Gudruns’ nephew knew more about the occult than he admitted to your grandfather.” Todd shot a look at the two occultists. “Pastor, I recommend you and Detective Clancy tell the authorities about these creatures. You don’t need to say anything about goetic seals and dragons. Just show them the holes and suggest they bring in as much heavy weaponry as they can.”

“I’m good with that,” Clancy said, sounding relieved. Lindgren looked puzzled.

“I agree, but—I don’t quite understand what’s going on,” he said. “My family was involved in this from the start, but who are you? Two adjunct religion professors and a stranger? How did you get involved in all this?”

Todd felt a flash of impatience, but his two companions didn’t seem bothered by the question.

“Oh, fighting black magick’s kind of a hobby of ours,” Jack said, affably. “Dr. Todd’s acting as our special consultant tonight.”

Todd kept his expression stony.

Markham clapped Lindgren on the back, deftly guiding him forward. “You two deal with the authorities, and we’ll see what we can do about snakes and black magick. But hurry, please. A lot of people have been hurt already.”

Lindgren hesitated, then nodded.

“All right. But when this is over, I expect an explanation, Andrew.”

“Detective—
heavy
weaponry,” Todd emphasized. Clancy nodded. The two men headed across the field, toward the side road where the police cars had been parked.

“Did you rush them off for a reason?” Jack asked him, his down-home accent all but gone again. His amiable air had evaporated, too.

“Which one of you is better at high magick?” Todd asked.

“Me.” Jack folded the plastic bag back over the seal and tucked it into his jacket pocket. “Why?”

“The floating creatures—we weren’t seeing them in their true forms. All we were seeing were...their corners. The next time they appear, you need to constrain them to reveal themselves to us in their entirety.”

Jack cocked his head.

“I can try. Do you know who they are? Magick works better when you have a name.”

“I don’t even know if they have names. But if you can drag them all the way into our reality, we’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with.” 

“Okay.” He looked reflective a moment. “You think they were mal'akhim?”

“No. I think our elusive Leviathan has nothing to do with heaven and hell at all. But my abilities won’t affect it, so all we can hope is that whatever energy your invocations give off will be sufficient.”

“Should do. The goetic seal worked.”

“It worked against the
serpents
.”

“I thought Leviathan
was
the serpents.”

“I’m rather afraid Leviathan may turn out to be all of the creatures at once.”

“Well, I can think of two potential routes of investigation,” Markham said, after they digested that for a moment. “First, we could see if Edward can track one of the tunnels back to wherever those serpents were living before they were called here. Second, we could find Penemue. If he’s a Watcher, he might be able to help.”

“Chasing snakes seems like a waste of time if we can’t take them down,” Jack said. “I say we get—” He broke off abruptly, his hand rising to clutch a medallion around his neck. “Something’s coming.”

Space shifted and Todd threw out his hands, ready to mend it or rend it as necessary. Amon burst from the netherworld in a shower of sharp iron nails, throwing itself at him. Its eight legs clutched at Todd’s chest and the infernal nails caught between their bodies, driving into their flesh as if to affix them together.

Todd closed his arms around Amon’s bulk, staggering. His heel caught a clod of dirt and he tumbled. The nails drove themselves into his chest as he hit the ground.

“Wh—”

Before he could get a word out, Amon clawed a strip of flesh off its face and grabbed it between its teeth, ramming the charred ribbon into Todd’s mouth. Todd choked, tasting flesh and ammonia. Then Amon twisted, its talons tearing his wool sweater and poking holes through the silk shirt underneath, and clamped its teeth and beak onto his wrist.

The sharp pain of its nursing made Todd suck in ash and Amon’s flesh. He choked, gagged, and then clenched his teeth on the strip of demonic skin to keep himself from spitting it out.

Above them, Jack was swearing. Todd felt the conjurer tugging at Amon, but the demon’s mass was much greater than its appearance suggested. For a moment he felt Markham grab his head and heard him say something—

—and then he swallowed the freezing scrap of skin and heard Amon whisper:

רוקניא

XXIII

Alison slid out of the SUV and stared at the deep pit revealed by the truck’s headlights. Dark, moist stains covered one wall.

A motorcycle roared to a stop next to them.

“Same as before,” the rider said wearily. “We’re trapped.”

They’d circled the campus, inspecting the broken roads and upturned trees, the deep cuts and collapsed walls that the monsters had left behind. None of the deep trenches were impassable, but the bloodstains and severed limbs scattered inside them discouraged further exploration.

“It doesn’t seem as wide here?” Alison asked.

“No.” The motorcyclist twisted in his seat, looking behind him. “I wouldn’t want to try jumping it, though. The ground’s pretty rough, and this isn’t a dirt bike.”

“So, what now?” Peter asked from the front seat. “Do we try it?”

Ally bit her lip and shook her head.

“I think...snake-monsters track by vibration,” she said. “They could be stationed all around campus, waiting for vibrations to alert them.”

“So, how do we get across?” The motorcycle rider looked up. “There aren’t any trees nearby, or we could pull a Tarzan.”

“We could try moving really slowly,” Jarret suggested from the SUV’s back seat.

“You first,” Peter muttered.

“Maybe...maybe we could distract them,” Alison suggested. She jammed her hands into the pockets of Pastor Lindgren’s coat. “Like, if you and the other cyclists circled around and around on the opposite side to get the snakes’ attention, we might be able to sneak through here?”

“Lots of vibrations,” the biker said, catching her drift. “Then we should split the noise up. A bunch of people shaking things up in several places would be more distracting.”

“Do you want to try it?” Alison looked at Peter and Jarret. “It’ll be dangerous.”

“What worries me,” Peter said grimly, “is that even if we get across, we might find out the snakes are out there, too.” He slapped the dashboard. “You heard the radio. Everything’s gone crazy.”

Alison nodded. The earthquakes and the blackout and the loss of land lines and cell towers had caused a lot of trouble in Vista Hills. Fires had started, looters had broken into the local mall, and reports were starting to trickle in of collapsed buildings and trapped occupants. So many people were trying to call out that the cell phone satellite system was overloaded and most calls were getting busy signals. Emergency workers from the neighboring counties were being assembled to help, but right now Vista Hills was in a state of chaos.

And nobody in town had thought to head out to check on little California Hills University.

She leaned against the SUV, trying to think.

“Okay, listen,” she said, looking at the motorcyclist. “I think we need to get the fastest runners we can—like, track-team fast—and send them out while three or four groups of cyclists and motorists make as much noise and vibration as possible. If everyone, you know, synchronizes watches and chooses a time to start, the runners could probably get through without being detected. Then they gotta go to the police and tell ’em about the giant snakes.” She was no longer certain that her idea about luring the snakes away with food would work. If the things were intelligent, they might detect a trick. But the police would know what to do, right?

Not that the police were ever much good in the movies, but maybe they were more efficient in real life.

“Yeah, that might work.” The biker nodded. “What about you? You aren’t going to run?”

“I hurt my foot.” She turned and looked up at Peter and Jarret. “You could go, though. You’re both athletes.”

“I’m not going to leave you alone,” Peter said. She smiled at him. It was a stupid answer, but it made her feel good, anyway.

“Water polo, not track,” Jarret said. “I’m better off staying here and praying.”

“So you’ve got to arrange it,” Alison said, turning to the biker. “Okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” He shifted, then leaned over the handlebars and held out a hand. “It’s a good plan.”