And now here she was, just another pawn. Evie wanted to cry. From fear. From exhaustion, yes. But mostly from the cruel uselessness, the damned stupid arbitrariness of it all.
“ ‘A great sign appeared in heaven, the sky alight with fire, a woman clothed with the sun and crowned with the stars. And her heart was a gift for the Beast, the heart of the world, which he would devour and become whole and walk upon the earth for a thousand years….’ ”
The half-dollar rubbed against Evie’s hand and she thought of James, and as she did, a horrible, desperate thought took shape. No. She couldn’t. There had to be something else.
The dead were coming. They were coming for her.
Shaking, Evie removed the pendant from around her neck and held it in front of her. “Into this vessel, I b-bind your sp-spirit….” She shook so badly she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get the words out.
The dead kept coming. All she could see were hollow eye sockets in shadowed, skeletal faces. Dead white fingers reaching toward her. Blackened mouths oozing black juice down mottled chins.
“Into the fire, I commend your spirit,” Evie said louder.
Hands reached for her. Dead fingers splayed over her toes and she kicked them away, screaming, careful not to lose her balance and topple into the unholy throng. The room brightened. How long till the comet? A minute? Thirty seconds?
The hissing howls of the Brethren were deafening. They spoke in a thousand tongues. But beneath the cacophony, she could hear a few moans. Beneath their rage, she could sense their fear. Their urgent, overlapping growls bounced around the room. “Kill her, kill her, kill her. You are the Beast, the Beast, the Beast, The Beast must rise….”
“That coin is no holy relic, Lady Sun,” John Hobbes taunted.
Evie gripped the half-dollar tightly, feeling the grooves against her palm, both comfort and punishment. Her only physical tie to her brother.
“It is to me,” she croaked. She shouted above the din. “Into the darkness I cast you, Beast, nevermore to rise!”
The souls of the Brethren cried out. Fire licked at the walls. It was like some macabre painting come to life. The Brethren screamed as, once again, they were engulfed in flames. She shut her eyes and hoped. The pendant shook violently in her hand. The hissing was gone. In its place came a skin-crawling symphony of screams and shrieks, guttural growls and barks, sounds she could not and did not want to identify. She smelled smoke. When she opened her eyes, she saw the screeching souls of Brethren being dragged backward as they were sucked into the walls, which were engulfed in the flames of long ago.