'It's Reuel! Oh Jack oh my God oh Jason it's Reuel, it's Reuel - '
The Uzi in Richard's hands coughed out another short burst before falling silent, its clip spent. Reuel shook free of his father. He lurched and hopped toward the train, mewling. His upper lip curled back, revealing long teeth that looked false and flimsy, like the wax teeth children don at Halloween.
Richard's final burst took him in the chest and neck, punching holes in the brown kilt-cum-jumper he wore, ripping open flesh in long, ragged furrows. Sluggish rills of dark blood flowed from these wounds, but no more. Reuel might once have been human - Jack supposed it was just possible. If so, he was not human now; the bullets did not even slow him down. The thing which leaped clumsily over Elroy's body was a demon. It smelled like a wet toadstool.
Something was growing warm against Jack's leg. Just warm at first . . . then hot. What was it? Felt like he had a teakettle in his pocket. But he didn't have time to think. Things were unfolding in front of him. In Technicolor.
Richard dropped his Uzi and staggered back, clapping his hands to his face. His horrified eyes stared out at the Reuel-thing through the bars of his fingers.
'Don't let him get me, Jack! Don't let him get meeeee '
Reuel bubbled and mewled. His hands slapped against the side of the engine and the sound was like large fins slapping down on thick mud.
Jack saw there were indeed thick, yellowish webs between the fingers.
'Come back!' Osmond was yelling at his son, and the fear in his voice was unmistakable. 'Come back, he's bad, he'll hurt you, all boys are bad, it's axiomatic, come back, come back!'
Reuel burbled and grunted enthusiastically. He pulled himself up and Richard screamed insanely, backing into the far corner of the cab.
'DON'T LET HIM GET MEEEEEEE - '
More Wolfs, more strange freaks charging around the corner. One of them, a creature with curly ram's horns jutting from the sides of its head and wearing only a pair of patched L'il Abner britches, fell down and was trampled by the others.
Heat against Jack's leg in a circle.
Reuel, now throwing one reedy leg over the side of the cab. It was slobbering, reaching for him, and the leg was writhing, it wasn't a leg at all, it was a tentacle. Jack raised the Uzi and fired.
Half of the Reuel-thing's face sheered away like pudding. A flood of worms began to fall out of what was left.
Reuel was still coming.
Reaching for him with those webbed fingers.
Richard's shrieks, Osmond's shrieks merging, melting together into one.
Heat like a branding iron against his leg and suddenly he knew what it was, even as Reuel's hands squashed down on his shoulders he knew - it was the coin Captain Farren had given him, the coin Anders had refused to take.
He drove his hand into his pocket. The coin was like a chunk of ore in his hand - he made a fist around it, and felt power ram through him in big volts. Reuel felt it, too. His triumphant slobberings and grunts became mewlings of fear. He tried to back away, his one remaining eye rolling wildly.
Jack brought the coin out. It glowed red-hot in his hand. He felt the heat clearly - but it was not burning him.
The profile of the Queen glowed like the sun.
'In her name, you filthy, aborted thing!' Jack shouted. 'Get you off the skin of this world!' He opened his fist and slammed his hand into Reuel's forehead.
Reuel and his father shrieked in harmony - Osmond a tenor-verging-on-soprano, Reuel a buzzing, insectile bass. The coin slid into Reuel's forehead like the tip of a hot poker into a tub of butter. A vile dark fluid, the color of overbrewed tea, ran out of Reuel's head and over Jack's wrist. The fluid was hot. There were tiny worms in it. They twisted and writhed on Jack's skin. He felt them biting. Nevertheless, he pressed the first two fingers of his right hand harder, driving the coin farther into the monster's head.
'Get you off the skin of this world, vileness! In the name of the Queen and in the name of her son, get you off the skin of this world!'
It shrieked and wailed; Osmond shrieked and wailed with it. The reinforcements had stopped and were milling behind Osmond, their faces full of superstitious terror. To them Jack seemed to have grown; he seemed to be giving off a bright light.
Reuel jerked. Uttered one more bubbling screech. The black stuff running out of his head turned yellow. A final worm, long and thickly white, wriggled out of the hole the coin had made. It fell to the floor of the engine compartment. Jack stepped on it. It broke open under his heel and splattered. Reuel fell in a wet heap.
Now such a screaming wail of grief and fury arose in the dusty stockade yard that Jack thought his skull might actually split open with it. Richard had curled into a fetal ball with his arms wrapped around his head.