But Lump never gets a chance to return to her. The red priest backhands him, his glove sizzling with electricity, and Lump falls dazed to the floor.
“Run, Lump!” she says. “Just run. There’s not enough time.”
Sarin tries to worm away, but the red priest is already on top of her, pinning her. With one hand he grips her neck and with the other the ceremonial knife. “You’re absolutely right.” With that the blade arcs downward, nocking her between her ribs, entering her. “Your time has run out.”
A hot ache spreads from the wound. Blood gushes, as if sucked, drawn greedily from her. It puddles and then follows the channels chalked on the floor, rippling toward the five skeletons. A red light sparks inside the socket of one. The same skull Sarin carried here. She cannot help but smile.
The red priest stands and regards her. “What’s so funny?”
She can barely draw a breath to speak when she says, “Alastor.”
He follows her gaze to the skull. The red light blinks now, faster.
The red priest swings his gaze between her and the skull. The red light inside of it blinks faster and faster, counting its way down to detonation. Every hollow of it is packed with C-4. She activated the detonation timer just before entering the chamber. “No.” The red priest doesn’t seem to know where to go, stepping on a rat, dodging a crow, chasing away from her, the pentagram.
“With your blood,” she says, interrupted by a wet cough, “I consecrate this space in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy motherfucking Spirit.”
The priest is backlit by the wall of televisions. The giant eye projected there is red-rimmed. It rolls around in its socket in fury or panic or excitement. The priest’s helmet and gloves zap and string with electricity. “You’re too late! It’s already started,” he screams. “It’s already begun!”
Chapter 22
USED TO BE, to open a door, you rolled aside a stone. Centuries later, you lifted a latch. Then you fitted a key, turned a knob. Now you can open a door with a phone or a fingerprint or a voice command. Times change. The ways of entry change. But you still have to open the door. On this October 31—Samhain, All Saints’ Eve, All Hallows’ Eve, Halloween, the fall climax, when the division between this world and the other frails—they open the door.
For the past few years, Undertown has been busy harvesting information. Eighty million accounts from Anthem and seventy million from Target. Fifty-six million from Home Depot. Seventy-six million from JP Morgan Chase. Ashley Madison, AOL, British Airways, Living Social, Adobe. UPS and eBay and Blizzard and Domino’s. And more. So many more. Amassing information for a cyberwar. Every time news broke about a data hack, people panicked, worrying over their credit cards and bank accounts especially. But when nothing happened—when no mysterious charges appeared, when no one applied for a credit card or a loan in their name—they forgot.
They only worried about money, as though money were the only thing worth stealing. But Undertown wanted usernames and passcodes, the more subtle but severely damaging information. Because that is the way in; the ciphered connection between your fingertips and keyboard jimmies open the lock between the physical and digital. This is what everyone should be worried about. Not their accounts, but their identity. Snowden leaks the NSA files. Hackers leak the Sony emails. Facebook and Google track your browsing habits, your buying habits, your location, your race, gender, religion, age, orientation, and custom-fit their ads accordingly. DNA has been replaced by streams of data integrated into databases. And it has become dangerously clear how your digital footprint can come back to haunt you, with so much of your life online. Just like that—you can be erased, possessed.
For now Portland is the target. Portland is the focus group. Portland is the door.
A trucker named Theo Ayala keys the ignition to his semi and pulls away from the loading zone at a bar. He thumbs open Google Maps to call up the directions for his next delivery. His trailer is full of Budweiser that will never be drunk. The screen of his phone streams with red code that finds a reflection in his eyes. He drops the phone, and its screen spiderwebs with fissures. His right hand falls to his custom-made, silver-skulled gearshift. He cranks the truck from second to third and then fourth gear as he swings the wrong way onto an entry ramp and merges onto I-5. At first the oncoming traffic zippers out of his way, wailing their horns, swinging onto the shoulder, crashing into the meridian, but then the cars come thick enough that they cannot escape him. His grille cleaves a Prius in two. A Harley gets eaten up beneath his tires. And then comes a fast, steel-screeching, glass-shattering series of impacts, sedans and station wagons and trucks and SUVs knocked aside. Tires pop. Horns honk. Hoods crumple. Sparks light up the night. Their screaming faces are lit by the wash of his headlights.