Crashing Paradise Read online

  CRASHING

  PARADISE

  A N O V E L O F T H E M E N A G E R I E

  CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN

  AND

  THOMAS E. SNIEGOSKI

  MEET THE MENAGERIE . . .

  MR. DOYLE . . . Sorcerer and alchemist. A man of unparalleled intellect. When evil threatens to consume the world, he gathers those who will fight.

  CERIDWEN . . . Princess of the Fey. Solitary and beautiful, she holds the elemental forces of nature at her command.

  DR. LEONARD GRAVES . . . Scientist, adventurer, ghost. He exists in both life—and afterlife.

  DANNY FERRICK . . . A teenaged demon changeling who is just discovering his untapped—and unholy—powers.

  CLAY . . . An immortal shapeshifter, he has existed since The Beginning. His origin is an enigma—even to himself.

  EVE . . . The mother of all vampires. After a millennium of madness, she seeks to repent for her sins and destroy those she created.

  SQUIRE . . . Short, surly, a hobgoblin who walks in shadows.

  More praise for the novels of the Menagerie

  “Fast, fabulous, and thrilling.”—Tim Lebbon, author of Dusk and Berserk

  “Rich, inventive stuff, with a new surprise on every page.”—Jeff Mariotte, author of Witch Season: Winter and Angel: The Premiere Edition

  continued . . .

  Praise for

  Christopher Golden and his novels of dark fantasy

  THE SHADOW SAGA

  Of Saints and Shadows

  Angel Souls and Devil Hearts

  Of Masques and Martyrs

  The Gathering Dark

  “Scary and thrilling.” —Booklist

  “Harrowing, humorous, overflowing with plot contortions . . . abundantly entertaining. A portent of great things to come . . . a writer who cares passionately about the stuff of horror.” —Douglas E. Winter, author of Run

  “[Golden’s] work is fast and furious, funny and original.”—Joe R. Lansdale, Edgar® Award–winning author of The Bottoms

  “Genuinely creepy . . . beautiful, perfect horror-story moments . . . a nonstop, crazy parade of two-fisted monster action. I want more!” —Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy

  “Just when you thought nothing new could be done with the vampire mythos, [Golden] comes along and shows us otherwise.” —Ray Garton, author of Live Girls and Dark Channel

  “An imaginative storyteller whose writing is both chilling and suspenseful.” —Philip Nutman, author of Wet Work “Golden has painted an intriguing canvas . . . filled with action . . . and dark mythology.” —Rex Miller, author of Slob and Chaingang

  “One of the best horror novels of the year . . . tension, breathtaking action, dire plots, and a convincing depiction of worlds existing unseen within our own. One of the most promising debuts in some time.”—Science Fiction Chronicle

  Novels of the Menagerie

  THE NIMBLE MAN

  TEARS OF THE FURIES

  STONES UNTURNED

  CRASHING PARADISE

  CRASHING

  PARADISE

  A N O V E L O F T H E M E N A G E R I E

  CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN

  AND

  THOMAS E. SNIEGOSKI

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0745, Auckland, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  CRASHING PARADISE: A NOVEL OF THE MENAGERIE

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the authors

  Copyright © 2007 by Daring Greatly Corporation and Thomas E. Sniegoski.

  Interior text design by Kristin del Rosario.

  The Edgar® name is a registered service mark of the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 1-4362-4690-3

  ACE

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  CRASHING

  PARADISE

  A N O V E L O F T H E M E N A G E R I E

  CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN

  AND

  THOMAS E. SNIEGOSKI

  PROLOGUE

  THE demon Abaddon crouched, unseen, on the edge of a rooftop in the city of Basra and watched hatred blossom in the street below. The dirt road baked in the sun, the air shimmered with heat, and shouts echoed across buildings where no one dared come to the window. Curiosity was not worth their lives.

  Two Jeeps and a delivery truck sat in the street, engines chuffing like panting dogs, idling, ready to flee. Three stripped-down motorcycles buzzed at the intersections nearby, riders standing sentinel, watching for any who might try to interfere. The demon knew that none would dare.

  A handful of people scattered away from the Shiite mosque, moving swiftly along the dusty streets or into the darkened doorways of nearby buildings. They tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, like rats scurrying back to the sewers.

  Abaddon smiled.

  Their vehicles idling, twenty-two Sunni men ran toward the mosque, carrying an arsenal of assorted weapons. The demon saw assault rifles, grenade launchers, and antitank guns. The men wore ordinary clothes, many with an ironic Western influence. But they all had their heads covered in hijabs—some drab and filthy, others bright and clean and made from pretty fabrics—their scarves pulled across their faces.

  Half of them took up position in front of the building, even as the others split up and ran along both sides, surrounding the place. The mosque had stood in that spot nearly a thousand years and, in a city leached of hope, its golden dome remained a beacon.

  One of the Sunnis stepped forward and barked orders. He had a blunt, ugly assault rifle slung across his shoulder, its barrel clutched in his left hand. With his right, he gestured toward the front line of men. The grenade launchers remained shouldered, but the
rest lowered their weapons and pulled the triggers. Staccato bursts of gunfire filled the air, echoing off every wall along the street. Bullets riddled the mosque, puncturing daylight into the shadows within.

  Plumes of dust rose and drifted listlessly in the sweltering heat. There was no wind to carry it away.

  Again the Sunni leader, whose hijab appeared to be a red-and-white-checked dishcloth, barked instructions. His men took up the shouting. More bullets were fired, but in short bursts. Time was of the essence now.

  The leader signaled with his hand, and half a dozen of the mob ran up to the door. The two in the front fired several bursts at the door, then they kicked it open, wood splintering loudly.

  Moments later they returned, propelling two staggering men before them. One was a young man, barely more than a boy, a head shorter than the two thugs who ran him out through the door, holding on to his arms. The other was a tall, thin, bearded man, who screamed and gesticulated wildly, calling them all pigs and devils.

  Abaddon smiled, recognizing him. The man was the highestranking Shia cleric in the city.

  The Sunni in the red-and-white-checked hijab marched over to the screaming cleric and the frightened boy. His men held the two Shiites as he bent to whisper something to the cleric.

  The holy man fell silent.

  The Sunni leader turned his assault rifle around and smashed the butt into the young Shia boy’s temple. The young one crumpled to the ground, dangling in the grip of the two Sunnis who still held him. At a gesture from their leader, the men dragged the young man back through the door of the mosque. They were lost in the shadows within only a few moments before emerging without him.

  The cleric began to scream again.

  On the roof ledge across the street, the demon Abaddon laughed softly. He had expected a show today, and he was not disappointed.

  A soft whisper reached him on the motionless air. The demon turned his heavy, horned head and looked up into the sun. Silhouetted there he saw a dark, slender figure descending upon white-feathered wings that seemed to spread across the sky.

  A moment later, when the angel Jophiel alighted beside him, the wings faded like a mirage, shimmering away on the heat of the desert city. The angel wore a long, elegant, black silk jacket over an untucked white shirt, more L.A. than Iraq.

  “All right, Abaddon. I’ve come,” Jophiel said, golden eyes gleaming. His perfect, androgynous features were framed by ringlets of black hair. The angel personified beauty the way Abaddon did ugliness. Appearances could be deceiving.

  They both desired the same thing.

  Survival.

  “What are we here for?” the angel asked, one eyebrow raised. “We’ve already established that the Garden Gate is not in Iraq. The theologians may speak all they like about the place where the Tigris and Euphrates meet, but it isn’t here.”

  He brushed at the sleeves of his jacket, as though the dust of Basra would dare to touch his person.

  Abaddon smiled. “We’re here on a recruiting mission. I thought you should observe the latest candidate to add to our little troupe.”

  Jophiel glanced down at the men in the street, a dubious scowl on his perfect features. The Sunnis who had taken up position around the mosque were coming back now. At a signal from their leader, two of the men ran into the ancient holy place carrying small, dirty knapsacks.

  A moment later, they emerged empty-handed. No one else had come out of the building. The Sunni leader barked orders, and all of the men began to run back to their vehicles, climbing into the back of the truck and into the Jeeps, the barrels of their weapons jutting out.

  The two who held the cleric dragged him, screaming, toward the truck. The leader strode beside them in his red-and-white-checked hijab. The cleric continued to scream, even as the men forcibly turned him to face the mosque.

  The Sunni leader spit in the cleric’s face even as the man cursed him. The two armed men—faces still hidden; always hidden—drove him to his knees, where the leader kicked him once in the side.

  Choking on dust and his own screams, the cleric vomited in the street.

  Then the mosque exploded.

  Abaddon felt Jophiel flinch beside him, and grinned. The force of the blast was mostly absorbed by the ancient walls, which burst outward, rubble tumbling into the street. The roof collapsed, and in moments, through the rising dust, all that could be seen were jagged teeth of still-standing wall, the ruins of the place.

  In the cloud of dust and dirt that swirled like fog around the wreckage, the Shia cleric screamed to his god and sobbed. He turned and railed at the man who had led those responsible. The Sunnis let him go, and he started to rise.

  The leader leveled his assault rifle at the cleric and pulled the trigger; a short burst that ripped the man’s head apart in a spray of blood, bone, and brain. His corpse slumped into the dust.

  “What do you think?” the demon asked.

  Jophiel sniffed. “Him? Vicious or not, he’s just a man.”

  Abaddon glanced at the angel and saw the doubt in those golden eyes. “Is he? I think not. These men came in vengeance, today, for the destruction yesterday of one of their own mosques and the murder of seventeen men, women, and children, by a Shia militia squad. The cleric who was just killed? He was said to have led that attack.”

  The angel tilted his head in birdlike curiosity. “He didn’t?”

  The demon smiled and shifted, black wings shushing against his back, hooves crumbling the ledge beneath him.

  He pointed one long, red-black talon at the Sunni leader below, his red-and-white hijab still visible in the rising cloud of dust that roiled off the destroyed mosque.

  Through that fog, the engines of the motorcycles whined as their riders drove off. The Jeeps rumbled away as well.

  The truck waited for the Sunni leader; but he strode away from them, climbing over the rubble of the mosque, disappearing into the dust and debris.

  But just as the angel and the demon could not be seen by anyone in the city, simply by choosing not to be visible, so could they make out the figure that picked its way among the ruin of the mosque.

  “Yesterday,” Abaddon said, “he was the cleric. Or so he appeared.”

  Engines roared, and shouts were raised in the distance.

  The police coming, Abaddon knew. Now that the trouble was over, they at least had to create the appearance of having responded to this fresh horror.

  “What are you talking about?” Jophiel demanded.

  “We have gathered several useful allies, old friend,” the demon said, gazing down with admiration. “But none who shall prove quite so useful as this one. Watch.”

  As the angel complied, the figure moving through the dust and rubble emerged. But the red-and-white hijab was gone, replaced by a billowing, black abaya that covered the entire body. Yet the clothing was not all that had changed. Despite only the eyes being visible, the shape beneath the abaya made it obvious that this much smaller figure was a woman.

  Jophiel narrowed his golden eyes. His exquisite face took on a cruel edge, and his lips turned up in a smile. “That was not simply a change of clothing.”

  “No. It wasn’t,” the demon replied.

  “You cannot mean—”

  Abaddon laughed. “Oh, yes. The Clay of God, Jophiel.”

  The angel paused a moment, then his upper body moved in an almost sensual shudder, and white wings unfurled so wide that they blocked out the light of the sun.

  “Well, then, we ought to have a talk with him, don’t you think?”

  The demon nodded, black wings unfolding with a leathery slither. “Indeed. I have a feeling that the Clay may be the most vital of our allies. Once we find the Garden Gate, all we’ll need is the key.”

  Jophiel laughed as they both took flight and began to follow the black-sheathed Iraqi woman across the ravaged city of Basra, invisible to all eyes below.

  “The key is the easy part,” the angel said. “We know just where to find her.”


  1

  ARTHUR Conan Doyle stood upon the ancient, chalk white wall encircling the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, gazing out over the peaceful calm of the Adriatic Sea and marveling at the calmness of it all.

  He could have stood there for hours, soaking in the beauty of the turquoise waters, growing a deeper, darker shade of blue as the sun began to set, using every distraction that he could find to avoid dwelling on the imminent danger that threatened the existence, not only of this beautiful place, but of the entire world.

  And all of the worlds beyond it.

  The Devourer was coming; drawn to the life, vitality, and magic of the world like a shark to blood. But its hunger will not end there, Conan Doyle reminded himself, looking up into a cloudless, robin’s egg blue sky—imagining the skies on hundreds of other planes of existence at that very moment, each of them threatened by the inexorable approach of the Demogorgon.

  A lesser man would have given in by now, accepting his fate—the fate of his world—for it was written that nothing could repel the hunger of the Devourer once it had fixed its attention upon a particular prey. But Arthur Conan Doyle had never allowed himself the luxury of accepting fate, not even when death had come for him.

  A flurry of movement drew his eyes from the deceptive tranquility of the view, and Conan Doyle looked down to see that a small bird had alighted upon the wall, looking up at him with a quizzical tilt of its head.

  “We’re ready for you, Arthur,” said a familiar voice that issued from the bird’s open beak.

  Momentarily startled, he scrutinized the tiny creature. It wasn’t a thing of flesh and blood but a complex, mechanical device, designed to be almost as real as the actual thing. It appeared that Velimir—the ancient monk who had helped him organize this evening’s congregation—had become even more adept with his hobby since the last time the two had met.