We All Fall Down

Where in the World is Arlo Grimm Part 36: We All Fall Down

Something worse and something deadly. The thing was trying to stop me from getting close enough to use the locket and I knew damn well it probably could. I might be special in some way, like Arly, but Lansing had told me pretty much point blank I wasn’t going to be special enough to beat this thing on my own. I was throwing away my life. I should have listened to her but it was too late. Praetallious wasn’t going to let me get close enough to us the locket and the locket, protection for Joan of Arc to the contrary, wasn’t going to be enough to stop the thing from affecting me and eventually killing me.

Because my bare arms were breaking out in sores, now. Patches of green-black flesh bubbled up and sweat streamed down my chest and from under my arms. Whatever plague the thing was spreading was devouring me.

I went to my knees, my legs suddenly too weak to hold me up. The demon laughed, a deep throaty thing, now, nothing like that of a little girl. I started to gasp, my mouth incredibly dry, my lips splitting. I could taste blood and something else, the flavor of rotting flesh that now filled the air. The flavor of disease, decay. The perfume of a demon.

Rats converged on me. They bit at my boots, my jeans. I let out a shriek and the locket dropped from my hand onto the altar. Where the locket had fallen the rats scurried back, leaving a clearing about it.

I have never felt such fear, even with that whole Ficatier and her Sisters of the Snake thing. I knew I was going to die and that was that. Lansing was helpless. Arly was on his way to the hospital but I knew somehow if I didn’t destroy Praetallious that wouldn’t matter, either. Because Ficatier would return and this time…this time there would be no winning for him.

“Jesus…” I whispered, trying to summon whatever was left of my strength before the rats completely overwhelmed me. I reached out for the locket but the rats leaped at my hands and I jerked back on pure reflex.

“You cannot win…” the demon grated in a voice that somehow foolishly reminded me of Jack Palance. “But you can join us…”

I gazed up at the thing, spite and defiance in my eyes. If I was going to die I was going to do it with my honor intact. “Never.” My voice shook; my throat was parched, paining. “Never…”

“Chloe…don’t give up…”

The voice came from beyond the demon and through blurring vision I thought I saw the wavering shape of a little girl.

“Pat…?” I whispered. “Pat, I can’t do this…”

“Go away!” Praetallious shouted, flinging his hand back like some idiot monster in a B-movie. “You have interfered enough!”

The shape wavered, dissolved, and whatever help she might have given me went with it.