Free The Devil in Green by Mark Chadbourn Page B

pretended to concentrate on his glass while surreptitiously watching the woman, wishing he were in a position where he could talk to her.
'At least, I thought it was like that,' Miller continued to himself. 'But I was just fooling myself, wasn't I? Maybe if I'd acted like somebody else she'd still be with me . . . and everything would be all right again.'
He mumbled something else that sounded as if he thought it was important, but Mallory's attention was deflected by sudden activity outside the window: a flash of a figure running by in the dark, then another, then several people sprinting. It was a perfectly mundane image, but a tingle of apprehension ran up his spine nonetheless.
Others had noticed it. An old man in a window seat pressed his face against the glass. Someone else ran out into the street, grabbed hold of a passing teenager who at first struggled to get free before pointing behind him, gabbling animatedly.
Miller's chattering in his ear was a distant drone; Mallory was drawn by the scenario unravelling outside.
As the teenager ran off, the man who had emerged from the pub looked back down the street. A subtle change crept across his face, amused detachment giving way to incomprehension, then a dull, implacable fear.
'I think we need to see this,' Mallory said quietly.
As he replaced his glass on the table, other drinkers were already making their way out on to the street. Mallory pushed his way into the centre of the road with Miller trailing behind him. They were instantly transfixed.
Though it was a dark, moonless night with heavy cloud cover, the sky was filled with light. Flashes of angry fire illuminated the clouds, every now and then bursting through to form pillars of flame that rammed down to the earth. Occasionally, it limned a shape moving with serpentine grace on large batlike wings that beat the air lazily. Mallory thought he glimpsed the shimmer of jewels on its skin, rich sapphires, emeralds and rubies; echoes of another image surfaced from the depths of his subconscious, of fire in the dark. Whatever it was, it was filled with power, but there was something in the way it moved that suggested a terrifying fury: it was hunting.
But that wasn't the worst thing. Behind it, along the horizon but sweeping forwards, Mallory could make out something he could only describe as a presence: a thick white mist was unfurling like cloth, billowing at its central point and folding around at the edges so that it had an unnatural substance and life. It moved quickly across the landscape towards the city. Occasionally, the mist would take on aspects of a face - hollow eyes, a roaring mouth - before some other disturbing shape appeared; Mallory saw something that resembled an animal, another that looked like a bird. Gradually, it coalesced into a smoky horned figure towering over the city, insubstantial but filled with primal fears.
'The Devil,' Miller whispered, terrified, 'and the Serpent.'
The air was infused with a palpable sense of dread. Everyone standing on that chill, dark street could only look up at it and remember years of religious imagery, laid on them since childhood, of damnation and torment. Whatever it was, it had come from the outer dark to the city, and its intent appeared apparent. Those of a Christian bent crossed themselves, and some who had not called themselves Christian for a long time did so, too.
Miller was whimpering quietly, whispering, 'The Devil ... the Devil . . .' until it became a mantra of Evil rippling through the crowd.
Even Mallory, who thought he was numb to most things, felt a crackle of fear as he looked up at the ancient image. He didn't know what it was, or tried to tell himself he didn't, but he knew he could feel the presence of a cold, alien intellect, and the threat it brought with it.
'The Devil's come to town.' Someone laughed, though without humour.
It drifted for a moment in the thermals above the cooling city before breaking up as something dark at its core drove