They sprang. Fang and claw clashed. Flesh ripped. Fur and hair flew. Snarls and growls overwhelmed the shrieks of the old G.o.ds. The two monsters spun round and round in a b.l.o.o.d.y clash. And though Duke gave better than he got, Tammy's wounds healed in moments. His own powers of regeneration weren't holding up nearly as well. Though Earl hadn't thought it possible before, he knew Duke was going to lose this fight.

The vampire moved to join Duke. If he was going to die anyway, might as well go down fighting.

Cathy stopped him. "No, Earl. It won't do any good. She can't die as long as the portal is open."

"How do you know that?"

"It's not important. You've got to trust me."

Earl didn't need much convincing. He already trusted her, and whether she knew what she was talking about or not, he didn't have any better ideas.

"How do we close it?"

"We have to disrupt the inter dimensional matrix."

"Matrix?"

"The diner."

"s.h.i.t. How are we supposed to destroy this place?"

"We don't have to. We just have to do enough damage to upset the energies holding open the Gate." She pointed to the thick support column. "That right there is the central energy drain. If we destroy it, Frush'ee'aghov will be sent back." She focused on the remnant memories of Gil Wilson. "I think."

"You think, or you know?"

"I know. I think."

The eye of Frush'ee'aghov opened wider. The air turned the consistency of thick coal dust. "G.o.dd.a.m.n," Earl sighed, "I hope you're right."

He took her hand and headed for the door. Earl could barely see ten feet through the darkness. He skirted whipping tendrils and smoky crevices. Mere feet from the door, the dark parted to reveal Tammy standing between them and the outside.

"Naughty, naughty. n.o.body leaves this party early."

Earl pushed Cathy behind him and switched into full vampire-combat mode. At moments like these he envied werewolves. All he could do was show her his fangs and call upon his scary, undead voice (which wasn't nearly as scary as Tammy's current voices) and try to look intimidating.

"Get out of our f.u.c.kin' way!"

"Make me."

Tammy slapped him aside, slashing open his cheek. He stumbled to the wayside.

Cathy swung her bat. The ectoplasmic sphere was one of the half-dozen dimensions brought to the surface of reality by the opened Gate. The spectral bat cracked across Tammy's face. Her long neck swished back and forth like a pendulum. Cathy took a second swing. Tammy caught the blow in one hand. She s.n.a.t.c.hed the ghost up and dangled her over a pit falling through the interdimensional void.

Duke, a streak of black and red fur, crashed into Tammy. The werewolf and the priestess tumbled into the thick fog of unnatural night. Cathy's spirit body fell victim to expectations of gravity. She clung to the pit edge with slipping fingers.

Inhuman shadows hissed and shrieked below. Something slithered around her ankle.

Earl took her arms and yanked her onto solid ground.

She could see the inside of his mouth through the cuts in his face. "Oh my G.o.d, are you okay?"

"Just a scratch."

The eye of Frush'ee'aghov buried the world in a heavy twilight. The sounds of Tammy and Duke tearing each other to shreds came from somewhere nearby. Earl's natural night vision allowed him to see, but just barely at that.

"C'mon." He dug his keys out of his pocket and ran for the door.

While the fate of reality was being decided in the dining area, the kitchen was the sight of a lesser struggle. Though much of the interdimensional activity took place in the front, the back was experiencing disturbances of its own. Loretta and Sheriff Kopp stood amidst the madness, rendered helpless by the Dust of Waking Sleep. Warped monstrosities, minor horrors really, crawled on mushy bodies. They were just blobs of flesh with gnashing teeth. All that stood between them and their first meal in ages was one half-faced ghostly Scottish terrier missing his tail.

Napoleon bristled.

All the lesser horrors rolled into one great lump of flesh and two dozen s...o...b..ring jaws. Napoleon barked a warning. The hungry thing kept coming.

The humans looked on in frozen terror. They could see the specter, but as the creature was nearly twice Napoleon's size, they didn't hold much hope.

Fearlessly, Napoleon launched himself into his opponent. The creature squealed. It had yet to fully adjust to this reality, and one bite was all it took to deflate it like a hideous, yellow balloon.

Napoleon snorted even as more toothy lumps boiled up through cracks in the floor. The terrier readied himself for battle.

Earl jammed the key in the ignition and started the truck. He flicked on the brights in an effort to see past the hood. It helped a little.

"Where are we going?" Cathy asked.

Earl put the pickup in reverse and backed away, kicking up a cloud of dust and gravel. He ground his way to first gear.

"We're going in."

He fastened his seat belt.

"You sure this is going to work?"

"Pretty sure."

He revved the engine. Steaming fissures cracked the parking lot. The ma.s.sive tentacles of Frush'ee'aghov thrust through the earth. A writhing wall began sprouting in front of Gil's All Night Diner.

Earl mashed the accelerator while a gap of opportunity remained. The pickup's wheels spun. The truck didn't move. A glance in the rearview mirror showed a gray tendril holding the truck by the tailgate.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it!"

Earl pushed harder, but the pedal was already all the way down. The engine roared. The truck stayed put.

"We're not going to make it!"

Cathy jumped from the cab and hopped in the bed. She brought down her bat on the tentacle's tip. Frush'ee'aghov didn't even notice. Blow after blow after blow accomplished nothing.

"d.a.m.n it, let go! Let go!"

Rusted hinges surrendered to opposing forces. The tailgate bent and snapped off. The pickup shot forward, rocketing toward the shrinking hole in the barricade and the unholy temple behind it.

"You're persistent," Tammy mused. "I'll give you that."

Duke was a b.l.o.o.d.y mess, barely able to keep standing. Organs spilled from a tear in his side. He held them in with one hand, using the other as a third leg. Ragged, wheezing breaths slipped from his throat. His right leg trembled. A jagged bone poked from his left thigh.

Tammy flicked her finger at him. A new cut slashed across his muzzle. She waved her hand, and five cuts tore into his already thoroughly serrated flesh.

"I'm beyond death now. Beyond the pathetic mortal speck I was, and very soon I'll take my place beside the old G.o.ds." She gently cupped his muzzle and raised his head to look into his eyes. "I like you, Duke. You were the one thing I desired I could not have when I was but a child. And even though you could not kill me, you gave it a good try. I respect that. I respect you." A long, red tongue darted from her lips and licked his nose. "That's why I'll offer you this. Join me. As I sit by the new masters of the world, you shall sit by my side. What do you say?"

He spat out a glob of phlegm, vomit, and blood. "f.u.c.k you."

"Have it your way. I could kill you, but I wouldn't dream of denying you the honor of witnessing my ascension to glory."

She slapped him to the floor and turned away. He was of no consequence. She stroked Frush'ee'aghov's slimy ma.s.s with loving fingers. The light would forever extinguish soon. In her joy, a flitting thought danced barely in her consciousness. She wondered where Earl and Cathy had gotten to. No doubt crushed beneath Frush'ee'aghov's great body or fallen into h.e.l.l itself.

A broken headlight cut through the darkness. A battered pickup smashed its way through the front doors. It swerved around a tower of tentacles and collided with the central pillar. The front end wrapped around the cracked column.

Frush'ee'aghov screeched. Tammy felt the Gate narrow. Arcane energies slipped away, but the damage was not enough to stop her. She didn't know how they knew, how they came so close to breaking the matrix. But they had failed, and now she was to become a living G.o.ddess. A long, rough chuckle bubbled up within her.

"I cannot be denied!"

The pillar trembled. The pressure of holding up the ceiling and holding open an interdimensional gate were too much to bear. The brick column began to crumble.

"No. This isn't right. This isn't how it's supposed to be."

The central column collapsed, crushing the truck cab, and what was left of the roof fell in. The old G.o.ds bellowed as their portal to Earth swung nearly shut. A fraction of their power filtered through the remaining crack. Tammy's body shrank into a vulnerable human shape. Suddenly her will alone anch.o.r.ed Frush'ee'aghov to the world. The strain was immense, almost unbearable, but she need only weather it for a few more moments.

A savage growl issued from behind her. She whirled on the werewolf limping toward her.

"Stay back, or suffer my wrath!"

But there was no wrath to suffer. Even a rudimentary magic required concentration, and all her arcane power was focused on holding open the Gate.

Duke's clawed hand punched through her chest and ripped out her heart. The still beating organ looked tiny in his hand. Tammy stumbled. The old G.o.ds poured all their energies into her, but she was dying. If she could just hold on a little longer.

"Stop s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around, Duke!" Earl called.

Duke squeezed Tammy's heart in his fist. It popped. The priestess of the old G.o.ds hissed her last breath.

"Aw, s.h.i.t."

Frush'ee'aghov sank into the earth. Flailing and thrashing, he fought the irresistible pull. His nearly open eye sucked back through the Gate. A desperate tentacle wrapped around the pickup and dragged it along to h.e.l.l. Earl and Cathy jumped from the doomed vehicle.

"d.a.m.n it!"

Earl tried to save the wreck of twisted steel. The pickup and he had been through a lot together, and he wasn't going to let it go without a fight. The b.u.mper came off in his hands. The automobile bobbed, tipped downward, and sank into the turbulent linoleum sea. It disappeared into the void with a heartrending sc.r.a.pe of warping metal. The dark fog swirled into the bathtub drain of Creation. The many rifts and crevices sealed themselves shut so tight not even the tiniest cracks remained. The old G.o.ds shrieked one last defeated cry from their prison.

But it was a distant wail, hardly worth noticing.

The portal closed with a belch and spit out a m.u.f.fler that came to rest at Earl's feet.

Cathy grabbed him and whirled through the once again seemingly normal diner. There were a few screwups. The tile ran slightly askew. A table stuck through a wall in a mingling of s.p.a.ce. The bathroom door had relocated itself several feet from where it once stood, but these were all minor slips in the s.p.a.ce-time continuum and easily ignored at the moment.

Napoleon cautiously trotted into the dining area. Cathy knelt and took the dog in her arms. "We did it, boy! We actually did it!"

Duke and Earl glanced up through the gaping lack of roof. The moon and stars were back in place. The thousands of twinkling lights beamed down upon the diner with a blinding brilliance compared to the eternal twilight that had nearly smothered the world. In a hundred years of endless night, Earl had never seen anything as beautiful.

"Thought we cashed in our chips for a second there."

Duke nodded.

Earl stepped in something wet and squishy that had fallen from the leaking gash in Duke's side.

"You alright?"

The werewolf shoved his drooping organs back in place. His canine lips peeled back in a weak smile. "I'll live. How you doin'?"

Earl took a good long look at Cathy. Napoleon licked her face while she laughed. The beauty of the reborn night paled beside her musical giggle.

"Never better."

Things returned to normal by the end of the week. The citizens of Rockwood were far too accustomed to such happenings to make a big deal out of a little thing like a near apocalypse. The world hadn't ended. Everyone pretended not to notice. Life went on.

There were changes, small shifts in Rockwood's paradigm. The sun shined brighter. The brown gra.s.s turned a healthier shade of yellow. A wren was spotted singing sweetly on a diner sign amid a flock of ravens, and a stain of blood on a linoleum floor was finally mopped away for good. And in McAllister Fields two new ghostly guardians stood watch.

Somewhere in the back, two young lovers lay side-by-side, laid to rest in a single ceremony that they might find the happiness in eternity denied them by a tragic coyote attack.

Tammy stood at the graveyard gate. Nothing stood between her and the other side, but she just couldn't step across. It wasn't like there was an invisible wall, yet every time she thought about lifting her leg and crossing, the foot stayed put.

Chad charged the gate. He started from a good way off, but the closer he got, the heavier his steps became. Just before he would have crossed over, he came to a reluctant stop.

"d.a.m.n, babe, I thought I had it that time."

Tammy rolled her ectoplasmic eyes. There was no way to break the term of guardianship. They were trapped until somebody died and got buried. Then it was off to whatever waited on the other side for a fallen priestess of the old G.o.ds. In the meantime, she could only kill time. She didn't mind the waiting itself, but the company left much to be desired.

Chad tried pushing his fingers past the barrier for the thousandth time and was unsuccessful for the thousandth time. He scratched his head and thought long and hard.

"I think we're stuck."

"Ya think?"

She headed back toward her grave. Chad trailed along.

"So we're, like, dead, right?"

She nodded.

"b.u.mmer." Smiling, he put an arm around her waist. "I just want you to know that I'm not mad about you letting that guy kill me."

"Glad to hear it," she replied through clenched teeth.