A crash hits the cliff at the end of the golf course. I assume it’s a huge wave, but I can’t see it with all the angels blocking my way. Then they all turn to look, and I can see the beach through the spaces between their bodies.

The water is boiling near the shore. Something is rising up out of the sea. At first, I think it’s a cluster of animals, but as the heads clear the water, I see that it’s a single monstrosity. The waves crash around it as if the ocean itself were raging against this unnatural thing.

The beast shakes off the water with a scream, and races toward us.

It’s shockingly fast. In almost no time, it’s close enough for me to get a good look at it.

Laylah has outdone herself on this one. It has seven heads clustered around the shoulders, but one of the heads appears dead. The one that looks dead is the head of a man. The face is split and trickling blood, as though he was recently killed with an ax.

The rest of the heads are alive with each one looking like a mix of human and animal – a leopard, an eel, a hyena, a lion, a giant fly, and a dead-eyed shark. The torso of the beast looks vaguely bearlike.

‘And a beast shall rise up out of the sea,’ says Uriel in a prophetic tone. ‘And upon his heads is the name of blasphemy. Let us count the number of the beast, for it is the number of man. And his number is six hundred threescore and six.’

Each of the monster’s heads has numbers tattooed in a puckering scar on its forehead.

666.

Chapter 32

32

They’re just numbers, I tell myself.

Just numbers.

I know the beast was concocted by Laylah according to Uriel’s instructions. I know that Uriel copied his monsters from descriptions out of the apocalyptic prophesies. I know this is a fake – a fake.

Then why is my skin prickling with goose bumps?

The numbers are not subtle, and it’ll scare the bejesus out of anyone who sees it. I’m guessing that tattooing the number on the foreheads was Uriel’s idea.

The dripping beast roars and screams and yelps through all its faces except the dead one. It pauses near us before racing by and disappearing into the broken landscape.

Uriel raises his arms again, as if in a trance.

The ground shifts and puckers beneath my feet. It’s like worms frantically boiling in the ground.

Fingers burst out of the soil.

A hand reaches for the sky like a newborn zombie.

A head pushes its way through the dirt.

All over the old golf course, dirt-covered bodies claw their way out of the ground and climb onto the lawn. Thousands of them.