The Manitou Read online

  Dr. Winsome walked over to Jack Hughes’ couch. “Are you sure, Dr. Hughes? I mean, we’re all armed and ready to go.”

  “Dr. Winsome, you mustn’t. But please hurry. Give him the virus and let him do it in his own way.”

  Dr. Winsome scratched his bald and crimson head, then he turned and said to the rescue party: “Dr. Hughes is in charge of this patient. I have to bow to his better judgment. But we’ll stand by just in case.”

  He went over to the desk, and produced a thin glass vial of liquid from a small wooden box. He held it out to me.

  “This solution contains potent influenza virus. Handle it extremely carefully, or we’ll have an epidemic on our hands.”

  I took the vial gently in my fingers. “Okay, Dr. Winsome. I understand that. Believe me, you’re doing the right thing.”

  I was almost tempted to take a gun back with me, even though I knew it would be foolhardy and dangerous. But I did take a flashlight. I went swiftly back to the elevator, punched the button for ten, and sank into the darkness again.

  When the doors opened, I peered cautiously out into the gloom.

  “Singing Rock?” I shouted. “It’s Harry Erskine! I’m back.”

  There was no reply. I kept my foot against the door of the elevator to prevent it from closing.

  “Singing Rock?” I yelled again. “Are you there, Singing Rock?”

  I switched on my flashlight, and directed it down the corridor, but there was a corner in between me and the door to Karen Tandy’s room, and I couldn’t see any further than that. Perhaps Singing Rock couldn’t hear me, way around here. I would have to go and investigate.

  I knelt down and took off my shoes, and wedged them in the elevator door to prevent them from closing. The last thing I wanted was to be waiting for an elevator to arrive from the foyer while one of Misquamacus’ grisly beasts came after me.

  Then, keeping a poolof flashlight in front of me, I padded down the corridor toward Karen Tandy’s room, and the battle of the medicine men. It was very silent down there—much too silent for comfort—and I didn’t feel like calling out to Singing Rock again. I was almost afraid I might get a reply.

  As I approached the door to Karen Tandy’s room, the thick sickly odor of blood and death came crowding into my nostrils again. I directed a long jet of light all the way down the corridor into the distance, but there was no sign of Singing Rock. Perhaps he was in the room, having a face-to-face conflict with Misquamacus. Perhaps he wasn’t there at all.

  I stepped softly and gingerly over the last few yards, pointing the flashlight into the gore-spattered doorway of Karen Tandy’s room. I could hear something stirring and moving in there, but I dreaded to think what it was. I came closer and closer, keeping to the far side of the corridor, and then I rushed forward and shone the light full and square into the room.

  It was Singing Rock. He was on his hands and knees on the floor. At first I thought he was all right, but when I shone the light toward him, he turned slowly in my direction, and I saw what Misquamacus had done to his face.

  Crawling with terror, I flickered the light around the whole room, but there was no trace of Misquamacus at all. He had escaped, and was somewhere in the pitch-black twisting corridors of the tenth floor. We would have to find him, and try to destroy him, armed with nothing but a flashlight and a small glass vial of infected fluid.

  “Harry?” whispered Singing Rock. I walked across and knelt beside him. He looked as if someone had lashed him across the face with seven strands of barbed wire. His cheek was ripped up and his lips were split, and there was a great deal of blood, I took out my handkerchief and gingerly dabbed at it.

  “Are you hurt bad?” I asked him. “What happened? Where’s Misquamacus?”

  Singing Rock wiped blood from his mouth. “I tried to stop him,” he said. “I did everything I knew.”

  “Did he hit you?”

  “He didn’t have to. He gave me a faceful of surgical instruments. He would have killed me if he could have.”

  I rummaged in the bedside cabinet and found Singing Rock some gauze and bandages. When the blood was wiped away, his face didn’t look too bad. His own self-protective magic had managed to divert most of the scalpels and probes that Misquamacus had sent flying in his direction. Several of them were stuck in the wall, right up to the handles.

  “Did you get the virus?” asked Singing Rock. “Just let me stop this bleeding, and then we’ll go after him.”

  “It’s here,” I said. “It doesn’t look like much, but Dr. Winsome says this little lot can do the job a thousand times over.”

  Singing Rock held the vial up and squinted at it. “Let’s just pray it works. I don’t think we have much time.”

  I picked up the flashlight, and we stepped quietly over to the door of the room and listened. There was no sound at all, except for our own suppressed breathing. The corridors were deserted and dark, and there were more than a hundred rooms in which Misquamacus could have hidden himself.

  “Did you see which way he went?” I asked Singing Rock.

  “No,” said Singing Rock. “Anyway, it’s been five minutes. He could be any place by now.”

  “It’s very silent. Does that mean anything?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what he plans to do next.”

  I coughed. “What would you do, if you were him? I mean—magically speaking?”

  Singing Rock thought for a while, still patting his ravaged cheek with a bloodstained pad of gauze.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “You have to look at it from Misquamacus’ point of view. In his own mind, he left Manhattan in the 1600s only days ago. The white man, to him, is still a strange and hostile invader from nowhere. Misquamacus is very powerful, but he’s obviously frightened. What’s more, he’s suffering from physical disabilities, which isn’t going to help his morale much. I think he’s going to call in all the reinforcements he can get.”

  I flicked the flashlight up and down the corridor. “Reinforcements? You mean more demons?”

  “Certainly. We’ve only seen the beginning of this.”

  “So what can we do?”

  Singing Rock, in the reflected light of the torch, could only shake his head.

  “There’s only one thing on our side,” he said. “If Misquamacus wants to bring demons out of the great beyond, he’s going to have to prepare gateways to bring them through.”

  “Gateways? What are you talking about?”

  “Let me put it simply. Imagine there’s a wall between the spirit world and the physical world. If Misquamacus wants to call any demons through, he has to remove some bricks from that wall, and prepare an entrance for the demons to come through. They need to be coaxed, too. Demons almost always demand a price for their services. Like the Lizard-of-the-Trees and his morsel of living flesh.” “Morsel?” I said. “Christ—some morsel.”

  Singing Rock held my arm. “Harry,” he said quietly, “it’s going to be more than morsels before we’re through with this.”

  I turned around and looked at him. For the first time, I realized what a trap we were in, and how there was only one way out.

  “All right,” I said. I didn’t want to say “all right” at all, but it looked as if I didn’t have any choice. “Let’s go find him.”

  We stepped out into the corridor, looking left and right. The silence was oppressive, and I could hear the rush of air molecules bombarding my eardrums, and the pumping of my own heart. The sustained fear of encountering Misquamacus or one of his demons made us both sweat and shiver, and Singing Rock’s teeth were chattering by the time we made it down the first corridor. At each door, we aimed the beam of the flashlight through the window, and checked to see if the medicine man was hiding inside.

  “These gateways,” I whispered to Singing Rock as we turned the first corner, “what are they like?”

  Singing Rock shrugged. “There are many different kinds. All it takes to bring a demon like the Lizard-of-the-Trees thro
ugh is a circle on the floor and the proper promises and incantations. But the Lizard-of-the-Trees is not particularly powerful. He’s just a minion in the hierarchy of Red Indian demons. If you want to summon a demon like the Lodge-Pole Guardian or the Water Snake, you have to prepare the kind of nexus that will make the physical world seem attractive to them.”

  “Check that door over there,” I said, interrupting him. I flashed the beam his way, and he peered through the window into the hospital room. He shook his head.

  “I just hope he’s still on this floor,” said Singing Rock. “If he gets out of here, we’re in big trouble.”

  “The stairway’s guarded,” I pointed out.

  Singing Rock pulled a tight smile. “Against Misquamacus, nothing is guarded.”

  We walked carefully forward down the corridor, stopping every few yards to investigate rooms, cupboards and odd corners. I was beginning to wonder if Misquamacus had ever existed, or if he was just weird hallucination.

  “Have you ever summoned a demon yourself?” I asked Singing Rock. “I mean—can’t we pull a few in on our side? If Misquamacus is going for reinforcements, why shouldn’t we?”

  Singing Rock smiled again. “Harry, I don’t think you know what you’re saying. These demons are not jokes. They’re not men dressed up. The greatest of them, the upper hierarchy of Red Indian demons, can take many forms. Some of them change their shape and their whole essence continuously. One minute they’re like terrible bison, and the next they’re like a pitful of snakes. They have no sense of human conscience and no sense of pity. Do you think that Lizard pitied Jack Hughes when it bit his hand off? If you want these demons on your side, you have to want something very pitiless done for you, and you have to disregard the possible consequences of something going wrong.”

  “You mean they’re all evil?” I asked him. I sent my flashlight beam up the corridor to probe a suspicious-looking shape. It turned out to be a hunched-up wastepaper sack.

  “No,” said Singing Rock. “They’re not evil in the sense that we understand it. But you have to understand that the natural forces in this planet are not in sympathy with mankind. Mother Nature, whatever it said in your Sunday-school catechism, is not benign. We cut down trees, and the spirits and demons of the trees are dispossessed. We dig out mines and quarries, and disturb the demons of the rocks and soil. Why do you think there are so many stories of devils possessing people on isolated farms? Have you ever been around Pennsylvania, and seen the pentacles and amulets that farmers wear, to ward off the demons? Those farmers have disturbed the demons of the trees and fields, and they are paying for it.”

  We turned another corner. Suddenly, I said: “What’s that?”

  We peered into the darkness. We had to wait for two or three minutes before we saw anything. Then, there was a brief flicker of blueish light from one of the doorways.

  Singing Rock said: “That’s it. Misquamacus is up there. I don’t know what he’s doing, but whatever it is, we’re not going to like it.”

  I took my vial of influenza virus out of my pocket. “We’ve got this,” I reminded him. “And whatever Misquamacus has in store for us, it can’t be as bad as what we’ve got in store for him.”

  Singing Rock sniffed. “Don’t get too confident, Harry. For all we know, Misquamacus is immune.”

  I slapped his shoulder and tried to make a joke. “That’s right, bolster my confidence!” But all the time I felt as if every nerve in my body was tingling, and I would have done anything to relieve my watery, sliding bowels.

  I killed the flashlight and we walked tentatively up the corridor toward the flickering light. It looked like someone was welding something, or the reflection of distant lightning. The only difference was, it had an unearthly quality about it, a strange coldness that reminded me of stars, when you stare up at the sky on a lonesome winter’s night, and they’re twinkling chill and distant and utterly remote.

  We reached the door. It was closed, and the blueish light was shining through the small window in the top, and underneath. Singing Rock said: “Are you going to take a look, or shall I?”

  I shivered, like someone was stepping on my grave. “I’ll do it. You’ve done enough for the moment.”

  I crossed the corridor and pressed myself to the wall along side the door. The wall was oddly cold there, and when I got closer to the window in the door, I realized that there were spangles of frost on the glass. Frost—in a heated hospital?I pointed it out to Singing Rock, and he nodded.

  Gingerly, I raised my face to the window, and looked into the room. What I saw there made my skin creep, and my scalp rise like a terrified porcupine.

  Chapter Eight

  Over the Blackness

  Misquamacus was sitting heavily in the center of the room, supporting his deformed bulk on one arm. All the furniture in the room—which looked like a lecture theater—had been tossed aside as if by a violent wind. The floor was cleared, and Misquamacus had marked it out with chalk. There was a wide circle, and inside it, Misquamacus had drawn dozens of cabbalistic symbols and figures. The reincarnated magician had his left hand raised over the circle, and he was chanting something in hoarse, insistent whispers.

  It wasn’t the circle and the casting of spells that terrified me, though. It was the dim, half-transparent outline that appeared and disappeared in the center of the circle—an outline of trickling blue light and shifting shapes. Shielding my eyes, I made out a curious toad-like shape that seemed to writhe and vanish, change and melt.

  Singing Rock stepped softly across the corridor and joined me at the window. He took one look, and said: “Gitche Manitou protect us, Gitche Manitou shield us from harm, Gitche Manitou ward off our enemies.”

  "What is it?" I hissed. "What’s going on?"

  Singing Rock finished his incantation before he answered me. “O Gitche Manitou afford us help, O Gitche Manitou save us from injury. Give us luck and good fortune all our moons.”

  “Singing Rock—what is it?"

  Singing Rock pointed to the hideous distorted shape of the toad-being. “It’s the Star Beast, which is about the nearest translation I can manage. I have never seen it before, only in drawings, and from what old wonder-workers have told me. I didn’t think that even Misquamacus would dare summon that.”

  “Why?” I whispered. “What’s so dangerous about it?”

  “The Star Beast is not particularly dangerous in itself. It could destroy you without even thinking about it, but it isn’t powerful or supreme. It’s more like a servant to the higher beings. A go-between.”

  “You mean that Misquamacus is using it like a messenger—to call on other demons?”

  Singing Rock said: “Something like that. I’ll tell you later. Right now, I think we’d be well advised to get out of here.”

  “The virus—what about the virus? Singing Rock—we have to take a chance and use it!”

  Singing Rock moved away from the door. “Forget the virus. It was a clever idea, but it isn’t going to work. Not now, anyway. Come on, let’s go.”

  I stayed where I was. I was terrified, but if there was any chance of destroying Misquamacus, I wanted to do it.

  “Singing Rock—we can threaten him with it! Tell him that if he doesn’t close that gateway, we’ll kill him! For Christ’s sake—it’s worth a try!”

  Singing Rock came back to the door and tried to pull me away. “It’s too late,” he whispered. “Don’t you realize what those demons are? They’re a form of virus in themselves. The Star Beast will laugh at your influenza, and give you the worst death you can think of.”

  “But Misquamacus—”

  “Misquamacus may be threatened, Harry, but once he’s summoned these demons, it’s too late. It’s more dangerous to kill him now than ever. If one of these beasts comes through, and Misquamacus dies, then there is absolutely no way of sending it back. Look at it, Harry. You want to risk that being loose in Manhattan?”

  The Star Beast rippled and shimmered in its own ghas
tly fluorescence. Sometimes it seemed to be fat and glutinous, and at other times it seemed to be composed of nothing but sinuous clouds. It gave off an indescribable atmosphere of freezing terror, like a mad and vicious dog.

  “It’s no good, Singing Rock,” I told him. “I have to try.”

  Singing Rock said: “Harry—I can’t warn you enough. It’s no use.”

  But I had made up my mind. I put my hand on the ice-cold handle of the door, and prepared to open it.

  “Give me a spell or something to cover me,” I said.

  “Harry—a spell isn’t a six-gun! Just don’t go, that’s all!”

  For the space of two seconds, I wondered just what the hell I was doing. I am not the stuff from which heroes are usually made. But I had the means to destroy Misquamacus, and the opportunity, and somehow it seemed easier and more logical to try and kill him than it did to let him go. If there was anything worse than the Star Beast, I didn’t want to see it, and the only way to stop any more manifestations was to get rid of the medicine man. I counted to three and flung open the door.

  I was not at all prepared for what it was like in there. It was so cold that it was like being in a dark refrigerator. And somehow, as I tried to rush forward, my legs could only move in slow motion, and whole minutes seemed to pass as I waded through the gluey air, my arm upraised with the glass vial of virus, and my eyes wide.

  It was the sound that was the worst, though. It was like a terrible chill depressing wind, a note that was constantly falling and yet which never sank below a dull rushing monotone. There was no wind at all in the room, but that intangible hurricane screamed and roared and blotted out all sense of time and space.

  Misquamacus turned toward me, slowly, like a man in a nightmare. He made no attempt to ward me off or to protect himself. The Star Beast, only yards away in the center of the frosty gateway, shifted and pulsated like coils of toadspawn, or twists of smoke.

  "Misquamacus!" I shrieked. The words came out of my mouth like slow drips of melting wax, and seemed to freeze in mid-air. "Misquamacus!"

  I stopped only two or three feet away from him. I had to hold one hand against my ear to try and blot out the deafening moan of the wind that wasn’t there. But in my other hand, I gripped the infected vial of influenza, and held it up above me like a holy crucifix.