The Manitou Read online

  “Misquamacus—this is the invisible spirit which struck down your people! I have it here—in this bottle! Close the gateway—send back the Star Beast—or I will release it!”

  Somewhere in the back of my brain I heard Singing Rock shouting “Harry—come back!” But the hurricane was too loud, and my adrenalin was pumping too fast, and I knew that if I didn’t push Misquamacus to the brink, we might never rid ourselves of the wonder-worker, or his demons, or any of the fearful legacy from a magical past.

  But I’m a clairvoyant, not a medicine man, and what happened next was something I just couldn’t cope with. I felt something cold and wriggly in the palm of my hand. When I looked up at the vial, it had turned into a black squirming leech. I almost dropped it in disgust—but then a small warning in my mind said it’s an illusion, another of Misquamacus’s tricks—and I held it tight instead. As I gripped it, though, the wonder-worker outmaneuvered me. The vial appeared to burst into flames, and my brain wasn’t fast enough to override my nervous responses and reassure me that this was an illusion, too. I dropped the vial, and it sank slowly toward the floor—unnaturally slowly, like a stone sinking in transparent oil.

  Terrified, I tried to turn away and run for the door. But the air was heavy and limpid, and every step was congealed into a massive effort. I saw Singing Rock in the doorway, his hands stretched out toward me, but he seemed to be miles and miles distant, a lifesaver on a shore I couldn’t reach.

  The writhing, colorless shape of the Star Beast had an irresistible attraction all of its own. I felt myself being physically drawn away from the door and back toward the center of the magic gateway, even though I was using all my strength to try and escape. I saw the vial of influenza virus literally change course in mid-fall, and move through the air toward the Star Beast tumbling and turning like a satellite falling through space.

  Intense cold drowned itself over me, and in the dirgelike din of that windless wind, I saw my breath forming clouds of vapor, and stars of frost collecting on my coat. The vial of virus froze into crystals of glass and ice, which rendered it as harmless to Misquamacus as an empty gun.

  I turned—I couldn’t help turning—to look at the Star Beast behind me. Even though I was struggling across the room away from the gateway, my steps took me no further in the direction of the door. My feet were now only inches away from the chalked circle, and within the center of the circle, the horrifying tangle of disturbed air that constituted the Star Beast was drawing me nearer. Misquamacus, his head lowered and his left arm raised, was intoning a long and deafening chant that appeared to excite the Star Beast even more. The monster was like the shadowy X-ray of a stomach, churning and twitching in digestive peristalsis.

  I had been fighting to escape, but the cold was so bitter that it was difficult to think about anything else except how good it would be to get warm. My muscles ached with the frosty clutch of zero degrees and below, and the effort of running through the moaning gale and the oil-thick air was almost beyond me. I knew that I would probably have to surrender, and that whatever Misquamacus had in store for me, I would have to accept I remember I dropped to my knees.

  Singing Rock was screaming at me from the doorway. “Harry!” he yelled. “Harry! Don’t give up!”

  I tried to lift my head to look at him. My neck muscles seemed to be frozen, and the hoar frost on my eyebrows and hair was so thick that I could hardly see anything at all. My hair was laden with frost, and there was a beard of icicles around my nose and mouth, where my breath had frozen. I felt nothing but a distant Arctic numbness, and all I could hear was the terrifying rush of that wind.

  "Harry!" screamed Singing Rock. "Harry—move, Harry! Move!"

  I raised my hand. I tried to struggle to my feet again. Somehow, I managed to pull myself a few inches away from the gateway, but the Star Beast was far too strong for me, and the magic charms of Misquamacus held me like a weakly flapping fish in a net.

  There was an electric typewriter, its keys thick with ice, lying on its side on the floor. It suddenly occurred to me that if I threw something like that at Misquamacus, or maybe at the Star Beast itself, it would give me a few seconds’ diversion to pull myself free. That was how little I knew about the powers of occult beings—I was still treating them like cowboys and Indians. I reached out my frostbitten hands and lifted the typewriter up with tremendous effort. It had so much ice on it, it was nearly twice its normal weight.

  I turned, I rolled over, and I hurled the typewriter toward the magic gateway and the dim outline of the Star Beast. Like everything else in this occult environment, it flew in a long slow motion arc, turning over and over as it flew, and it seemed to take an age to reach the circle.

  I didn’t know what was going to happen. I just lay there, frozen stiff and bunched up like a fetus, waiting for the moment when the tumbling typewriter would reach the Beast. I think I closed my eyes; I might even have slept for a moment. When you’re freezing cold, all you can think of is sleep, and warmth, and giving in.

  The typewriter reached the restless outline of the Star Beast, and then something extraordinary happened. In a glittering burst of metal and plastic, the typewriter exploded, and for a vivid second I saw something within that explosion. It vanished without a trace, but it was like an aggressive disembodied snarl. It had no shape and no form at all, but it left a fading mental image on the back of my eye, like a flash photograph taken in the dark.

  The Star Beast cringed. Its serpentine coils and clouds seemed to roll back on themselves, like a ghostly sea anemone. The mournful wind rose and fell in an odd, disturbed shriek, and I knew that if I was ever going to get away, it would have to be now. I heaved myself on to my feet, and scrambled for the door. I didn’t look back, but I almost collided with Singing Rock, and the next thing I knew I was sitting blindly in the corridor outside, and the door was firmly shut. Singing Rock was making protective signs on the door to keep Misquamacus temporarily imprisoned.

  “You’re crazy” said Singing Rock. “You’re absolutely crazy!”

  I rubbed the melting frost from my hair. “I’m still alive, though. And I did have a go at Misquamacus.”

  Singing Rock shook his head. “You didn’t stand a chance. If I hadn’t bombarded Misquamacus with protective spells, you’d have been fried fish by now.”

  I coughed, and looked up. “I know that, Singing Rock, and thanks. But I still had to try it. Jesus, that Star Beast is so cold. I feel like I just walked twenty miles in a blizzard.” Singing Rock stood up and looked through the door. “Misquamacus doesn’t seem to be moving. The Beast is gone now. I think it’s time we got out of here ourselves.”

  “What are we going to do?” I asked, as Singing Rock helped me on to my feet. “More to the point—what do you think Misquamacus is going to do?”

  Singing Rock shone the flashlight behind us for a brief instant, just to make sure that we weren’t being followed. Then he said: “I’ve got a pretty good idea of what Misquamacus is up to, and I think the best thing we can do is get ourselves out of here. If he’s doing what I think he’s doing, life is going to become distinctly unhealthy around here.”

  “But we can’t just leave him.”

  “I don’t know what else we can do. He’s not making his magic as consistently and strongly as he should, but he’s still too powerful to touch.”

  We walked quickly down the corridors toward the elevator. It was dark and silent on the tenth floor, but our footsteps seemed muffled, like men running on soft grass. I was panting by the time we reached the last corner, and saw the welcome door of the elevator, still open and waiting for us. I dislodged my shoes from the door, and we pressed the button for eighteen. We lay back against the elevator walls in relief, and felt ourselves being carried upward to safety.

  There was quite a reception committee waiting for us when we stepped out into the bright light of the eighteenth floor. Dr. Winsome had called in the police, and there were eight or nine armed officers standing around among th
e doctors and male nurses. The newspapers were there, too, and CBS television were just setting up their cameras. As we emerged from the elevator, there was a hubbub of questions and exclamations, and it was all I could do to push my way through.

  Jack Hughes was sitting in the corner with his hand heavily bandaged. He looked pale and sick, and there was a male nurse with him, but he had obviously refused to be sent off the battlefield.

  “How is it?” he asked me. “What’s happening down there?”

  Dr. Winsome, redder than ever, pushed his way forward and said: “I had to call the police, Mr. Erskine. It seems to me there are people’s lives at risk. I had to do it for the safety of all concerned. This is Lieutenant Marino, and I think he wants to ask you some questions.”

  Behind Dr. Winsome, I saw the now-familiar face of Lieutenant Marino, with his hard smile and his brush-cut hair. I waved, and he nodded back.

  “Mr. Erskine,” he said, pushing his way closer. There were five or six newspaper reporters clustered all around us, with their notebooks out, and the television people had just switched on their glaring lights. “I just want to know a few details, Mr. Erskine.”

  “Can we talk somewhere private?” I asked. “This is hardly the place.”

  Lieutenant Marino shrugged. “The press are going to get hold of it sooner or later. Just tell us what’s going on. Dr. Winsome here says you have a violent patient. Apparently he’s already killed one man, injured this doctor here, and he’s planning to kill some more.”

  I nodded. “That’s true, in a way.”

  “In a way? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He’s not exactly a patient And he didn’t kill that man in the normal sense of murdering him. Look—it’s impossible telling you now. Let’s find ourselves a private office or something.”

  Marino looked around at the press and the TV cameras and the policemen and medics, and said: “Okay, if it’s going to make it easier. Dr. Winsome—is there an office we can use?”

  The press groaned in disappointment, and started to argue about their right to know the facts, but Lieutenant Marino was firm. I called Singing Rock, and together we locked ourselves with Lieutenant Marino and his deputy, Detective Narro, in a ward nurse’s office. The press clustered around the door outside, and we spoke quickly and quietly so that they wouldn’t hear.

  “Lieutenant,” I said, “we have a very difficult situation here and I don’t know how to explain it to you.”

  Lieutenant Marino parked his feet on the desk and took out a Lark.

  “Try me,” he said, lighting up.

  “Well, it’s like this. The man down there on the tenth floor is a homicidal maniac. He’s a Red Indian, and he’s seeking revenge on the whites.”

  Lieutenant Marino coughed. “Go on,” he said patiently.

  “The only problem is, he’s not a normal man. He has certain powers and abilities that ordinary people don’t have.”

  “Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound?” asked Lieutenant Marino. “Faster than a speeding bullet?”

  Singing Rock laughed, without amusement “You’re nearer to the truth than you think, Lieutenant.”

  “You mean you got Superman down there? Or Super Redskin?”

  I sat up, trying my darnedest to look sincere and believable.

  “It sounds ludicrous, Lieutenant, but that’s almost what we do have. The Red Indian down there is a medicine man, and he’s using his magical powers in order to seek his revenge. Singing Rock here is a medicine man himself, of the Sioux, and he’s been helping us cope. He’s already saved several lives, and I think you ought to listen to what he has to say.”

  Lieutenant Marino took his feet off the desk and turned around to look at Singing Rock. He puffed at his cigarette for a few moments, and then he said: “Some detectives like wacky cases, you know. I mean, some detectives go out of their way to solve these real eccentric mysteries, and stuff like that. Do you know what I like? I like open-and-shut homicides. Victim, motive, weapon, conviction. So do you know what I get? Wacky cases, that’s what I get.”

  Singing Rock raised his lacerated cheek “Does that look wacky?” he asked Lieutenant Marino quietly. Lieutenant Marino said nothing, and shrugged.

  Singing Rock said: “I’m going to tell you this straight because we don’t have very much time, and even if you don’t believe me now, you will when things start to happen. My friend here is right. The man downstairs is a Red Indian medicine man. I won’t stretch your imagination too far and tell you how he got here, or what he’s doing on the tenth floor of a private hospital, but I can tell you that his powers are quite real, and highly dangerous.”

  “Is he armed?” asked Detective Narro, a young, neatly dressed cop in a blue suit and blue check shirt.

  “Not with guns,” said Singing Rock. “He doesn’t need to be. His magical powers are far more effective than guns. What’s more, your guns will be quite useless against him, and potentially dangerous to yourselves. If I can’t impress anything else on you, let me convince you of that. Please—no guns.”

  Lieutenant Marino raised his eyebrows. “What do you suggest we use as an alternative—bows and arrows?”

  Singing Rock frowned. “Your humor is a little out of line, lieutenant. There’s nothing funny about what’s happening downstairs, and you’re going to need all the help and all the information you can get.”

  “Well,” said Lieutenant Marino, “what is happening downstairs?”

  “It’s not easy to understand,” said Singing Rock. “I’m not even sure of this myself. But here’s the way I read it right now. Misquamacus, the medicine man, is preparing a magical gateway to summon Red Indian demons and spirits from the other side.”

  “The other side of what?”

  “The other side of physical existence. The spirit world. He’s already managed to conjure up the Star Beast, which is the servant and messenger of the Great Hierarchy of Red Indian demons. Mr. Erskine here—well, he saw the Star Beast with his own eyes, and nearly died.”

  Lieutenant Marino said: “Is that true, Mr. Erskine?”

  I nodded. “It’s true. I swear it. Look at the state of my hands.”

  Lieutenant Marino peered at my blue and blotchy patches of frostbite and said nothing.

  Singing Rock said: “It isn’t easy for any medicine man to conjure up beings from beyond. They’re pitiless, dangerous and powerful. Most of the greater beings from Red Indian history are sealed off from us by ancient locks and spells that were imposed on them before the white man even placed one foot on our continent. The medicine men who locked them away in the spirit world were masters of their craft, and there isn’t a single spiritual wonder-worker alive today who can match them. That’s why these manitous are so perilous. If Misquamacus releases them, there is no one who can send them back. I’m not even sure that Misquamacus could send them back himself.”

  Detective Narro was confused. He said: “These beings—do you mean they’re hiding in the building?”

  Singing Rock shook his head. “They are all around us. In the air we breathe. In the woods and rocks and trees. Everything has its manitou, its spirit. There are the natural manitous of the skies and the earth and the rains, and there are manitous in everything that is made or created by man. Every Indian lodge had its manitou; every Indian weapon had its manitou. Why do some bows shoot straight and others crooked? It depends on the faith of the man who holds the bow, and the sympathy he has for the manitou of his weapon. That is why your guns would be so dangerous to you. A gun has a manitou, according to whatever faith and craft has been invested in it, but your men do not believe that, and the manitous of their own weapons could quite easily be turned against them.”

  Lieutenant Marino was still listening, but he was looking more and more miserable with every word that Singing Rock spoke. Detective Narro was trying to keep up with it, but it was plain that he believed that Misquamacus was a criminal maniac with a hidden gang. In Detective Narro’s life, spirit
s and insubstantial shades from nether worlds just didn’t exist. I wished to God that they didn’t exist in mine.

  Singing Rock said: “From the gateway that Misquamacus is preparing, I think that he is calling on the most terrible of all spirits, the Great Old One.”

  Lieutenant Marino said: “The Great Old One? Who is the Great Old One?”

  “He is the equivalent to your Satan, or Devil. Gitche Manitou is the great spirit of life and Red Indian creation, but the Great Old One is his constant enemy. There are many accounts of the Great Old One in ancient Indian writings, although none of them agree what he looked like, or how he could be summoned. Some say he looked like a huge toad, the size of several pigs, and others say he looked like a cloud with a face made of snakes.”

  Lieutenant Marino sniffed. “Kind of hard to send out an APB on that description.”

  Singing Rock nodded. “You wouldn’t get the opportunity, Lieutenant. The Great Old One is the most ravenous and hideous of all demons. I have said that he’s like your Satan; but Satan, by comparison, is a gentleman. The Great Old One is a being of infinite cruelty and malevolence.”

  There was a long silence. Finally, Lieutenant Marino stood up, and adjusted his revolver in his belt. Detective Narro closed his notebook and buttoned up his coat.

  “Thank you for your information and your assistance,” said Lieutenant Marino. “Now I think we’ll go catch ourselves a homicide.” Singing Rock said: “Lieutenant—you’re not taking your gun?”

  Marino simply smiled. “Your stories about demons and all that stuff are very imaginative, Mr. Singing Rock, but I have a homicide squad to run. The hospital has asked us to winkle out a mad patient who’s already killed one nurse and injured a doctor, and it’s my duty to go down there and get him out. Dead or alive, you understand, depending on how he wants it. What did you say his name was? Mickey something?”