“Before he dies, in other words.”
“That’s right. I don’t know how far he traveled, or even where he came from. But a friend of mine—a doctor at the Parkland Medical Center in Montreal—is currently in charge of his case. Mahuk was in poor health to begin with. The exposure to the elements nearly killed him. The doctors are doing everything they can for him, but . . . speaking honestly, it doesn’t look good.”
“And when he dies?”
“When he dies, his bloodline dies with him, and so does the spell. The spell will be broken. The demon will go free.”
Harry leaned back onto the couch. His muscles were tensed, his nerves on edge, all from listening so closely to John’s story. He turned his head, felt the tired muscles of his neck loosen and contract.
“It’s more than just a story, Harry,” John said. “It’s the truth. A week ago, I wasn’t even sure myself. Now I know it’s true.”
“I know. I’m just saying . . . it’s a lot to take in.”
John’s eyes narrowed, locked onto Harry’s. “So,” he said. “Do you believe me?”
Harry stared back, choosing his words carefully. He could sympathize with John, could easily put himself in the other man’s shoes. During his years of working his way up at the station house, how many times had he struggled to make his own voice be heard? How long had it been before his fellow officers—and better yet, his superiors—had begun to trust in his instincts and hunches? True, John’s story was a much bigger pill to swallow, but deep down, the situations were very much the same.
Harry smiled weakly. “Yeah. I believe you. I do.”
John seemed mildly surprised. Maybe he’d convinced himself that Harry would attempt to offer some rationalization for everything that had happened over the past couple of days. “Can I ask you why?”
“Shouldn’t I?”
“Of course. But what is it that makes a guy like you—a black-and-white, bottom line kind of guy—what makes somebody like you suddenly believe in something like this?”
Harry’s smile faded away. He swallowed, a dry click in his throat. “I believe you because of what I felt when Marty Slater’s body was looking me over like a Christmas goose. And from what I felt at the quarry today, out there in the cold but not feeling cold at all. I’ve never felt that way in my life. It’s just not . . . natural. I don’t know how else to describe it. But it feels real.”
John nodded. From his pocket, he produced the strange object he’d offered Harry at the rim of the granite pit. He held it close for a moment, as if considering its value, and then he stretched out his arm and brought it within Harry’s grasp.
Harry stared at it warily, the same way one might examine an unfamiliar weapon before accepting it. “I’m not sure I want it,” he said quietly.
“Go on,” John urged. “This far away, its power is barely noticeable. It’s safe here, I promise.”
With a slow sigh, Harry accepted the object, still handling it as carefully as he could. It was about five or six inches long, and slender, at its thickest point barely wider than his thumb. Halfway along its length, there was a slight bend in its direction; it vaguely reminded Harry of a knuckle, but he pushed the thought away.
He could feel a slight vibration within the object, as if a tiny electrical charge was passing through it. Not powerful enough to harm him; just enough to leave him feeling strangely uneasy.
Turning the object, he examined its jagged tip, the same tapered point he’d assumed was a break in its structure. It was quite sharp, curved inward, like an animal’s claw, or the talon of some large bird of prey. He raised an eyebrow, suddenly unsure. The sharpened end of the stick felt like bone, as if it had been crafted from the carcass of an animal. But the opposite end was certainly wood, something hard and solid like oak or fir.
He peered at the middle of the piece, just below the lump of the knuckle. There was no obvious seam between the bone and the wood, no indication that the two had been grafted together by hand. A sudden chill crept up his spine as a new possibility occurred to him.
“This is a part of it, isn’t it?”
John scanned Harry’s stunned expression. “Yes. It’s the last surviving artifact of Jha-Laman’s victory over the demon.” He paused. “Other than the tupilaq itself, that is, but it’s still buried somewhere in that cave.”
Harry wrapped his hands around the artifact, suddenly aware of its power, as though the first wrong move might set it free. “Jesus . . .”
“The legend says that Jha-Laman chopped off one of the tupilaq’s fingers, to bring back to his people as proof of his story. I’d always thought that was just one of those pieces of dramatic fluff that gets added to any myth as the years go by and the story is passed on. But then I found that with Mahuk’s possessions. It wasn’t as powerful then, so far away, but I could still feel its strength. And I began to suspect what it was. There’s something . . . dirty about it, something that tells me it’s still alive, even though it can’t possibly be. But I wasn’t prepared for the power I felt in it at the edge of the quarry.”
“Is it really . . .”
“It’s known to my people as a ‘P’oh Tarhei’, an old saying that basically means something that’s been touched by evil.”
“The way it feels . . . it’s like bone, but I can’t see how—”
“They say that Wyh-heah Qui Waq was very fond of its new solid form, that it began the long process of changing the wooden tupilaq into flesh and bone.” Before Harry could comment, John went on. “It’s an impossible transformation, I know, but there it is. You’re holding the proof right in your hands.”
Harry held the P’oh Tarhei out toward Laurie, but she only shook her head and pushed herself further into the corner of the couch. Her body language could not have been more specific: she had no intention of touching the strange item of wood and bone that Harry was offering her.
“Now I can see why you made the trip down here,” Harry said, laying the artifact down on the coffee table.
“And now you see what we’re up against.”
They talked for another hour, this time more about John’s impressions of the Glen Forest area and the few people he’d met since arriving. It was a more casual topic, and helped to reduce the tension they’d all felt earlier, but it also lulled them all into a more relaxed state, where their combined exhaustion could take hold. It was Laurie who gave in to fatigue first, and she politely excused herself, placed her empty wineglass in the kitchen sink and said goodnight.
John watched her climbing the stairs and turned back to Harry with a tiny smile on his face. “No children yet?” he asked. “No little Harrys running around to deputize?”
Harry shook his head and lowered his voice. “Not yet. And I wouldn’t bring it up in front of Laurie if I were you. It’s a bit of a touchy subject around here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Relax,” Harry told him, waving off John’s apology. “It’s not that we can’t have kids. I just . . . I don’t know . . . I’ve been putting it off.”
John thought for a moment before responding. “It’s something to think about. Among my people, family is one of the most important things. There are no ties stronger than your bloodline.”
Harry nodded, taking in the recommendation. It felt odd for John to offer such a personal bit of sentiment, but his tone seemed sincere enough. Finally, taking one more look at the clock, Harry decided that he could sleep on such well-intentioned advice.
“Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll promise to think about that, if you’ll just answer a couple more of my questions. Shouldn’t take more than another few minutes.”
“Sure. What else do you want to know?”
“This whole ‘It begins with death’ thing, what exactly does that mean?”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“Mahuk gave me that warning, through Slater. And then you come in telling me the same thing. So how does that figure into all of t
his? Is there some kind of a sacrificial rite we’re talking about?”
“No,” John said, “not per se. I mean, the old spirits aren’t expecting us to sacrifice a virgin every time we need something. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. But the Eskimo perception of death—or at least of what comes afterward—it’s not the same as yours. I told you that my people believe in a sort of reincarnation, in the return of a dead person’s essence, or strengths, in the next born child in their bloodline. But when a spirit has reached its highest form, it crosses over to the other side, beyond the sky, to live with the great old spirits forever.”
“You’re talking about heaven.”
“Sort of. Same idea anyway. But what I’m getting at is the belief that death creates a natural gateway between this world and the next. When a spirit departs its body, the great old ones must look down upon it to either allow it passage or to send it back to be born again.”
“So if someone dies . . .”
“The realm of the spirits is momentarily open to our world. A gateway is created.”
“And something could also come over from their side.”
“Exactly. Legend has it that Jha-Laman, along with the five other shaman, they . . . they each sacrificed one of their children in the summoning of Wyh-heah Qui Waq.”
Harry stared back at John, his eyes narrowed. “They what?”
“They sacrificed their own children so that the rest of their people might survive.”
“That’s insane, John. What kind of person—”
“They weren’t savages, if that’s what you’re thinking. They were doing whatever they felt they had to do to survive.”
“So you condone that, what they did?”
“No. I never said that. But think of what someone might be driven to do if the survival of their entire village was at stake.”
“So it begins with death,” Harry whispered, “with the death of those children two hundred years ago.”
“But I also think Mahuk’s warning was meant to point us toward the truth behind the legend: that when he dies, the demon’s presence on earth will begin again.” John paused. “Does that answer your question?”
Harry nodded, letting the subject pass to move on to another.
And John graciously fielded one question after another, each time giving the impression that he was becoming more comfortable in Harry’s presence.
As for Harry, his earlier skepticism was all but gone, and each question he posed was formed out of genuine interest. Though he found it difficult to believe in every part of the legend, a position John not only openly supported but admitted to sharing, he could no longer doubt that something much more powerful than his own understanding of reality was at work around them.
And yet the more he learned, the less certain he felt there was anything that either of them could do to stop it.
Finally, as exhaustion began to overwhelm his fascination, Harry rose to his feet and stretched. “I think it’s time we called it a night,” he said, yawning. He walked over to the sliding glass door and pulled back the drapes, flicking on the outside spotlight.
Eight inches of snow covered the deck. It was falling faster now, the wind pushing it violently past the window, the thousands of flakes dancing wildly through the bright circle thrown by the spotlight.
“If this keeps up, I’m going to call off the search,” Harry muttered. “At least ‘til the storm passes.”
John moved in beside him, gazing out at the storm.
“One way or another,” he said, “we have to go back to that cave tomorrow. By morning we may have no choice.”
Harry flipped off the light, letting the drapes fall back into place. “I can’t make any promises. We’ll do what we can, but that’s all I can say until I see what it’s like in the morning.”
“I could go myself, if you’d rather—”
“No one is going out there alone,” Harry said, his tone suggesting that there would be no further discussion on the topic. He motioned for John to follow him, making his way to the bottom of the stairs. The spare bedroom was just off to his right.
“Laurie made up the bed earlier. There’s a towel hanging in the bathroom for you if you want to take a shower before turning in. And feel free to help yourself to anything in the fridge. Make yourself at home.”
“Thanks, Harry. I owe you.”
“No problem. Now get some sleep. First thing tomorrow morning, I want you to call up that doctor friend of yours, find out how the old man is doing. We’ll make our plans according to that.”
“Sounds good to me. Good night.”
John disappeared into the spare bedroom, his duffel bag clutched tightly in his fist. Climbing the stairs, Harry wondered if either of them would manage to sleep, considering the details of their long discussion.
In the end, however, it was his fatigue that won out, and barely ten minutes after settling into bed, Harry was deep in the arms of sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
It was the sudden cold that pulled Harry from sleep, and an instinctive sense that something was wrong brought him to an instant state of alertness. Laurie was already awake; he could feel her hand on his shoulder as he peered towards the windows at the far end of the darkened room.
“Christ, it’s freezing in here,” he hissed. His gaze settled on the alarm clock beside the bed.
3:11 A.M.
He flung back the covers, intent on making the trip to the cellar to check out the furnace, but Laurie stopped him.
“Listen,” she whispered. “Can you hear that? Downstairs. Somebody’s talking.”
Harry listened carefully, but he could hear nothing beyond the wind as it rushed through the trees beside the house. He was about to tell her she must have imagined it, but then his ears detected the sound of a low moan. It had definitely come from downstairs, just as she had said, from the spare bedroom just below their own.
“John must be having a nightmare,” he said. “It wouldn’t surprise me, considering all the shit we talked about.”
He climbed out of bed, a more familiar sound reaching his ears as he crossed the room to check the windows: the steady hum of the furnace, far below them in the corner of the basement.
Both windows were closed and locked. Crouching by the dresser that stood between them, Harry ran his hand along the baseboard. It was warm to the touch. Whatever the source of the sudden coldness in the house, it certainly had nothing to do with the heating system.
He pulled open a drawer and grabbed a sweatshirt, tugging it over his head to fight the chill. “Stay here,” he whispered. “I’ll check the downstairs windows.”
“Be careful.”
From the stairs, he could make out the soft sound of someone whispering, and could see a dim line of light shining along the bottom of the closed door to the spare bedroom. He turned on the hallway lights and descended quickly. The cold was more intense here and he could see his breath, wafting out from his face in tiny white puffs of vapor.
“John?” he called, turning his ear to the door and listening intently. There was no mistaking John’s voice from within the room, speaking quietly and slowly, and though he struggled to hear, Harry couldn’t make out any significant words. He tried again, this time rapping his knuckles on the door. “John? You okay in there?”
Again, there was no answer.
John rattled on, although this time Harry thought he could perceive a different tone in his voice, a sudden intensity in the cadence of his words. And something else about him sounded different, too, something Harry had trouble putting his finger on. It left him with the impression that someone much older than John was speaking to him from the other room, speaking softly in the kind of world-weary tone one could detect in the voice of the elderly.
An alarm went off in the back of Harry’s mind, an association made that he struggled to pin down in his thoughts. And then a string of words from beyond the door reached his ears and he suddenly felt as though his blood had tur
ned to ice.
“Iti Atae jhi kint atala.”
They were some of the words Slater had uttered in the heat of his attack, words John had later told him were a part of the ritual of summoning.
Harry twisted the knob, shoving the door open with his shoulder and turning to stare into the room. The bedside lamp had been knocked onto its side, its bulb still burning but flickering intermittently.
John was on his feet beside the bed, clad only in his underwear and moving back and forth in rhythmic succession. He was turned away from Harry, facing the far corner of the room, the muscles in his back tensed and rippling with effort.
The temperature in the bedroom was close to freezing, though Harry could already see that both windows were tightly closed. And despite the cold, John’s body was awash in sweat. It glistened on his back and shoulders, and his hair was plastered to his skull.
Harry’s first instinct was to reach out and turn on the ceiling light, to flood the room with brightness and confront John face to face. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it, not just yet. Something in the way John’s back was twisted, and something in the unsettling way in which he was rocking from foot to foot told Harry that he didn’t want to see the young man’s face.
If he turned around, Harry believed it wouldn’t be John staring back at him. It’d be something else. Something unnatural.
Harry took a deep breath, trying to shake off his fear. He took two steps forward, moving slowly towards John but otherwise uncertain what course to take.
“John? Are you all right?”
John didn’t turn around, his strange litany going on undisturbed. His hands rose into the air, began transcribing carefully formed patterns in the frigid space in front of him. From side to side, and then crossing slowly, never touching but clearly a part of the ceremony that he seemed to be performing.
“Atae!” he called out.
Harry jumped involuntarily at the sound. From upstairs, he heard the creak of bedsprings and then Laurie’s footsteps as she crossed the room to the doorway. A moment later, her voice floated down the stairs, filled with concern.
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