Carl didn’t run fast, but he ran. With Griffin supporting his friend, the two ran in some grotesque parody of a three-legged race. Fortunately they met little resistance. Most of the pale ones were cowering on the ground or wailing in terror. That made Griffin remember the remaining humans who had been brought for the sacrifice. Some were still alive. Carl stumbled and almost fell, and Griffin gritted his teeth and moved on. Those other folks were on their own. There was nothing he could do.
Griffin heard another screech and he risked a glance backwards. The gate seemed to be collapsing in on itself and as it did so, anything near it was being pulled inside. Griffin saw pale folk go spiraling into the air, drawn by the force of the shrinking gate. Some were torn apart as they approached the vortex, affected by two different gravities.
The ground bucked and writhed under Griffin’s feet. Was the door really gone? No! There it was, standing in mid-air amidst the leaning, swaying boulders. Griffin half dragged Carl toward the door, cursing with each step. Carl was not a small man. Just as they reached the panel it swung inward and there stood Isaiah Blackbourne. His dark clothes were covered with dirt, his dark glasses were gone, and his gleaming eyes reflected the crimson fire from the gate.
“No,” said Isaiah. “You’re not going to get out of this one. I came home at just the wrong moment. Can’t find my way out of this damn house of mirrors, so looks like I’m going down with the family ship.” He smiled his razor smile. “But at least I can take you boys with me.”
Griffin let Carl slide to the ground and leaped forward, the point of the silver edged sword striking straight for Isaiah’s heart. The albino slipped aside, not with the extra-dimensional speed he had shown before, but with old fashioned, snakelike quickness. Griffin figured Isaiah’s dimension shifting powers were canceled out in this environment of unstable dimensions.
“You’re a quick one,” Isaiah said. “Maybe the fastest human being I’ve seen. Not fast enough though.”
Griffin saw Isaiah’s clawed hand shoot forward and he almost got out of the way, but then he felt lines of fire sear across his shoulder as the claws dug deep. Griffin grunted, but spun away, lessening the damage. He continued his spin, whipping the long, slender sword out in a killing arc. The tip of the sword slashed through Isaiah’s black shirt, leaving a gash in the pale flesh of the albino’s chest.
“You actually cut me,” Isaiah said. “I won’t give you another shot.”
“Sure you will,” Carl Price said.
Griffin and Isaiah glanced down at the same moment. Carl had hold of one of Isaiah’s ankles. The albino snarled and tried to jerk his leg free, but while he was busy, Griffin ran the sword through his chest.
Isaiah sank to his knees, breathing black blood. “Take more than that...to kill me.”
“I believe you,” Griffin said. He jerked the blade free and made a quick cut downward, slicing Isaiah’s head from his shoulders. “I just hope that was enough.”
The ground shuddered again and the entire moor seemed to shift. Griffin bent down and helped Carl to his feet. The two managed to stumble through the door. Griffin felt that familiar nausea that he’d come to recognize as the shifting of dimensions and then they were in the dirty white corridor. But this time the nausea didn’t go away. The walls and floor and ceiling all seemed to be heading in several directions at once and there were too many walls and parts of walls going off at odd angles. Griffin couldn’t help but think of what Charon had said about non-Euclidean geometry. Just looking at the corridor made his head ache and his eyes blur. Reality was collapsing and they had to get out of the house before it finished.
Grunting with effort, both men staggered down the hall, leaning on the walls and on one another. Griffin just hoped they were going in the right direction.
* * *
What the hell had that damned fool done to her?
Siobhan screamed, pain lashing through her body, tearing into her in ways she hadn’t thought possible anymore. And before she could properly recover from that sudden explosion of shredded nerve endings, Frank plowed into her. She recognized him, of course, the damned whelp, the nuisance that had haunted her again and again.
She’d created him, she knew that. She’d spoken words of power into his body as she cut him open in her childhood, a toy for her to play with, a favorite toy that she broke and then tried to fix and she’d fixed him all right, but far too well.
“Why don’t you just fucking stay dead?” She screamed the words at him and he looked at her with those pathetic, puppy dog eyes of his, the same ones he’d always cast her way when she discarded him.
And then she saw the other face, the other half of him the part that she had brought out in him with her words, her rituals. The part of him that was like her, connected to the god above them. The god that suddenly screamed in frustration as everything started falling apart.
Frank opened his human mouth and tried to say something, prattling on about his Meemaw again, as if her mother had ever been worthy of anything but contempt. She was a weak-willed woman who was broken when she gave birth to Siobhan.
And Frank’s other face, the true face that had hidden inside of him, spoke again, condemning her, calling for her, demanding that she give herself to him as if that could ever happen.
And above them both, the One roared in pain. Siobhan looked up toward the gateway as it disintegrated, torn apart by the blasphemous metals inside her body.
How many times had her mother called into the charm bracelet? How many rituals had she performed in an effort to stop the curses Siobhan had put on Frank when she was younger and didn’t fully understand that she was meant to be the gateway for Shub Niggurath to come back to the universe? How could it be that the damned woman had created something so powerful, strong enough to bleed the power from her body?
The rift in the multiverse collapsed and pulled with incredible force and Siobhan felt herself drawn up into the sky, pulled along with Frank as if they were little more than leaves in the cosmic wind.
And in that instant she realized her folly.
So many children, so many efforts to create others as adept as she was, as capable as she was and she had always taken for granted that she had failed.
She might have believed it all a coincidence, but she felt it, the taint of the magics her mother had generated, the alteration to the spells her mother had created. Old sorceries to be sure, created by the Pale Ones when they drew the One to mate with her mother so long ago. Only one of her children knew about the charm bracelet her mother had created and been buried with. Only one child would have had the ability to alter the spells woven into the thing.
So many children and the one she’d kept at her side was the one who betrayed her. She screamed Jolene’s name in vain as she was pulled from the sacrificial fields where she was meant to finally gain the graces of her master.
Frank screamed too, crying out his frustrations, his demands for his Meemaw’s damned charm bracelet, which she’d have given if she could have pulled it from deep within her body.
Their screams mingled together with the howling rage of the One and then the rift was gone and their song of damnation was silenced.
* * *
Merle Blackbourne ran for all he was worth. He’d never been the most powerful member of the family, to be sure, but he was wise in his way and he knew enough to understand when the end was upon the house he’d helped create. The walls warped and shuddered and the energies that had been built into them started to collapse.
That damnable thing—the monstrous form that had torn the house apart as it entered—had started the damage, but Siobhan’s failure to pull the One through was surely the final blow. He felt her rage as she was drawn into the sky and ripped away from the universe. Part of him was terrified by that notion, but part of him felt a savage glee at the concept of a life without her ruling over everyone and everything.
There was no love in the Blackbourne family. He had never loved his mother, merely fear
ed her. Obeyed because that was what every member of the clan had to do if they wanted to survive.
The ground bucked under him and threw him to his knees.
Merle climbed back to his feet and started running again, shaking off the feeling of nausea that tried to grab his mind and throw him into madness.
He understood the feeling, of course. Riding the dimensions was a tricky business and he’d been doing it for years now, long enough to adjust to most of the odd distortions not only of the senses but of the mind itself as it tried to adjust to the impossible.
He’d get past this. He would endure. That was what Blackbournes did. They survived. He’d survived every obstacle ever thrown at him, and he had prepared himself for the possibilities. Siobhan had amassed a fortune over the years, and being a wise son, he had done the same. Every dealing that had taken place in the Hollow had been his to oversee and every transaction had earned him a percentage.
The walls were falling.
Shit.
Merle braced himself in a doorway for a moment and held on, certain that the end of the place was coming and soon. Not far now. The good news was that he knew the house, had built the house and understood the secrets of getting in and out. He stepped to the left and moved through a hallway that wasn’t visible to the naked eye. He knew it was there because he’d been the one to hide it. The dimensions were locked together here, and the perceptions of reality were deliberately altered. You just had to know where to look and how to look.
Three more paces and to the right at a sharp angle and there it was, the main entrance of the house. The door was open, the ground buckled and broken but still intact enough to let him pass.
“Told you, Wade. Just got to follow the rat to get off the goddamn sinking ship.” Merle turned his head sharply, surprised by the voice. Carl Price was behind him, leaning on the wall. Next to him was his friend, the ex-cop.
Merle opened his mouth and reached for the .38 he had tucked in the small of his back at the same time.
“No. Fuck no, Merle. Not this time.” Price drew first. At the end of the day, the sheriff was faster. Merle left the house with a bullet blowing out the back of his skull. Carl Price and Wade Griffin left the house one second later.
* * *
The house did not disappear. It did not collapse in on itself, nor did it explode.
Instead it seemed almost as if the structure gasped out a last breath and died as they stepped past the ruined threshold.
Both Carl and Griffin understood the instant the power left the house: their heads stopped aching with that unique pain, and the hairs on their arms calmed down and settled.
And while both of them felt like collapsing, it had more to do with physical exhaustion and less to do with the distortion of the world.
The house simply sat there, fat and bloated and ruined, broken and beaten by whatever the hell had torn through it.
Whatever explosions were going on inside, they were trapped away in another reality.
Neither one of them could complain about that part at least.
* * *
The walking wounded. That’s what Charon had called them and Griffin had to admit she was pretty much on the mark. Sitting there in Decamp’s study, with the late autumn sun shining through the windows, the group did indeed possess a varied collection of bandages, splints, casts, and less visible signs of medical treatment. Griffin had broken fingers on both hands, cracked ribs, and more bruises, cuts, and lacerations than he cared to think about.
Carl had ruptured an eardrum when he had thrown the frag grenade, and had torn ligaments in one knee and broken his left wrist somehow. His collection of cuts and abrasions rivaled Griffin’s as well.
Decamp was still healing from the wounds incurred in his fight with Isaiah Blackbourne, but he seemed well on the road to recovery. He leaned back in his desk chair and took a sip of Charon’s passable coffee. He said, “How did your meeting with the city fathers go, Carl?”
Carl made a face. “I think they bought the exploding meth lab story for what happened to the Blackbourne house. The fact that Wade and I threw some explosives in there before I let anyone see the place probably helped. But a lot of people died over the last few days and there will be more investigations. Ain’t looking good for re-election time.”
Decamp nodded. “More of that may go away than you suspect. I’ve called in some favors.”
Carl gave the man a long look. “What kind of favors?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Griffin glanced at Decamp. What was with this guy?
“Well what I want to know,” Charon said, “Is how you knew that shooting that charm bracelet at Siobhan Blackbourne would hurt her, Carl.”
Carl shrugged. “Instinct and a little bit of the old deductive reasoning. Someone went to some trouble to get that bracelet to me, and whoever did it didn’t seem to mean me any direct harm. Hell they could have killed me while I was in the shower. That and some things Andy Hunter told me about the bracelet made me think it might do some good against the Moon-Eyes.” He paused. “That and there was a note for Andy, told him to give the bracelet to Siobhan. I didn’t think they meant wrapped up as a present.”
“Not bad for a small town sheriff,” Griffin said. “And by the way, if the election doesn’t go your way, I could always use a partner in the private investigator business.”
Carl grinned. “The old team together again, eh?”
“Indeed.” Griffin turned to Carter Decamp. “I guess now’s the time for the hard question. There are still plenty of Blackbournes out there, so is this really over?”
Decamp said, “It’s as over as it was back in 1986. What you and Carl stumbled upon was something that had been in the works for decades. It will take the Moon-Eyes a long time to recover, if they ever do. When you interrupted the spell and sent the Old One back to the other side, the power that the Blackbournes had accumulated went with it.”
“Do you think the Blackbournes inside the house were killed?” Charon said.
“I hope so,” said Decamp. “As I told you before, I think they escaped back in 1986 by shifting through the dimensions. I think it likely that the state of dimensional chaos inside the house kept them from being able to do the same this time. But I can’t be sure.”
Carl said, “Still a lot of questions left unanswered.”
“Unfortunately life is like that sometimes,” Decamp said.
Griffin said, “At least we got a little payback for Jerry Wallace.”
“And for poor Whit,” said Charon.
Carl raised his coffee cup, as if in a toast. He said, “Absent friends.”
The others raised their cups. “Absent friends,” said Griffin.
Table of Contents
Blind Shadows
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
Blind Shadows Page 32