Her eyes were wide, terrified. “Pat, no—”
He bent quickly, kissed her roughly. “Go on now.”
Lisa sank, trembling, against the wall. He lifted the gun and started back up the stairs.
Cain’s face was deathly pale. Blue veins stood out in his forehead; blood oozed from a deep gash on the top of his shoulder. Robin touched him carefully, afraid to hope.
He stirred under her fingers. Her heart leapt. He opened his eyes and she gasped out in relief.
“Oh my God…”
“It’s not…so bad,” he managed. “I twisted away.”
Robin pulled off her sweat jacket, wound it tightly around his shoulder. She was shaking, barely able to speak.
“Got to…get you out of here…”
Patrick climbed the stairs. The alien voice floated down to him, around him, bizarre and mocking, a Southern parody in an insect tongue.
“Does the big boy have Daddy’s gun?”
Patrick flinched as if he’d been struck, a look of stunned recognition in his eyes. His gaze darted up the dark stairwell.
The voice dropped lower, gruff and guttural. “Come make Daddy feel good…Do it like Ah taught you…. Do it good, boy, or Ah’ll whup you raw.” The alien laughter rang in the stairwell.
Patrick snarled in rage and ran up the last steps. He burst onto the second floor, spinning wildly, the gun extended in both hands.
The laughter had cut off completely. The hall was dark, silent, just the neon EXIT light above the stairwell and the bluish glow from the snack machine in the laundry room.
Patrick shouted out. “Where are you, shit-licker?” He spat, gripped the gun, moved forward in the hall.
A sound came from the laundry room, a low animal-like whimpering.
Patrick turned and dashed for the laundry room—but stopped still in the doorway, stunned.
Martin was slumped in the shadowed corner, crumpled in half, holding his side. He was drenched in blood, crying. He looked up at Patrick, dazed.
“Patrick? It…got me.” Martin’s hands clutched the handle of a bloody ax sunk into his torso.
“Shit. Martin…” Patrick gasped, sickened.
“I’m hurt…I…think I’m dying.”
Patrick raised the gun, stepped toward Martin.
A floor below on the landing, Robin had Cain propped up against the banister. She tightened her jacket in a tourniquet around his shoulder. Her throat was raw from screaming; she tasted blood in her mouth. But she forced herself to breathe through her panic. All I have to do is help him down the stairs and out. We can go out the door. We’ll be free.
But Martin.
Was there even a Martin anymore? She saw again the mad figure dashing out of the hall, raising the ax.
Her mind rebelled against the picture. But she knew that beyond the black eyes it had been Martin, brandishing the ax with mad glee on his face.
Robin was jerked back to the present as three shots rang through the dorm. She froze with Cain; both of them looking up toward the sound.
There was a terrible silence.
“Oh no…” Robin whispered.
In the stairwell, Lisa twisted around, and shouted up the stairs. “Patrick…”
Silence.
Lisa screamed, “Patrick!”
She stared upward in terror, unaware of the door opening slowly behind her…a hand reaching out…
Lisa spun, screaming, at the touch.
Robin grabbed her arm in the dark. “Shh…”
Lisa crumpled. “Oh Jesus—”
Robin dug her fingernails into Lisa’s arm to silence her. She looked up the stairs.
Patrick shouted from above them. “I got the mother.”
Both girls sagged in relief at the sound of his voice; then Robin’s pulse spiked with horror as she registered his words. Did he shoot Martin? Is he dead?
Then something in her mind spoke clearly: Trick.
Lisa was already dashing upstairs. Robin followed madly on her heels, shouting, “Wait—”
She burst into the second-floor hall—and was greeted with silence.
The hall was black, murky with shadows. The blue light from the laundry room glowed faintly. She couldn’t hear a sound.
“Lisa?” Robin gulped. Her eyes focused in the dark passageway. It was completely empty.
She plunged across the hall to the laundry room—and ran into Lisa, who was stopped in the doorway, frozen. Robin stared past her.
Patrick’s body lay on the floor, the ax sunk into his side, blood pooling on the linoleum around him.
Martin crouched over the corpse, his eyes black. He swayed on his haunches, giggling, a mad thing, barely human, vacantly squeezing the trigger of the empty gun.
Robin and Lisa were frozen in horror.
That’s not Martin, Robin’s brain managed, through her terror. It’s something much more than Martin now. She stared in paralyzed fascination. Darkness seemed to roll off it in waves.
The thing that was not Martin reared up, yanked the ax from Patrick’s body.
Lisa screamed as the ax flashed down. The mad thing inside Martin aped her scream, its eyes shining black.
Then Robin sensed a movement on the floor, and Martin’s body jerked backward. The ax blade just missed Lisa’s neck, slicing a thin cut of blood on her shoulder.
Robin seized Lisa, pulling her away from the blade. Martin lunged at them again, snarling, then staggered again.
Patrick lay on the floor, blood pumping from his side, one big hand locked around Martin’s calf.
He opened his eyes and looked up at Robin. “Go,” he whispered.
Martin spun, raised the ax.
Robin and Lisa bolted as the ax flashed down again. They stumbled into the hall, ran into each other, righted themselves, and dashed into the stairwell, both hyperventilating with sobs.
The door slammed against the wall behind them and Martin shoved through, blocking the downstairs route.
In a split second of decision, the girls scrambled up the dark tunnel of stairs, powered by adrenaline, breath rasping in terror. The creature’s laugh echoed in the stairwell. It followed them up with shocking speed.
Robin and Lisa burst out the third-floor door into a long hall of rooms: the boys’ wing. In the narrow corridor, they tugged each other in opposite directions, whispering frantically, terrified.
“Stairwell off the kitchen,” Lisa choked out, her eyes black, pupils dilated to the edge of her irises. Robin could actually see her heart knocking against her chest.
“What if it’s locked?” Robin hedged, but Lisa jerked free and was running down the hall.
Robin froze at the sound of clattering footsteps on the stairs. She looked around her frantically at a hallway of locked doors. The kitchen seemed an eternity away. She turned instinctively for the bathroom door, ducked in.
She shoved the swinging bathroom door shut on its hinge, then her heart plummeted as she saw there was no lock. She glanced around her and pulled the trash can in front of the door.
He’ll shove through that in a second, she realized. She surveyed the mirrored bathroom in a frenzy, looking for anything that could work as a barrier.
At the end of the hall, Lisa ran into the kitchenette and threw herself at the door to the back stairwell, twisting the knob.
Locked.
Lisa yanked at the door, clawing at it like an animal, sobbing. “Shit shit shit…”
The alien voice came from down the hall, taunting. “Lisa. Lii-saa. You know you want me.”
Lisa whirled, eyes glazed. She lunged for the counter, pulled open a drawer, and pawed through it, searching for a knife.
Nothing but plastic spoons and spatulas, tangled twist ties.
The voice was closer in the hall, crooning. “I looove how you think of your brother when you come.”
Lisa screamed and pressed her hands to her ears.
A shadow appeared in the doorway. Lisa jerked back against the counter.
Martin stood swaying, holding the bloody ax, He grinned at Lisa wolfishly, lifted the ax to his mouth, and licked the blade.
Lisa grabbed the coffeepot from the counter and hurled it at him. It bounced off his head, splitting the skin. Blood spilled down his face, but he started toward her as if he hadn’t felt a thing.
Lisa threw herself at the counter, grabbing for anything loose, flinging the toaster, a coffee can, the silverware rack. The objects bounced off Martin with sickening, pulpy thuds, but nothing stopped him; he was almost on her.
She was backed, cowering, trembling, into the sharp corner of the counters…trapped.
Martin’s eyes were black as he smiled. He raised the ax.
A voice called out behind him.
“Martin.”
Martin jerked around, bobbing slightly on his feet, as if he didn’t quite have control of his body.
Behind him, Robin hovered in the hall, pale as ice.
Martin grinned slowly. “Martin who?”
Robin swallowed, sickened by the vacant look on his bloody face. She was so light-headed, she was afraid she would faint. Just get him away from Lisa, she thought.
“Zachary, then,” she suggested, her voice low, inviting. “Whatever you like.” She forced a smile, then ducked teasingly into the hall.
Martin appeared in the doorway, a swaying shadow. He held the ax loosely in both hands, stared down the hall toward Robin. They both stood still for a moment, eyes locked.
Robin was hit by a wave of terror so primal, she felt her mind loosing from its moorings. The thing in front of her was nothing like human. There was an emanation from it of pure evil. It was like chaos barely contained in a thin sheaf of body, like a swarm of angry black insects loosely held by a bubble of skin.
She fought down nausea and panic, lifted her eyes to its grinning face, trying not to show her fear.
Don’t think. Talk. Do it now.
He took a sudden step forward and she flinched back.
“Afraid, sweet Robin?” the thing purred.
Robin lifted her chin, looked straight into its eyes. “Afraid of what? You won’t kill me. It’s something else you want.”
She took a slow step back, raised her hands to her neck, and started to unbutton her shirt.
Martin licked his lips, moved forward.
Robin eased her way backward as she fumbled to open her shirt. Martin stared, mesmerized, at the loosening buttons.
“You were in my room that night. Waverly came in and saw you and you pushed her out the window.”
The Martin-thing grinned, a horrible sight. Its voice was sibilant, loathsome. “Stupid bitch, with all her screaming. Hardly the mood.”
Robin forced herself to smile, to make her voice seductive. “I’m here now. We can do anything you want.” She moved infinitesimally back. “Don’t you know I was jealous, when you were coming to Lisa instead of me?”
The thing in front of her cocked its head. “You didn’t ask. You have to ask.”
Robin pulled her shirt off. “I’m asking now.”
The Martin-thing lunged at her, incredibly fast. Robin turned in a flash and tore down the hall toward the stairwell.
The creature was right behind her, feet scuttling on the floor like insect claws, rasping breath hot on her neck as it gained on her. She felt hands in her hair, a sharp pain—and she was yanked backward.
Robin cried out. The thing shoved her against the wall by the stairwell door, pinning her between its hands, and shoved the bloody ax against her face. She could smell blood. Patrick’s blood.
And more horrible: Martin’s face was right up against hers, twisted and grotesque. A stench like burning rolled off him; the alien voice purred against her ear. “Sweet Robin. It was you, you know. It was you who let me through.”
Robin’s eyes jumped to meet the creature’s black gaze. The ravening thing stared into her eyes and she thought she would go mad.
“You wanted to die Thanksgiving night. Your darkness let me through. A perfect gateway.”
Robin’s throat was tight. Her eyes spilled over with tears. “No…” she whispered.
“You caused it all.”
Darkness opened in Robin’s mind, a rush of nothingness.
The thing raised the ax. She could barely register the dull gleam of the blade. Her legs gave way and she began the slide into unconsciousness.
Then the Martin-thing suddenly whipped its head to the side. “Not one step,” it hissed.
It raised its arm, brandishing the ax.
Robin turned her head and saw Lisa halted in the hallway, gripping a carving knife. She looked at Robin, eyes wide.
Both girls were frozen. The creature smiled…
Then the stairwell door flew open and smashed into its head.
Cain burst through the doorway, holding a baseball bat with both hands. He shoved the door hard against the wall, pinning Martin behind it. Robin jerked free.
Lisa ran forward and threw her weight against the door, trapping Martin to the wall. Robin lunged and leaned her weight against the door with Lisa.
The Martin-thing writhed under the door, snarling and foaming like a rabid animal. The girls strained to hold it.
Cain staggered back, lifted the bat, and slammed it against the side of Martin’s head.
Martin’s eyes rolled up and the thing went limp against the wall, still pinned by the door. The ax fell from his hand, thudded on the floor.
Robin and Cain found each other’s eyes.
The only sound was their ragged breathing, and Lisa’s sobs.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Logs burned in the hearth, rolling orange flame.
In the center of the lounge, the round table was set up with five chairs. Candles flickered at the points of a pentagram chalked on the surface.
Martin’s limp body was propped up in one of the five chairs. Lisa and Robin were winding clothesline around and around his torso, tying him to the chair. They wrapped him over and over, a thick coat of ropes, threaded through the slats of the chair—but they had no idea of the strength of the thing inside him or whether the ropes would hold at all.
They had thrown blankets over the arched windows to block the firelight, and they’d rolled back the cabbage-rose carpet. Cain was on his knees, shoulder wrapped, drawing a large pentagram with chalk on the bare floor around the table while keeping a wary eye on Martin; the ax, wiped clean of Patrick’s blood, was close by his side. A Coleman lantern beamed a star of yellow light from a side table. Rain fell in a steady curtain outside. It all had a sense of unreality.
Robin tried to focus entirely on the rope in her hands. With Patrick lying dead two floors above them, any kind of thought was unbearable.
Cain finished the last line of the pentagram and stood up, brushing chalk from his jeans.
Robin bent over Martin to tie another knot—Lisa suddenly cried out behind her, “Robin!”
Robin glanced down. Martin’s eyes were open beneath her. She gasped and pulled back, her heart pounding madly.
Martin looked up at her, his eyes hurt, dazed. The side of his face was bruised, pulpy from the blow of the bat. He muttered weakly, “Robin? What’s…happening?”
The others gathered warily, Cain brandishing the bat Martin looked around at them all shakily. “I was in the attic. You left. Then…what? I don’t…remember.”
He gasped, seeing his own blood-soaked shirt. “Oh my God. Robin…” He looked up at her, trembling, terrified.
Robin hesitated. “Martin?” She stepped carefully forward. Cain said sharply, “No—”
Robin leaned in toward Martin and slapped him hard across the face.
Martin’s eyes popped open wide, flaming black. Quick as a snake, he lunged up at Robin’s throat, mouth wide, teeth bared, cords straining in his neck.
Robin jumped away just as Martin’s teeth closed on air with a sickening crunch. Lisa jolted back, freaked.
The Qlippah writhed in Martin’s body, sliding in the chair, his
sing and spitting. “You dare? YOU DARE? Let me go.“ All pretense of humanity was gone. It strained at the rope, chest bulging, eyes popping, bellowing like a bull.
Cain raised the bat high, ready to strike. Martin bucked, the ropes scraping at his skin, opening flesh. But the Qlippah seemed to be contained by Martin’s physical form—the smallish body unable to break free of the layers of rope.
The table began to shake, rattling on its legs. Lisa and Robin froze in disbelief.
Cain shouted, “You’re going all right. Back to the Abyss.”
The table stopped. The Martin-thing grinned up at him, a chilling sight. “No precedent, counselor. You’ve lost your fifth. The star is broken.”
Cain’s face hardened. He turned, shot Robin a look through the flickering yellow light.
Robin nodded, took Lisa’s hand, pulled her toward the doorway. “Come on.”
As they passed Cain, she whispered to him, “Be careful.” Their eyes met and he brushed her fingers with his before turning back to the thing that had been Martin.
Robin pulled Lisa out through the arched door, into the hollow darkness of the main hall.
Lisa was sobbing through clenched teeth as she and Robin climbed the shadowy main stairs. “I can’t stand it. I can’t.”
Robin stared upward into the dark. “Just a little bit more,” she said, hoping her voice was steady.
On the second floor, Robin and Lisa stepped into the blue light of the laundry room.
Patrick’s body lay on the floor in a pool of blood, his eyes wide and staring.
Lisa crumpled into sobs again. Robin’s eyes filled with tears, her heart twisting in her chest.
They both knelt beside him on the warped linoleum. Lisa cradled the blond head in her lap. She passed her hands tenderly over his eyelids, shutting his eyes, then stroked his face and hair.
Robin held his hand in hers and thought fiercely, You saved us. I’ll never forget what you did I’ll never forget you. Never. You ‘re part of me forever.
They were both silent for a time, holding him. Lisa seemed almost calm, dreamily stroking his hair. Then Robin met Lisa’s eyes.
“He would want us to, you know.”
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