Rebecca said, “Why isn't it trying to bite you?”
“I don't know,” he said breathlessly.
“What's different about you?”
“I don't know.”
But he remembered the conversation he'd had with Nick Iervolino in the patrol car, earlier today, on the way downtown from Carver Hampton's shop in Harlem. And he wondered…
The lizard-thing had a second mouth, this one in its stomach, complete with sharp little teeth. The aperture gaped at Jack, opened and closed, but this second mouth was no more eager to bite him than was the mouth in the lizard's head.
“Davey, are you all right?” Jack asked.
“Kill it, Daddy,” the boy said. He sounded terrified but unharmed. “Please kill it. Please.”
“I only wish I could,” Jack said.
The small monster twisted, flopped, wriggled, did its best to slither out of Jack's hands. The feel of it revolted him, but he gripped it even tighter than before, harder, dug his fingers into the cold oily flesh.
“Rebecca, what about your hand?”
“Just a nip,” she said.
“Penny?”
“I… I'm okay.”
“Then the three of you get out of here. Go to the avenue.”
“What about you?” Rebecca asked.
“I'll hold onto this thing, give you a head start.” The lizard thrashed. “Then I'll throw it as far as I can before I follow you.”
“We can't leave you alone,” Penny said desperately.
“Only for a minute or two,” Jack said. “I'll catch up. I can run faster than the three of you. I'll catch up easy. Now go on. Get out of here before another one of these damned things charges out from somewhere. Go!”
They ran, the kids ahead of Rebecca, kicking up plumes of snow as they went.
The lizard-thing hissed at Jack.
He looked into those eyes of fire.
Inside the lizard's malformed skull, flames writhed, fluttered, flickered, but never wavered, burned bright and intense, all shades of white and silver, but somehow it didn't seem like a hot fire; it looked cool, instead.
Jack wondered what would happen if he poked a finger through one of those hollow sockets, into the fire beyond. Would he actually find fire in there? Or was it an illusion? If there really was fire in the skull, would he burn himself? Or would he discover that the flames were as lacking in heat as they appeared to be?
White flames. Sputtering.
Cold flames. Hissing.
The lizard's two mouths chewed at the night air.
Jack wanted to see more deeply into that strange fire.
He held the creature closer to his face.
He stared into the empty sockets.
Whirling flames.
Leaping flames.
He had the feeling there was something beyond the fire, something amazing and important, something awesome that he could almost glimpse between those scintillating, tightly contained pyrotechnics.
He brought the lizard even closer.
Now his face was only inches from its muzzle.
He could feel the light of its eyes washing over him.
It was a bitterly cold light.
Incandescent.
Fascinating.
He peered intently into the skull fire.
The flames almost parted, almost permitted him to see what lay beyond them.
He squinted, trying harder to see.
He wanted to understand the great mystery.
The mystery beyond the fiery veil.
Wanted, needed, had to understand it.
White flames.
Flames of snow, of ice.
Flames that held a shattering secret.
Flames that beckoned…
Beckoned…
He almost didn't hear the car door opening behind him. The “eyes” of the lizard-thing had seized him and half mesmerized him. His awareness of the snowswept street around him had grown fuzzy. In a few more seconds, he would have been lost. But they misjudged; they opened the car door one moment too soon, and he heard it. He turned, threw the lizard-thing as far as he could into the stormy darkness.
He didn't wait to see where it fell, didn't look to see what was coming out of the unmarked sedan.
He just ran.
Ahead of him, Rebecca and the kids had reached the avenue. They turned left at the corner, moving out of sight.
Jack pounded through the snow, which was almost over the tops of his boots in some places, and his heart triphammered, and his breath spurted from him in white clouds, and he slipped, almost fell, regained his balance, ran, ran, and it seemed to him that he wasn't running along a real street, that this was only a street in a dream, a nightmare place from which there was no escape.
X
In the elevator, on the way up to the fourteenth floor, where Anson and Francine Dorset had an apartment, Faye said, “Not a word about voodoo or any of that nonsense. You hear me? They'll think you're crazy.”
Keith said, “Well, I don't know about voodoo. But I sure as hell saw something strange.”
“Don't you dare go raving about it to Anson and Francine. He's your business partner, for heaven's sake. You've got to go on working with the man. That's going to be hard to do if he thinks you're some sort of superstitious nut. A broker's got to have an image of stability. A banker's image. Bankers and brokers. People want to see stable, conservative men at a brokerage firm before they trust it with their investments. You can't afford the damage to your reputation. Besides, they were only rats.”
“They weren't rats,” he said. “I saw—”
“Nothing but rats.”
“I know what I saw.”
“Rats,” she insisted. “But we're not going to tell Anson and Francine we have rats. What would they think of us? I won't have them knowing we live in a building with rats. Why, Francine already looks down on me, she looks down on everyone; she thinks she's such a blueblood, that family she comes from. I won't give her the slightest advantage. I swear I won't. Not a word about rats. What we'll tell them is that there's a gas leak. They can't see our building from their apartment and they won't be going out on a night like this, so we'll tell them we've been evacuated because of a gas leak.”
“Faye—”
“And tomorrow morning,” she said determinedly, “I'll start looking for a new place for us.”
“But—”
“I won't live in a building with rats. I simply won't do it, and you can't expect me to. You should want out of there yourself, just as fast as it can be arranged.”
“But they weren't—”
“We'll sell the apartment. And maybe it's even time we got out of this damned dirty city altogether. I've been half wanting to get out for years. You know that. Maybe it's time we start looking for a place in Connecticut. I know you won't be happy about commuting, but the train isn't so bad, and think of all the advantages. Fresh air. A bigger place for the same money. Our own pool. Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe Penny and Davey could come and stay with us for the entire summer. They shouldn't spend their entire childhood in the city. It isn't healthy. Yes, definitely, I'll start looking into it tomorrow.”
“Faye, for one thing, everything'll be shut up tight on account of the blizzard—”
“That won't stop me. You'll see. First thing tomorrow.”
The elevator doors opened.
In the fourteenth-floor corridor, Keith said, “Aren't you worried about Penny and Davey? I mean, we left them—”
“They'll be fine,” she said, and she even seemed to believe it. “It was only rats. You don't think rats are going to follow them out of the building? They're in no danger from a few rats. What I'm most worried about is that father of theirs, telling them it's voodoo, scaring them like that, stuffing their heads full of such nonsense. What's gotten into that man? Maybe he does have a psychotic killer to track down, but voodoo has nothing to do with it. He doesn't sound rational. Honestly, I just can't understand him; no matter ho
w hard I try, I just can't.”
They had reached the door to the Dorset apartment. Keith rang the bell.
Faye said, “Remember, not a word!”
Anson Dorset must have been waiting with his hand on the doorknob ever since they phoned up from downstairs, for he opened up at once, just as Faye issued that warning to Keith. He said, “Not a word about what?”
“Rats,” Keith said. “All of a sudden, it seems as if our building is infested with rats.”
Faye cast a murderous look at him.
He didn't care. He wasn't going to spin an elaborate story about a gas leak. They could be caught too easily in a lie like that, and then they'd look like fools. So he told Anson and Francine about a plague of vermin, but he didn't mention voodoo or say anything about the weird creatures that had come out of the guest room vent. He conceded that much to Faye because she was absolutely right on that score: A stockbroker had to maintain a conservative, stable, level-headed image at all times — or risk ruin.
But he wondered how long it would be before he could forget what he had seen.
A long time.
A long, long time.
Maybe never.
XI
Sliding a little, then stomping through a drift that put snow inside his boots, Jack turned the corner, onto the avenue. He didn't look back because he was afraid he'd discover the goblins — as Penny called them — close at his heels.
Rebecca and the kids were only a hundred feet ahead. He hurried after them.
Much to his dismay, he saw that they were the only people on the broad avenue. There were only a few cars, all deserted and abandoned after becoming stuck in the snow. Nobody out walking. And who, in his right mind, would be out walking in gale-force winds, in the middle of a blinding snowstorm? Nearly two blocks away, red taillights and revolving red emergency beacons gleamed and winked, barely visible in the sheeting snow. It was a train of plows, but they were headed the other way.
He caught up with Rebecca and the kids. It wasn't difficult to close the gap. They were no longer moving very fast. Already, Davey and Penny were flagging. Running in deep snow was like running with lead weights on the feet; the constant resistance was quickly wearing them down.
Jack glanced back the way they had come. No sign of the goblins. But those lantern-eyed creatures would show up, and soon. He couldn't believe they had given up this easily.
When they did come, they would find easy prey. The kids would have slowed to a weary, shambling walk in another minute.
Jack didn't feel particularly spry himself. His heart was pounding so hard and fast that it seemed as if it would tear loose of its moorings. His face hurt from the cold, biting wind, which also stung his eyes and brought tears to them. His hands hurt and were somewhat numb, too, because he hadn't had time to put on his gloves again. He was breathing hard, and the arctic air cracked his throat, made his chest ache. His feet were freezing because of all the snow that had gotten into his boots. He wasn't in any condition to provide much protection to the kids, and that realization made him angry and fearful, for he and Rebecca were the only people standing between the kids and death.
As if excited by the prospect of their slaughter, the wind howled louder, almost gleefully.
The winter-bare trees, rising from cut-out planting beds in the wide sidewalk, rattled their stripped limbs in the wind. It was the sound of animated skeletons.
Jack looked around for a place to hide. Just ahead, five brownstone apartment houses, each four stories tall, were sandwiched between somewhat higher and more modern (though less attractive) structures. To Rebecca, he said, “We've got to get out of sight,” and he hurried all of them off the sidewalk, up the snowcovered steps, through the glass-paneled front doors, into the security foyer of the first brownstone.
The foyer wasn't well-heated; however, by comparison with the night outside, it seemed wonderfully tropical. It was also clean and rather elegant, with brass mailboxes and a vaulted wooden ceiling, although there was no doorman. The complex mosaic-tile floor — which depicted a twining vine, green leaves, and faded yellow flowers against an ivory background — was highly polished, and not one piece of tile was missing.
But, even as pleasant as it was, they couldn't stay here. The foyer was also brightly lighted. They would be spotted easily from the street.
The inner door was also glass paneled. Beyond it lay the first-floor hall, the elevator and stairs. But the door was locked and could be opened only with a key or with a lock-release button in one of the apartments.
There were sixteen apartments in all, four on each floor. Jack stepped to the brass mailboxes and pushed the call button for a Mr. and Mrs. Evans on the fourth floor.
A woman's voice issued tinnily from the speaker at the top of the mailbox. “Who is it?”
“Is this the Grofeld apartment?” Jack asked, knowing full well that it wasn't.
“No,” the unseen woman said. “You've pressed the wrong button. The Grofelds' mailbox is next to ours.”
“Sorry,” he said as Mrs. Evans broke the connection.
He glanced toward the front door, at the street beyond.
Snow. Naked, blackened trees shaking in the wind. The ghostly glow of storm-shrouded streetlamps.
But nothing worse than that. Nothing with silvery eyes. Nothing with lots of pointed little teeth.
Not yet.
He pressed the Grofelds' button, asked if this were the Santini apartment, and was curtly told that the Santinis' mailbox was the next one.
He rang the Santinis and was prepared to ask if theirs was the Porterfield apartment. But the Santinis apparently expected someone and were considerably less cautious than their neighbors, for they buzzed him through the inner door without asking who he was.
Rebecca ushered the kids inside, and Jack quickly followed, closing the foyer door behind them.
He could have used his police ID to get past the foyer, but it would have taken too long. With the crime rate spiraling upward, most people were more suspicious these days than they'd once been. If he had been straightforward with Mrs. Evans, right there at the start, she wouldn't have accepted his word that he was a cop. She would have wanted to come down — and rightly so — to examine his badge through the glass panel in the inner door. By that time, one of Lavelle's demonic assassins might have passed by the building and spotted them.
Besides, Jack was reluctant to involve other people, for to do so would be to put their lives at risk if the goblins should suddenly arrive and attack.
Apparently, Rebecca shared his concern about dragging strangers into it, for she warned the kids to be especially quiet as she escorted them into a shadowy recess under the stairs, to the right of the main entrance.
Jack crowded into the nook with them, away from the door. They couldn't be seen from the street or from the stairs above, not even if someone leaned out over the railing and looked down.
After less than a minute had passed, a door opened a few floors overhead. Footsteps. Then someone, apparently Mr. Santini, said, “Alex? Is that you?”
Under the stairs, they remained silent, unmoving.
Mr. Santini waited.
Outside, the wind roared.
Mr. Santini descended a few steps. “Is anyone there?”
Go away, Jack thought. You haven't any idea what you might be walking into. Go away.
As if he were telepathic and had received Jack's warning, the man returned to his apartment and closed the door.
Jack sighed.
Eventually, speaking in a tremulous whisper, Penny said, “How will we know when it's safe to go outside again?”
“We'll just give it a little time, and then when it seems right… I'll slip out there and take a peek,” Jack said softly.
Davey was shaking as if it were colder in here than it was outside. He wiped his runny nose with the sleeve of his coat and said, “How much time will we wait?”
“Five minutes,” Rebecca told him, also whispering. “Ten a
t most. They'll be gone by then.”
“They will?”
“Sure. They might already be gone.”
“You really think so?” Davey asked. “Already?”
“Sure,” Rebecca said. “There's a good chance they didn't follow us. But even if they did come after us, they won't hang around this area all night.”
“Won't they?” Penny asked doubtfully.
“No, no, no,” Rebecca said. “Of course they won't. Even goblins get bored, you know.”
“Is that what they are?” Davey asked. “Goblins? Really?”
“Well, it's hard to know exactly what we ought to call them,” Rebecca said.
“Goblins was the only word I could think of when I saw them,” Penny said. “It just popped into my mind.”
“And it's a pretty darned good word,” Rebecca assured her. “You couldn't have thought of anything better, so far as I'm concerned. And, you know, if you think back to all the fairytales you ever heard, goblins were always more bark than bite. About all they ever really did to anyone was scare them. So if we're patient and careful, really careful, then everything will be all right.”
Jack admired and appreciated the way Rebecca was handling the children, alleviating their anxiety. Her voice had a soothing quality. She touched them continually as she spoke to them, squeezed and stroked them, gentled them down.
Jack pulled up his sleeve and looked at his watch.
Ten-fourteen.
They huddled together in the shadows under the stairs, waiting. Waiting.
CHAPTER SIX
I
For a while Lavelle lay on the floor of the dark bedroom, stunned, breathing only with difficulty, numb with pain. When Rebecca Chandler shot a few of those small assassins in the Jamisons' apartment, Lavelle had been in psychic contact with them, and he'd felt the impact of the bullets on their golem bodies. He hadn't been injured, not any more than the demonic entities themselves had been injured. His skin wasn't broken. He wasn't bleeding. In the morning, there would be no bruises, no tenderness of flesh. But the impact of those slugs had been agonizingly real and had rendered him briefly unconscious.
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