And the Devil Will Drag You Under

by Jack L. Chalker

  Mac had the same thought and stopped just short of the square to figure out where the clever demon might have hidden it. For a second he feared that he had been double-crossed, that Abaddon had gone back on his word, but he quickly dismissed that thought from his mind, if for no other reason than that the alternatives were unthinkable.

  It was Boreas who saw the key first by virtue of his slightly southern orientation. As it had always had, back when it had been the Allied Chemical Building and even earlier, as a newspaper headquarters, the triangular building jutting into the square from the north had an electronic sign around it which sup­posedly displayed the headline news. The sign was there all right-and it was, in a way, performing its usual function.

  In flashing lights across one side, around the tri­angular edge and down the other side of the building, the words flashed:

  "MAC WALTERS AND BOREAS BOTH REACHED TIMES SQUARE JUST MOMENTS AGO," the sign read. "SKYTOP BATTLE EXPECTED ATOP THIS BUILDING ANY MOMENT NOW."

  Boreas grinned and looked up. High atop the build­ing was a polelike structure that was used, although he didn't know it, to signal the coming in of the New Year. Atop that pole was, recognizably, a large man-like shape in jet-black.

  Boreas looked around nervously. He couldn't spot Walters, and if he negated the people in the square he would expose himself as well. The other man, he thought, could be speeding to the top of the building in its elevator right now! If not, he is here in the street somewhere. Better to take the shortcut that would accomplish an insurance rear-guard action and forestall the possibility of an elevator rush now.

  He chose the giant spider again, first because it could climb the outer walls of the building in a flash, and also because its horrible visage would induce panic in the crowds, panic that might engulf a Mac Walters should he still be in the street. It was a good plan, but it had a major flaw: it would work totally to his advantage only if Walters was, even now, trying to race for the statue.

  The truth was that Asmodeus's man was still half a block back from the square itself and hadn't noticed the electronic writing. Suddenly the horror that was the giant tarantula rose in front of him about two blocks down and started moving his way.

  There were terrible screams and shouts of sheer panic, and the crowds started trampling themselves in their flight from the terrifying creature. They ran in all directions, and there were a lot of exits from Times Square, but a solid wall of people nonetheless threat­ened to engulf Mac in another few seconds.

  Boreas was taking no chances, though. As soon as he became the creature he headed straight for the proper building and started to climb. This activity told Mac exactly where the statue had to be.

  If Boreas wanted to play horror movies, then hor­ror movies it would be. In a flash Mac Walters became King Kong, a larger-than-the-movies King Kong, towering over the buildings, almost half as tall as the structures of Rockefeller Center only a few blocks away. He could see all the way to the Hudson to the west, though, and noted, in the back of his mind, that the world seemed to end there, leaving only a blank grayness beyond the river. He wondered for the briefest of seconds whether or not New Jersey was actually there or whether the construct merely ended at the river. With New Jersey it was impossible to say.

  He actually looked down slightly to see the statue perched atop the building and adjusted his height accordingly. At that second the giant spider came up over the other side and onto the roof.

  Boreas hadn't seen the giant ape materialize: he'd been much too busy climbing. Now he watched as a huge ape's hand started to close on the entire statue, jewel and all. There was little time to lose. With the hand almost on the object of the search, jet fighters roared out of the sky and shot rockets at the giant ape.

  The explosions and sounds startled Mac Walters; one rocket almost hit his rear end and he roared in pain. The hand that was about to grasp the statue jerked reflexively and knocked the whole thing over. It toppled into Times Square itself, deserted now of people, and landed with a crash. The statue itself separated from the mast and flew through the front window of a restaurant.

  The spider was back over the side in a flash, but that was only to give it some operating room. With his size, Mac was only a few steps from the goal even now.

  Boreas accepted that fact and changed himself into a King Kong as well. Now there were two giant ape-like figures, one on either side of the old landmark.

  Mac dropped quickly to all fours and made himself small once again. Merely the act of assuming that position before he shrank brought him to within ten meters of the statue, now resting partway in the restaurant window.

  Boreas, still the giant ape, roared his defiance and glee and in two steps started to bend down for the statue. There was another roaring sound, and four well-placed rockets from jet fighters all found their mark on his rear end.

  Even as the sorcerer howled in giant pain and straightened up in reflex action to the hits, Mac ap­proached the statue. He climbed over it unmindful of the broken window glass and reached out for the burning jewel that the demonic figure grasped in its right hand. Mac turned his head for just a second and saw Boreas, human once again, only ten steps from the window and running hard. He wanted no part of a last-minute fight with the sorcerer and gambled precious seconds in a last-stop effort.

  The sky was abruptly blackened by millions of flapping shapes, and the empty square echoed with the thunderous sound of millions of beating wings reverberating again and again from the buildings and signs. And then every pigeon in the city of New York relieved itself at one and the same time with unerring accuracy, fairly drowning Boreas in pigeon dung.

  Mac Walters reached out, grasped the jewel, and started to yell Mogart's name in triumph.

  In a flash New York was gone, the sky was gone, all was gone. They. were once again on a gray plain in the never-never land of the training ground. Boreas was seated on the hard ground, still spitting out and cleaning off pigeon dung. Mac held the jewel and saw the figure of Abaddon between him and his defeated opponent.

  "Fairly done and fairly won, Mr. Walters," the demon approved. "I congratulate you." His expression turned deeply threatening, grim and furious, as de­monic as legends had made him, when he turned to glare at the unfortunate Boreas. "And as for you," he sneered. "You had it easily won and you threw it away in your misplaced egotism! You shall pay for this dearly, Boreas!"

  The sorcerer just glowered at the demon and said nothing.

  "Now, wait a minute, Abaddon!" Mac protested. "That's not fair! Sure he lost, sure he made the mis­takes, but you really can't blame him in the end."

  The demon whirled. "And why not?" he growled.

  "Out of all the possible human beings you could have used, you picked him," Mac pointed out. "You knew him well enough to pick him, so you knew his weaknesses as well. You've got no one to blame but yourself, and I thank you for the sporting chance that gave me the opportunity to win. He has no faults, though, that aren't reflections of your own."

  The demon stopped short, considering the argument, then shrugged. "Perhaps you're right. I'll think on it until the next training mission comes by. Perhaps I can learn something by seeing my own faults reflected in my followers."

  "You're a fair and honest man and a good sport for all the curves you threw me," Mac told him. "I wish you good fortune in the future."

  The demon smiled at the flattery. "I thank you most sincerely," he told the. man. "Now, go with your prize-and watch out for old Asmodeus! Take care that when you complete your Eye of Baal, you don't get something different than you bargained for. Unlike me, he is neither a good sport nor a man of his word."

  "I'll remember," Mac assured him, then turned his mind to the jewel in his hand. "Take me to Asmodeus Mogart!" he ordered-and vanished.

  Abaddon sighed and turned to Boreas, who was still covered in pigeon droppings. A wet cloth materialized in the demon's hand and he threw it to the man.

  "Clean yourself up," he snapped. "It mi
ght be ten thousand years before we get rescued, and I have other plans for you."

  Boreas did not look either grateful or amused.

  Main Line +2076

  MAC WALTERS MATERIALIZED AGAIN IN THE pentagram chalked on the floor of the Reno bar.

  Mogart, he saw, was on the floor in front of the bar. He had a martini glass and seemed to be lapping up the liquid like a dog.

  "Hey! Mogart! I got another one!" the man shouted.

  Mogart stirred and looked blearily in the direction of the noise. His eyes wouldn't focus and the whole room seemed to be spinning.

  "Mogart! Snap out of it! Come take the jewel so I can get going for the next one!" Mac Walters yelled insistently.

  "Keep yer-hic!-shirt on, awright, awright," Mo­gart mumbled. He tried to get up, couldn't, then looked again at the man. There seemed to be seven or eight of him, and they were all spinning around slightly.

  Finally he said, "Jus'-hic!-roll the thing t'me," and 'sank back down once again.

  Mac sighed and tossed the jewel at the demon. It rested only a hand's spread away from Mogart, yet it took the demon four tries before he grabbed it and looked at it curiously.

  Even now he wasn't so drunk that he couldn't think, albeit slowly.

  "Thash five!" he said wonderingly.

  Mac Walters' heart skipped a beat. Five! Only one to go! The fact that the woman had beaten him again didn't bother him this time.

  "Mogart! Where's the girl-what's her name?"

  The demon heard him through a fog. "Shill McCug -Shill McCogh-McCullow-what the hell!" he mumbled. "Off to the wars, a'coursh. One, two, three, four, five, only one to go!" he almost sang, and a stupid smile appeared on his face.

  "Send me to help her, then!" Walters urged. "Time's wasting!"

  Mogart managed to grab a leg of a bar stool and slowly and painfully pulled himself up to the level of the bar. On his second try he stood upright with the help of the bar's support and looked again at the man in the pentagram. Standing only made him feel worse-there were eight of Mac now, and they were all hanging from the ceiling.

  "I am, obvioushly, in no condishon to take you," the demon pointed out. "Ish a counterpart world, though. You should get along. I'll shend you wherever she ish and you can take it from there." He reached over, grabbed a gin bottle on the third try, then poured the liquid all over while trying to hit a glass from a distance of almost four centimeters.

  "Oh, yeah, gotta warn ya," he managed. "Ya both gotta be t'gether to get back on the jewel. 'Member that!"

  "I'll remember," Mac assured the demon. "Nothing else you want to tell me?"

  "I'll shend you to her," Mogart mumbled. "She'll tell vou. Go!"

  Mac Walters vanished.

  Asmodeus Mogart detected movement to one side and turned, suddenly alarmed. He took a moment to calm down, realizing now that he was seeing his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

  There were a lot of him, too, and they were all spinning around.

  He picked up the glass partly filled with gin, tried for his mouth, succeeded by taking it slowly, and drained the glass. He looked back at the reflection in the mirror.

  "Asmodeus, King of the Demons!" he snapped bit­terly and threw the glass at the mirror. It struck and made a crack that would still take three subjective hours to widen into something you could see.

  The clock read almost one A.M. on the last day of Earth.

  Main Line +1076

  Chicago

  1

  IT WAS DARK, BUT THAT DIDN'T SEEM TO MATTER.

  He was only vaguely aware of the darkness; his vision, catlike, penetrated every nook and cranny of the small apartment in which he found himself.

  He felt good, really good-without aches or pains of any sort, even the most minor ones that everybody always had with them but ignored for that very reason.

  He was in the living room of somebody's one-bedroom apartment. It was odd, too: the carpeting was wall-to-wall and quite professional, the furniture of fine quality woods, very homey and very luxurious yet the kitchen alcove held a wood stove and icebox rather than refrigerator. Furthermore, he could tell by the remnants of soot and odor that some large fire elsewhere in the building was used to keep the place warm in winter, rather than any modem heating system. The lamps, too, were quite stylish and modern, but a look inside showed that they had glass tubes instead of bulbs, tubes filled with water and with oil on top in which a wick floated.

  In short, it looked like a perfectly normal Earth-modern apartment for his own time and native area-but one in which electricity had never been discovered. It was the most ultramodern, nontechnologically based example he could think of. And yet, and yet-

  The curtains were finely woven, as were the rugs and many other artifacts. Far too finely done and evenly seamed to be the work of anything but machines. It was a puzzle, one which he, at the moment, had no way of solving.

  A photograph on a table caught his cat's eyes. It was the old-fashioned type, like those taken back in the early or mid-1800s, but it clearly showed the face of a woman who was somehow very familiar.

  The woman-Jill-it was her face!

  His spirits lifted. He moved to the bedroom, trying to be careful and quiet. No sense in getting shot as a burglar.

  The room had an unpleasant odor that seemed to thicken the air, suffocating him. He stifled the im­pulse to cough and rubbed his watering eyes.

  She lay on the bed, asleep under a sheet. There was no mistaking her. Until seeing the photograph, he had almost forgotten her features, but now they came fully back into his mind. It was Jill McCulloch all right, no question about it. He moved toward the bed, intent on gently shaking her awake.

  She turned a little, seeming to hear him coming. Unseen by him, an eyelid rose just slightly, and as she turned she grasped an object hidden by the sheet. He was almost to the bed now, reaching out, ready to shake her, when she suddenly whirled off the opposite side and jumped up, standing, facing him, something in her hand.

  "Hey! Wait! I-" he called out, but she was having none of it. She brought the object in her hand up into view and thrust it forward. It was in the shape of a cross and glowed with a tremendously powerful radia­tion, shooting out, blinding him with its radiance and, at the same time, giving off a terrible radioactive heat that burned like fire. He raised his hands to cover his eyes, but that helped only a little.

  "Get thee away from my door and my house, vam­pire," commanded the woman. "By this cross I com­mand you flee!"

  He was thrown for a complete loop. "Holy shit, Jill! It's me-Mac! Mac Walters! From Mogart!" he cried out. The pain was becoming intense.

  She hesitated and the cross wavered slightly. Although to her the cross had neither radiation nor luminescence, she herself was mostly blinded by the darkness. She could see him, but not distinctly.

  "Wait there a moment," she ordered, "while I light a lamp, and don't make any funny moves!"

  "I'll stay right here," he promised her, "but my Lord! Put that thing away!"

  She didn't lower the cross very much, but with her free hand she felt for a wooden match on the night-stand, struck it, and touched it to the oil candle sitting there. Only then did she closely examine her visitor.

  "It is you!" she breathed, still a little uncertainly. She'd seen the man for so short a time and, by her reckoning, many days before. Still, he did in fact look familiar. "How the hell did you become a vampire?" The cross dropped to her side, taking most of the heat off, but she kept it tightly in her grip, ready for instant use.

  He shook his head wonderingly. "I-I didn't know I was a vampire until you told me. I still can't believe it. I-I don't know what to say."

  Jill McCulloch considered that. "How long have you been here?"

  "Just arrived," he told her. "I materialized in your living room."

  "You got the jewel?"

  He nodded. "This is the last one." A horrible thought suddenly occurred to him. "Hey! Mogart never told me the time frame here!
We might not have enough to make it!"

  That thought unnerved her as well. "What time was it in Reno when you left?"

  He thought a moment. "Around one in the morning. Why?"

  "Well, I've been here almost two weeks and that represents only a couple of hours on the clock. I think we've got time. It makes no difference, anyway-we have to get this one, and either we're in time when we get it or we aren't."

  He cleared his throat nervously. "Ah-Mogart was drunk-dead drunk, incredibly looped, when I got there. He said you would brief me."

  She nodded, relaxing a little. "He was in pretty bad shape when I was there. But-a vampire! This complicates things!"

  He had to agree with her on that but said nothing.

  "Okay, here it is. You're in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. Things here are pretty much a parallel of what we know, except that this is what Mogart called a counter-part world-that is, a world set up to run as close to ours as possible yet with certain basic underlying changes, I suppose to see how much events and people would change under different circumstances."

  "I noticed there was no electricity," he responded.

  She nodded. "No electricity, no major machines at all. But there's magic here and lots of it. Also elves, pixies, gnomes-you name it. They produce an awful lot of the manufactured goods and certain power and services. There are also plenty of magicians with vari­ous powers and skills, both white and black magic variety. Much of the, human magic is based on training and willpower. If you know how to wish for something and have the mind to produce it, it's done. The stronger the mind the more powerful the spell."

  He shook his head slowly in disbelief. "And vam­pires, too."

  "And vampires, too," she agreed. "Not very many of them. The cops have a squad out just to catch them, but you have about the same percentage of being a vampire victim as, say, getting robbed or raped. It's something you fear, but the fear doesn't dominate your life."