Darkfall

psychos of every twisted sort, perverts, punks, wife-beaters, and thugs almost beyond counting— this was where the air was flooded with raw currents of evil that you could see and smell and feel — if, like Lavelle, you were sensitized to them. With each wicked deed, an effluvium of evil rose from the corrupted soul, contributing to the crackling currents in the air, making them stronger, potentially more destructive. Above and through the metropolis, vast tenebrous rivers of evil energy surged and churned. Ethereal rivers, yes. Of no substance. Yet the energy of which they were composed was real, lethal, the very stuff with which Lavelle could achieve virtually any result he wished. He could tap into those midnight tides and twilight pools of malevolent power; he could use them to cast even the most difficult and ambitious spells, curses, and charms.

The city was also crisscrossed by other, different currents of a benign nature, composed of the effluvium arising from good souls engaged in the performance of admirable deeds. These were rivers of hope, love, courage, charity, innocence, kindness, friendship, honesty, and dignity. This, too, was an extremely powerful energy, but it was of absolutely no use to Lavelle. A Houngon, a priest skilled at white magic, would be able to tap that benign energy for the purpose of healing, casting beneficial spells, and creating miracles. But Lavelle was a Bocor, not a Houngon. He had dedicated himself to the black arts, to the rites of Congo and Petro, rather than to the various rites of Rada, white magic. And dedication to that dark sphere of sorcery also meant confinement to it.

Yet his long association with evil had not given him a bleak, mournful, or even sour aspect; he was a happy man. He smiled broadly as he stood there behind the house, at the edge of the dead brown grass, looking up into the whirling snow. He felt strong, relaxed, content, almost unbearably pleased with himself.

He was tall, six-three. He looked even taller in his narrow-legged black trousers and his long, well-fitted gray cashmere topcoat. He was unusually thin, yet powerful looking in spite of the lack of meat on his long frame. Not even the least observant could mistake him for a weakling, for he virtually radiated confidence and had eyes that made you want to get out of his way in a hurry. His hands were large, his wrists large and bony. His face was noble, not unlike that of the film actor, Sidney Poitier. His skin was exceptionally dark, very black, with an almost purple undertone, somewhat like the skin of a ripe eggplant. Snowflakes melted on his face and stuck in his eyebrows and frosted his wiry black hair.

The house out of which he had come was a three-story brick affair, pseudo-Victorian, with a false tower, a slate-roof, and lots of gingerbread trim, but battered and weathered and grimy. It had been built in the early years of the century, had been part of a really fine residential neighborhood at that time, had still been solidly middle- class by the end of World War Two (though declining in prestige), and had become distinctly lower middle-class by the late 70s. Most of the houses on the street had been converted to apartment buildings. This one had not, but it was in the same state of disrepair as all the others. It wasn't where Lavelle wanted to live; it was where he had to live until this little war was finished to his satisfaction; it was his hidey hole.

On both sides, other brick houses, exactly the same as this one, crowded close. Each overlooked its own fenced yard. Not much of a yard: a forty-by-twenty-foot plot of thin grass, now dormant under the harsh hand of winter. At the far end of the lawn was the garage, and beyond the garage was a litter-strewn alley.

In one corner of Lavelle's property, up against the garage wall, stood a corrugated metal utility shed with a white enamel finish and a pair of green metal doors. He'd bought it at Sears, and their workmen had erected it a month ago. Now, when he'd had enough of looking up into the falling snow, he went to the shed, opened one of the doors, and stepped inside.

Heat assaulted him. Although the shed wasn't equipped with a heating system, and although the walls weren't even insulated, the small building — twelve-foot by-ten — was nevertheless extremely warm. Lavelle had no sooner entered and pulled the door shut behind him than he was obliged to strip out of his nine-hundred dollar topcoat in order to breathe comfortably.

A peculiar, slightly sulphurous odor hung in the air. Most people would have found it unpleasant. But Lavelle sniffed, then breathed deeply, and smiled. He savored the stench. To him, it was a sweet fragrance because it was the scent of revenge.

He had broken into a sweat.

He took off his shirt.

He was chanting in a strange tongue.

He took off his shoes, his trousers, his underwear.

Naked, he knelt on the dirt floor.

He began to sing softly. The melody was pure, compelling, and he carried it well. He sang in a low voice that could not have been heard by anyone beyond the boundaries of his own property.

Sweat streamed from him. His black body glistened.

He swayed gently back and forth as he sang. In a little while he was almost in a trance.

The lines he sang were lilting, rhythmic chains of words in an ungrammatical, convoluted, but mellifluous mixture of French, English, Swahili, and Bantu. It was partly a Haitian patois, partly a Jamaican patois, partly an African juju chant: the pattern-rich “language” of voodoo.

He was singing about vengeance. About death. About the blood of his enemies. He called for the destruction of the Carramazza family, one member at a time, according to a list he had made.

Finally he sang about the slaughter of that police detective's two children, which might become necessary at any moment.

The prospect of killing children did not disturb him. In fact, the possibility was exciting.

His eyes shone.

His long-fingered hands moved slowly up and down his lean body in a sensuous caress.

His breathing was labored as he inhaled the heavy warm air and exhaled an even heavier, warmer vapor.

The beads of sweat on his ebony skin gleamed with reflected orange light.

Although he had not switched on the overhead light when he'd entered, the interior of the shed wasn't pitch black. The perimeter of the small, windowless room was shrouded in shadows, but a vague orange glow rose from the floor in the center of the chamber. It came out of a hole about five feet in diameter. Lavelle had dug it while performing a complicated, six-hour ritual, during which he had spoken to many of the evil gods-Congo Savanna, Congo Maussai, Congo Moudongue — and the evil angels like the Zandor, the Ibos “je rouge,” the Petro Maman Pemba, and Ti Jean Pie Fin.

The excavation was shaped like a meteor crater, the walls sloping inward to form a basin. The center of the basin was only three feet deep. However, if you stared into it long enough, it gradually began to appear much, much deeper than that. In some mysterious way, when you peered at the flickering light for a couple of minutes, when you tried hard to discern its source, your perspective abruptly and drastically changed, and you could see that the bottom of the hole was hundreds if not thousands of feet below. It wasn't merely a hole in the dirt floor of the shed; not anymore; suddenly and magically, it was a doorway into the heart of the earth. But then, with a blink, it seemed only a shallow basin once more.

Now, still singing, Lavelle leaned forward.

He looked at the strange, pulsing orange light.

He looked into the hole.

Looked down.

Down…

Down into…

Down into the pit.

The Pit.

XIII

Shortly before noon, Nayva Rooney had finished cleaning the Dawson's apartment.

She had neither seen nor heard anything more of the rat — or whatever it had been — that she had pursued from room to room earlier in the morning. It had vanished.