Darkfall

The unseen presence stripped the blanket from the bed and pitched it onto the toppled highboy.

“Stop it!” Rebecca shouted at the empty air. “Stop it!”

The unseen intruder did not obey.

The top sheet was pulled from the bed. It whirled into the air, as if it had been granted life and the ability to fly; it floated off into a corner of the room, where it collapsed, lifeless again.

The fitted bottom sheet popped loose at two corners.

Jack grabbed it.

The other two corners came loose, as well.

Jack tried to hold on to the sheet. It was a feeble and pointless effort to resist whatever power was wrecking the room, but it was the only thing he could think to do, and he simply had to do something. The sheet was quickly wrenched out of his hands with such force that he was thrown off balance. He stumbled and fell to his knees.

On a wheeled TV stand in the corner, the portable television set snapped on of its own accord, the volume booming. A fat woman was dancing the cha-cha with a cat, and a thunderous chorus was singing the praises of Purina Cat Chow.

Jack scrambled to his feet.

The mattress cover was skinned off the bed, lifted into the air, rolled into a ball, and thrown at Rebecca.

On the TV, George Plimpton was shouting like a baboon about the virtues of Intellivision.

The mattress was bare now. The quilted sheath dimpled; a rent appeared in it. The fabric tore right down the middle, from top to bottom, and stuffing erupted along with a few uncoiling springs that rose like cobras to an unheard music.

More wallpaper peeled down.

On the TV, a barker for the American Beef Council was shouting about the benefits of eating meat, while an unseen chef carved a bloody roast on camera.

The closet door slammed so hard that it jumped partially out of its track and rattled back and forth.

The TV screen imploded. Simultaneously with the sound of breaking glass, there was a brief flash of light within the guts of the set, and then a little smoke.

Silence.

Stillness.

Jack glanced at Rebecca.

She looked bewildered. And terrified.

The telephone rang.

The instant Jack heard it, he knew who was calling. He snatched up the receiver, held it to his ear, said nothing.

“You're panting like a dog, Detective Dawson,” Lavelle said. “Excited? Evidently, my little demonstration thrilled you.”

Jack was shaking so badly and uncontrollably that he didn't trust his voice. He didn't reply because he didn't want Lavelle to hear how scared he was.

Besides, Lavelle didn't seem interested in anything Jack might have to say; he didn't wait long enough to hear a reply even if one had been offered. The Bocor said, “When you see your kids — dead, mangled, their eyes torn out, their lips eaten off, their fingers bitten to the bone — remember that you could have saved them. Remember that you're the one who signed their death warrants. You bear the responsibility for their deaths as surely as if you'd seen them walking in front of a train and didn't even bother to call out a warning to them. You threw away their lives as if they were nothing but garbage to you.”

A torrent of words spewed from Jack before he even realized he was going to speak: “You fucking sleazy son of a bitch, you'd better not touch one hair on them!

You'd better not—”

Lavelle had hung up.

Rebecca said, “Who—”

“Lavelle.”

“You mean… all of this?”

“You believe in black magic now? Sorcery? Voodoo? ”

“Oh, my God.”

“I sure as hell believe in it now.”

She looked around at the demolished room, shaking her head, trying without success to deny the evidence before her eyes.

Jack remembered his own skepticism when Carver Hampton had told him about the falling bottles and the black serpent. No skepticism now. Only terror now.

He thought of the bodies he had seen this morning and this afternoon, those hideously ravaged corpses.

His heart jackhammered. He was short of breath. He felt as if he might vomit.

He still had the phone in his hand. He punched out a number.

Rebecca said, “Who're you calling?”

“Faye. She's got to get the kids out of there, fast.”

“But Lavelle can't know where they are.”

“He couldn't have known where I was, either. I didn't tell anyone I was coming to see you. I wasn't followed here; I'm sure I wasn't. He couldn't have known where to find me — and yet he knew. So he probably knows where to find the kids, too. Damnit, why isn't it ringing? “

He rattled the telephone buttons, got another dial tone, tried Faye's number again. This time he got a recording telling him that her phone was no longer in service. Not true, of course.

“Somehow, Lavelle's screwed up Faye's line,” he said, dropping the receiver. “We've got to get over there right away. Jesus, we've got to get the kids out! “

Rebecca had stripped off her robe, had yanked a pair of jeans and a pull-over sweater from the closet. She was already half dressed.

“Don't worry,” she said. “It'll be all right. We'll get to them before Lavelle does.”

But Jack had the sickening feeling that they were already too late.

CHAPTER FIVE

I

Again, sitting alone in his dark bedroom, with only the phosphoric light of the snowstorm piercing the windows, Lavelle reached up with his mind and tapped the psychic rivers of malignant energy that coursed through the night above the city.

His sorceror's power was not only depleted this time but utterly exhausted. Calling forth a poltergeist and maintaining control over it — as he had done in order to arrange the demonstration for Jack Dawson a few minutes ago — was one of the most draining of all the rituals of black magic.

Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to use a poltergeist to destroy one's enemies. Poltergeists were merely mischievous — at worst, nasty — spirits; they were not evil. If a Bocor, having conjured up such an entity, attempted to employ it to murder someone, it would then be able to break free of his controlling spell and turn its energies upon him.

However, when used only as a tool to exhibit a Bocor's powers, a poltergeist produced impressive results. Skeptics were transformed into believers. The bold were made meek. After witnessing