Darkfall

VII

At the table in the brightly lighted kitchen above Rada, Carver Hampton played a few hands of solitaire. He hoped the game would take his mind off the evil that was loose in the winter night, and he hoped it would help him overcome his feelings of guilt and shame, which plagued him because he hadn't done anything to stop that evil from having its way in the world. But the cards couldn't distract him. He kept looking out the window beside the table, sensing something unspeakable out there in the dark. His guilt grew stronger instead of weaker; it chewed on his conscience.

He was a Houngon.

He had certain responsibilities.

He could not condone such monstrous evil as this.

Damn.

He tried watching television. Quincy. Jack Klugman was shouting at his stupid superiors, crusading for Justice, exhibiting a sense of social compassion greater than Mother Teresa's, and otherwise comporting himself more like Superman than like a real medical examiner. On Dynasty, a bunch of rich people were carrying on in the most licentious, vicious, Machiavellian manner, and Carver asked himself the same question he always asked himself when he was unfortunate enough to catch a few minutes of Dynasty or Dallas or one of their clones: If real rich people in the real world were this obsessed with sex, revenge, back-stabbing, and petty jealousies, how could any of them ever have had the time and intelligence to make any money in the first place? He switched off the TV.

He was a Houngon.

He had certain responsibilities.

He chose a book from the living room shelf, the new Elmore Leonard novel, and although he was a big fan of Leonard's, and although no one wrote stories that moved faster than Leonard's stories, he couldn't concentrate on this one. He read two pages, couldn't remember a thing he'd read, and returned the book to the shelf.

He was a Houngon.

He returned to the kitchen, went to the telephone. He hesitated with his hand on it.

He glanced at the window. He shuddered because the vast night itself seemed to be demonically alive.

He picked up the phone. He listened to the dial tone for a while.

Detective Dawson's office and home numbers were on a piece of notepaper beside the telephone. He stared at the home number for a while. Then, at last, he dialed it.

It rang several times, and he was about to give up, when the receiver was lifted at the other end. But no one spoke.

He waited a couple of seconds, then said, “Hello?”

No answer.

“Is someone there?”

No response.

At first he thought he hadn't actually reached the Dawson number, that there was a problem with the connection, that he was listening to dead air. But as he was about to hang up, a new and frightening perception seized him. He sensed an evil presence at the other end, a supremely malevolent entity whose malignant energy poured back across the telephone line.

He broke out in a sweat. He felt soiled. His heart raced. His stomach turned sour, sick.

He slammed the phone down. He wiped his damp hands on his pants. They still felt unclean, merely from holding the telephone that had temporarily connected him with the beast in the Dawson apartment. He went to the sink and washed his hands thoroughly.

The thing at the Dawsons' place was surely one of the entities that Lavelle had summoned to do his dirty work for him. But what was it doing there? What did this mean? Was Lavelle crazy enough to turn loose the powers of darkness not only on the Carramazzas but on the police who were investigating those murders?

If anything happens to Lieutenant Dawson, Hampton thought, I'm responsible because I refused to help him.

Using a paper towel to blot the cold sweat from his face and neck, he considered his options and tried to decide what he should do next.

VIII

There were only two men in the street department's Jeep station wagon, which left plenty of room for Penny, Davey, Rebecca, and Jack.

The driver was a merry-looking, ruddy-faced man with a squashed nose and big ears; he said his name was Burt. He looked closely at Jack's police ID and, satisfied that it was genuine, was happy to put himself at their disposal, swing the Jeep around, and run them back to headquarters, where they could get another car.

The interior of the Jeep was wonderfully warm and dry.

Jack was relieved when the doors were all safely shut and the Jeep began to pull out.

But just as they were making a U-turn in the middle of the deserted avenue, Burt's partner, a freckle-faced young man named Leo, saw something moving through the snow, coming toward them from across the street. He said, “Hey, Burt, hold on a sec. Isn't that a cat out there?”

“So what if it is?” Burt asked.

“He shouldn't be out in weather like this.”

“Cats go where they want,” Burt said. “You're the cat fancier; you should know how independent they are.”

“But it'll freeze to death out there,” Leo said.

As the Jeep completed the turn, and as Burt slowed down a bit to consider Leo's statement, Jack squinted through the side window at the dark shape loping across the snow; it moved with feline grace. Farther back in the storm, beyond several veils of falling snow, there might have been other things coming this way; perhaps it was even the entire nightmare pack moving in for the kill, but it was hard to tell for sure. However, the first of the goblins, the catlike thing that had caught Leo's eye, was undeniably out there, only thirty or forty feet away and closing fast.

“Stop just a see,” Leo said. “Let me get out and scoop up the poor little fella.”

“No!” Jack said. “Get the hell out of here. That's no damned cat out there.”

Startled, Burt looked over his shoulder at Jack.

Penny began to shout the same thing again and again, and Davey took up her chant: “Don't let them in, don't let them in here, don't let them in!”

Face pressed to the window in his door, Leo said, “Jesus, you're right. It isn't any cat.”

“Move!” Jack shouted.

The thing leaped and struck the side window in front of Leo's face. The glass cracked but held.

Leo yelped, jumped, scooted backwards across the front seat, crowding Burt.

Burt tramped down on the accelerator, and the tires spun for a moment.

The hideous cat-thing clung to the cracked glass.

Penny and Davey were screaming. Rebecca tried to shield them from the sight of the goblin.

It probed at them with eyes of fire.

Jack could almost feel the heat of that inhuman gaze. He wanted to empty his revolver at the thing, put half a dozen slugs into it, though he knew he couldn't kill it.

The tires stopped spinning, and the Jeep took off with a lurch and a shudder.

Burt held the steering wheel with one hand and used the other hand to try to push Leo out of the way, but