Darkfall

(loaf I'll rip that funny little mustache out of your face, take the keys off your pegboard there, and get the cars myself.”

Ernie stared wide-eyed at her, evidently stunned by both the threat and the vehemence with which it was delivered.

In this particular instance, Jack was delighted to see Rebecca revert to a nail-eating, hard-nosed Amazon.

“Move!” she said, taking one step toward Ernie.

Ernie moved. Fast.

While they waited by the dispatcher's booth for the first car to be brought around, Penny kept looking from one shadowy area to another. Again and again, she thought she saw things moving in the gloom: darkness slithering through darkness; a ripple in the shadows between two patrol cars; a throbbing in the pool of blackness that lay behind a police riot wagon; a shifting, malevolent shape in the pocket of darkness in that corner over there; a watchful, hungry shadow hiding among the ordinary shadows in that other corner; movement just beyond the stairway and more movement on the other side of the elevators and something scuttling stealthily across the dark ceiling and-

Stop it!

Imagination, she told herself. If the place was crawling with goblins, they'd have attacked us already.

The garage man returned with a slightly battered blue Chevrolet that had no police department insignia on the doors, though it did have a big antenna because of its police radio. Then he hurried away to get the second car.

Daddy and Rebecca checked under the seats of the first one, to be sure no goblins were hiding there.

Penny didn't want to be separated from her father, even though she knew separation was part of the plan, even though she had heard all the good reasons why it was essential for them to split up, and even though the time to leave had now come. She and Davey would go with Rebecca and spend the next few hours driving slowly up and down the main avenues, where the snowplows were working the hardest and where there was the least danger of getting stuck; they didn't dare get stuck because they were vulnerable when they stayed in one place too long, safe only while they were on wheels and moving, where the goblins couldn't get a fix on them. In the meantime her father would go up to Harlem to see a man named Carver Hampton, who would probably be able to help him find Lavelle. Then he was going after that witchdoctor. He was sure he wouldn't be in terrible danger. He said that, for some reason he really didn't understand, Lavelle's magic had no effect on him. He said putting the cuffs on Lavelle wouldn't be any more difficult or dangerous than putting them on any other criminal. He meant it, too. And Penny wanted to believe that he was absolutely right. But deep in her heart, she was certain she would never see him again.

Nevertheless, she didn't cry too much, and she didn't hang on him too much, and she got into the car with Davey and Rebecca. As they drove out of the garage, up the exit ramp, she looked back. Daddy was waving at them. Then they reached the street and turned right, and he was out of sight. From that moment, it seemed to Penny that he was already as good as dead.

II

A few minutes after midnight, in Harlem, Jack parked in front of Rada. He knew Hampton lived above the store, and he figured there must be a private entrance to the apartment, so he went around to the side of the building, where he found a door with a street number.

There were a lot of lights on the second floor. Every window glowed brightly.

Standing with his back to the pummeling wind, Jack pushed the buzzer beside the door but wasn't satisfied with just a short ring; he held his thumb there, pressing down so hard that it hurt a little. Even through the closed door, the sound of the buzzer swiftly became irritating. Inside, it must be five or six times louder. If Hampton looked out through the fisheye security lens in the door and saw who was waiting and decided not to open up, then he'd better have a damned good pair of earplugs. In five minutes the buzzer would give him a headache. In ten minutes it would be like an icepick probing in his ears. If that didn't work, however, Jack intended to escalate the battle; he'd look around for a pile of loose bricks or several empty bottles or other hefty pieces of rubbish to throw through Hampton's windows. He didn't care about being charged with reckless use of authority; he didn't care about getting in trouble and maybe losing his badge. He was past the point of polite requests and civilized debate.

To his surprise, in less than half a minute the door opened, and there was Carver Hampton, looking bigger and more formidable than Jack remembered him, not frowning as expected but smiling, not angry but delighted.

Before Jack could speak, Hampton said, “You're all right! Thank God for that. Thank God. Come in. You don't know how glad I am to see you. Come in, come in.” There was a small foyer beyond the door, then a set of stairs, and Jack went in, and Hampton closed the door but didn't stop talking. “My God, man, I've been worried half to death. Are you all right? You look all right. Will you please, for God's sake, tell me you're all right?”

“I'm okay,” Jack said. “Almost wasn't. But there's so much I have to ask you, so much I—”

“Come upstairs,” Hampton said, leading the way. “You've got to tell me what's happened, all of it, every detail. It's been an eventful and momentous night; I know it; I sense it.”

Pulling off his snow-encrusted boots, following Hampton up the narrow stairs, Jack said, “I should warn you — I've come here to demand your help, and by God you're going to give it to me, one way or the other.”

“Gladly,” Hampton said, further surprising him.

“I'll do whatever I possibly can; anything.”

At the top of the stairs, they came into a comfortable-looking, well-furnished living room with a great many books on shelves along one wall, an Oriental tapestry on the wall opposite the books, and a beautiful Oriental carpet, predominantly beige and blue, occupying most of the floor space. Four blown-glass table lamps in striking blues and greens and yellows were placed with such skill that you were drawn by their beauty no matter which way you were facing. There were also two reading lamps, more functional in design, one by each of the big armchairs. Both of those and all four of the blown-glass lamps were on. However, their light didn't fully illuminate every last corner of the room, and in those areas where there otherwise might have been a few thin shadows, there were clusters of burning candles, at least fifty of them in all.

Hampton evidently saw that he was puzzled by the candles, for the big man said, “Tonight there are two kinds of darkness in this city, Lieutenant. First, there's that darkness which is merely the absence of light. And then there's that darkness which is the physical presence — the very manifestation — of the ultimate, Satanic evil. That second and malignant form of darkness feeds upon and cloaks itself in the first and more ordinary kind of darkness, cleverly disguises itself. But it's out there! Therefore, I don't wish to have shadows close to me this night, if I can avoid it, for one never knows when an innocent patch of shade might be something more than it appears.”

Before this investigation, even as excessively open-minded as Jack had always been, he wouldn't have taken Carver Hampton's warning seriously. At best, he would have thought the man eccentric; at worst, a bit mad. Now, he didn't for a moment doubt the sincerity or the accuracy of the Houngon's statements. Unlike Hampton, Jack wasn't afraid that the shadows themselves would suddenly leap at him and clutch him with insubstantial yet somehow deadly hands of darkness; however, after the things he had seen tonight, he couldn't rule out even that bizarre possibility. Anyway, because of what might be hiding within the shadows, he, too, preferred bright light.

“You look frozen,” Hampton said. “Give me your coat. I'll hang it over the radiator to dry. Your gloves, too. Then sit down, and I'll bring you some brandy.”

“I don't have time for brandy,” Jack said, leaving his coat buttoned and his gloves on. “I've got to find Lavelle. I—”

“To find and stop Lavelle,” Hampton said, “you've got to be properly prepared. That's going to take time. Only a fool would go rushing back out into that storm with only a half-baked idea of what to do and where to go. And you're no fool, Lieutenant. So give me your coat. I can hop you, but it's going to take longer than two minutes.”