Darkfall

He gives a whole lot more than he takes. You know? He enjoys giving more than he enjoys getting. He needs more than just Davey and me to love… because he's got a lot more love in him than just that.” She sighed and shook her head in evident frustration. “Am I making any sense at all?”

“A lot of sense,” Rebecca said. “I know exactly what you mean, but I'm amazed to be hearing it from an eleven-year-old girl.”

“Almost twelve.”

“Very grown up for your age.”

“Thank you,” Penny said gravely.

Ahead, at a cross street, a roaring river of wind moved from east to west and swept up so much snow that it almost looked as if the Avenue of the Americas terminated there, in a solid white wall. Rebecca slowed down, switched the headlights to high beam, drove through the wall and out the other side.

“I love your father,” she told Penny, and she realized she hadn't yet told Jack. In fact, this was the first time in twenty years, the first time since the death of her grandfather, that she had admitted loving anyone. Saying those words was easier than she had thought it would be. “I love him, and he loves me.”

“That's fabulous,” Penny said, grinning.

Rebecca smiled. “It is rather fabulous, isn't it?”

“Will you get married?”

“I suspect we will.”

“Double fabulous.”

“Triple.”

“After the wedding, I'll call you Mom instead of Rebecca — if that's all right.”

Rebecca was surprised by the tears that suddenly rose in her eyes, and she swallowed the lump in her throat and said, “I'd like that.”

Penny sighed and slumped down in her seat. “I was worried about Daddy. I was afraid that witchdoctor would kill him. But now that I know about you and him… well, that's one more thing he has to live for. I think it'll help. I think it's real important that he's got not just me and Davey but you to come home to. I'm still afraid for him, but I'm not so afraid as I was.”

“He'll be all right,” Rebecca said. “You'll see. He'll be just fine. We'll all come through this just fine.”

A moment later, when she glanced at Penny, she saw that the girl was asleep.

She drove on through the whirling snow.

Softly, she said, “Come home to me, Jack. By God, you'd better come home to me.”

IV

Jack told Carver Hampton everything beginning with the call from Lavelle on the pay phone in front of Rada, and concluding with the rescue by Burt and Leo in their Jeep, the trip to the garage for new cars, and the decision to split up and keep the kids safely on the move.

Hampton was visibly shocked and distressed. He sat very still and rigid throughout the story, not even once moving to sip his brandy. Then, when Jack finished, Hampton blinked and shuddered and downed his entire glassful of Remy Martin in one long swallow.

“And so you see'” Jack said, “when you said these things came from Hell, maybe some people might've laughed at you, but not me. I don't have any trouble believing you, even though I'm not too sure how they made the trip.”

After sitting rigidly for long minutes, Hampton suddenly couldn't keep still. He got up and paced. “I know something of the ritual he must have used. It would only work for a master, a Bocor of the first rank. The ancient gods wouldn't have answered a less powerful sorcerer. To do this thing, the Bocor must first dig a pit in the earth. It's shaped somewhat like a meteor crater, sloping to a depth of two or three feet. The Bocor recites certain chants… uses certain herbs…. And he pours three types of blood into the hole — cat, rat, and human. As he sings a final and very long incantation, the bottom of the pit is miraculously transformed. In a sense… in a way that is impossible to explain or understand, the pit becomes far deeper than two or three feet; it interfaces with the Gates of Hell and becomes a sort of highway between this world and the Underworld. Heat rises from the pit, as does the stench of Hell, and the bottom of it appears to become molten. When the Bocor finally summons the entities he wants, they pass out through the Gates and then up through the bottom of the pit. On their way, these spiritual beings acquire physical bodies, golem bodies composed of the earth through which they pass; clay bodies that are nevertheless flexible and fully animated and alive. From your vivid descriptions of the creatures you've seen tonight, I'd say they were the incarnations of minor demons and of evil men, once mortal, who were condemned to Hell and are its lowest residents. Major demons and the ancient evil gods themselves would be considerably larger, more vicious, more powerful, and infinitely more hideous in appearance.”

“Oh, these damned things were plenty hideous enough,” Jack assured him.

“But, supposedly, there are many Ancient Ones whose physical forms are so repulsive that the mere act of looking at them results in instant death for he who sees, “ Hampton said, pacing.

Jack sipped his brandy. He needed it.

“Furthermore,” Hampton said, “the small size of these beasts would seem to support my belief that the Gates are currently open only a crack. The gap is too narrow to allow the major demons and the dark gods to slip out.”

“Thank God for that.”

“Yes,” Carver Hampton agreed. “Thank all the benevolent gods for that.”

V

Penny and Davey were still asleep. The night was lonely without their company.

The windshield wipers flogged the snow off the glass.

The wind was so fierce that it rocked the sedan and forced Rebecca to grip the steering wheel more firmly than she had done before.

Then something made a noise beneath the car.

Thump, thump. It knocked against the undercarriage hard enough to startle her, though not loud enough to wake the kids.

And again. Thump, thump.

She glanced in the rearview mirror, trying to see if she'd run over anything. But the car's back window was partially frosted, limiting her view, and the tires churned up plumes of snow so thick that they cast everything behind the car into obscurity.

She nervously scanned the lighted instrument panel in the dashboard, but she couldn't see any indication of trouble. Oil, fuel, alternator, battery — all seemed in good shape; no warning lights, no plunging needles on the gauges. The car continued to purr along through the blizzard. Apparently, the disconcerting noise hadn't been related to a mechanical problem.

She drove half a block without a recurrence of the sound, then an entire block, then another one. She began to relax.

Okay, okay, she told herself. Don't be so damned jumpy. Stay calm and be cool. That's what the situation calls for. Nothing's wrong now, and nothing's going to go wrong, either. I'm fine. The kids are fine. The car's fine.

Thump-thump-thump.