Phantoms

thought it would ever really appear to me. We've given it sacrifices, even human sacrifices, and chanted all the right chants, but we never were able to conjure up anythin'. So this here's a miracle.” Jeeter laughed. “I been doin' its work all my life, man. Prayin' to it all my life, preyin' to the Beast. Now here it is. It's a fuckin' miracle.”

Kale didn't want to understand. “You've lost me.”

Teer stared at him. “No, I haven't. You know what I'm talkin' about, man. You know.”

Kale said nothing.

“You've been thinkin' this must be a demon, somethin' It — from Hell. And it is from Hell, man. But it's no demon. It's Him. Him. Lucifer.”

Among the dozens of sharply pointed horns, small red eyes opened in the tenebrous flesh. A multitude of piercing little eyes glowed crimson with hatred and evil knowledge.

Tell motioned for Kale to come closer. “He's allowin' me to go on livin' because He knows I'm His true disciple.”

Kale didn't move. His heart boomed. It wasn't fear that loosed the adrenalin in him. Not fear alone. There was another emotion that shook him, overwhelmed him, an emotion he couldn't quite identify…

“He let me live,” Jeeter repeated, “because He knows I always do His work. Some of the others… maybe they weren't as purely devoted to His work as I am, so He destroyed them. But me… I'm different. He's lettin' me live to do His work. Maybe He'll let me live forever, man.”

Kale blinked.

“And he's lettin' you live for the same reason, you know,” Jeeter said, “Sure. Must be. Sure. Because you do His work.”

Kale shook his head. “I've never been a… a Devil worshiper. I never believed.”

“Don't matter. You still do His work, and you enjoy it.”

The red eyes watched Kale.

“You killed your wife,” Jeeter said.

Kale nodded dumbly.

“Man, you even killed your own little baby boy. If that isn't His work, then what is?”

None of the shining eyes blinked, and Kale began to identify the emotion surging within him. Elation, awe… religious rapture.

“Who knows what else you've done over the years,” Jeeter said, “Must've done lots of stuff that was His work. Maybe almost everthin' you ever done was His work. You're like me, man. You were born to follow Lucifer. You and me… it's in our genes. In our genes, man.”

At last Kale moved away from the wall.

“That's it,” Jeeter said, “Come here. Come close to Him.”

Kale was overwhelmed with emotion. He had always known he was different from other men. Better. Special. He had always known, but he had never expected this. Yet here it was, undeniable proof that he was chosen. A fierce, heart-swelling joy suffused him.

He knelt beside Jeeter, near the miraculous presence.

He had arrived at last.

His moment had come.

Here, Kale thought, is my destiny.

Chapter 42 The Other Side of Hell

Beneath Jenny, the concrete roadbed snapped with a sound like a cannon shot.

Wham!

She scrambled back but wasn't fast enough. The pavement shifted and began to drop out from under her.

She was going into the pit, Christ, no, if she wasn't killed by the fall then it would come out of hiding and get her, drag her down, out of sight; it would devour her before anyone could attempt to save her—

Tal Whitman grabbed her ankles and held on. She was dangling in the pit, head down. The concrete tumbled into the hole and landed with a crash. The pavement under Tal's feet shook, started to give way, and he almost lost his grip on Jenny. Then he moved back, hauling her with him, away from the crumbling brink. When she was on solid ground once more, he helped her stand.

Even though she knew it wasn't biologically possible for her heart to rise into her throat, she swallowed it anyway.

“My God,” she said breathlessly, “thank you! Tal, if you hadn't”

“All in a day's work,” he said, although he had nearly followed her into the spider's trap.

Just a cakewalk, Jenny thought, remembering the story about Tal that she had heard from Bryce.

She saw that Timothy Flyte, on the far side of the pit, wasn't going to be as fortunate as she had been. Bryce wasn't going to reach him in time.

The pavement beneath Flyte gave way. An eight-foot-long, four-foot-wide slab descended into the pit, carrying the archaeologist with it. It didn't crash to the bottom as the concrete had done on Jenny's side. Over there, the pit had a sloped wall, and the slab scooted down, slid thirty feet to the base, and came to rest against other rubble.

Flyte was still alive. He was screaming in pain.

“We've got to get him out of there fast,” Jenny said.

“No use even trying,” Tal said.

“But—”

“Look!”

It came for Flyte. It exploded out of one of the tunnels that pecked the floor of the pit and apparently led down into deep caverns. A massive pseudopod of amorphous protoplasm rose ten feet into the air, quivered, dropped to the ground, broke ire of the mother-body hiding below, and formed itself into an obscenely fat black spider the size of a pony. It was only ten or twelve feet from Timothy Flyte, and it clambered through the shattered blocks of pavement, heading toward him with murderous intent.

Sprawled helplessly on the concrete sled that had brought him into the pit, Timothy saw the spider coming. His pain was washed away by a wave of terror.

The black spindly legs found easy purchase in the angled ruins, and the thing progressed far more swiftly than a man would have done. There were thousands of bristling, wire like black hairs on those brittle legs. The bulbous belly was smooth, glossy, pale.

Ten feet away. Eight feet.

It was making a blood-freezing sound, half-squeal, half hiss.

Six feet. Four.

It stood in front of Timothy. He found himself looking up into a pair of huge mandibles, sharp-edged chitinous jaws.

The door between madness and sanity began to open in his mind.

Suddenly, a milky rain fell across Timothy. For an instant he thought the spider was squirting venom at him. Then he realized it was Biosan-4. They were standing above, on the rim of the pit, pointing their sprayers down.

The fluid spattered over the spider, too. White spots began to speckle its black body.

Bryce's sprayer had been damaged by a chunk of debris. He couldn't get a drop of fluid from it.

Cursing, he unbuckled the harness and shrugged out of it, dropping the tank on the street. While Tal and Jenny shot Biosan down from the other side of the pit, Bryce hurried to the gutter and collected the two spare cannisters of bacteria rich solution. They had rolled across the pavement, away from the erupting concrete, and had