Esruad struggled with Stroud to use his head. 'Another sacrifice is nothing to ending the power of this evil, Stroud!'
From the records uncovered by Leonard and Wisnewski, in the very written words of Esruad, Stroud had learned that he must locate the geographic center of the ship. He now stared down the tube of flame ahead of him. 'But this is it ... this is where it lives, Esruad.'
Esruad had no argument for this.
Stroud knew that momentarily he and Esruad would come face-to-face with the true demon...
No more vile little familiars, beasts with tarantula bodies or tentacles, no more substitute horrors. Once Stroud penetrated the center, Ubbrroxx had no place else to hide and could take no more camouflage, create no more apparitions. It wasn't anything Esruad had said, nothing that Stroud had learned from the records, only a peaceful inner power called knowledge. The offshoots of the creature, its telepathic powers, its havoc, all emanated from here, and at the very back of this chamber it had Kendra.
It had come down to Stroud and the Satan of the Etruscans, Ubbrroxx.
Stroud felt fortified, however. He did not feel alone, not with Esruad within him, cloaking him in his impressive magic.
Stroud started across the dark interior of the new cell he had reached when out of the dark on his right side a flying creature loped by his head, almost striking him. Stroud saw only the black wings of the beast as it swooped, until his light hit it, and he saw that it was an enormous vampire bat, not unlike the ones that he had done battle with in the caverns outside Andover, Illinois. Stroud heard others screeching in the dark, piercing the blackness with their beady, blind eyes.
'Ubbrroxx is drawing on your fears, your worst nightmares, Stroud,' he told himself.
Stroud tried desperately to get a grip, but it was like looking into the graves of the many vampires he had personally driven into eternity with the long-spiked, chemically poisoned stakes he had used. Something roared like a beast to his left and then a den of snapping, snarling beasts rose up in Stroud's light, approaching. It was Kerac and his band of werewolves, monsters that Stroud had wiped out in the northernmost woods of Michigan the year before, after tracking one of their number from the streets of Chicago. All here, along with the vampires ... unreal, and yet so real and threatening. Then they pounced in unison with an attack from the vampires.
'Hold to your faith in me, Stroud!' Esruad fired his mind with the message as Stroud saw all of the monsters of his mind flattened out against the invisible but powerful shield that Esruad continued to display.
The werewolves and the vampires came in again and again, trying desperately to destroy the shield, to put a dent in it, but it was useless. 'So long as you believe in me,' Esruad told him in a whisper deep within his mind.
The creatures outside the protecting cube now became people, and in their faces, Stroud began to realize who they were. Ubbrroxx now was sending forth the images of all of the people whom Stroud had come into contact with--innocent people--who had lost their lives around him, some due directly to their association with him, some indirectly. Among them were Leonard, soldiers he had known in the war, fellow cops he had known in Chicago when he was on the streets there, Magaffey, who was so instrumental in helping him uncover the vampire colony in Andover, the band of mercenaries he had paid to die in their effort to help him wipe out the werewolf herd in Michigan. All those who had lost their lives in Stroud's various crusades now stared in at him, asking him to join them. Even his grandfather's apparition was among the specters.
Ubbrroxx was working on a very different level now, but Stroud remained firm in his convictions and his trust in Esruad. He noted that among the dead who wandered about the cube, pleading with him to come join them, there was no sign of Wisnewski or Kendra, and this gave him hope for their well-being.
'How long are we going to stand still for this?' Esruad asked from within.
Stroud took his meaning, stepping through the horde of ghosts who had for so long inhabited his nightmares.
They reached out, flattening their ethereal hands against the cube enveloping him, and where this occurred their limbs disappeared into a wispy mist. Stroud stalked on, shouting, 'I'm coming for you, Ubbrroxx! Nothing will keep us apart ... nothing.'
Stroud spoke a silent dialogue with Esruad as he continued on.
Why did you imprison yourself in the crystal skull for all these years?
To be here now...
To fight the beast again, after failing the first time?
We failed the first time because we were weak, fearful ... worse, we became willing accomplices.
Not you.
All of us.
And that is what will occur now if the evil is not ended by us?
I fear so, yes.
Then we won't let it happen. Armed with what we know now about Ubbrroxx, its character ... and your magic--
It has great powers of its own.
But we have a chance.
Yes.
Because this thing fears you greatly.
It fears us greatly
Tell me what to do.
The discussion was interrupted by another bout of piercing cries from Kendra.
Stroud stared ahead from where the sounds continued to roll down the corridors of the black ship. 'God, I can't stand that.'
Put her out of your mind.
I can't do that.
You must.
Just tell me what to do next!
Stroud listened to Esruad's communications as they spun about the coils of his brain, pinging off the metal strip below his scalp. As he did so, he looked again in the direction from which the screams continued. Horrible, nerve-ripping screams, like the cries of a bobcat locked in a bloody trap. It was heart-wrenching to think that Kendra Cline was in so much pain.
Kendra Cline and Dr. Wisnewski continued aboveground through the throng of zombies, and as they neared the final end of the human wall of flesh, they began to see a difference in the zombies at the far exterior of the circle around the pit. Some of the zombies were moving, searching, looking lost and confused, even asking questions of a weak nature. Many were amazed to find themselves here, confused beyond words. Others had begun to race away, seeking cover, and this caused some gunfire which was immediately halted by screaming shouts on the soldiers' side of the barricades ahead of Kendra and Wiz.
'Christ, we could be shot ourselves!' shouted Wiz to her.
Kendra tried desperately to reach Nathan over the radio and thankfully, she found the radio clear of static. She got an operator on the other end and shouted, 'Get me the commissioner.'
'Who is this?'
'Dr. Cline and Dr. Wisnewski! Hold your fire!'
'No shit!'
'We're back from the pit.'
'Holy shit! We thought you were--'
'Get Nathan for me, now!'
'Right, right ... will do! Over.'
Only a few minutes passed while Wiz and she were held up at the barricade where others, former zombies, also wanted through, some pawing at one another, still quite out of their heads.
Nathan shook the scene when his powerful voice was amplified through a bullhorn. 'Let those people through! All of them! Let them pass!'
Like refugees, the line of migrating, former zombies began moving further away from the center of their
