Sam ran to the balcony and opened fire on the panicked Coven members, knocking several of them spinning and howling to the marble floor. He ran down the hallway, setting rooms blazing, quitting only when he ran out of fuel and matches. He looked up at the top floor, it was blazing, smoke pouring out in oily plumes.
It can't be this easy, he thought. I can't have won this easily.
'Quite right, young man,' Falcon's voice reached him from the floor below.
Sam spun, the Thompson at the ready.
'Oh, for pity's sake,' Falcon said. 'Put that foolish weapon away. It can't harm me in any manner—unlike your half brother. I've been shot by more jealous husbands than you have cartridges for your weapons.'
Falcon's face was only slightly bruised from Sam's hard punch. He was dressed in a smoking jacket, his right hand in his pocket.
Sam looked at his watch. He was shocked to find it was eight-thirty. He had ninety minutes to get to Nydia and the others and get away. Where had the time gone? It must have had something to do with his dad's picture; that odd sensation he experienced.
'Are you taking some sort of medication or expecting company?' Falcon asked.
'What?'
'Your watch, and the expression on your face when you consulted your timepiece. Ah!' comprehension flooded his features. 'I see. The ancient warrior gave you a timetable, did he not?'
Sam chose not to reply. He shifted the Thompson from right to left hand and stepped onto the stairs, the bannister hiding his right hand from Falcon's eyes. He hoped. His fingers closed around one of the two vials of holy water he had left.
'Ah, God's young warrior.' Falcon smiled. 'You are really going to fight
'I don't see that I have any choice. Where are all the others?'
Falcon laughed, rather bitterly, Sam thought. 'What others? You've been charging around here firing that weapon and driving swords and stakes into people. We were not that many to begin with.'
'You're a liar.'
Falcon merely shrugged. 'I have been called much worse, I assure you. No, a few ran away into the night.'
'Roma?'
'Gone. Safe.'
'You set Black up to die, didn't you? Giving him that silly sword?'
'Very astute of you. Yes.'
Sam was only a few steps from the bottom. He slowly removed the bottle of holy water.
'You can't win by fighting me, Sam,' Falcon told him. Then, quite unlike him, he said, 'I set you up, too.'
Sam flung the holy water at the warlock, deliberately aiming at the spot just in front of his feet, so the bottle would break and splatter its contents.
The blessed water splashed on Falcon's legs and a few drops hit his flesh, burning him. The warlock screamed in pain. Sam jerked the last vial from his pocket, smashed the top against the railing, and threw it into Falcon's face.
It had the same effect as acid, producing holes in the man's face, smoking pits. One eye turned to ooze, running down Falcon's face.
'You lose, young man,' Falcon managed to hiss, the words like a gurgle from the smoking holes in his throat.
'I lose?' Sam said.
But Falcon could no longer talk, his throat a burning hole, emitting putrid odors of the grave and beyond. He slowly pulled a flat automatic pistol from his jacket Docket and pulled the trigger twice, both slugs hitting Sam, in the chest and stomach.
Sam tumbled forward, down the steps. He rolled next to Falcon's rapidly metamorphosing body, his blood mixing with the slime oozing from the warlock's rotting burning flesh.
Sam tried to get to his feet, but strength was leaving him. He collapsed as darkness enveloped him, falling into the oozing slime.
'Get into Wade's car,' Balon projected. 'Everybody! Don't ask questions. Do it. I will bring the Clay Man.'
'You?' Miles said. 'That golem weighs half a ton. Ask me. I almost gave myself a hernia fooling with it.'
'Don't argue with me!'
'Yes, preacher,' Miles sighed. 'What do we do when we get into the car?'
'Go to The Digging. We will be waiting for you there.'
'This is it then?' Doris asked.
'Yes.'
'Ohh,' Miles said, putting one hand to his mouth. 'Already I feel strange.'
