'Claussen?' he called. 'Are you here?'
'The beast,' a voice in the darkness said, 'the beast.'
Perry followed the voice and found the reverend slouched in a pew. He was pale, his face beaded with sweat. He looked terrible.
'Are you all right, Claussen?'
The reverend smiled, his chin wet with drool. 'He returned as I knew he would.'
It was dim in the church, a few feeble rays of light bled in through the stained glass windows. Dust motes danced in the beams, thick, clotted. Perry looked around, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. He swallowed dryly. There was only that smell, that gagging perfume of putrescence.
'I think you should come with me now,' Perry said calmly.
'Where?'
'To my house. I can care for you there.'
Claussen laughed shrilly. 'Leave?' he said in a congested voice. 'Leave? This is my church! The house of God! I can't leave here…you see, God has come, he's here now…'
Perry scowled slightly. 'Yes, of course. Spiritually he-'
'Not him! Not that one! Not that false shepherd who I've prayed my soul out to and has yet to honor me with so much as a word, a sign!' Claussen was trembling now, his eyes rolling. 'He has come! The Lord of the High Wood! The beast!'
'Stop this, Claussen. Come away with me.'
'No!'
'You can't worship a mindless beast.'
Claussen laughed. 'Such blasphemy. You should be quiet about such things…if he hears you…'
'He won't.'
The smell was strong now; violent, offensive. A brutal odor.
'Won't he?' Claussen seemed confused.
'Of course not, he's just an animal.'
'Heretic! 'Claussen cried, springing to his feet. 'He is here! He is here now! He came and I made sacrifice to him!'
To prove this, Claussen pulled his hand from the pocket it had been thrust in…except there was no hand. Just a stump wadded up with red-stained cloth bandages. The man was bleeding to death. Slowly…but dying all the same.
'Christ, Claussen, how-'
'Don't say that name in here!'
Perry knew that now, more than ever, he had to give Claussen the injection. Unless the man was drugged, he'd never get him away from this place. The question was: How could he hope to subdue a crazy man even for the few precious moments it would take to empty the hypodermic into his arm? Perry, despite the painless dream-life morphine gave him, was in poor shape. His back was twisted, incapable of supporting more than his own fragile weight. It was in no condition to take the kind of abuse needed to overpower another man. And his age, too, was a factor. The doctor never would again see the good side of seventy.
Claussen hobbled away up to the altar. Perry followed.
'Blasphemy,' Perry said.
Claussen smiled. 'It has to be rebuilt, this altar, retooled with new and greater meaning.'
The altar had been smashed and rent. Boards were pulled up, statues of the heavenly fathers broken into fragments, prayer books were freed of their pages. The altar cloth had been shredded. It was even worse than the other day.
'This is his church now, Doctor.'
And indeed it was. This was the sort of obscene shrine only a demon of savage appetites would or could appreciate.
'I must commission new artworks,' Claussen said, 'in his image. Busts of the finest stone, paintings in livid colors…perhaps blood…'
'Where is he, Claussen?'
'I can't tell you that. Not yet. Know only that he is close…'
Perry scowled. 'What you've done is blasphemy, Claussen. Disgusting.'
'You're a fool, Doctor. This is his house now.'
'In the name of Christ, man, get a hold of yourself.'
Claussen grabbed Perry violently by the arm. 'You shall not revere the names of false gods in this holy place.'
'Fantasy…'
'Really?'
'Yes, I…'
Claussen cackled with laughter. 'Behold,' he said, 'he stands at the door and knocks.'
The stink had grown omnipotent now.
It dried the words on Perry's tongue, put a frost on his bones. And then, behind him, as his senses reeled with nausea, movement. Perry turned, his back wrenching and crying out. He ignored it for the Lord of the High Wood had arrived. The doctor looked on the beast with no reverence, no respect, only a sort of numbing awe at this mistake of evolution. It was huge, its shoulders twice the breadth of any man's, its head mammoth. A giant. Its gray flesh was stained with dried blood and those eyes…good God, those eyes…bleeding balls that ran with discolored tears.
Tears?
Yes.
Jesus wept.
The beast came closer, moving with a slow grace that was frightening for something its size. Its arms hung limp at its sides, matted with patchy fur, bulging with obscene muscularity, the fingers-impossibly long-ending in hooked claws. Rapiers. Its sex swung with pendulum strokes between the massive thighs proudly. Its skin was ruptured, torn, splitting open with a vile sap in a hundred places. But its eyes, these are what held Perry. And the mouth, the sneering, hateful mouth that opened with a wet smack exposing teeth that glimmered like sacrificial daggers.
'Jesus,' Perry managed.
'Not Jesus,' Claussen said, stepping between them. 'The Lord has chased Jesus from this place on the cowering tails of the saints.'
Claussen looked up at his god and made a quick benediction. The beast roared and with a single slap of its bleeding fist sent the reverend sailing over a row of pews.
Perry pulled his gun. 'We'll see what kind of god you are.'
The beast began to drool.
21
Skullhead stood on the altar, having finished with the old man and his little gun. He didn't bother snacking on this one-he was far too old, far too tough and meatless. No, the old ones served only one purpose and had for ages and that was to be broken by the will of the Lords, killed for amusement. This was all. Murdering the old was tradition amongst the Lords. The dark-skins held the aged in such reverence that these were the first the Lords had killed when they waged war on the little men. After that, the men. Women and children were a different matter.
Skullhead sat down on the altar, fatigued with all the excitement and bloodshed. He was hurting. Pain rolled through his great torso in sharp waves. Bullets. Too many bullets in him. But the agony was good. Often, in the old days, the Lords would cut and slash themselves to bring on pain before a battle. It made them fiercer, more savage fighters. But this pain…though it made him angry, a sadistic conqueror…was not good. There was simply too much
