She said another prayer, as well: that the place would not be guarded.
But it might be, she told herself. It was, after all, a key part of the plan, enabling the demon to plot and learn and grow. Destroying it would not destroy the evil, but it would buy time.
She tightened her grip on the ropes and let the plunging dogs drag her onward. Already she was wondering if the altar she sought would be as small as she imagined, and as easy to obliterate. She didn't know exactly what it would look like, but that part didn't worry her. She would know it when she saw it.
Unseen by human eyes, it lay in the woods north of the stream, just beyond the marshlands and the swamp, between the clawlike roots of a lightning-blasted cottonwood whose fall had left a clearing in the trees – a clearing through which one might view, unobstructed, the sky, the stars; the moon.
Even from a few feet away the thing looked scarcely different from a rather large molehill: a low mound of mud and sticks and foliage, a bit too regular for a product of nature, perhaps, but by no means conspicuous enough to excite attention. If not for the ring of small standing stones that surrounded the thing like a row of miniature menhirs, a Stonehenge built to child's scale, no one would have suspected that it was, in fact, an altar – an altar which, though scarcely one week old, had already seen much use.
Only from up close would one have noticed the intricate patterns scratched in the surface of the mud, the circles within circles within circles. And even then, unless one happened to observe the polished shards of white and yellow protruding here and there, one would have missed the most interesting structural detail of all: the carefully packed layers of tiny skulls that formed a pyramid just beneath the mud.
All the skulls were empty now, picked clean of flesh by paws not fitted for such delicate work – and by teeth and a tongue that were. There were mouse skulls at the bottom and the middle, with curved yellow incisors, giant eye sockets, little room for brain; and there were three new acquisitions at the top: larger, more primitive, and beaked.
A quiet night. We made some popcorn after dinner amp; sat around the living room with the radio on, watching the antics of the cats amp; listening to some crazy station out of Pennsylvania that plays a mixture of country-western amp; Bible-belt gospel. Neither kind of music has ever been high on my list, but it seemed sort of appropriate tonight. It's like the Gothics I've been reading, I guess – either you like that sort of thing or you don't, simple as that.
Quiet out here now, thank God. I'm sick of playing front-row audience to every bit of local fauna that decides to march past my window. Sat up reading – or trying to – 'The Jolly Corner.' James seems so goddamned labored. (M.R. James of Cambridge, now he had the touch. Why so little fuss about him?)
Normally that son of reading would have put me right to sleep, but my damned nose is so clogged again that it's hard to breathe when I lie back. Usually it clears right up as soon as I leave the farmhouse amp; come out here. I've used my little plastic spray bottle a dozen times in the past hour, but after a few minutes I start sneezing amp; have to use it again. Tried to read some more James so that I could get him out of the way, or at least fall asleep, but found my eyes too irritated, watery.
Maybe it's the mildew. The stuff continues to grow higher on my walls in a dark greenish band. Tomorrow I really ought to take a damp rag amp; give this place a cleaning… amp; also trim the ivy that's been spreading over the outside of this building. It's already begun to block the light. If I wait too long, I may not be able to get out the front door.
Silently it watches, crouched on the wardrobe in the corner, muscles bunched like cables beneath the steel- grey fur. The eyes narrow, focusing intently, missing nothing, while the long hooked claws slide out like stilettos. Poised, ready, motionless except for the faint spasmodic twitching of its tail, it waits for the right moment and prepares to spring.
Below it, one short leap away, the man sits hunched over the table, absorbed in his writing, his breathing harsh in the quiet of the room. Near his head several gnats and a tiny green moth dart round and round the lamp. The man is soft, plump, and white, like the grubs it has sacrificed in the forest this morning. But when the claws rip through his flesh, the white will turn to red.
Kill him! he shrieks silently. Why doesn't it kill hint?
The apartment is stifling. The shades are drawn, the windows shut, the little room locked tight. Transfigured by the deepness of his trance, the Old One lies soaking and exhausted on his bed, wet with urine, perspiration, and an amber fluid oozing from his plump half-open lips. His eyes are wide, unblinking, seeing nothing, seeing all; his body twists and twitches on the stained and wrinkled sheets; his brain throbs with rage. The White Ceremony is complete; the Green, too, is behind him, performed precisely as it had to be, precisely as the Master dictated. The necessary words have been spoken; the required signs have been made; the forces have been released. The Son is awakening…
So why, why, won't the thing out there kill him?
The altar was an obscenity, and larger, incredibly larger, than she'd expected. Even the dogs avoided it, after sniffing avidly at the muddy skulls, and now they stood waiting beside her in the darkness, tied to one of the great tree's upthrust roots. She heard them shift tensely among themselves, making occasional low growling sounds deep in their throats.
Mrs Poroth gripped a heavy broken limb and squinted at the moon through the space in the trees. She was bone-weary, her arms stiff from the hours of trying to control the dogs, her palms and fingers blistered from the ropes. She dreaded the walk back in the darkness.
She willed herself to relax and watched the sky. She let her mind go free.
The moment came. The dogs fell silent. Raising the broken limb, she muttered a short prayer and brought it down against the swollen black shape before her. There was a crunching sound, as of breaking china, and she felt the limb sink into the crumbling mass. She brought it up again and smashed downward. Dimly she could see white shapes tumble toward her feet.
She worked for a few minutes more, knocking away the clods of earth and mud until only an irregular low mound of earth was left to mark the spot. Taking up the limb one last time, she scattered the remainder of the tiny skulls and pounded them to dust.
It watches without blinking, moving not a muscle. It senses that its waiting is almost at an end.
Abruptly, below it, the man pauses in his writing. He takes a white cloth from his pocket, blows his nose, curses softly. With a jarring scrape of metal he pushes back his chair and stands. Yawning, he switches off the lamp.
The thing on the wardrobe twitches, jerks forward a fraction of an inch. Now would be the best time: the man will be blinded by the darkness while it can see perfectly. It steels, tenses, arches itself to spring But suddenly it is confused. Something is holding it back. Something new. A hitherto unknown cautiousness – a sudden sense that, even now, it lacks the requisite strength, as if the very source of its power were now dim and uncertain. The man is soft, but he is also large; he is vulnerable, achingly vulnerable, but there is still a chance, a tiny chance, that if it tries to kill him tonight, it will fail. And even that tiny chance cannot be taken; too many things are hanging in the balance.
It watches as the man below stumbles into bed. In a few minutes he is asleep, his breath coming sonorous and slow.
Noiselessly it drops to the floor, leathery pads breaking the fall, four limbs yielding easily to absorb the shock. As it moves along the bedside, the man's face, stupid with sleep, is only inches from its fangs. It will be good, when the time comes, to tear that face.
But such pleasures must wait; there are suddenly new calculations to make and further rites to perform. It will have to grow still stronger, gather its speed, hone its murderous skill. Tonight, to bring itself one step closer to the necessary strength, it will add a new trophy to its altar in the woods.
Silently it pads across the room and pauses at the door. Slowly, with claws aching to become hands, it reaches toward the knob, grasps it, twists…
On the bed the man stirs, turns, and sleeps on. The door opens softly on the night, where the lawn lies shining beneath a sliver of moon. Something soft and grey slips outside. Slowly the door closes, clicks shut.
Quietly, implacably, it moves across the lawn toward the farmhouse.
Sarr slept soundly, his right arm encircling Deborah's waist. The six cats shared the bed with them, curled by their feet or nestled in the space between their bodies. Outside the uncurtained windows, the crescent moon floated through the dark skies like a question mark.
From downstairs came the sound of the screen door opening, followed by the inner door. Sarr slept on, but
