havoc wherever we went. All for the glory of Bel-Marduk . . .'
He drifted away once more.
Kline had spoken that name before. Halloran shivered, for the air was very cold. He looked around at the shadows: the torch beam was frail.
A stirring of the makeshift bedclothes. then a shrivelled hand, more like a claw, fingernails long and curled, stained brown with age, appeared. It reached for Halloran's arm and the operative shuddered when it came to rest on him.
'He . . . Felix . . . used me . . .' He was drifting away. The trembling hand flopped from Halloran's arm.
'No longer afraid . . .' came the hushed words. 'No worse Hell than . . . here . . . ahhhh . . .' Life seemed to flow out from him.
Overcoming his revulsion, Halloran shook the covering over the old man's chest. 'Tell me who you are.'
he demanded, both angry and frustrated. 'How can you guard this estate, control the dogs'' How do you keep the gates locked? You're old, you're sick . . .' A dry, reedy chuckle. The remnants of life flickered.
'I have . . . power, too. Kline . . . working through me. My mind holds the . . . gates. My . . . mind controls . . . the beasts, the demons . . . But no more . . . too weak. He needs another . . . Someone corrupted to his ways . . .'
'Who are you?'
'I am nothing.'
'Tell me!'
'Nothing. Although once . . . I was a merchant.' He drew in a grating breath. 'He . . . he is vulnerable.'
Again he clasped Halloran's arm. 'Is it you? Are you the one?'
'To take your place? Is that what you mean?' A different kind of fear in Halloran now.
The slighest inclination of the wizened head. 'No something more . . . than that . . .
There were noises from downstairs. A soft rushing. Halloran remembered he had left the window open.
He felt a tightening of the clawed hand on his arm. Then the fingers uncurled and the hand fell away.
A scuffling in the hallway below.
There was a liquid rattling in the old man's throat as a long exhalation of air escaped him.
Pattering on the staircase.
Halloran scooped up the black bag as he rose and leapt for the door in a desperate bid to close it before the jackals came through.
But he was too late.
39 A TERROR UNLEASHED
The first of the beasts burst into the room, a glistening an its jaws caught by the beam of light.
To Halloran's surprise, the jackal bounded past him. He quickly stepped behind the door, using it as a shield as others, snarling and yelping, their fur bristling, streamed through. They made straight for the bundle of rags in the corner of the room.
Halloran drew in a sharp breath as the first jackal reached the lifeless figure and tore into the bedding, its jaws snapping and rending material. He heard a feeble cry above the frenzied yapping and realised that the disfigured old man was not yet dead. The puckered skull suddenly emerged from the rags, its mouth a toothless, jagged hole, the eyes now totally white. The second jackal buried its teeth into the scrawny throat.
And still more poured through the doorway.
Halloran reached into the bag and pulled out the MPSK, not bothering to yank out its retractable stock as he aimed at the welter of shoving and tumbling bodies. Blood suddenly mush.-d upwards to drench the agitated backs of the jackals, its smell, its taste, driving the animals into even greater frenzy. They ripped into their broken victim, shaking him in feverish rage.
Halloran loosed fifteen rounds of 9mm bullets into the pack, aware that the old man would also be hit and knowing id really didn't matter any more.
The jackals screeched, some leaping into the air, others thrown against the wall by the impact. In little more than a second, the room was a carnage of convulsing bodies, a redness coating the floor and running down into the cracks. But not all the beasts had been killed outright. Several had just been wounded. Others had only been frightened.
These turned towards their attacker.
Halloran quickly switched the weapon to single-shot, unwilling to waste the rest of the magazine on one short burst.
The howling subsided to an agonised whimpering, the sound piteous but invoking no pity from Halloran.
He pointed the gun at the nearest advancing jackal. The animal leapt, carnassials bared and already stained. The bullet entered its neck and exploded from the other side, taking fragments of flesh and spine with it into the ceiling.
Halloran was pushed back against the wall, the torch he had kept locked against the weapon falling from his grasp as the contorting body struck him. The dead animal dropped away, head loose from its shoulders, and Halloran, crouched now, heard rather than saw the rush of another jackal. He raised the weapon and fired blindly.
The first bullet did not stop the animal, merely creasing its flank, and teeth sank into the operative's wrist.
He scarcely felt the pain.
The next bullet, the weapon itself directed downwards by the jackal's weight, scythed along the creature's underbelly. The piercing yelp set off a renewed howling from its injured companions and Halloran cringed under the cacophony. He tugged his arm free, the brute's teeth scraping across the skin of his wrist as it slid to the floor. He reached for the torch, swiftly turning the beam into the mass of juddering scavengers. Those that were still able were crawling towards him, some limping badly, others squirming on their stomachs. The mattress and bedrags behind them were sodden with dark, seeping liquid.
Sub-machine gun held in one hand against his hip, Halloran stooped to retrieve the bag, which contained extra magazines, never once letting the light beam waver away from the creeping bodies. The howling had died, to be replaced by a low, menacing growling. He edged around the door.
A limping jackal suddenly made a dash at him. Its legs gave way and it slumped at Halloran's feet, jaws weakly snapping the air, a low snarl coming from deep within its throat. He backed out the door as the others gathered their strength and staggered forward. Halloran pulled the door shut with a jarring thud and heard the jackals scratching at the wood on the other side.
He leaned against the frame, forehead resting on a raised arm, breathing slowly, giving himself time to recover from the horror.
But a scuffling on the stairs would not allow that.
He stiffened, then moved to the rail overlooking the stairway. More jackals were bounding up the steps, their backs to him. Halloran leaned over and took them one by one, shooting at the base of their skulls, shattering the bone there. The first jackal stopped dead, as if stunned, then toppled downstairs, the one close behind becoming entangled with the falling body. The third, startled by the gunfire and trying to avoid its companions, dodged to the side and received a bullet in its shoulder. The jackal howled and tumbled out of sight.
Halloran swiftly walked along the landing and paused at the top of the stairs, shining the light down. Only two corpses lay at the bottom.
He descended cautiously, anxious to get away from the charnel-house, but wary of what might still be waiting below. Hopefully these were the last of the stragglers. From above came the continued scratching against the door and a kind of mewling whimpering.
Halloran stepped over the dead bodies at the foot of the stairs and backed away to the frontdoor, keeping his eyes on the corridor leading to the rear of the lodge-house. Slipping the bag over his shoulder and gripping the pen- torch firmly between his teeth, he tried the doorhandle. It resisted his pressure at first, the mechanism obviously rusted, then grudgingly turned. But the bolts, top and bottom, were rusted solid and would not budge.
