Then it was my turn. More things came. Lots of them.
There a flat metallic thing of chrome or stainless steel. A bumper? A the hood of a car? Or maybe a medical table? I couldn’t tell but my sword rang on it and cast only sparks, made no cuts, and we tossed it off over the side into the pit, screeching and hammering on it. It vanished and we took on a procession of things in its wake. They were smaller things now, but they came faster. Lobby chairs with wooden feet that bent impossibly, a bookcase with attached books that snapped like a thousand hungry mouths, an office computer with a glowing face on the screen, the ficus tree from the lobby, and much more. Some things I could identify, others I could not. I rounded the bend and headed down the homestretch to the lobby. I could almost see the Hag at the table now, and the lantern was shining brightly, more brightly than it ever had. It was as bright as a thousand rainbows in there, almost a bright as the summer sun.
Carlene’s body came at me from behind after I turned the bend. Somehow the Hag had awakened her flesh and gotten her up out of the basement. There wasn’t any hesitation left in me, that had been beaten out of my mind over the last hour. I throttled her with both hands. She thrashed at me with newly grown tentacles, even though she should not have been able to breathe. Vance finished her with his Mauser.
After that, all I could think of was Carlene’s face and that of her baby, who Monika held somewhere back behind me. It made me deeply angry, and that anger replaced the horror and the dread and the fear and kept me going.
It went on for minutes or perhaps hours, I’ll never know how long. It was wild and sad and terrifying beyond any nightmare of my childhood. I couldn’t remember much of the things I fought after Carlene until suddenly there were no more of them coming.
I stood before the Hag and she faced me.
“My champion,” she said. She reached out a delicate hand, as if to caress me. Instinctively, my saber lashed out to take her hand.
I slashed that wrist with all my strength, without hesitation, but it was as if her flesh were made of iron. The blade rang off and vibrated painfully in my hand.
She laughed at me, and I stepped forward, furious, and cut at her neck. The blow did nothing but shock my hand so greatly that I almost dropped the sword.
She shook her head, mocking me. “Child, don’t play the fool. Why would I give you a blade so sharp that you could not be stopped?”
I stared at her and my sides heaved with exertion. My eyes were full of dull hate. I made no attempt to answer her. I thought of the pistol I had carried, but it was long since emptied. I glanced back at the others. Vance was there, so was Holly. But they were stock-still. The lantern had them in its gaze. I saw all of them, except for Wilton. None of them were moving.
“Because, child,” she continued gently, “it is enchanted for sharpness, but it is also enchanted so that it can’t harm me. There is only one thing your sword cannot cut, champion of mine, and that one thing is me.”
I understood then, my sword, the gift she had given me, was a trap. I dropped my saber and stepped forward. She pulled her lips back in curling peels. She reached for my throat as I did for hers.
Her grasp was strong, stronger than any woman’s I’d ever known. I gripped her, but could not squeeze her throat. It was like squeezing a block of wood.
She grinned at me as her fingers sunk into my neck.
“Yield,” she said, “yield and serve me and I will spare the rest of them. I have need of a strong champion, and I have chosen you.”
With a flickering movement, I tossed off my glove. It was no longer my hand. It was still hand-shaped, but there were only three fingers and a thumb now, and those fingers were claws, really, not fingers at all. Thick boned scaly claws flexed in a permanent curl. I applied my warped hand to her neck, and squeezed with all its new unnatural strength.
Her breath became labored. Mine all but ceased. I whistled and choked and swallowed through my closing air passage. I was losing, I knew it, but I figured I might as well make her feel my rage before I died.
“All you have to do is look at it,” she hissed out. “Save yourself, fool. Gaze into the Eye.”
The light in the lantern beckoned me, but I stared at her hideous face instead. The black claw tips dug in, making a row of dimples on her dead-white throat. She should have bled, but I doubted there was any blood left in her body. I felt her neck giving way, folding inward slowly like thick cardboard. There were no more sounds that I could make, I could barely get down a gasp of air now and then.
“Your will is too strong,” she gasped, “you must be put down.”
And then she squeezed harder. I was shocked to realize that she had been holding back. My lungs burned and my heart pounded. I wished I had another of Wilton’s potions, but even then, the blood would be cut to my brain soon and I would pass out. My stomach threatened to vomit, but I knew it would be fatal so I fought to relax it.
Then, even as the world had focused down to her face and mine, I felt her stiffen and gurgle. She stiffened again, and again. Her body shuddered. Then the killing grip around my throat eased. I held onto consciousness as the first choking gasps of air entered my lungs.
She sank down, but my left hand kept its grip. Kept squeezing.
Behind her, with a bloody knife in his hand, stood the Captain.
Thirty-Seven
“I owe you again,” I said to the Captain.
He shrugged. “You did most of it.”
I just stood there for a while in the rain, which now fell with a quiet, sweet hissing sound. The lobby had no roof and not much left for walls either, so the rain simply fell into my matted hair and ran down loosely over my face. I blinked at the thing in my hands. For a moment, I saw a woman’s eyes, they were a pretty shade of yellowish-brown. They were the eyes she’d been born with, long, long ago before she had become a powerful changeling. In death, she was no longer a Hag. I released her throat and she sank down gently, like a deflating balloon. Soon, all that was left was a vicious dark stain on the carpet and an antique dress. Her flesh had melted away even as she had melted so many things into living horrors.
The lantern sat on the table. Still and waiting. The prism inside it continued to shine, but with a less brilliant vigor. What had she called it?
I nodded silent thanks to the Captain. He nodded back and cleaned his knife on his jacket. I turned to face the survivors. There were less than ten of us left.
“Let’s go look for the Preacher and Wilton,” I said quietly. The rest of them followed me, some weeping openly for our dead.
“Is it over?” asked Holly. I gave her a hug, she had lost everything today.
“I think so.”
We heard rustling and thumping back down the hall. I led the way. We found no movement other than the flopping of the oak tree in the basement. I had a sudden thought and went back to the door that topped the basement stairs. When we got there, my heart skipped a beat. It was hanging open, broken down from the inside. I drew my weapon.
Nelson was there, still at his post in front of the door. He had his pistols in his hands, but they were empty and so were his dead eyes. I pushed Holly back so she wouldn’t have to find her father this way. I got Mrs. Hatchell to take hold of her shoulders. She began talking to Holly’s ear earnestly while Holly’s body shivered with silent sobs.
“Vance,” I said in a hoarse voice. “Something got past Nelson. Something is up here with us.”
There were footsteps on the stairs beyond the door. It led down into total blackness. The few propane lanterns that still burned in ruins of the center cast only wan beams in this dark corner of the halls.
I put the tip of my saber into the blackness and gestured madly for a lantern. Vance brought me one that guttered and spit, turning an old orange color that indicated the fuel was all but spent.
