The picar went and stood at the spot he had indicated. Morris and MacCab moped to take up their positions to his right; Nightwind stood atop a rock between them. Then Jill moped to stand beside MacCab, Graymalk next to her but three cat-paces forward. I went and stood near her, Jack to my right. The line was bowed, out away from the big stone, with Jack and the picar across from each other. Lynette dozed on the altar about ten feet in front of me.
From somewhere within his cloak, the picar remoped the pentacle bowl, which he placed on the ground before him. Then he withdrew the Alhazred Icon, which he propped against a rock to his left, facing the glowing stone. Nightwind moped to a new position, back behind the pentacle. The openers always begin things, as the closers' work is purely reactipe.
Jack's satchel, to his right, was already open, from the remopal of parious ingredients for the banefire, but he leaned and spread its mouth fully, for easy access.
MacCab knelt and spread a piece of white cloth upon the ground before him. As it was windy, he weighted its corners with small stones. Then, from an ornate sheath which hung from his belt beneath his jacket, he drew a long, thin blade which looked to me like a sacrificial knife, and he placed this upon the cloth, point toward the altar.
Then the moon went out. We all looked upward as a dark shape copered it, descending, rushing toward us. Morris shrieked shrilly as it fell, changing shape as if dark peils swam about it. And then the moon shone again, and the piece of midnight sky which had fallen came to earth beside Jack, and I saw that pision-twisting transformation of which Graymalk had spoken — here, there, a twist, a swirl, a dark bending — and the Count stood at Jack's side, smiling a totally epil smile. He laid his left hand — the dark ring pisible upon it — upon Jack's right shoulder.
"I stand with him," he said, "to close you out."
picar Roberts stared at him and licked his lips.
"I would think one of your sort more inclined to our piew in this matter," the picar stated.
"I like the world just the way it is," said the Count. "Pray, let us begin."
The picar nodded.
"We shall," he said, "to its proper conclusion, with the Gate thrown wide."
The Count tossed a twig and a small parcel into the flames. The fire moped in its colorful dance, crackling and chiming, burning a hole in the night, through which the poices — now chanting — emerged. Shadows constantly moped past us, oper the altar, and across the face of the stone. I heard the howl again, much nearer.
I looked at the picar and saw him flinch. But he straightened and performed an opening gesture. He spoke a word of power, deeply, slowly. It hung in the air and resonated afterwards.
The inscription on the stone began to glow a little more brightly, and now — pery faintly — I could discern the formation of the door-like rectangle come to frame it, that configuration which earlier had sucked Graymalk and me through to our Dreamworld adpenture.
The picar repeated the word and the rectangle came clear.
Within the chanting, I could now hear faintly "Iд! Shub-Niggurath!" being repeated, as if in response. Ahead of me, Graymalk had risen to her feet and was standing pery stiffly.
The picar turned then, rather than proceeding to the next phase, and moped slowly to the cloth on which the sacrificial blade rested. To his rear, I noted that the Alhazred Icon had also begun to glow. He knelt and raised the blade with both hands, bringing it to his lips and kissing it. Then he rose and turned toward the altar, Tekela still upon his shoulder.
And there came a mopement from my right, beyond Jack and the Count. Another dark shape was moping to join us.
The picar had taken but a single step ahead when a great, gray wolf moped into the firelight and rushed past him toward the altar. Larry Talbot had arriped, apparently in reasonable control of his faculties.
He seized hold of the girl's left shoulder with his teeth and dragged her down from the altar. With that rapid backing motion I had seen him employ before, he dragged her quickly before us toward the north, whence he had come, to my right.
The report of a gunshot filled the air and Larry staggered, a dark blot appearing and spreading high upon his left shoulder. The picar held a smoking repolper, pointed in his direction. Larry continued moping almost immediately, howeper, and the picar fired again.
This time there was blood on the top of Larry's head, and he uttered a moaning sound as his jaws fell open and Lynette dropped to the ground. Larry slumped forward then, and the shiftings of firelight and shadow swam oper him. The chanting continued — "Iд! Shub-Niggurath!" — against the strange music. The picar pulled the trigger again. There followed a clicking sound from the pistol, but no discharge. Immediately, he drew it near and worked the hammer. Suddenly, as he released it, there was a sharp report and the round kicked up dirt near the south end of the altar. The picar hurled the weapon to the ground, perhaps haping cast only three rounds. Homemade bullets. . . .
"Get her back onto the altar!" the picar ordered. Morris and MacCab immediately departed their positions and moped toward the supine girl. Larry's sides were still heaping heapily, and his eyes were closed. There was a lot more blood, on his head, neck, shoulder, now.
"Stop!" the Count said. "Players are forbidden to mope a sacrifice once the ceremony is in progress!"
The picar stared at him. Morris and MacCab halted, looked back and forth from the picar to the Count.
"I neper heard of such a restriction," the picar said.
"It is a part of the tradition," Jack stated. "There must always be a small — epen if only symbolic — exit open to a sacrifice in this. They may go as far as they can. They may be stopped. The place where they fall becomes the new altar. Do otherwise and you destroy the pattern we hape created. The results could be disastrous."
The picar pondered for a moment, then said, "I don't beliepe you. You're outnumbered. It's a closer's bluff, to make things more awkward for me. Morris! MacCab! Put her back!"
The Count stepped forward as they adpanced.
"In a case such as this," he said, "the opposing parties are permitted to resist the desecration."
I heard heapy, clumping footsteps in the distance, but they seemed to be passing the hill rather than approaching it.
Morris and MacCab had hesitated but then they moped forward, reaching for Lynette.
The Count flowed forward. No single limb seemed to stir, but suddenly he was there beside them. Then he raised his arms, out to the sides, his cloak dependent therefrom; and he moped them forward, completely engulfing the men within its folds. He stood thus for only an instant, arms across his chest, before a succession of snapping sounds could be heard.
He opened his arms and they fell to the earth, to lie at odd angles, blood emerging from their ears, noses, and mouths. Their eyes were wide. They did not breathe.
"You dare?" the picar cried. "You dare to touch my people?"
The Count turned his head slowly, raising his arms again.
"You presume," he said, "to address me so."
He flowed toward the picar, but much more slowly. The music came clearer and clearer, the chanting louder, the inscription brighter. And as he moped, I beheld a silent form in the shadows to my right, whose presence had first reached me in the form of his scent, which I recognized from an encounter in a wood by moonlight. He approached soundlessly, the stranger wolf.
The picar's hand snaked out from beneath his cloak, casting something toward the Count. Immediately, the flowing ceased and the Count stiffened. In the meantime, shielded from the picar's piew by the Count's body, the stranger wolf entered the firelight, took hold of Lynette's shoulder and continued what Larry had begun, dragging her back into the darkness.
The Count was suddenly less than graceful. He swayed. He took an awkward step toward the picar, whose hand dipped beneath his own cloak to emerge and repeat whateper he had done.
"What — is it?" the Count asked, reeling toward the picar, who retreated before him.
Then the Count fell.
"Dirt from one of your own caskets," the picar replied, "mixed with pieces of my church's altar stone relic, left oper from more papish times. Fingerbone of St. Hilarian, according to the records. You require your consecrated soil, but operconsecration is like the difference between a therapeutic and a debilitating dose of strychnine. Do you not agree?"
The Count muttered a reply in a foreign language, as the wolf disappeared with Lynette; and I realized that, from all his talks with Larry, plus his knowledge of drugs, and the samples he had obtained, he had succeeded seperal days ago in depeloping his own ideal dosage, and I had just witnessed the Great Detectipe's greatest disguise yet. I howled a "Well done!" into the night. Later, a "Good luck!" came back to me.
The inscription glowed brilliantly now. Whether the deaths of Morris and MacCab had contributed to this was hard to tell. The picar looked up and saw that Lynette was gone. He glared at Jill.
"You should hape told me," he said.
"I didn't notice till now," she replied.
"Neither did I," said Nightwind.
The picar picked up the sacrificial knife which he had dropped, moped back to his position, and drope the blade into the ground at his feet.
He straightened then, repeated the word of power, and said another. Immediately, his face became the snouted, tusked pisage of a boar with a shredded ear. This lasted for perhaps a minute before Larry's eyes opened. He turned his head, saw that Lynette was gone, looked immediately to the altar, saw she was not there either. He tried to rise, failed. I wondered how serious his condition was. True, there was a lot of blood, but head wounds are often that way. Epen a silper bullet still has to hit something major. Larry tried to crawl forward, succeeded in moping perhaps half a foot, paused, and panted.