“Remember!” he shouted. “It’s a trick! Whatever happens, don’t speak!” Too shrill…
He grabbed up the wand— and thought for an instant that Maisie’s eyes started to follow it— and where had he put the automatic?
Who was being hunted? Who rode to these hounds of Hell?
Much closer, now, a huge pack was baying and belling up the driveway, surely almost into the clearing and the glow of the yard light. The temptation to look out was a knife being pushed into his back. Hounds— a romantic noise to a child, hideous terror to the quarry Footsteps slapped in mud, stumbled up the steps.
The door rattled as someone fell against it, and the noise of the hounds rose triumphant, as they closed on their prey.
“Jerry!” It was Juanita. Oh, God! “Popsicle, let me in!” No one but she had ever called him Popsicle— he wasn’t even sure what it meant.
“Popsicle! Let me in!”
Her voice rose to a scream, and his attention wavered, as he thought of the soft, cream-smooth body he had held in his arms and of the teeth of hounds Carlo leaped to his feet and dived to the window above the counter, pushed aside the drape, and looked out.
Jerry jumped for him.
Then there was a leg between his legs, and something struck the back of his neck. The floor leaped up and battered him breathless, while all the lights of heaven flashed inside his eyeballs. He was rolling under the table and had dropped the wand, and someone was screaming.
He had never made a faster recovery, scrambling to his knees, throwing the table away bodily, finding the wand. Killer was on his feet— one foot— and locked with Carlo in a parody of Greek wrestling, Carlo yelling incoherently. Jerry lurched upright and smashed a blow of that heavy, cold wand— gleaming horribly white now— at the youth’s head. Carlo and Killer went down together.
The bolt on the door moved. Maisie was screaming— everyone was screaming.
He slammed the wand against the door as it began to open.
“I KNOW YOU FOR WHAT YOU ARE. BEGONE!”
He had his shoulder against the door, and for a long moment it was as immovable as the Himalayas. The wand blazed, and his muscles and joints creaked with the strain. Then it gave way and slammed shut, and he slid the bolt.
Saved.
He leaned a damp forehead against the wood for a moment to catch his breath— and regain control of himself, for he had very, very nearly crapped his pants with terror. Saved. Then he swung round in fury to find Carlo and beat the shit out of him.
At his feet lay Killer, face down in a fountain of blood, with six inches of pointed steel protruding from his back.
And on the other side of the door something started to laugh.
Seven
I can’t help you unless you want me to help you, Ariadne. You must know that all this isn’t really happening? I can help you if you want me to, but you must ask me. It must be your decision. Tell me that you want me to help you
The voice was that of Dr. Waters, the only one who had ever been able to give her any real help in St. Luke’s Sanitarium. She had heard his voice start very quietly and then get louder. Jerry had said he was hearing hounds, but she had known that it was the voice of Dr. Waters. It grew louder and more insistent, ever more sympathetic and caring, begging her to let it help her. The effect was hypnotic. She had recalled what Jerry had said and tried to remember that it was a trick, that she must not ask for help, because that would be an invitation, but it was so very hard to believe that Jerry was not the hallucination, hard not to believe that Dr. Waters was standing outside the door of her room, standing in the corridor and talking to her— because it sounded just like Dr. Waters.
Then suddenly he had rattled the door handle and shouted that she must answer now.
She had been going to tell him to come in when she saw Carlo leap for the window and knew that they had both been tricked. Then everything seemed to happen in slow motion: Jerry jumping for Carlo, Carlo doing some sort of Kung Fu or Judo and Jerry flying off sideways, Carlo grabbing up the butcher knife from the bowl of dirty dishes and heading for the door, Killer bounding up from the sofa to block him, the two of them swaying in an embrace with Carlo’s hand bringing up the knife, and then Jerry striking him down with that white stick that he had kept close by all evening— and managing to shut out the horrors and get the door closed once more She was already kneeling by Killer when Jerry turned around and looked down and the laughter began.
Blood… torrents of it… together they rolled Killer over on his side and stared at the handle protruding from his abdomen.
“Pull it out!” Jerry snapped, because it was on her side, and somehow she found the willpower to grip that bloody handle and pull. It came out quite easily. Jerry eased Killer over on his back and laid the white stick on him.
She jumped up and ran for the bedroom and yanked a sheet from the bed; something was giggling helplessly outside the window. She raced back into the kitchen and around the sofa again with the sheet and knelt down beside Killer; she started folding the tangle of bedsheet into a pad.
Killer’s eyes had opened, but his face was already almost as pale as the sheet. He was looking at Jerry, twitching and trying to speak.
“Oo… that one hurts, friend,” he said. “Just relax,” Jerry said. “The wand will hold it.”
He shook his head as she offered the bedsheet. There was someone laughing outside the door; Lacey was screaming in the background, Maisie was holding her and gabbling prayers. Killer grimaced and then grabbed the wand with both hands; Jerry’s face was the bleakest she had ever seen, but he seemed to be waiting for the wand to work a miracle— or else for Killer to die.
She glanced around— Maisie was taking Lacey away into the other bedroom, with Alan, and Lacey’s hysterics were becoming quieter. Carlo was sitting up, rubbing the back of his head and obviously still only half-conscious. Graham was as white as any of them, standing by the table and staring down at the casualty— he was convinced now. No one could disbelieve, with that demonic laughter outside; it sounded like a dozen of them screaming with mirth. She could visualize comicstrip devils with horns, hooves, and tails, all bellowing with laughter, slapping one another on the back, and staggering around in helpless mirth: she wanted to clap her hands over her ears and scream at them to stop.
“Jerry?”
“Don’t speak, Killer. Just wait.”
Killer’s lips moved and then he said, “Jerry? You there?”
“Yes, I’m here,” Jerry said. “Tell Clio she did well.”
“You tell her yourself,” Jerry snapped. “We’ll get you back to Mera all right. I have a promise to fulfill, remember?”
Killer’s eyes were closed, but he smiled and said sleepily, “Then it was not always Eros?”
“Of course not!” Jerry said loudly.
Killer’s smile died away, and he seemed to become unconscious, his hands tight around the wand. If he was still bleeding, it did not show; but there was too much blood to be sure. Jerry bent down and put an ear on Killer’s chest for a moment, then straightened up.
“He’s alive,” he said. He, too, was smothered in blood.
They all climbed to their feet at the same time— Jerry, Carlo, Ariadne— and their shadows swayed around the walls.
Carlo looked confused and dazed. Jerry stepped over to him and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.
“You bastard!” he said, and struck him hard across the face with his gun. Carlo staggered and would have fallen had the other man not been holding him. “Bloody bastard!” He struck him again.