“Daddy, don't let them get me, please don't let them, “ Davey said miserably.
Jack glanced at the elevator, which was opposite the stairs. He wondered if the devils were already in the elevator shaft. Would the doors of the lift suddenly open, spilling out a wave of hissing, snarling, snapping death?
Think!
He grabbed Davey's hand and headed toward the foot of the stairs.
Following with Penny, Rebecca said, “Where are you going?”
“This way.”
They climbed the steps toward the second floor.
Penny said, “But if they're in the walls, they'll be all through the building.”
“Hurry,” was Jack's only answer. He led them up the steps as fast as they could go.
III
In Carver Hampton's apartment above his shop in Harlem, all the lights were on. Ceiling lights, reading lamps, table lamps, and floor lamps blazed; no room was left in shadow. In those few corners where the lamplight didn't reach, candles had been lit; clusters of them stood in dishes and pie pans and cake tins.
Carver sat at the small kitchen table, by the window, his strong brown hands clamped around a glass of Chivas Regal. He stared out at the falling snow, and once in a while he took a sip of the Scotch.
Fluorescent bulbs glowed in the kitchen ceiling. The stove light was on. And the light above the sink, too. On the table, within easy reach, were packs of matches, three boxes of candles, and two flashlights — just in case the storm caused a power failure.
This was not a night for darkness.
Monstrous things were loose in the city.
They fed on darkness.
Although the night-stalkers had not been sent to get Carver, he could sense them out there in the stormy streets, prowling, hungry; they radiated a palpable evil, the pure and ultimate evil of the Ancient Ones. The creatures now loose in the storm were foul and unspeakable presences that couldn't go unnoticed by a man of Carver Hampton's powers. For one who was gifted with the ability to detect the intrusion of otherworldly forces into this world, their mere existence was an intolerable abrasion of the nerves, the soul. He assumed they were Lavelle's hellish emissaries, bent on the brutal destruction of the Carramazza family, for to the best of his knowledge there was no other Bocor in New York who could have summoned such creatures from the Underworld.
He sipped his Scotch. He wanted to get roaring drunk. But he wasn't much of a drinking man. Besides, this night of all nights, he must remain alert, totally in control of himself. Therefore, he allowed himself only small sips of whiskey.
The Gates had been opened. The very Gates of Hell. Just a crack. The latch had barely been slipped. And through the applicator of his formidable powers as a Bocor, Lavelle was holding the Gates against the crush of demonic entities that sought to push forth from the other side. Carver could sense all of those things in the currents of the ether, in the invisible and soundless tides of benign and malevolent energies that ebbed and flowed over the great metropolis.
Opening the Gates was a wildly dangerous step to have taken. Few Bocors were even capable of doing it. And of those few, fewer still would have dared such a thing. Because Lavelle evidently was one of the most powerful Bocors who had ever drawn a sieve, there was good reason to believe that he would be able to maintain control of the Gates and that, in time, when the Carramazzas were disposed of, he would be able to cast back the creatures that he had permitted out of Hell. But if he lost control for even a moment.
Then God help us, Carver thought.
If He will help us.
If He can help us.
A hurricane-force gust of wind slammed into the building and whined through the eaves.
The window rattled in front of Carver, as if something more than the wind was out there and wanted to get in at him.
A whirling mass of snow pressed to the glass. Incredibly, those hundreds upon hundreds of quivering, suspended flakes seemed to form a leering face that glared at Hampton. Although the wind huffed and hammered and whirled and shifted directions and then shifted back again, that impossible face did not dissolve and drift away on the changing air currents; it hung there, just beyond the pane, unmoving, as if it were painted on canvas.
Carver lowered his eyes.
In time the wind subsided a bit.
When the howling of it had quieted to a moan, he looked up once more. The snow-formed face was gone.
He sipped his Scotch. The whiskey didn't warm him.
Nothing could warm him this night.
Guilt was one reason he wished he could get drunk. He was eaten by guilt because he had refused to give Lieutenant Dawson any more help. That had been wrong. The situation was too dire for him to think only about himself. The Gates were open, after all. The world stood at the brink of Armageddon — all because one Bocor, driven by ego and pride and an unslakeable thirst for blood, was willing to take any risk, no matter how foolish, to settle a personal grudge. At a time like this, a Houngon had certain responsibilities. Now was an hour for courage. Guilt gnawed at him because he kept remembering the midnight-black serpent that Lavelle had sent, and with that memory tormenting him, he couldn't find the courage he required for the task that called.
Even if he dared get drunk, he would still have to carry that burden of guilt. It was far too heavy — immense — to be lifted by booze alone.
Therefore, he was now drinking in hope of finding courage. It was a peculiarity of whiskey that, in moderation, it could sometimes make heroes of the very same men of whom it had made buffoons on other occasions.
He must find the courage to call Detective Dawson and say, I wont to help.
More likely than not, Lavelle would destroy him for becoming involved. And whatever death Lavelle chose to administer, it would not be an easy one.
He sipped his Scotch.
He looked across the room at the wall phone.
Call Dawson, he told himself.
He didn't move.
He looked at the blizzard-swept night outside.
He shuddered.
IV
Breathless, Jack and Rebecca and the kids reached the fourth-floor landing in the brownstone apartment house.
Jack looked down the stairs they'd just climbed. So far, nothing was after them.
Of course, something could pop out of one of the walls at any moment. The whole damned world had become a carnival funhouse.
Four apartments opened off the hall. Jack led the others past all four of them without knocking, without ringing any doorbells.
There was no help to be found here. These people could do nothing for them. They were on their own.
At the end of the hall was an unmarked door. Jack hoped to God it was what he thought it was. He tried the knob. From this side, the door was unlocked. He opened it hesitantly, afraid that the goblins might be waiting on the other side. Darkness. Nothing rushed at him. He felt for a light switch, half expecting to put his hand on something hideous. But he didn't. No goblins. Just the switch. Click. And, yes, it was what he hoped: a final flight of steps, considerably steeper and narrower than the eight flights they had already conquered, leading up to a barred door.
“Come on,” he said.
Following him without question, Davey and Penny and Rebecca clumped noisily up the stairs, weary but still too driven by fear to slacken their pace.
At the top of the steps, the door was equipped with two deadbolt locks, and it was braced by an iron bar. No burglar was going to get into this place by way of the roof. Jack snapped open both deadbolts and lifted the bar out of its braces, stood it to one side.