"He's down there," Nick said. "Way down there. I saw him. He opened his heart to me. I…I…" His mouth worked but he seemed incapable of describing what he had seen.
"Why?" Veilleur said. "Why is he down there?"
"He's changing."
For the first time, Mr. Veilleur appeared disturbed, and something deep inside Alan quailed at the thought of that man being afraid.
"He's started the Change already?"
"Yes!" Nick's eyes were wilder than ever. "And when the Change is complete, he's going to come for you!"
"I know," Veilleur said in a low voice. "I know."
The light suddenly died in Nick eyes. His gaze drifted and his shoulders slumped.
Father Ryan gripped his shoulder. "Nick? Nick?"
But Nick didn't answer.
"What's wrong with him?" Alan said.
He hadn't practiced medicine in over a year but he could almost hear the associations clicking into place. The man had lapsed into an almost catatonic state. Alan wondered if his behavior had anything to do with the cranial deformities he'd noticed as he'd watched the man. But that was unlikely. And they certainly wouldn't have sent a schizophrenic down into that hole.
"He's been like this since last night—since he came out of the hole."
"Has he been examined by a doctor?"
The priest nodded. "Scads of them. They're not sure what to do for him."
"Why isn't he in a hospital? He should be closely monitored until they work out an appropriate course of therapy."
Father Ryan looked at him a moment and Alan was jolted by the depth of the pain in his eyes. Then the priest looked away.
"Sorry, Dr. Bulmer, but it's…it's been my experience that modem medicine isn't really equipped to deal with Nick's sort of problem."
He took Nick's arm and the younger man docilely followed him into the kitchen, leaving Alan to wonder at what sort of hell that priest had been through.
"Well," Mr. Veilleur said, facing Sylvia and Alan. Jeffy still hung on his leg. "I'm expecting two more people any minute now; then our company will be complete." He pried the boy loose from his leg. "There now, Jeffy. Be a good boy and sit with your mother."
Reluctantly, Jeffy complied, seating himself next to Sylvia, but barely glancing at her. His eyes remained fixed on Glaeken.
"I'm glad you decided to come," Glaeken told Sylvia.
"You didn't leave us much choice," she said. "Not after what happened last night." Her voice slowed. "Strange…you show up at our house Thursday, I kick you out, and on Friday all hell breaks loose."
"No connection, I assure you, Mrs. Nash. I'm not responsible for any of this."
"So you say. But the area around your apartment building this morning looks like a slaughterhouse. And out on Long Island, way out in Nassau County, in the Village of Monroe, the same little monstrosities that did all the damage around here swarmed in and attacked one house. Ours. Why is that, Mr. Veilleur?"
"Call me Glaeken," the old man said. "And I believe you know the answer to your own question."
Alan caught the slightest tremor along Sylvia's lips; he noticed her eyes were suddenly moist. He ached for her. What she must be feeling to let even this much show. In all the years he'd known her, Sylvia had never once let her feelings show in public. Around the house she'd let her hair down with the best of them, but in public she was pretty much like Ba.
"Why would anyone want to hurt him?" she said in a small voice.
Alan noted how she avoided saying Jeffy's name.
The man who wanted to be called Glaeken smiled sadly and ruffled the boy's hair.
"He's not the target. It's what resides within him."
Sylvia leaned back and closed her eyes. Her voice was a whisper.
"The Dat-tay-vao"
Alan sagged with relief in his chair. Finally, after all these months, she'd admitted it. Now maybe they could get on with the problem of dealing with it.
"Yes," Glaeken said. "There's an instinctive enmity between the things from the hole and something like the Dat-tay-vao. That's why I'd like you to move in here with me."
Sylvia looked at him as if he'd just propositioned her. Before she could answer, the doorbell rang.
"Will you get that, Bill?" Glaeken called toward the kitchen. "I believe it's Mrs. Treece."
Father Ryan came out of the kitchen and headed for the door, tossing Glaeken a baffled look along the way.
A middle-aged couple entered, a trim, anxious-looking man, pale, with thinning light brown hair, and a slender, attractive ash blonde who had an immediate, bright smile for Father Ryan. The woman and the priest seemed to be old friends. Alan sensed that they might be more than just old friends.
Father Ryan introduced them around as Henry—"Hank"—and Carol Treece, then they seated themselves on the other section of the angled sofa. The priest stood behind them, but kept an eye on the entrance to the kitchen.
"Very good," Glaeken said. "Everyone is here. But before you can fully grasp why you are here, I must give you some background. It's a long story. Eons long. It begins—"
Suddenly there was screaming outside the window. Glaeken turned and Alan looked with the rest of them.
A woman was there—portly, middle-aged, dressed in a white blouse and a polyester pants suit—rising through the air a dozen feet beyond the window, twisting, turning, kicking, writhing, futilely reaching for something, anything that would halt her helpless ascent. Her face was a study in panic. Her terrified screams penetrated the double-paned windows.
We're twelve stories up! Alan thought as everyone but he, Ba, and Nick ran to the windows.
As quickly as she had appeared, she was gone, rising above the level of the windows and tumbling out of sight like a lost balloon.
Sylvia's face was white, her lips tight; Mrs. Treece's hands were pressed over her mouth. Her husband turned to Glaeken with an uncertain smile.
"It's a gag, right?"
The old man shook his head. "I'm afraid not. That woman is a victim of another kind of hole that will begin appearing at random intervals and locations—a gravity hole."
"Can't we do anything for her?" the priest said.
"No. She's beyond our reach. Perhaps a helicopter…" He sighed. "But please, all of you, sit down and let me finish. Perhaps it's a good thing this happened now. It's no accident that it occurred outside my windows. But even so, what I'm about to tell you will strain your credulity. I had little hope of any of you believing me before now. I hope, however, that the events of the past two days—the bottomless hole in Central Park, the depredations last night of the first wave of creatures from the hole, this unfortunate woman outside—have put you all in a more receptive frame of mind. It is important that you believe me, because our survival, the survival of most of the human race, will depend on the course of action we take from this day forward. And for you to act intelligently and get the job done, you must know what you are up against."
Alan glanced around the room. At the rear, Ba and Jack were listening intently. Nearby on his right, Sylvia wore her Go-ahead-and-this-had-better-be-good expression. Father Ryan hovered behind the sofa with a faraway look in his eyes; Alan got the impression that he'd already heard what Glaeken had to say. On the far side of the sofa, Carol's expression mirrored the priest's, while Hank's was frankly dubious.
Then Glaeken began to speak. He told of two warring forces existing beyond the veil of our reality—ageless, deathless, implacable, nebulous, huge beyond comprehension. One inimical to humanity, feeding on fear and depravity; the other an ally—not a friend, not a protector or guardian, an ally simply by circumstance, simply because it opposed the other force. He told of the endless war between these two forces, raging across the galaxies, across the dimensions, across all time itself; of the human named Rasalom who in ancient times aligned himself with the malign force, and of the other man, equally ancient, who'd had thrust upon him the burden of bearing the standard of the opposing force. And now the ages-long battle was coming to a close with only one army on the field. The outcome depended on this small group of people collected in this room. Unless they acted to muster an opposing force, all was lost.