Dumbar’s last words were so faint in Susan’s mouth that Neil could hardly hear them.
He had to bend his ear close to her lips so that he might distinguish any syllables at all amid the hoarse breathing that came from her somnolent larynx, and he was sure that there was more, but it was inaudible. He thought he heard the word assistance, but he couldn’t be sure. It may have been nothing more than a sibilant whisper.
He sat up. The moon was now fully visible, and the light in the bedroom was almost unnaturally bright. He felt strangely calmed by Dunbar’s visitation, as if he had been reassured that he wasn’t alone in his fight against Misquamacus. Perhaps it was Dunbar who had destroyed the blazing wooden image last night. After all, he remembered seeing the faintest hint of a white coat, and a hand bolstering a gun.
He reached down the bed and adjusted the patchwork quilt so that it covered Susan’s bare feet. Then he glanced across at Toby to make sure that he was still asleep. Toby was less restless since they had moved him into their own bedroom, but he still mumbled as he slept, and had bouts of fierce tossing and turning.
Neil stiffened. Toby was sitting up in bed and was staring at him. His small face was white, white as the
silvered light from the moon, and his eyes were intense and glittering. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t frowning. His expression was calm and controlled, and because of that, it was even more frightening. Eight-year-old boys grin, or cry, or show some feeling, thought Neil. Why is Toby just staring at me like that?
“Toby,” he said in a hesitant whisper. Toby continued to stare. “Toby, are you okay?”
Toby’s eyes sparkled with malevolence. His features seemed to shift and change in the moonlight, one layer of features superimposing another, until he looked liked someone else altogether. Someone older, someone infinitely older, and someone infinitely more evil. “Toby,” insisted Neil.
Toby rose slowly from the bed, and seemed to glide toward him. He stood only a few feet away, and then he spoke in the voice of Misquamacus, in that hollow distant voice that sounded as if it was inside Neil’s own head, and yet which echoed with countless miles and eons of ancient time.
“You have spoken to the white magician Erskine,” said Misquamacus.
Neil edged one foot out of bed, and then swung his leg to the floor. His muscles were tensed, and he was ready to make a dive for Toby and bring him down. He didn’t have any idea what Misquamacus might try to do, or even how powerful he was, but he wanted to be ready for a fight.
Misquamacus said, “It is good that you have spoken. He will come, along with my treacherous blood brother, Singing Rock, and I shall show them that my manitou is indestructible, and that my vengeance spans fifty thousand moons.”
Neil said steadily, “You must let Toby go. I want you to get out of my son.”
Toby smiled, a slow, laconic smile. “You are powerless to prevent me from lodging here. I shall remain until I am ready. I am here at the direction of my white spirit guide, your ancestor, and because I am here by consent, no magic in the world can move me.”
“I’m going to take Toby away from here,” said Neil. “I’m going to take him to Europe.
Anywhere. Just so long as he’s out of your reach.”
Toby shook his head, still smiling. “You cannot take the boy. If you attempt to interfere in the day of the dark stars, you will surely die more painfully than any other white man.”
Neil climbed out of bed, and stood over his son, feeling cold and frightened, but deeply determined. If Harry Erskine and John Singing Rock had destroyed Misquamacus once, then somehow they must be able to do it again. He said, “I’m warning you, get out of my son. If you don’t leave him now, I promise you I’ll tear you to pieces.”
Toby half-turned his head toward the bed where Susan lay sleeping. He regarded her for a while, and then he raised one arm and pointed to her. Very softly, he incanted, “Spirit of snake, spirit of storm, spirit of cloud, obey me.”
Abruptly, with a deafening crash, the bedroom windows imploded, spraying stars of glass all over the room. A shrieking wind blew into the room, a wind as bitterly cold as dry ice, and Neil was knocked sideways, so that he stumbled against his bedside table and jarred his shoulder on the edge of his wardrobe.
Toby remained still, unmoved by the gale, and pointed again at the bed. In front of Neil’s horrified eyes, the bed sheet rose and twisted like a rope, and entwined itself around Susan’s body. Over the storm, he heard her scream, and then shriek “Neil!
Neil!” and he could see her struggling against the bedclothes. But the dreadful wind seemed to have drained away all of his energy, and the distance from the wall to the bed had become miles instead of feet.
Raising his arm to protect Ms eyes, Neil saw Toby’s face fixed in a grotesque, wolfish grin, with his lips drawn back across his teeth. There was an ear-shattering flash of lightning, followed by a rumbling vibration which lifted the whole floor, and sent Neil staggering off balance again.
Susan screamed louder, a scream of pain and total fear. In the flickering, sizzling lightning, Neil saw her arched back on the bed, her eyes wide, her hands struggling and tearing at the sheets. Then the abrasive wind was tearing at her flowery cotton nightgown, ripping it in tatters which whirled around the bedroom.
“Susan!” yelled Neil, and tried to claw across to the bed. But the howling gale pressed him back, and sparkling shards of glass blew up from the floor and cut at his hands and his face.
The sheets had taken on a bulky shape that pressed on Susan’s body, and twisted between her bare thighs in a thick, animate rope. She was hysterical now, screaming an endless scream which pierced the storm and the wind at an almost intolerable pitch. But the sheets bound her to the bed, forcing her shoulders back against the mattress, and her legs wide apart.
Neil howled to Toby, “Toby! That’s your mother! That’s your mother!”
But the boy simply turned and smiled at him, and lifted his arm again toward the bed.
“Toby!” roared Neil.
The bedclothes forced themselves onto Susan in a hideous, jerking motion, like the hindquarters of a rutting dog. Neil felt himself blacking out for a moment; then he opened his eyes again, and it was still happening, it was still real. His Susan, his wife, was being raped in front of his eyes by her own sheets.
Susan shrieked. He saw crimson blood staining the linen entwined between her legs.
She began to twitch and tremble as if she was suffering an epileptic fit, but the bedclothes kept up their febrile shaking. There was another blinding burst of lightning, and the shattered window frames flew into the room. Then, suddenly, there was darkness, complete and seamless darkness, and the wind died away with a shuddering whistle.
Neil lifted himself from the floor. Gradually, through the broken window, the light of the moon began to shine again, soft and white at first, but then with the same strength and clarity as it had before. He stumbled over to the bed, where Susan lay with the crumpled sheets on top of her, moaning and whispering under her breath.
He clutched her close, stroking her hair, kissing her cold forehead. He mumbled,
“Susan, oh God, I’m sorry. Susan, I’m sorry.”
She opened her eyes and saw it was him, and then she began to sob uncontrollably.
He held her close, trying to soothe her, and he turned toward Toby, who was still standing by the end of the bed, his eyes shining with hateful amusement.