And with all her might, Vera brought the cleaver down with both hands—
swack!
—into the center of his bald forehead.
He teetered back, arms reeling. The cleaver’s formidable blade had bitten into Feldspar’s brain no less than three inches, the great cranial fissure oozing the midnight blood.
Then he collapsed.
Vera squealed. I did it! I did it! I—
Then her squeals of victory corroded.
Feldspar got up.
The look on his halved face was not one of rage or betrayal or anger. It was a look of wounding, or heartfelt hurt.
He removed the cleaver from his head and tossed it aside. Then, his other hand—the hand whose fingers Vera had so expertly chopped off—he turned over and looked at.
She’d separated him from his power, from the amethyst, and had buried a Sheffield meat cleaver into his head to boot, but he didn’t even seem to care.
“Kyle was just an acolyte, a weakling,” Feldspar said with a vast sadness in his voice. “My power here—my fortitude—comes from a far greater source.”
Vera screamed, a reasonable thing to do under these newfound circumstances. Feldspar’s good hand snapped to her throat. He raised her up fully off her feet, then threw her down. Her head smacked the tile floor, her vision churned, then darkened. She knew she was passing out.
And she also knew what was going to happen next.
Just…let me…die first…
He hauled up her gown, spat on her sex. His hand clamped again to her throat as he bared himself. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you now, Ms. Abbot. But first…”
The bulbed, nearly white end of the thing nudged her sex, began to enter…
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” he bellowed.
Perhaps Vera really was dying, or maybe she was hallucinating. But in the furthest recess of what remained of her consciousness, she thought she heard something.
It reminded her of a dream-sound, a reverberation from a nightmare:
chink! chink! chink!
What was it?
Feldspar struggled shambling to his feet, his eyes for some reason so large that they appeared to be on the brink of launching from their sockets. His face contorted, and his ears—
Vera, in her daze, squinted.
There’s blood coming out of his ears…
chink! chink! chink!
With each chink! Feldspar seemed to buckle. Still issuing the maleficent howl, he staggered out of the kitchen…
To the atrium, Vera deduced.
She crawled at first, then managed to rise to her bare feet. She blundered out of the kitchen, into the black restaurant, each succeeding chink! goading her on.
When he made it to the atrium, she knew she’d been right.
The Inn’s grand front doors stood open.
chink! chink! chink!
Vera eventually made it to the floodlit front cul-de-sac. And what she saw was this:
Feldspar shuddering, on his knees…
And a silhouetted figure wielding what appeared to be a sledgehammer up at the front door’s transom…
Vera felt drunk, insane, and unreal all at the same time.
She recognized the hammer-wielding figure…
“Paul!” she shrieked.
chink! chink! chink!
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Feldspar screamed louder.
And Vera screamed again herself: “Paul!”
He held the sledge at its downswing, sweating, maniacal, ugly. His hair was sticking up, and he grimaced at her, then shouted in reply: “Get out of here!”
“But—Paul! I—”
“GET THE FUCK OUT, GODDAMN IT! GET OUT!”
Tears flowed, her throat swelled shut—
chink! chink! chink!
Vera gulped, swallowed tears—
“GET THE GODDAMN FUCKING HELL OUT OF HERE, GODDAMN YOU!” Paul shouted one last time.
Then:
chink! chink! chink!
Vera turned around, went back into The Inn, and began to run…
— | — | —
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
chink! chink! chink!
“How do you like that shit, you bald fuck!”
Paul felt high he was so charged up. Who knew what would happen, but what did that matter? At least he’d get his digs in.…
He swung the long, hickory-handled sledgehammer ever upward at The Inn’s ornate granite transom—
chink! chink! chink!
—bringing its butt, steel face as hard as he could against the inordinately large amethyst set into the stone mount.
Feldspar remained whimpering on his knees at the entry.
Then, finally:
chink! chink! chink-CLACK!
The amethyst popped out of the transom mount and clacked to the second step of The Inn’s front stairs.
“Magwyth, huh?” Paul cackled. He raised the sledge high. “Well you can stick your bald head between your legs and kiss your ass good-bye—”
“Don’t…be…hasty, Paul.”
“Why?” Paul snapped. “I know all about you now, and all I gotta do is bust this big rock and you’re out of here.”
Feldspar composed himself, managed to rise to his feet. He donned the sackcloth hood, and spoke like an incantation. “Why not, first, consider your options? If you destroy the fount of my protection, I’ll still kill you. Or…you can desist. And join me.”
“Fuck you,” Paul replied.
“You can join me forever, Paul.” Feldspar’s eyes seemed to widen in circumference, something beneath them reaching out… “Forever, Paul. Some of us are born to serve—”
Magwyth, Paul remembered from the book. Servant of Demons.
“—and those who I serve are immortal.” The stolid stare focused, sharpening to an awl-like glint.
Paul felt adrift.
“Be immortal with me, Paul. I will show you wonders.”
Paul froze, the sledgehammer poised. At his feet lay the amethyst, large as a goose egg, its purple facets sparkling. All he need do—
Immortality, came an intruding thought.
All he need do—
Live…a voice seemed to whisper…forever…
Paul blinked. “I said it before and I’ll say it again. FUCK YOU!”
Feldspar howled.
Paul brought the sledgehammer down so hard he nearly came off his feet.
The amethyst shattered…
Feldspar fell to hands and knees, roaring. He seemed to be convulsing within the muck-brown frock, while his endless bellow buffeted high into the night.
Finish him off! Paul’s instincts shouted back.
He dashed up the steps, took a deep breath, and again raised the heavy sledgehammer. Then he brought it down—
From somewhere a hideous chuckle rumbled. Feldspar’s hand snapped up, caught the sledgehammer just under its head…
Then he rose back to his feet.
The sledge was jerked away and flung into the trees. The awful, black chuckling rose.
And Paul was left to stand staring into the face of the real Feldspar.
The real Magwyth, Servant of Demons…
««—»»
All the accesses, she knew, were barred now. Vera scrambled across the silent atrium, then back into the kitchen. The elevator! she remembered. In the pantry!
From the basement she knew she could escape out the back, through the long bogus sewer pipe that emptied out behind The Inn.
Her heart beat insanely fast. She sprinted back through the RS kitchen, barged into the pantry, and pressed the down button on the elevator plate.