Then the half-dozen smudges darkened on the field of pale blue so they were like holes in the daylight. And they began to move. Ryerson watched them for several moments, fascinated, until he realized that they were converging, that they were coming together. And, at last, he knew dimly what he was seeing.
He screamed.
Creosote woke in an instant, vaulted from his lap, and darted from the room.
And Joan, in the wing chair, stiffened up, with her eyes wide and her fists tightly clenched, as if Ryerson were about to attack her.
Part Three
Chapter Fourteen
In "The District"
Officer Leonard McGuire was breathing heavily from the adrenaline pumping through him. It had been a good five minutes anyway since he'd caught sight of any of the others searching for the woman who'd been attacked on Baldridge Street and he was getting very nervous.
He was on the edges of "The District." Visible only a block away was a street of trendy shops that were in stark contrast to this place. There were several smells here-the smell of urine combined with an acrid burning odor from the smelters two miles away, and the occasional stifling and stale odor of death from the vermin and stray cats that roamed the area. McGuire wondered if those odors ever found their way to that fashionable street. He decided that the shop-owners had probably had a zoning ordinance passed against it.
He wasn't sure if he should draw his gun. Certainly he didn't need it to protect himself from the woman they were looking for-she was a victim, wasn't she? Of course, that fact posed two questions: If she was a victim, why had she run? And why to here? Good questions, he thought. And until he had the answers, it was wisest to play it safe. He unbuttoned the strap on his holster and withdrew his .38.
He had his back to the high windowless cement wall of an abandoned jeep factory. As he inched along the wall to the corner, and peered around it, deeper into "The District," he imagined that he smelled the tangy odor of oil mixed with other, far less pleasant smells.
He heard suddenly, from perhaps a hundred yards farther into "The District," "We only want to help you. Please come out." He didn't recognize the voice. "We only want to help you," the voice repeated urgently. "Please come out. Please tell us where you are."
And from deeper in "The District," he heard, "Detective Spurling. Over here!"
McGuire broke position and ran at a sturdy, fast clip toward the voice, his .38 pointed skyward.
~ * ~
Detective Third Grade Andrew Spurling thought, Hell, this is more like it! No more damned bad check warrants; now I'm going to get a little action. He was standing to one side of an open doorway, the cop who'd shot Benny Bloom was on the other. Spurling looked at the cop's name tag; he whispered, "What'd you hear, Mathilde?"
Officer Mathilde whispered back, "I heard someone groan in there." He nodded to indicate the darkened interior of the big red brick building; 40 years earlier, tank treads had been manufactured there.
"Male or female?" Spurting asked.
Mathilde smiled to himself. "It was kind of a neuter groan, Detective."
"Uh-huh," Spurting said. From behind him he heard the sound of running feet. He looked. McGuire was closing fast on them. Spurting waved urgently at him. McGuire veered off to the right. "Damned rookies," Spurling said to Officer Mathilde.
Mathilde smiled and nodded.
McGuire came up behind Spurling. "What's up?"
Spurling nodded urgently toward the doorway.
McGuire asked, "Is the perp in there?"
"Perp?" asked Spurling.
Mathilde whispered from the other side of the doorway, gun drawn now, "He means 'perpetrator,' Detective."
"What perpetrator?" Spurling asked.
McGuire answered, "The one in there, the one inside."
"He means the woman," Mathilde whispered.
And the three of them heard another low groan from within the building.
Spurling called, "Are you all right?"
Another groan.
"You in the building; are you all right? Are you hurt?"
Silence.
Spurling sighed. "I'm going in there. Cover me."
Mathilde nodded. McGuire nodded.
And Spurling launched himself into the building. He tucked, rolled, came up on one knee, gun pointed into the darkness. He heard a shuffling noise just ahead, as if someone were moving toward him across the huge room. He strained to see, but the fading daylight filtering into the building showed him little; he'd have to wait for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he realized. "Stay right where you are!" he bellowed. He saw a shift in the darkness, a quick dull flash of green. "Stay right there!" He glanced quickly back toward the doorway. "Mathilde, McGuire, come in here." f He heard them move through the doorway.
"Jesus, it's dark in here," -McGuire said.
"Flashlight," Mathilde said, and moments later McGuire shone the strong white beam of a flashlight into the darkness.
And caught the midsection of a tight green dress. He raised the flashlight. A woman's face-huge brown eyes, full red lips-appeared. These words, velvet and sensual and inviting, came from it: "Welcome, welcome. I have need of you."
~ * ~
The Following Day
Item from the Buffalo Evening News
Psychic says: "Watch out, Buffalo"
Nationally acclaimed psychic Ryerson H. Biergarten said yesterday that a "psychic storm" is brewing in Buffalo and that residents would do well to keep their doors and windows locked.
"I'm not sure of the focus of this storm," he explained. "I can say only that I have sensed extremely powerful forces at work in the underbelly of this city, and that these forces, if allowed to gain a foothold, could cause a great deal of trouble."
While he apologized for seeming to be an alarmist, Mr. Biergarten said it is the first time in his career as a psychic investigator that he has made such a pronouncement. "This psychic storm seems to be the result of the commingling of a number of psychic influences-all of them very, very real," he added.
Asked to characterize the source of this psychic storm, Biergarten apologized yet again and explained that the only word that came to him would, as he put it, "play havoc with my credibility, although I believe that in this instance it describes very real and very dangerous entities."
That word? "Demons," Biergarten said.
~ * ~
The Same Day
Item from the Buffalo Daily News
Bizarre Incident on Baldridge Street
Authorities are still investigating the police shooting of Benjamin Bloom, 16, on Baldridge Street yesterday afternoon. According to Tenth Precinct Captain Jack Lucas, Bloom was shot by Officer Isaac Mathilde while Bloom appeared to be in the process of attacking an unidentified woman. That woman is alleged to have attacked, in turn, 33-year-old Lilian Janus, of Buffalo. Mrs. Janus is listed in satisfactory condition with severe facial lacerations at Buffalo Memorial Hospital.
The woman allegedly attacked by Benjamin Bloom is still being sought at this time. She was last seen in the Arnsworth and Peacock Street section of the city, an area commonly known as "The District."
A connection between this incident and a murder on Lawrence Street has definitely been ruled out, according to Captain Lucas.
~ * ~
Captain Lucas leaned back in his desk chair and put his hands behind his head. "Enlighten me, Mr. Biergarten," he said, "just what sort of demons are you talking about?"