He could survive as long as the door held up and the food held out. And then … what? If only—
He felt the floor vibrate and sat up.
What was that? Another hole opening in this end of the city?
More vibrations. They seemed to be coming from the subcellar. But the only thing down there was the remains of the Orsa. It had started out made of stone but had become organic, and after completing its task of creating the Fhinntmanchca, it had begun to decay. Back in the fall of 2001, the subcellar wall had been breached to bring it in, and then repaired. To dispose of it would require a similar excavation, and the High Council had not got around to allocating the funds.
Was the onset of the Change affecting the Orsa? Reviving it? Perhaps Ernst could find a way to turn this to his advantage.
More vibrations, but no one else seemed to notice. He rose and stole across the littered floor to a small room off the main area. He opened a door to a closet, and inside pulled up a trapdoor in the floor. All the Order’s lodges had been built with subcellars and escape routes, but this building had been sealed off with the arrival of the Orsa.
He stood over the rickety wrought-iron spiral staircase and listened to the vague, unidentifiable sound that echoed from the dark, dank space below. He started down. The staircase had been damaged by the Fhinntmanchca, and wobbled under his weight. When he reached bottom, he found the light switch in the wall and flipped it.
He repressed a scream as the space lit up to reveal a horde of beetlelike creatures with shiny black bodies four to five feet long pouring through a break in the subcellar wall—the very spot that had been breached to bring in the Orsa.
They must have been attracted to the subcellar by the Orsa, for they seemed too intent on devouring it to notice him.
Ernst watched for only a single heartbeat, then he turned and started back up the staircase. His hands shook and his sweaty palms slid on the steel railing as he moved as silently as possible. He did not look back—did not dare look back until he reached the top.
As he closed the trapdoor he peeked below and saw two of the beetles starting up the staircase. Frantic, he let the door drop and looked around for something to weigh it down. Food! Cases of canned goods in the main room, but he’d never get to them in time.
He had to get away, but where? Thompson’s room. He’d break the door down if he had to.
So he ran. As he passed through the main room he opened his mouth to shout a warning, then thought better of it. When running from a bear, one needn’t run faster than the bear, only faster than the slowest of those with you. And if those with you weren’t running at all …
He kept mum as he hurried to the exit door, unlocked it, and stepped out into the stairwell to the main floor. Deserting all caution, he ran up to the front vestibule. A few of the globular flies clung to the marble walls there, but otherwise it seemed quiet. No victims readily available, he supposed.
Without pausing, Ernst darted for the stairway to the second floor. He heard wings buzz behind him and increased his speed. His aging heart beat a terrified rhythm and the air seemed thin, lacking oxygen. He wasn’t used to physical exertion and his muscles screamed in protest.
He ran to Thompson’s door and began pounding on it.
“Hank! You must let me in! The bugs have breached the cellar and I have nowhere else to go!”
No answer. He pounded harder.
“I am begging you. For the love of whatever god you believe in, let me in!”
Buzzing to his right—the globular bugs floated out of the stairwell and veered toward him.
“PLEASE!”
Silence from within.
This was it, then. He pulled the ampoule of cyanide from his pocket and raised it to his lips. One bite and—
A furious buzz to his right and something tore at his arm, blasting a blaze of pain into his elbow and sending the ampoule flying.
“No!”
He couldn’t—wouldn’t die like this!
He dove for the floor, for the cyanide, and then they were upon him.
Ernst Drexler screamed in agony.
Hank snapped awake.
He’d been roused before by sounds from the security shutters. Bugs—spearheads most likely—ramming themselves against them. They’d have swarmed in and eaten him alive if not for the warning from the Kicker Man. He’d listened for a while as they battered futilely against the steel, then fluttered off, heading for redder pastures.
It used to be the nights were never long enough for Hank. His head would hit the pillow and before he knew it, he’d have to rise. At various times during the night he’d heard screams from outside on the street, but was never tempted to peek.
But this was different. Someone pounding on his door.
Drexler.
He sounded hysterical, crying about bugs in the cellar, in the hallway, begging to be let in.
As if.
Hank turned the light on and watched the door, but didn’t move from the bed. He pressed his hands over his ears to shut out the noise.
Never liked Drexler, never liked his stupid white suit, never liked the way he always looked down his nose at Hank and the Kickers with his Euro sophistication and aristocratic ’tude. But even if it had been his brother Jerry out there, no fucking way Hank was opening that door. Who knew what else would invite itself into the room?
A sudden agonized scream broke through the seal of his palms and he snatched them away to listen. No further screams came, but he heard violent thrashing just beyond the door, accompanied by muffled, gurgling sobs that were awful to hear, even if it was Drexler.
Then silence.
Yeah, hard to feel sorry for Drexler. He and his Order had paved the way for all the shit that was coming down outside.
As Hank reached for the light switch he noticed something dark and gleaming on the floor. He looked closer and realized that blood was leaking under the door and pooling by the threshold.
So much for Ernst Drexler.
The Horror Channel’s Drive-In Theatre—Special All-Nite Edition
Up from the Depths (1969) New World
The Fly (1958) 20th Century Fox
Return of the Fly (1959) 20th Century Fox
The Curse of the Fly (1965) Lippert/20th Century Fox
Night Creatures (1962) Hammer/Universal
Not of This Earth (1956) Allied Artists
Ceremonies
Maui
“It’s a gift, Bati! A sign from Pele herself!”
Moki’s voice was barely audible over the blast-furnace roar of the volcano. Dressed only in his malo, he stood near the ruins of the visitor center on the rim of the newly awakened Haleakala. Perspiration coated his skin, giving it a glossy sheen as red and orange light from the fires below flickered off the planes and curves of his taut, muscular body, making it glow against the inky night sky.
The two yellow stones in his necklace seemed to glow with internal fires of their own. And why not? The necklace had been working overtime on Moki. Only moments ago he had emerged from the crater with second-degree burns blistering most of his body. But the blisters had shriveled and the damaged skin had peeled and sloughed away to reveal fresh, unmarred flesh beneath.
Kolabati backed away from the heat and worried about Moki. He’d changed so drastically. He was no longer the man she’d loved and lived with. He was a stranger, a deranged interloper fashioning his own delusions out of the madness around him.
Yesterday she had been afraid for him. But now she was afraid of him. The cataclysm that had destroyed the Big Island and reawakened Haleakala seemed to have pushed him over the edge.
And tingeing Kolabati’s fear, coloring it a deep, dull red, was anger. Why? Why now? Why did all of nature choose this time to go mad? Coincidence, or fate? Was her enormous karmic burden—and she knew too well the extent to which the deeds of her many, many years had polluted her karma—finally catching up to her?
“What does it mean, Moki?” she called back,
humoring him. “What kind of sign would the fire goddess be sending you?”
“She didn’t want me leaving Maui to gather lava from Kileau, so she destroyed Kileau and brought her fires to my backyard.”
Kolabati shook her head in silent dismay. Didn’t Moki’s mania admit any limits? How many hundreds of thousands had died on the Big Island when it had exploded? How many more here on Maui in those areas not shielded from the blast by Haleakala? But Haleakala herself had gathered her share of lives. Hana was gone, as were the Seven Sacred Pools, buried under the tons of ash and dirt from Haleakala’s explosive awakening, then sealed over by the initial gush of lava that had filled the Kipahulu Valley and burst through into the Waihoi, running down to the sea. According to the news gleaned from their radio, the whole southeast corner of the island, from the Kaupo Gap to Nanualele Point, was a seething bed of molten lava.
All so Moki wouldn’t have to leave Maui on day trips?
Fortunately the lava had flowed along its old paths. If Haleakala had erupted through its northern wall, the heavily populated central valley would have become a graveyard. Moki even had an explanation for that: Pele wished to spare Moki and his wahine.
So Moki had changed, and with his transformation Kolabati recognized unwelcome changes within herself. The inner tranquillity had been shattered, the peace broken, and she found her thoughts traveling along old familiar ways, the cold, calculating paths of the past.
She shivered in the chill wind. Shielded as she was from the heat of the crater, it was cold nearly two miles above the ocean. She wanted to flee, but where to? The news from the mainland was frightening. It might be safer here on the islands, but not with Moki. He was an explosive charge, ready to detonate at any moment and destroy everything and anyone nearby. Yet she could not leave him. Not while he wore the other necklace. That belonged to her, and she would not leave without it.
Yet how to retrieve it? How to unbell the cat?
She had considered removing it while he slept but had not yet dared to try. Since the madness had come upon him, Moki hardly slept. And if he awoke from one of his short naps to find the necklace gone, he would track her down, and then only Kali knew what he might do to her. He might even rip her own necklace from her throat and watch as a century and a half caught up with her. He of course would not age noticeably without his necklace, for he had worn it only a few years. But Kolabati would grow old and crumble into dying ashes before his eyes.
So she kept quiet, acted supportive, and waited for her chance.
With a start Kolabati realized that they were not alone on the crater rim. A group of perhaps sixty men of varying ages in traditional Hawaiian dress had joined them. Led by their alii, an elderly man in a chieftain’s feather robe and headdress, they were approaching Moki where he stood watching the fires. The alii called to him and he turned. She caught snatches of traditional Hawaiian chattered back and forth but had difficulty grasping the gist of what was being said.
Finally, Moki turned and walked down the slope toward her. The others remained up near the rim, waiting.
“Bati!” he said in a low voice, his grin wide and wild, his eyes dancing with excitement. “Do you see them? They’re the last of the traditional Hawaiians. They sailed all the way from Niihau looking for Maui.”
“They found it,” Kolabati said. “What’s left of it.”
“Not the island—Maui the god. You know the story.”
“Of course.”
Before dawn one day long ago, Maui, the mischievous Polynesian demigod, crept to the summit of Haleakala, the House of the Sun, on a mission of filial love. His mother had complained that the days were not long enough to allow her to finish her tasks of cooking, cleaning, and drying tapa cloth, so Maui decided to do something about it. When the first ray of the sun appeared over the summit, Maui snared it with his lasso, thus trapping the sun. The sun pleaded for freedom but Maui would not release it until it promised to lengthen the days by slowing its trek across the heavens.
“The Niihauans say the shorter days show that the sun has broken its promise and so they’ve come to aid Maui when he returns to recapture the sun. They want to know if I’ve seen him! Can you believe it?”
Kolabati looked past Moki at the grown men dressed in feathers and carrying spears, and pitied them.
“What did you tell them?”
“I temporized. I wasn’t sure what to say. But now I do.”
Kolabati didn’t like the look in his eyes.
“I’m almost afraid to ask.”
His grin widened. “I’m going to tell them I’m Maui.”
“Oh, Moki, don’t toy with them. Aren’t things bad enough already?”
“Who’s toying? I sense a strange power in me. I have a feeling I just might be Maui, or at least his avatar. I tell you, Bati, I’m here in this place at this time for a reason. Perhaps this is a sign as to why.”
Kolabati grabbed his hand and tried to lead him down the slope.
“Moki, no. Come back to the house. Work on that new sculpture you started.”
He pulled free. “Later. After I’ve told them who I am.”
She watched him stride back up to the rim and face the Niihauans, saw him pound his chest and gesture to the fires below and then to the night sky above. The traditional Hawaiians stepped back from him and whispered among themselves. Then the alii gestured to one of the younger men, who stepped forward and drove his spear into Moki’s chest.
Kolabati screamed.
His consciousness is fuzzy, but he still has control, even though his being is in solution.
Such a strange feeling to have all his tissues—bones, brain, organs, nerves, intestines—distilled to liquid. All that he was resides now in a sack suspended from the hub of the four-spoked wheel that was once his body. The spokes have grown thicker, longer, and the stony womb has enlarged to accommodate his increased size. A cavern now, stretching downward into the infinity where the cold fire burns. The icy glow from below chills the sack where he grows, where his components reorganize into his new form. The petrous columns that arch across the cavern act as conduits for the fear, the violence, the pain, the misery they siphon from the surface, feeding him, shaping him.
His new form shall be ready by the undawn on Friday.
But now it is time for the next step—to deny them sight of the sun.
PART TWO
TWILIGHT
MONDAY
Fellow Travelers
WFPW-FM
And in business news, we are witnessing a global collapse of the world’s stock markets. The Nikkei Exchange has crashed. All stocks from Hong Kong, throughout Europe, and in London are in free-fall. There is no reason to expect the U.S. exchanges to fare any better when they open in New York this morning. We are witnessing the greatest financial cataclysm in history.
Precious metals, however, are a different story. Gold opened in Hong Kong at twenty-four hundred fifty-one dollars an ounce and went through the roof from there. Silver opened at an astounding fifty-seven dollars an ounce and hasn’t stopped rising. No price seems too high to bid on these metals.
Manhattan
Hank thought of his bags of silver coins as he watched his TV. He’d called that right. And he knew he was just as right about the food. The picture flickered now and again, but he never totally lost power. He had a battery-powered portable ready if needed. About the only things on were preachers, movies, and news—disastrous news.
The president had proclaimed a state of national emergency but the armed forces were proving ineffective against an enemy of such overwhelming numbers and so intimately mixed with the population they were meant to protect. Soldiers with wives, husbands, children, parents were staying home to protect their own. The remainder were vastly outnumbered. For every hole they plugged with explosives—in the instances where they could safely use explosives—two more opened up elsewhere. People were quickly losing confidence in the government’s ability to manage the situation. The social co
ntract—if such a thing had ever existed—was dissolving.
He listened at the door. Quiet out there. He wondered if any of the Kickers had left the basement yet. Probably waiting for sunrise. But why wait till dawn?
He raised one of the window shutters a couple of inches and peeked out. The sky was getting lighter now. The night things should be on their way back to the holes already if they wanted to make it before sunrise. Should he risk stepping outside his little cocoon? Might be good for the Kickers to see their Fearless Leader out and about before anyone else.
Hank lifted the bar off the door and opened it an inch or so for a quick peek. Dim out there. All the lights either out or broken. The only illumination came from broken windows at the ends of the hallway.
Someone out there. Down the hall to his left a still form lay curled on its side. A long trail of smeared blood ran from his doorway to the body. No one else in sight. No things either. Who was that? Looked vaguely male. Drexler?
He stepped outside, twisted the knob to make sure it wouldn’t lock, and closed the door behind him. He’d just started along the blood trail when he heard an angry buzz from far down the hall behind him. He whirled. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew that buzz. He’d heard it enough these past nights. Wings. Big, double dragonfly wings. And then he heard another sound—the gnashing teeth of a chew wasp.
Terror rammed a fist down hard on his bladder. Too early! He’d left the room too damn early.
The buzz grew louder, angrier, closer. And then he saw it, hurtling down the hall at a level of about five feet, directly at him. The grinding of the teeth picked up tempo. With a scream building in his throat, Hank leaped back to his door, pushed through and slammed it closed—
The Complete Adversary Cycle: The Keep, the Tomb, the Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) Page 211
