He slowed at the intersection, letting the last few cars zip through the yellow light, taking a minute to scan the length of Houston. Nothing. If they had turned in either direction, he would have been able to see them; he was positive of it. Across the four-lane expanse of Houston, Sullivan Street receded into darkness, yawning before him like the mouth of a tunnel.
“That’s where you are,” he whispered aloud. “That’s where you’re hiding. I know it.”
Doug took a last moment to look for a phone on any of the four corners. No such luck. He stifled the impulse to use vulgarity and moved across Houston with the light. At that point, his caution returned to him, and he slid up onto the right-hand sidewalk, deliberately slowing himself down.
He passed in front of Saint Anthony’s Rectory, glancing across the street at the illuminated storefront of an all-night laundromat. There were a few women inside, their laundry bags proportionate to their own body sizes: a fat lady with an enormous load, a scrawny old gal with a satchel so thin it looked like an understuffed sausage. The dark man and the girl weren’t among them, not surprisingly.
Every other doorway on the block was lost in shadow. The businesses were closed; the homes were locked and shuttered for the night. Doug paused for a moment, gauging the neighborhood, trying to spot the hole through which they had to have slipped. Then he rolled forward, very slowly, up to the edge of the rectory grounds.
From somewhere behind him, a moan.
Doug whirled. His eyes flashed on a human form that loomed above him, arms outstretched. Reflex knocked him back a foot and dragged a startled gasp from his lips. The shape remained poised, as if biding its time. His paralysis snapped, just as his mind fully registered the nature of the thing before him.
A very small statue of the Virgin Mary faced him, arms outstretched, head bent in supplication to the Lord. Doug stared at this symbol of mystical innocence for a long time, chiding himself. You sure got a bad case of the heebie-jeebies, all of a sudden, getting scared half to death by the mother of Jesus.
He took two short rolling steps backwards, still looking at the statue, not paying attention as the blackened stairwell to the rectory basement opened up to the left of his feet. He was only just turning to glance at it when the hand whipped out from the darkness and wrapped around his ankles.
Everything happened in the space of five seconds. He saw the girl, leaning against the wall with her blouse undone, her breasts exposed, the hips thrust outward, her ear pressed to the wall as if listening in on a neighbor’s squabble. He saw the black cascade of blood that slithered down from her neck, tracing the contours of her bare shoulders and chest with wet skeletal fingers that grew before his eyes. He saw her mouth open as another moan escaped her: a weak, piteous, dying sound.
He didn’t see the hand that was locked around his ankle, but he heard the sound of snapping plastic, felt the viselike pressure increase, screamed as a single claw burrowed into the muscle of his calf and sliced through the skin.
He yanked away desperately, the fingers sliding on the plastic shin guards, losing their grip. The imbedded thumbnail sliced a bloody four-inch arc around the side of his leg before ripping free as well. Doug staggered backwards, out of control. His arms flailed as his skates carried him off the edge of the curb, sent him stumbling into the street.
The Checker cab was moving down Sullivan Street, doing a cool 35 mph. At a distance of roughly five feet, the driver had virtually no reaction time. When the dark shape suddenly appeared in the center of his headlights, all he could do was slam on his brakes and shut his eyes.
The cab clipped Doug with its left front fender, sent him spinning crazily into a parked VW van. He slammed against the side, bounced, hit it again, and grabbed onto the side view mirror before his skates slipped out from under him. He hung there, his legs splayed out behind him, his right hip curiously numb but unbroken.
“ASSHOLE!” the cabbie screamed at him, punching the accelerator. The Checker lay a squealing patch of rubber in its wake as it thundered down the street and away.
Slowly, Doug began to upright himself, sliding his feet forward to line up with the side view mirror that he still clutched desperately in his hands. He was dazed, the numbness spreading through his entire body now, dulling his senses and muddying his thoughts. He achieved an awkward balance, steadying himself with difficulty. Only then did he look back in the direction of the horror.
The dark man was coming.
Like a corpse rising out of its grave, Rudy climbed to the top of the stairs. Every step made him appear to grow larger, more terrible. The cloud-smothered light of the moon played across his white features, twinkling on the dark wet slick around his chin, the merciless black slash of his wraparound shades.
Doug was frozen in place. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He watched in helpless terror as Rudy stepped onto the sidewalk, gaining his full height, and moved to the edge of the curb.
“I see you!” the dark man called in a terrible, sing-songy voice. “Allee-Allee-out’s-in-free!”
Then Rudy smiled. And his hand came up. And he slowly removed his glasses.
Doug’s knees gave out as the red eyes bored into his own. His mind went totally blank for a second. His skates slid out from under him.
He hit the ground hard, landing flat on his ass. Awareness flooded back into him: sharp pain, sudden terror. His eyes snapped back into focus as his mind clicked on; he saw that the dark man was laughing hysterically, and a voice in his head said get out of here NOW!
Doug scrambled to his knees and got his wheels under him before Rudy had a chance to think. He was up on his feet and moving before Rudy had a chance to leave the curb. He closed his eyes and pumped his legs with every bit of strength he could muster. His teeth tore into his lower lip; his ears rang with the sound of rapid footsteps behind him, the sudden roar of inhuman rage that grew fainter and fainter as he pushed himself to go faster, go faster …
And he opened his eyes. And Prince Street was before him: twenty yards away and closing fast. He slowed himself down and did a neat 180-degree turn. Far behind him, less than halfway down the block, a dark figure hollered and waved its fists.
“You can’t have me, you bastard!” Doug yelled, laughing, out of breath. His voice didn’t carry; he was too happy to care. “Too quick for you, huh? Just a little too quick …” Before he even knew it, the laughter had turned to tears. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. Tears that shouted triumphantly, I’m alive! I’m alive!
Then he remembered the girl in the stairwell, and his own proximity to death. He remembered the pressure of the hand around his ankle. The sudden glare of headlights. Those eyes: the devil’s own. The full monstrousness of the encounter came back to him; and the tears turned bitter, scalding in his eyes.
Quickly, he turned away and rolled forward to Prince, took a left at the corner and started heading east. At the corner of Prince and Thompson, there was a pay phone; he could see it, rather faintly, through the tears. He moved toward it, digging once again in his pocket for a dime.
He reached the phone, brought the receiver to his ear. It works, he marveled, managing a grin as he dropped the coin into the slot.
The phone rang. It rang again. “Come on,” he hissed into the mouthpiece, looking over his shoulder to make sure that the dark man hadn’t followed him here. The phone rang again.
On the fourth ring, Allan answered. “Still nothing, damn it,” the dispatcher grumbled.
“I found him!” Doug shouted into the receiver, half crazy. “Oh, God, Allan! Oh, Jesus! You didn’t tell me how bad …!”
“You did WHAT?” Allan’s voice screamed back in his ear. Doug shook his head, heard Allan shout something unintelligible to somebody else, felt the adrenaline rush through his system again. Then Allan was back on the line, speaking to him in a level voice of manufactured calm. “Who is this?” Allan asked.
“This is Doug!” he yelled. “And I found that guy … that thing … God, I don’t know
…”
“Where are you, boss?” Allan interrupted him, voice crackling with intensity. “Just relax, and tell me exactly where you are.”
“P-P-Prince Street,” he stammered. “I’m on Prince Street and T-Thompson.” Trying to be calm was much harder than shouting. He listened as Allan rattled off the coordinates. Someone else’s voice distantly echoed the words. Listening to them talk made him crazy, and he shouted, “What the hell is he, Allan? You’ve got to …”
“I think you’d better come into the office now, Doug.” Allan’s voice was a drone. “I’ll explain it to you here.”
The women in the Laundromat were afraid to venture near the window. They huddled in the back, with the heat from the dryers baking the sweat onto their bodies. They would not so much as glance toward the street.
They’d come running at the sound of the squealing brakes, seen the cabbie drive off, and felt vaguely disappointed. Then the dark man appeared from out of nowhere, rekindling their interest.
When he took off his glasses, one of the women screamed, and they had all recoiled in horror.
And when the wild howling had erupted from the street, they had moved to the rear of the building, where they remained.
Later, when a half hour of silence has passed, they will slink furtively up to the window and look. Seeing nothing, they will venture out into the street. A more observant one will notice the strange new fresco on the rectory’s white wall: a frenetically rendered mishmash of scribbled words and images.
Then all of them will notice the yards and yards of pale white entrails, glistening in the moonlight like fat strands of tinsel, draped over the outstretched arms of the Virgin Mary and then streaming back down to the stairwell and their source.
Then all of them will scream, and several of them will faint, and one of them will find it in her to call the police before blacking out herself.
Thereby alerting the city to Rudy’s first victim of the night.
CHAPTER 41
At 11:43, when all the beepers started going off at once, Armond’s hunting party was deep in the grip of a long and protracted silence. The joking, the theorizing, the brief personal biographies had gradually given way to complaints, brief flirtations with mutiny, and conflict. At just the point where everybody’s control was threatening to snap, the silence had set in. It was the only thing that kept them from each other’s throats. It was a blessing in a very uncomfortable disguise.
Even Armond’s patience had been wearing thin, listening to the chatter. Danny’s glibness, Claire’s catlike detachment and T. C.’s blunt impatience had become an annoyance, like the buzzing of flies in his ears. What made it worse was the fact that they seemed to be missing the point; everything they said seemed so extraneous. They seemed to have no sense of how real the situation had become … how real, their proximity to genuine evil. Listening to them, they could have been kids waiting to be picked up for a show, pissed off because their ride was late. Despite Armond’s best efforts, it was really starting to get under his skin.
That was why he was grateful for the silence: it gave him the chance to realign himself, to be ready when the moment came.
That was why, when Danny’s beeper erupted into song, Armond was already moving out of the shadow and over to the phone before Danny had a chance to turn it off.
Suddenly, all of their beepers were beeping together. It sent a shock wave through the group, set off a flurry of motion. T. C. and Claire grappled with their messenger bags, trying to locate the little buttons that would shut off the sound. Armond let his beep for a minute, patiently punching dispatch’s number into the pay phone. After several hours of repeated dialing, he had it down pat. Only after the phone had begun to ring did he calmly silence the beeper.
Josalyn answered on the second ring with a nervous, “Hello? Who is this?”
“This is Armond. You have heard something, yes?”
Allan clicked instantly onto the line, heard the tail end of the question. “Armond?” he said, and his voice was profoundly agitated. “Good. We’ve spotted him, not too far away from here.”
“You are certain?” Armond, trying hard to restrain his own rising excitement.
“Oh, yeah.” Allan’s quick laugh had the taint of hysteria. “The kid who saw him is half-scared out of his mind. There’s no question about it. It’s Rudy, all right.”
“Where?” Armond heard a rustling of paper behind him, turned to see that the others were gathered by the phone. Danny had his pen and clipboard ready.
“In SoHo, right around where Thompson hits Prince. That’s where he was spotted …”
“Wait a moment,” Armond interrupted, repeating the location to Danny. He could see that the others were studying their maps closely. “Yes,” he said finally. “Go on.”
“Just look for him in that general vicinity. Joseph and the others will be down to help. Just look for him, and stay in touch. If we can pin him down now, it’s all over.”
“How long ago was he seen?”
“Less than five minutes. He couldn’t have gotten far.”
“Thank you,” Armond said, and hung up.
“We’re supposed to go look for him?” Danny asked. His eyes were huge as Armond nodded.
“We need a cab,” T. C. muttered, sourly scanning the length of Mercer Street.
“Lots of cabs on Broadway,” Claire pointed out. “It’s only a block over this way.”
“That’s the wrong way to Thompson,” Danny interjected whinily.
“We need a cab, man,” T. C. reiterated, nodding at Claire. “Let’s go for it.”
They all looked at Armond. He nodded and said, to Claire and T. C., “If you would run quickly to hail a cab, Danny will accompany me. Yes?” They nodded and took off toward Bleecker, disappeared around the corner. “Come,” he said to Danny. “We must go as quickly as I can.”
Danny grinned and paced him as they moved slowly toward the corner.
Danny’s smile did nothing to hide his terror. Armond had considered talking seriously with him about Claire, urging him toward caution and a watchful eye; but it was clear now that Danny would come apart like a rag doll. As it stood, he was hanging together by a thread.
So instead, Armond reached up to take the young man gently by the forearm and say, “You will be fine, Danny. Of that much, I am certain.” Danny looked down at him questioningly. Armond smiled back at him. “I cannot see the future, my friend. But I can feel things coming. I can sense them in the air. And I feel very good about you now.”
Danny didn’t know what to make of this information, coming from the old Van Helsing surrogate. He didn’t know whether the old man was being legit, or just making it up as he went along. Armond, too, was momentarily confused. He’d started by just trying to comfort Danny; but when he’d started to talk, a very clear picture had come into his mind.
A picture of Danny, laughing and pointing at something that signified victory, comforting another in their time of deepest despair …
And then it was gone.
They rounded the corner in silence now, each one lost in his own private speculative Hell. They had not gone more than ten feet when Danny noticed the Checker cab backing toward them, T. C. hanging out the back window and waving at them. They exchanged tense smiles, and Armond squeezed Danny’s arm once more for good measure, before the cab pulled up in front of them and they hopped inside.
The chase was on.
The time was 11:55.
For the next fifteen minutes, they conducted a fruitless search of SoHo, whipping up and down every side street within a ten-block radius of the sighting, alternately shouting conflicting directions as the poor, disgruntled cabbie did his weary best to oblige them. He was right on the verge of kicking them the hell out of his cab when Armond slipped him a ten-spot and assured him that it was very important. Grudgingly, the cabbie accepted it. The search continued.
Armond’s beeper went off just as they hit Lafayette Street on Houston, one block awa
y from dispatch. They briefly considered just stopping by the office; while they debated it, the cabbie pulled over to the curb and put it in park, impatiently drumming his knuckles on the dashboard.
That was when a sudden cry from Danny ripped through the cab like a poison-tipped spear. That was when they turned to stare in the direction of his trembling, pointing finger. That was when they noticed the dark figure that moved slowly up Lafayette, with the street light dancing briefly on the bleached blond pompadour that crowned his head.
“Omigod,” Claire whispered.
“Let us out here, man,” T. C. told the cabbie, nudging Claire toward the door.
“Wait a minute!” the cabbie yelled. “You owe me …” He looked at the meter; it added ten cents before he shut it off. “… seven-anna-half bucks, buddy!”
“Here,” Armond said, slipping another ten dollars through the slot. “We thank you for your kindness.”
“Let’s go,” T. C. said, nudging Claire again. She snapped out of her little trance and opened the door, stepped numbly onto the pavement. They piled out after her, slammed the door, caught a glimpse of the cab driver’s head shaking exasperatedly as he peeled out and away from them.
Leaving them on the corner, across the street and a block away from the dark figure that disappeared now, slowly, into the uptown entrance of the Bleecker Street subway station.
“We got to move fast,” T. C. muttered, “before he gets away again. We be chasin’ him all over town.”
“I’m embarrassed …” Armond began, looking up at T. C. with a sheepish grin that made the big man pause. “I am so slow, and so small, and … and I wanted to ask you …”
T. C.’s woolly features cracked into a smile. “You want a lift, my man? You got it!”
“I thank you so much,” Armond responded as he was hoisted up and cradled to the big man’s chest.
“I promise I won’t break ya, all right?” T. C. said, laughing, as he stepped out into the street at a rapid clip. Armond was pleased to see that Danny and Claire were smiling as well; in that moment, he found that he both loved and feared for them very much.
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