Returning her attention to John, she found him smiling through the dirt and blood covering his face.
“It really is you. Give me your hand. You, too, Mitch.” He held his hands out to them.
“What about your bag?” Mitch asked. “Don’t you need it?”
John shook his head.
“All I need is the two of you.”
* * *
They’re alive! Really alive! John had opened his eyes to see Danni and Mitch staring down at him. At first, he’d been sure it was another of the Trickster’s illusions, illusions he should have expected. It was what the Ancient One did best, playing games with peoples’ minds and turning them against each other.
Even after touching Danni, he hadn’t been sure, not until he saw her reaction when Mitch got hurt. That was where Christian had made his mistake. Without the capacity for compassion himself, he couldn’t incorporate it into the illusions he created.
At that moment, John had known how to stop his old enemy.
Clasping their hands tightly in his, John stood up, pulling them along with him. He felt their pain, their fear, their confusion. But most of all, he felt their strength, strength that came from their innate goodness and the love they had for each other. And for him. He felt it, and he let it revitalize him, heal him, charge him like a living battery.
Then he channeled it into the spell handed down to him by his mother.
“Your time here is over, Trickster. Your Gods are the Gods of darkness, of evil, of selfishness. They cannot stand against true goodness. I banish you by all your names. Trickster, Coyote, Anansi. Huehuecoyotl, Puck, and Seth. Eris, Iwa, Amaguq. Uncle Tompa, Samedi, and Crow. And all your other faces. You are not welcome in this place. Begone!”
The ancient, wizened thing that had been Cyrus Christian screamed. His eyes flashed red in time with the lighting streaking across the sky, and the ground rumbled and shook harder than ever. “You will not win, John Root. I’ll destroy you like I did your bitch-dams before you.”
Blinding light flashed as lightning exploded a nearby popcorn booth. Danni and Mitch cried out, but John held their hands tight and began his banishment again. This time, the effect on Christian was visible. He fell to his knees, his body jerking back and forth as if sitting on live wires. John started his banishment for a third time, and Christian’s skin split open in a dozen places, spraying thick, reddish-brown fluids onto the ground.
A figure appeared next to Danni. Distracted by the movement, John turned and saw Sheriff Showalter aiming his gun at Christian’s twitching form.
“No!” John cried, but it was too late. Showalter pulled the trigger, the sound of the report lost amid the deafening thunder of the lightning storm.
Christian fell backward. At the same time, the thunder and lightning ended and the ground went still.
In the sudden silence, Showalter’s voice sounded too loud.
“That’ll take care of the fucker.”
Letting go of Danni and Mitch’s hands, John turned on Showalter. “You don’t know what you’ve done. You can’t kill—”
Without warning, the earth heaved beneath them, sending everyone tumbling to the ground. A terrible grinding, crashing sound, like a thousand dump trucks dropping rocks onto cement, drowned out the terrified cries of the crowd as the entire park shuddered.
Long, jagged cracks opened in the ground, spreading out from Christian’s prone form. People scrambled frantically to avoid the rapidly-widening crevices, but dozens still tumbled into endless darkness.
John grabbed Danni and Mitch and ran for the entrance. Behind them, Showalter swore as he fell into one of the faults, which promptly closed again like a huge, earthen mouth biting a gingerbread cookie in half.
“What’s happening?” Danni had to shout to be heard.
“Shooting Christian broke my spell.”
“But he’s—”
A thunderous roar cut off Danni’s words. The bellow sounded again, erupting from the Stygian depths of all the fractures at once. John stopped and pushed Danni and Mitch behind him, reacting instinctively to the primordial sounds rising from beneath them.
A tentacle, fat as a telephone pole and twice as long, sprang from a crevice, accompanied by the stench of dead, rotting fish. More python-like appendages joined it, snaking up from holes and cracks throughout the fair grounds. They whipped back and forth in search of prey, their rows of sucker-shaped mouths drooling greenish, foul-smelling fluids.
“Behold Asuggath!”
Christian’s voice confirmed John’s fears.
Asuggath. One of Chaos’s harbingers. Compared to the Elder Gods, it was a child, a pet even. But to humankind, it would be as if hell itself had come to Earth. A distant cousin to the monster that had taken residence in the river, it dwarfed that creature the way a Tyrannosaurus would tower over a lizard.
John ducked as a probing limb angled toward them. Nearby, another of the tentacles wrapped itself around a fat woman in a blue dress, cutting off her screams in mid-shriek as it squeezed so hard blood and organs erupted from her mouth. The moment it slid back into the darkness, another rose to take its place.
John put his mouth close to Danni’s ear. “Get out of here. Go as far as you can.”
Danni shook her head. “We’re not leaving you.”
“If you want to live, you will. I have to finish this, one way or the other.” John wrapped his arms around her and Mitch, squeezed them to his chest. “I love you both. But this has to end. Go.”
He stepped back. Mitch was crying and shaking his head, and Danni had to hold him to keep him from running to John.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, Danni leaned forward and gave John a furious kiss he wished would go on forever but which ended too soon.
“John, I want you to know—”
The rest of Danni’s words were swept away as a massive weight crashed into John, knocking his breath away. Tons of cold, slimy rubber enfolded him, squeezing the air from his lungs and threatening to crush his ribs. Fiery pain lanced through his body as miniature teeth sawed through cloth and skin.
“John!”
Danni’s shout faded away as the fair flew past him. He realized the unseen beast was dragging him back to the crater from which it had come. John struggled to free himself, but his arms were pinned tight, preventing him from reaching anything in his pockets. Blood from dozens of quarter-sized bites soaked his clothes, and he thanked the Lord that he’d been caught by the tip of the appendage, were the muscles were weakest. Even so, he knew he wouldn’t last long.
He heard Christian’s mocking laughter. “Good-bye, John Root! Tell your mother I said hello!”
John saw the impenetrable black of a crevice growing closer.
This is it. I’ve failed.
Mother, I’m sorry.
He closed his eyes. The tentacle twitched and he felt himself falling. He opened his mouth to scream.
And hit hard on his back.
Chapter 37
“John, move your ass! Hurry!”
John opened his eyes and found himself inches away from the edge of the abyss. Every shake of the ground threatened to roll him into the opening. Although confused as to how he’d gotten there, he pushed himself away and got to his feet.
Mitch and Danni stood nearby. Mitch still gripped John’s black bag in one hand.
In his other, he held a brown bottle that John immediately recognized. It had been his mother’s, and her mother’s before that.
Holy water mixed with the powdered bones of a Saint. The one thing that could bring pain to a minion of the Elder Gods.
I’m glad I taught that boy how to use the bag!
John turned and saw the tentacle that had held him. It lay on the ground, twitching in erratic spasms. The rubbery skin was burnt and blistered. Greenish-yellow ichor dripped from the wounds.
Returning his gaze to Danni, he shouted. “I told you to leave.”
“We can’t.” Her expression was a mix of relief and
terror. “The circle.”
You’re a country fool, John Root! He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten. As long as the fetishes were in place, no one could exit the park.
“Get a piece of wood, a stick, anything long. When you get to the main entrance, find one of the two fetishes I hid there and move it. You’ll need the stick to reach through the barrier. As soon as you break the circle, you’ll be free to leave, and so will everyone else. Hurry!”
“John...”
He nodded to her. “I know. But I still have one trick up my sleeve.” Before she could say anything else, he took off at a run, dodging tentacles and panicked townspeople.
The thing that had been Cyrus Christian stood in the same place John had last seen him, steady as a mountain while the ground quaked all around him. More than anything else, he resembled an ancient corpse magically reanimated, his white hair waving wildly in the wind, gaping wounds in his skin leaking vile fluids, and his eyes covered with cataracts so thick it seemed impossible he could see through them.
“Trickster!” John shouted.
The opaque eyes turned toward him.
“I’m coming for you now!” John held up the empty jar Mitch had used against the Asuggath.
Christian couldn’t tell the jar was empty, but he could see the effects on the Asuggath’s body. He turned and bolted away from John. As he ran, the Asuggath’s tentacles aided his escape, clearing the way before him and blocking it after he passed. John followed as best he could, dodging the snapping, whipping appendages while trying to keep his quarry in sight.
As the neared the side of the park that bordered Route 16, John caught sight of Christian’s tall, insect-like form at the bottom of the small slope that led to the road.
I’ve got him trapped! All he needed was for Danni and Mitch to take a few moments longer before they broke the circle.
Christian saw him approaching and traced more symbols in the air. Without warning, the ground gave way in front of John, tumbling him into a shallow hole. Before he could regain his feet, the sides of the hole collapsed on him, burying him to his waist. A second later, the heavens exploded with thunder and a torrential rain began to fall. By the time John fought his way free from the muddy pit, Christian was nowhere in sight.
Looking both ways to see where he’d gone, John instead saw people running from the fair grounds and back toward town.
The circle’s broken. He was freed.
Now what do I do?
John turned and strode back to the fair.
* * *
John walked through a scene that resembled the aftermath of a barbarian raid. Broken and dismembered bodies lay everywhere, the heavy downpour washing blood and body parts down into the Abyss. Only a handful of booths remained, the rest either dragged away by the Asuggath or crushed beneath its tentacles.
How many dead or missing? Dozens? Hundreds? He knew that even if he succeeded in his task, Hastings Mills might never recover from the Trickster’s visit.
Putting his shoulders down, he forced his way through the tempest, careful to place his feet on solid ground. Rainwater flowed into the crevices and craters, washing bodies and debris into oblivion. When he finally reached the main entrance, John paused. Now what? Christian could have gone anywhere.
Barely audible over the cacophony of human cries and blaring car horns that still filled the air, the pealing of bells reached him.
The church.
Of course. It’s his center of power in the town.
John’s lips tightened as he took off at a run through the torrential rain.
Our Lady of Perpetual Hope had the appearance of a long-abandoned building when John reached it. Oddly-colored vines and funguses covered the walls and stairs and the doors hung crookedly from broken hinges. The inside was even worse. Pews lay overturned or in jumbled piles. Frescos lay broken on the floor. Strange growths hung from the ceiling, waving back and forth even though there was no breeze. Just past the entrance, the font resembled a stagnant pond, filled with green slime that bubbled and stunk of decay.
“I knew you would come.” Christian’s voice. Weaker than before, but still powerful enough to fill the cavernous church over the sounds of the storm.
John peered into the gloomy depths and saw his enemy standing behind his pulpit, as if preparing to give a final sermon.
“Enough is enough,” John said, entering the church. Beneath his feet, the once bright-red carpet was faded and slippery with mold.
“You’re quite right,” Christian said. He gripped the lectern with gnarled hands as the ground shook again, sending candles and statues to the floor. “Asuggath is almost ready to breach completely through the veil, and then I’ll be on my way. Pity you won’t be around to see it. But I suppose you can take comfort in believing you’ll be reunited with your lovely wife in the hereafter. Oh, wait. What about Ms. Anderson and her brother? Won’t they be there as well? I imagine that could be awkward. Unless heaven allows multiple partners these days.”
John’s heart clenched at the mention of Danni and Mitch. Had they made it out alive?
Shaking his head, John continued down the center of the church. “I know what you’re trying to do, Old One. But it won’t work. I’m not falling for your tricks.”
“No tricks this time.” Christian said. “I don’t need them. You’ve already lost, just like your mother, and her mother before her. Now it’s time for you to see what they saw, right before they died.” He held a leather-bound book. “I sent my little friends to your whore’s house. Look what they found.” He opened the grimoire and began reading.
“Cthluhu, Yog-Sothoth, Hastur, Azetoth!
Th’glou n’gtam Asuggath R’lyeh osi’gah attam
B’ryal dol myrl accu’rah
Asri, Asuggath! Asri!”
Pieces of the ceiling cracked and fell as the walls groaned and the floor twisted and bucked. Windows shattered and overstressed beams splintered. Outside, the skies loosed a barrage of thunder louder than anything John had ever heard before. He dove to one side as the church floor split down the center, a gaping wound that stretched from the doors to the alter. Boiling-hot steam rose up, carrying the vile reek of brimstone and rotting flesh.
“Behold the doorway to R’lyeh! Beyond the veil lies the Sleeping God, who sleeps no more! Hear me, Asuggath! I bid you welcome!”
An unholy bellow echoed from deep within the earth, riding a blast of foul air. John got to his knees and took a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. Gasping from the hellish stink, he began to read, mouthing the unfamiliar words slowly and carefully.
“X’cha n’kou ru chi Asuggath
Ama k’lyam sho-ta Cthulhu
X’cha n’kou ru chi Asuggath!”
Christian’s triumphant expression disappeared as sudden fear twisted his cadaverous features into something akin to a Halloween mask.
“No! You can’t know that spell. Only I—” He fell silent as he realized the truth.
John paused in his recitation and allowed himself a small smile. “Only you have a copy of it? That was true, until I removed it from your grimoire.”
Christian let out an inarticulate scream and charged down the altar steps, narrowly avoiding the six-foot wide crevice.
Undeterred, John returned to reciting the spell for banishing Asuggath.
“X’cha n’kou ru chi Asuggath
Ama k’lyam sho-ta Cthulhu
X’cha n’kou ru chi Asuggath!”
Christian had nearly reached John when the entire building shook and the crevice suddenly spread wider. The floor fell away beneath John, and he found himself hanging on for his life, his feet dangling over the endless blackness of the rift. Ten feet away, Christian was already pulling himself back over the edge.
John did a quick calculation in his head. His enemy would easily reach him before he could pull himself up, leaving him helpless to defend himself. There was only one way to avoid defeat.
“Trickster!” he called out in as loud a voi
ce as he could muster. Christian paused and looked at him.
John let go of the edge with the hand that still held the banishment spell.
“If you want it back, here it is.” John let the paper fall into the abyss.
“No!” Christian jumped after it. The Stygian blackness quickly swallowed his form, and his screams faded away to nothing soon after.
Once again, the ground commenced its rumbling, only this time the edges of the crevice drew closer instead of separating. John grabbed at the wooden floor, crying out as two of his fingernails peeled back. He kicked his feet but found no purchase. Like a movie in reverse, the opening grew thinner with every second, threatening to cut him in half.
He felt himself sliding into the Abyss and he closed his eyes, waiting for the deadly crush that was only seconds away. So he never saw the two pairs of hands that gripped his arms and pulled him free just as the crevice slammed closed. The resulting vibrations shook the church to its foundation. Two of the walls buckled and collapsed, sending the far side of the building crashing down in a pile of wood and plaster.
John looked up and saw Danni and Mitch kneeling over him.
“We have to get out of here,” Danni shouted.
He held out his hands and they helped him up. Bent low and holding their arms over their heads for protection, they ran through the falling debris and out the front doors.
Danni paused at the top of the steps and John gave her a push forward. “Keep going!”
Only when they were half a block from the church did he stop and let them look back.
Watching the church crumble reminded John of a skyscraper being demolished. The walls and roof collapsed inwards, the bell emitting one last discordant clang as the spire disappeared into the rising dust. But the destruction didn’t end. With a groan like a prehistoric animal’s death cry, the entire structure sank into the ground. The hole grew wider, swallowing the tall cement stairs. It continued growing, sucking down the dead lawn and the big white sign that read “Town Fair this Sunday!” Only when it reached the sidewalk did the crater finally stall.
The Burning Time Page 28
